“You see!” said Holly, turning to her father in triumph. “I can make the faces. I can make lots of them in two months, too.”
“Can you do as well in porcelain?” inquired Nicholas.
“I don’t see why not.”
Nicholas looked down at the face he held in his hands. “Quite interesting. Miss Malibran. She would love it.”
“Well? Can I?” asked Holly.
Her parents glanced at each other, wordlessly telegraphing their pleasure with their daughter. “Of course you may, darling,” said Viviana.
“That will be most useful,” said Nicholas, using an appropriately businesslike tone, and shook his daughter by the hand to seal the bargain.
Holly began to work in the doll workshop. Almost at once she made an important discovery. She had never been so happy in her life. Finally, after all her years of hoping, she was doing something for the mortals, and when she left the workshop in the evening, with Tundra walking quietly by her side, Holly looked around at the immortals stepping through the streets and did not feel ashamed. She lifted her head and grinned at a centaur who was galloping home with a basket on his hairy arm.
“Evening, Your Highness,” he said politely and then flashed her an enormous, toothy smile.
He doesn’t blame me, she thought. Her step became lighter.
Of course, it did not escape her notice that the workshop was nearly empty. Nicholas insisted it was the cold that accompanied Holly that kept the others away, but she knew better. Normally the place was humming with goblins, gylfyns, and fauns, who delighted in dolls and doll making. It was quiet now that she was there, for the old stories lived on, and most of the magical creatures believed that to be in her presence was to risk a visit from Herrikhan. Only three immortals were brave enough to take the chance: the old goblin Mraka, who spoke so little that no one knew if he understood that he was in danger; a lavender gylfyn named Thelejima, who declared loudly that he would protect Holly against every intruder with his six arms, which he then flexed for her, one by one; and Holly’s old champion Macsu, who hugged her with all his strength and settled his chair at her side. “Tell me,” he said cheerfully, “tell me everything that’s happened since the last time I saw you.”
So Holly chatted with her friend, but when it came time to work, she grew quiet. She closed her eyes and saw a face—where did it come from? Was it a child she had seen in her telescope? Or was it simply a mirage floating in her mind? Her hands, shaping the thick porcelain, followed the contours of her vision. Without opening her eyes, she stroked two round cheeks into existence, curled a chin like a wave, and coaxed a small nose into a point. Her eyes flew open, and she made the brows, the forehead, and a mouth open as if to talk. “Welcome,” she breathed to her creation and laid it upon the table, for Mraka and Thelejima were in charge of limbs. Macsu watched speechlessly in the chair next to her.
“How did you do that? You made a perfect face—without a mold—in less than five minutes!” he spluttered.
“I don’t know how I do it,” said Holly, coming back from the dreamy world she inhabited when she made dolls.
“You’re magic!” he squealed.
Tundra, who had been snoozing in the corner, lifted his head and looked warily at Macsu. Holly just shook her head. “If you can’t fly, you’re not magic,” she said.
Even after long hours at the workshop, Holly continued to long for the Empire City, and when the five friends gathered every evening for supper, their conversation usually turned to the puzzle of how and when Holly’s journey was to be achieved. Again and again Tundra and Holly pondered the clue that Emmalylis had presented to Holly, and Sofya’s strange response. Alexia proposed increasingly preposterous plans for escape, such as bribing the griffin or disguising Holly as her father on Christmas Eve. Empy racked his brains for a way to be of use; he had even gone so far as to leave Holly’s rooms to search for Emmalylis himself. But two fairy sisters—Io and Pialana—had pounced on him in the Hall of Mirrors and chased him from one end to the other until he had fled back to Holly’s lap in despair.
Euphemia was silent. The more that Holly and Tundra discussed the problem, the quieter she became. Each night as they began to pursue the topic anew, Euphemia flew into the farthest branch, sank her snowy head deep into her chest, and slept. Or seemed to sleep. One dark November night, as the wind howled, Holly draped herself over a pile of pillows and said, for the thousandth time, “There must be some way out.”
And for the thousandth time, Tundra asked, “But what?”
