8. Nelle Meeting a New （Old） Friend
Nelle: Meeting a New (Old) Friend
Kit showed Nelle to a small but serviceable room before stomping out, muttering about how he needed to leave if he was going to find the children quickly.
Nelle stood at the center of the room for a moment, unsure of what to do, before making a dash for the window seat overlooking the gardens.
She leaned out, straining to see around the edges of the castle, just in time to see Kit lumbering out, leaving the castle through the same door he’d brought her in through.
Watching him leave, she couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. He was going to find Hansel and Gretyl. She didn’t know why, but she was certain the huge dragon hybrid was a man of his word.
It was only after she lost sight of him that she stopped to consider her situation. Oh, Starkind. What have I done? She knew nothing about breaking spells; she barely knew how to cast them. How was she supposed to keep her word to Kit and break whatever curse she’d put on him?
She supposed she could look for a book on the subject. In one of the few interactions she’d had with him, Robin had assured her that a person could find almost any answer they were looking for in the confines of a library. However, finding a library in the middle of a forest could prove difficult.
Except she wasn’t in a forest. Not really. She was in a castle. And castles usually had libraries, or so she assumed. Would this castle have a library?
Nelle surged to her feet and strode from the room, not looking back. It was better to get a good look at the castle now, when she was almost certainly it was empty. After all, once Kit got back, he might not let her explore.
Though why he wouldn’t, she couldn’t imagine, she mused as she peeked out of the small bedroom.
True to what he’d told her, there was no one in sight, though something about the air made her think that there was magic about.
A soft song played in the air, a song that was familiar and not, all at the same time.
Where was it coming from? She tiptoed out of the bedroom, part of her intent on finding the source of the music, while another part of her was intent on finding the library, if there was one.
She poked her head into every room she passed.
The first one was dark, with a heavy scent of fire and ash, tinged with rose petals inside.
This, she suspected, was Kit’s room. It suited him, somehow.
Still, she hurriedly pulled the door shut behind him and hurried down the hall, not willing to get caught looking through his personal chambers.
The next room she came to housed a piano and a violin.
Though it might have been a music room once, now it was eerily silent.
Rooms like this shouldn’t be that quiet, she decided, stepping inside and running her fingers over the keys.
Her thumb hovered for a second over middle C on the piano, before she shook her head and fled that room as well.
She needed to get answers, and these distractions were slowing her down.
As she continued down the hallway, the music in the air got louder. The tune triggered something in the back of her head. Someone had played this song for her once. It was supposed to be a love song, but they’d turned it into a lullaby. What were the words again?
She turned the corner and found herself in the doorway of a small room that might have been a storage room once. It was empty now, except for another doorway directly across the room. She frowned. Something about this doorway was so familiar. Why?—
Before she could stop herself, Nelle had crossed the room, the music in the air intensifying. She put her hand to the handle, hesitating for a second before wrenching it open.
The first thing she registered about the room was the lack of light. Even though light spilled inside from the corridor, the room itself was dark. Still, the darkness didn’t frighten her. Instead, she instinctively pulled the door shut behind her, blotting out the light completely.
The music, which had faltered when the light had broken through, started again, encompassing her like a warm blanket.
She stood still, listening to it, transfixed by the sound.
She wasn’t sure how long she stood there.
It might have been minutes, but it could also have been hours.
The music held her captive, with her leaning in to hear the next note.
Her eyes didn’t adjust to the darkness; it was just as pitch-black now as it had been the moment she’d arrived.
As she stood still, the darkness began to weigh on her, keeping her limbs heavy so that she couldn’t move, even if she wanted to.
Then, all at once, the music cut off in the middle of a phrase. At the same time, somewhere in the darkness, low, deep voice echoed, “Welcome back, little princess. I was beginning to think you had forgotten me.”
While the music sent a rush of joy through her, the voice itself sent shivers down her spine, the same way the crooning voice in her head did. Nelle opened her mouth to respond, but found she couldn’t speak. Fear, or something more inexplicable, overwhelmed her.
The voice laughed. “Come now, little princess. Don’t be shy. You’ve never been afraid to talk to me in the past. Don’t stop now.”
Moments after the booming voice spoke, the lilting voice at the back of her mind spoke too. “That’s right, Loli. Listen to the Mirror. The Mirror knows best. Speak to the Mirror and tell it what you know.”
Nelle shivered. No. Something was very wrong. She needed to get out of there right now. She fought the weighted darkness, forcing herself to step backward, her hands fumbling for the doorknob, as the deep voice whispered, “Don’t be afraid, little princess. You know me. You trust me.”
A scream crawled its way up Nelle’s throat as the voice in her mind grew louder, urging her to speak. Then, just when she couldn’t take it anymore?—
“Just what do you think you’re doing in here?”
This time, Nelle did scream when the third voice joined the throng. Something small and furry batted at her face and let out a little yowling scream of its own. Nelle ignored it, pulling the door open and bursting through it, her heart pounding like a drum.
Once she was safely out of the room, Nelle found herself standing in a puddle of moonlight.
She glanced through the thin window. It was night now.
