AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Seventy
In Another World
Four hours later Clare was dizzy from climbing up and down ladders and following instructions of “Move that garland there,” and “A little to the right” and “No, back to the left after all.”
They were in the village’s common building. On normal days, Nissa had explained, it saw a continuous line of people from the village making use of the communal kitchens for what they weren’t equipped to make in their homes. But today the building’s kitchens bustled with so many people that Clare had taken one look inside and been grateful she hadn’t attempted to learn how to cook. How did they work in there, all packed together? It was like a choreographed play, people shimmying and sliding past one another to get to here or there. More baffling was how happy they’d all seemed.
Decorating was a much more reasonable, if tedious affair. Nissa directed it all with the utter certainty of a woman who knew precisely what she wanted and would settle for nothing less. Clare had to admit the end result was pretty, even if she couldn’t understand putting in so much effort for a single day’s enjoyment.
Half of her followed directions while the other half of her observed this strange event. She was trying to sort everyone’s behavior into the neat categories that allowed her to navigate a social space, once they were learned. But she’d never seen people act the way they did here.
Perhaps it was that she only had two places to compare them to—Renault County or Veralna—and those two had more in common with each other than one would ever imagine at first glance. They were both ruled by power—who had it, how did they wield it, and how could someone else get it—albeit Veralna was less open about the fact.
Clare struggled to find that same structure here. It wasn’t that there was no hierarchy—leaders of various small task groups were deferred to, as Clare and the other decorators deferred to Nissa’s instructions—it was that no one seemed unhappy to have those people above them. Nor did the ones in charge abuse that authority—as if it wasn’t a particularly coveted thing to have, and if they should find themselves swapping places with someone else, they wouldn’t find it an issue.
These people were…happy. They were comfortable. They were not walking as if on broken glass, waiting for a tide to shift and anticipating how best to keep from being submerged by it. Even when someone wandered over, obviously intent on talking to Clare, and Nissa chased them off, no one ever seemed bothered by Nissa’s briskness. As if they were willing to listen to her without fearing her.
The more Clare watched, the more it appeared the egregious amount of work being done now, for this one day, was simply an excuse to bring them all together, joined in a single goal. She couldn’t understand what it was that could make people act this way.
Community, the Song said, stirring from the lazy contentment it had been riding all morning. Family.
And what would you know of those two things? she snapped.
They are what I dreamed of in the darkness. Clare felt the weight of the word—darkness. As if the Song meant a far more weighty, ancient thing than the years it had lived within Clare’s body.
Her own darkness had not had such happy dreams. She’d had no understanding of them to dream about. She had dreamed instead of what she knew, and what she knew was power. But this…perhaps it wasn’t such a bad dream. For someone else. Someone unlike her.
A bell clanged through the building, shifting the mood from easy camaraderie to eager anticipation, and everyone began putting hurried, finishing touches on whatever they were doing. Nissa dismissed everyone under her command with a, “That will do,” and motioned for Clare to join her.
“What next?” Clare asked. “Are we draping the entire village in garlands?” She was only half-joking. Nissa was formidable, and extremely dedicated to aesthetic presentation.
“Now,” she said theatrically, “we change and waste time being pretty because we can. Mother has the girls, and I’m taking full advantage.”
Nissa walked so fast back to the house that she was almost jogging. They were of a same height, so Clare was almost jogging beside her.
“What is the rush?” Clare asked as Nissa dashed inside.
“The rush is that you should get dressed and come to my room before Numair sees you. We’ll get ready together and not ruin the reveal.” She danced off down the hall before Clare could object, though what she would object to, specifically, she didn’t know. Deciding it was easier to do as instructed, she searched her pack for the one nice outfit Numair had told her to bring.
She had been confused as to its necessity when she’d discovered their destination, but now she understood, and she was grateful to have it. There was no joy in being inappropriately dressed for an occasion, unless you had done so with purpose and intent.
She’d packed one of the finer pants and shirt sets Chalen had made for her. They were a light silvery-blue and so comfortable it should be impossible that they looked formal, but Chalen was a master of their craft and it showed in this production, as it did in all of them.
Even so, when she went to Nissa’s room and the woman looked her over and gasped, she wondered if the outfit, while not truly daring for Veralna’s circles, might be considered so here. Nissa wore a light green dress that flattered her figure without being ostentatious, and Clare wondered if she should have brought something more like it.
Nissa practically leaped across the room. She reached out, then stopped herself at the last moment. “I love this—where did you get it?”
“A designer named Chalen Mora.”
Nissa bit her lower lip. “I suppose it’s custom made and horridly expensive, then?”
“More or less.”
She sighed. “Ah, well. Maybe Serah—our local seamstress—will attempt something like it for me, if she isn’t too scandalized by the idea. Now sit.” She pointed to a padded stool in front of a vanity that held a small mirror. An array of cosmetics littered the wooden surface.
Clare managed not to outwardly grimace. She was better with women than men, but she still didn’t particularly like being touched. But she’d managed it when Alys had helped her, and Nissa was obviously excited. It was one night, and then she was never going to see this woman again. She could survive it.
Nissa seemed oblivious to Clare’s discomfort, so at least this place had not so unsettled her that she couldn’t still hide her true feelings. She sat on the stool. Nissa surveyed her face, as if it were an artist’s canvas and she was deciding what she wanted to paint.