There was a squawk from the silver trees. “Stop it!” cried Euphemia. “Stop saying that! Do something!”
Holly sat up. “But what?”
“That’s what he keeps saying,” squalled Euphemia. “I can’t bear it. I’m only a stupid owl who doesn’t know anything, but I don’t understand why you both sit here every night saying the same thing. Get up! Do something!”
“What would you advise us to do?” asked Tundra.
Euphemia looked nervously from one to the other. “Research.”
Holly smiled. “What kind of research, dear?”
Euphemia turned her head away, so they couldn’t see her face. “Well,” she said, “studying. Reading. I mean to say, weren’t there lots of ways to get into the Land of the Immortals in the old days? I don’t remember myself, but it stands to reason that there were, maybe. You could study the history books—find a secret passageway, maybe.”
Holly sat up straight. “You’re exactly right, Euphemia. We need to do some research! We’ve been terribly dense!” She jumped to her feet and shook out her skirts. “A secret passageway,” she repeated thoughtfully. “I’m going to Papa’s study!”
Euphemia seemed to grow several inches larger. “Research!” she said proudly.
Nonetheless, their first attempt was not successful. Holly pored over a book entitled Forever and a Day, and Tundra flipped through magical handbooks as quickly as was possible for a creature without hands. Euphemia, whose pride was greater than her reading skills, was found with numerous books upside down in her talons, and eventually announced that her job was to be lookout. When the three finally tottered back to Holly’s suite at four in the morning, they had found nothing. But Holly refused to be discouraged. She brought books from her father’s library into her sitting room and studied them, searching anew for a clue, an idea, a hope.
“It says here that a convoy of gnomes floated here on a magical boat in 1521,” said Tundra. “Oh. Never mind. The boat was blown up by Albigenes in 1523.”
“The roc came by magic carpet, according to Dappertutto,” Holly said several hours later.
“He did? Couldn’t he fly?”
“Doesn’t say. But the carpet returned to Persia afterward, so that won’t work.”
Silence hung over the room. For a long time, the only sound was the shushing of turning pages. Holly sighed.
“Holly?” It was Euphemia, high up in her silver branches.
“Yes, dear?” replied Holly absently, picking up a book called Immortal Journeys.
“Hum. Well. Why don’t you look in that big book?”
“Which big book?”
“That big one. In your father’s study. On the stand.”
Holly stared at the owl. “The Book of Forever.”
“Yes. That’s the one,” replied Euphemia.
Holly was already running toward the study.
How many pages were there in The Book of Forever? Thousands? Tens of thousands? More? Holly read every one, and as the days slipped into December, she read of heroes, magical epochs, and immortal history, but no secret passageways. Each time she thought she had found something, she was informed that it had disappeared, been transformed, or was now accursed. There was only one name that offered even a glimpse of a possibility. It was called the Boreal Rainbow.
She came to Tundra with the massive book in her arms. “What do you think of this?” she asked tiredly. “It’s the Boreal Rainbow, a rainbow mad
e of the light of the aurora borealis. Listen: ‘Appearing only once every five hundred years, the Boreal Rainbow signals the opening of a passage between the mortal and immortal worlds. Its brief duration as well as its radiant colors make it an astonishing sight to the mortals, who often mistake it for a signal of a great empire’s end.’ What do you think?”
“Once every five hundred years,” he reminded her. “When was the last one?”
“It doesn’t say.” Holly looked searchingly at the book. “But that could be it, couldn’t it?”
Tundra looked at her with pity. “Yes. Maybe that’s the one.”
Chapter Fifteen
MEANWHILE, CHRISTMAS WAS COMING. Holly and Macsu had no time for chatting now. They both worked feverishly to create enough dolls for the mortal children on Christmas Day. Thelejima’s six hands were a blur as he assembled arms and legs with lightning speed. Only Mraka moved at a normal pace. Methodically he buttoned small cloaks and dresses, tied shoes, and arranged hats delicately on shining hair. The row of smiling dolls grew longer and longer. It was four days before Christmas and they only needed four hundred more. Three hundred and ninety-nine more. Three hundred and ninety-eight more …
“Ten thousand five hundred and forty-four finished!” trumpeted Thelejima, “and three hundred and eighty-two to go!”