How long had she been in that room? She shivered and sank to the ground, resting her head on her knees.
This castle felt like home, but it still frightened her.
It had invisible people. Invisible creatures.
Maybe even invisible rats. She shuddered as she remembered the feeling of the creature’s fur against her face.
“Whew, girl, you scared me!” Nelle’s head shot up, and she found herself looking at what appeared to be a striped tabby cat with wings.
It took her a moment to register that the cat was speaking when it continued, “I can’t believe your gall.
You fly out of here like a bat out of Sheul a year and a half ago, without so much as a word to your old pal Kemma, and then you don’t even send word to say when you’ll be back.
Instead, you send a freaky dragon man to live here in your place.
And then, when you come back, within the first day you’re here, you decide you have to have a talk with the Cracked Mirror. What, are you crazy?”
Nelle could only stare at the cat creature. “Who—what—are you?”
The creature hissed. “I’m not a what. I’m a tressym. Which you should know, because you created me and gave me the power to speak. What’s going on with you, Lolienna?”
She stared at the tressym. “That’s not my name. That’s not—I’m Nelle. I’m Nelle, do you hear me?”
“Yes, I hear you. Thankfully, you made sure that my ears work perfectly well before you gave me wings.” The tressym wrinkled her nose. “And if you want to be called Nelle now, that’s fine with me. Just don’t go changing my name, please? I like the name Kemma just fine.”
Nelle nodded mutely. “Okay. I won’t change your name,” she said after a moment. She cocked her head. “Wait. You know me?”
“Obviously. I’ve been in the castle since I was a kitten. If I didn’t know you, that would be pretty remarkable,” Kemma said. “Don’t you remember?”
Nelle shook her head. “I can’t remember anything before a year and a half ago,” she said, before explaining her situation.
Despite being a cat or, as she was quick to remind Nelle, a tressym, Kemma was an excellent listener.
She didn’t interrupt Nelle’s story much, just listened, nodding sagely at intermittent intervals.
Once she’d finished, Kemma blinked and said, “Well, I suppose long-term amnesia is a good enough reason not to come back to the castle. I thought you’d just went through with your plan to run away and you’d forgotten about me.
Which I guess you did, in a way. But at least I wasn’t the only thing you forgot. ”
“I’m sorry I forgot you,” Nelle said, reaching out to pet her. “I think it would have been nice if you’d been with me. You’d have loved Hansel and Gretyl.”
“And they would have loved me,” Kemma said. “All kids do. I mean, I’ve only ever met one kid, which was you, but you love me, so I think it stands to reason that those kids would love me, too.”
Nelle burst into laughter as she ran her fingers over Kemma’s silky soft ears.
“I do love you. I can’t even remember our time together before today and I can already say with certainty that I adore you.
From what little time we’ve spent together, I suspect you’d have made even the loneliest castle feel like a home. ”
“Obviously. You said that every castle needs a tressym,” Kemma preened. “So, how are you going to break the spell on the big dragon man?”
“You mean you don’t know how I cast that spell?” Nelle asked, her spirits plummeting.
“Sorry,” Kemma said, perching on her shoulder.
“Transformational magic was your speciality, not mine. You were pretty good at it, though. The roses in the garden downstairs are all your work—you used magic to combine rose seeds with everlasting flowers, and so now the roses never die, even if you pick them. You told me once that if you thought you could get out from under your mom’s thumb, you’d be a flower seller, like that girl in that book you read me that one time.
The one I suppose you don’t remember.” The cat frowned.
“Ah, well. That means I can get you to read it to me again.”
“Wow…that’s a lot of information,” Nelle said, flummoxed on how they’d started by talking about how to break the spell on Kit and ended with talking about a book she’d once read to the cat.
“You told me once my mind is like a ball of yarn. One too many twists and you get all tangled up,” Kemma laughed.
“Do you know how to break ice spells?” Nelle asked, her mind going back to Little John’s frozen face.
Kemma shook her head violently. “Sorry. That type of spell falls firmly in your mom’s territory, and you made me promise that I’d never meddle with her work. I think you’re afraid of her. Or you were, at least.”
“My mom?” Nelle repeated. “I have a mom?”
“Yep.” Kemma wrinkled her little nose. “I haven’t met her, but you’ve told me all about her.” She jerked her head to the now-closed door. “You said she’s the one who brought the Cracked Mirror here to keep an eye on you.”
Nelle shivered, glancing back at the door she’d come through. “Is that what was in there?”
“Yep,” Kemma said. “I know a little about it. You didn’t like me to come with you when you had to talk to it, and you only spoke to it when your mom said you absolutely had to.
From what I can tell, though, it’s evil magic.
It thrives in darkness. That’s why the room is always dark; it sucks light into it. ”
Nelle frowned. “And I was just living with it?”
“Not by choice,” Kemma assured her. “You told me your mom sent it here to monitor you. But she didn’t like it much either. You said she kept muttering about how she wouldn’t fall victims to its tricks like her step-mother did.”
Something about what the tressym said pricked at Nelle’s memory. “What do you?—”
Before she could finish the statement, a hulking figure appeared in the doorway.