Aunt Stace rolled her eyes. “If I knew that one, Kari girl, I’d tell you. You know how he gets when he’s some notion in his head—whatever it is.”
Karigan nodded. She did know. Nothing would stop him no matter what obstacles lay in his path—not even a snowstorm. She glanced at the window as if to catch a glimpse of him tramping around on his snowshoes, but saw only frost coating the glass.
Probably checking if the roads are passable so he can be rid of me.
Aunt Stace set the poker aside and came to Karigan, smoothing her skirts as she sat on the bed. “What brought this on?” she asked quietly, touching the gown. “Something your father said?”
“No. I ... I don’t know. But Mother—I miss her. I hardly remember her.” Then, out of nowhere, tears came and Aunt Stace wrapped her arms around her, holding her close. She smelled of soap and cinnamon.
“I know, dear, I know.” Aunt Stace rubbed her back. “You do realize she loved you very much, don’t you?”
Karigan sniffed and nodded.
“Good. That’s the most important thing.”
“I remember she liked to sing to me.”
“Yes, she did, and she sang sweetly.”
“One thing I didn’t inherit from her,” Karigan said, and she laughed.
“But you’ve her eyes, her hair, and many of her lovely attributes,” Aunt Stace said. “Never forget she lives on in you.”
Karigan almost started sobbing again, but swallowed it back, and wiped her nose with her sleeve.
“I think,” Aunt Stace said, “a hearty breakfast would make you feel much better.”
Karigan nodded. She was hungry.
“Good. Then let me help you fold this.” Aunt Stace smoothed a sleeve of the gown. “Your mother was so beautiful in this. Absolutely radiant. Your father on the other hand ...” Aunt Stace chuckled, and it grew into a hearty laugh.
Karigan’s aunts had told the story of her father’s wedding enough times that all one of them had to do was say the word wedding and they’d all break out in helpless laughter. Except her father who would usually groan and leave the room.
“He—he turned white as the belly of a rayfish when he saw Kariny.” All of Aunt Stace jiggled. “He was so nervous!”
It was amusing, Karigan thought, to imagine her father sprawled in the moon priest’s arms while the lord-mayor of Corsa and all the elite of the merchants guild looked on. She couldn’t help but join in with Aunt Stace’s laughter.
When they’d mostly recovered, they lifted the gown to fold it, and something solid tumbled from it and plopped onto the bed.
“What in the heavens ... ?” Aunt Stace scooped up the object.
“What is it?” Karigan asked as she finished folding the gown and placed it carefully in the chest.
“A crystal of some sort.” Aunt Stace opened her hand to reveal a clear, rounded crystal that glinted brightly as the light hit it. She rolled it atop her palm and it seemed to collect all the daylight and firelight in the room and recast it in rainbow hues that shimmered on the walls and ceiling. “Pretty thing.”
“Muna’riel,” Karigan murmured, shocked to stillness.
“Say again?” Something odd lit in Aunt Stace’s eyes.
“Muna’riel.” Karigan knew exactly what it was for she had once possessed one, but what in the name of all the gods was an Eletian moonstone doing here among the folds of her mother’s wedding gown?
“Moona-ree-all,” Aunt Stace muttered, scratching her head. “Now that jogs something from a ways back ...”
“What?” Karigan asked.
“I’m thinking.” Aunt Stace glanced down as if searching her memory. “Moona-ree-all. It was something your mother said ...”
“Mother?” Karigan trembled, resisting the urge to shake her aunt to jog her memory.
“Aaah, that’s it,” Aunt Stace said, as if to herself. “We’d wondered what she was talking about, but put it down to the fever.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“It was near the end,” Aunt Stace said, and she sat on the bed again, patting the mattress to indicate Karigan should do likewise.
A moonstone, Karigan thought as she sat. My mother had a moonstone.
“Your mother was so very ill,” Aunt Stace continued. “In and out of delirium. She sang in words we did not know, pointed out dead relatives in the room no one else could see. She sings to me, she kept saying. Who? we’d ask, but she’d only answer, Like when I was pregnant with Kari. She sings to me.” Aunt Stace shrugged. “We didn’t know who she meant, but then she pointed out her grandmama and grandpapa, long dead of course. Maybe it was her grandmama that did the singing?”
Karigan shuddered, wondering if she weren’t the only one in her bloodline with a talent for seeing the dead.
“Then quite suddenly,” Aunt Stace said, “she grabbed Stevic’s wrist—made us all jump. Makes me shiver to remember. Stevic leaned down close to her to hear what she said.”
“And what did she say?” Karigan asked, almost whispering.
Aunt Stace’s eyebrows drew together. “Give Kari the moona-ree-all. That’s just what she said. Give Kari the moona-ree-all. She kept saying it till she dropped Stevic’s wrist in exhaustion. She went peacefully after that, simply faded in her sleep, almost ... almost smiling.”
Karigan had heard a little about her mother’s final moments, how she died peacefully surrounded by those she loved. Never did she hear about her mother seeing dead family members, or about her request that Karigan receive the moonstone.