Holly and Macsu were applauding themselves when the door opened and Nicholas entered the workshop. He stopped in the doorway, surprised. Who is that woman? he wondered. It was Holly, stepping briskly across the shop to set a finished doll upon the shelf for firing and then swirling around to begin another at her little table. Her coppery hair was bundled back with a large, green silk scarf—it was really the makings of a doll dress—and her cheeks were flushed with excitement. Her long hands were covered with porcelain dust, and she did not so much walk across the room as dance. She’s a grown-up, Nicholas thought. She’s not a child anymore. How much longer can we keep her with us?
His thoughts were interrupted by Holly’s cry of greeting. “Papa! Do you see? Look how many we have made!”
“And all of them unique!” said Nicholas with delight. “Every single one has a different expression, a different character. You’ve wrought marvels, you four!”
“She’s wrought the marvels,” a creaky voice said. It was Mraka. He pointed his chin at Holly. “I’ve not seen the like before.”
“I’m pleased that she’s won your good opinion, Mraka,” said Nicholas, beaming.
Mraka nodded; that was enough of speaking.
“Thank you, Mraka,” Holly leaned over and whispered in his ear. He smiled a thin smile and bent over his work again.
“Sire!” cried a voice outside the workshop.
“Yes! In here!” called Nicholas, opening the door. “Come in, my dear Farmer.”
A tall, oddly dressed man bustled in, bearing a sheaf of papers, all covered with extensive calculations. “This just in,” he said, his high voice somewhat muffled by, coincidentally, a muffler. Bright eyes peeped out from under a straw boater, which was kept from blowing off by a long velvet cord. This was Horatio Thaddeus Farmer, the uncannily accurate meteorologist of the Land of the Immortals, who felt that it was his duty to keep Nicholas apprised of all weather conditions anywhere on Earth at all times. “I must inform the king” was his favorite slogan, and he was continually bustling off to the castle for what he called “royal consultations.” Most immortals edged away from Farmer when he began to talk cumulus and cirrus, but Nicholas found him deeply entertaining and welcomed him into the castle study with a look of serious consideration that brought joy to Farmer’s heart. Now, quivering in excitement, he began to gesture wildly with his papers. “I thought you should know, sire: an unforeseen cold front will descend upon the North American mortals tomorrow, bringing snow and ice destined to last until Christmas Eve. Most unusual to see such a vast expanse of cloud cover. Really quite odd.” A shadow of perplexity crossed Farmer’s face, but he recovered himself with a dry cough. “The entire eastern portion of the United States, always excepting the state of Florida”—here Farmer sniffed—“can therefore expect a white Christmas. In the western territories”—he refused to call them states—“there will be—”
“It will be snowing in the Empire City?” Holly broke in.
Farmer glared in irritation over the top of his glasses at this intrusion, then recognized the speaker and bowed hurriedly. “Yes, Your Highness. Snowing copiously.”
“How cold will it become?”
“Well below freezing every night, Your Highness,” simpered Farmer.
“And during the days?”
“Quite cold. Not, perhaps, always freezing, but still quite cold. If it please Your Highness,” he added with a flourish.
“Oh, it does, Mr. Farmer. It does,” Holly said with shining eyes. She turned to her father. “Papa!” she said urgently. “Did you hear?”
Fighting the dread in his heart, Nicholas tried to maintain an even tone. “Yes, my dear. It will be a white Christmas in the Empire City. New York City.”
“Papa?” Her entreaty could be read upon her face. “Couldn’t I try?”
“Try what, my dear?” said Nicholas with false heartiness.
“You know, Papa,” Holly said. “You know. Take me with you. On the Christmas Eve journey. Please. Please.”
A swarm of contending fears chased one another through Nicholas’s mind as he watched his daughter’s eyes search his face for hope. It’s impossible, thank God. We’ve tried it before. It can’t work. So there’s no harm in attempting it. But what if we succeed? Then what will I do? She can’t come. She can’t. Her heart couldn’t stand it. But it will be cold. Perhaps not cold enough. Farmer’s been wrong before. And Herrikhan. If he learns she’s there, he will do everything in his power to find her. It would be so easy for him among the mortals. He could kill her there. “No!” he barked suddenly, surprising everyone. “Never!”
Like any weatherman, Thaddeus Farmer recognized an impending storm when he saw one. “I’ll just take myself off,” he called shrilly. “Your Royal Highnesses! My humblest respects to the queen! Good day!” He bolted for the door.
Thelejima, Macsu, and even Mraka looked at one another in consternation and invented emergencies in the storerooms that required their immediate attention. As the last gylfyn arm disappeared down the stairs, Holly turned to her father. Upon her cheeks burned two pink spots, and her eyes seemed to spark like fireworks. Still her voice was steady when she said, “Please explain your answer, Papa.”
It’s a strange truth that no matter how persuaded we might be of our own correctness, the discomfiting realization that others disagree with us causes a paralyzing inability to argue the case convincingly. “It won’t work,” Nicholas began, foolishly beginning with his weakest link. “We’ve tried it before.”
“What’s the harm in trying it again? Perhaps because I am your daughter, I might have a chance.”
Nicholas saw that he had begun badly, but he couldn’t seem to put it right. “No. It’s too dangerous for you in the mortal world. Your heart—”
Holly interrupted eagerly, “But you heard Mr. Farmer. Below freezing. Snow. Papa, I go outside here in the winter. There’s no reason why it should be any different there. Think—”
“No! What would we do if you fainted? How could I get you to safety? Do you expect me to endanger Christmas for the children? I say no. It’s too dangerous!”
“Papa,” said Holly, struggling to keep calm, “are you frightened that Herrikhan will—”
At the sound of the name he dreaded on her lips, Nicholas felt his composure crumble. His response was hasty and wrongheaded. “No! I forbid it!” he snapped.
Holly had never been angry in her life, but she was angry now. She caught her father by his sleeve. “Forbid it! How can you? How can you dismiss me and my dreams as if they were dust?” Her eyes were fierce. “You can’t forbid it, and you can’t stop me. Neither you nor Herrikhan will stop me from going to the E
mpire City if I can!” She turned on her heel and ran out of the workshop, leaving Nicholas fuming, not at his daughter, but at himself.
Two hours later Holly was wrapped in her mother’s embrace. Several damp handkerchiefs lay crumpled among their skirts, but Holly had stopped crying now. She leaned back and looked lovingly at her mother’s face. “It’s Herrikhan. I know it.” She sighed.
Viviana shuddered at the name. “Yes,” she agreed. “Your father’s frightened for you, that’s all.”
“But you’re frightened about him too, and yet you’re not so unreasonable.”
Viviana smiled, a little sadly. “Only because I know it will do me no good. If I could stop you by being unreasonable, darling, I would do it. But I know that if you see a chance to journey to the mortal world, you will take it, regardless of the danger.”
Holly was quiet; her mind was wandering back to the edges of that horrible night long ago, the blurry instants summoned from the darkest caverns of her memory—falling down, down, while the wind above her screamed. “No,” she said, stopping herself. “I can’t stay here for eternity because I’m frightened of him. That would make me a coward and a failure, not an immortal.” Absently she pulled at the fringe of Viviana’s silken shawl.
Viviana’s arms tightened around her daughter. “If only I could just keep you right here, like this,” she murmured.
“But you can’t. I hope.” Holly smiled at herself. “I keep reminding myself that this is just speculation. For all I know, I’ll never get out of the Land of the Immortals.”
Viviana gave her a penetrating look. “That’s what you know, but what do you feel?”
“I feel certain that I’m going to make a journey to the Empire City,” Holly confessed.
“Yes,” said her mother, “so do I. Nobody else can leave the Land of the Immortals, but somehow it seems absolutely certain that you will.” She sighed.
“I will come back, Mama. I promise I will,” said Holly.
If you can, Viviana added silently. Aloud, she said, “Look at you. You’re a woman now.”