I took a little journey to the unknown

And I come back changed, I can feel it in my bones

-- Lord Huron, Meet Me in the Woods

Abi remained under house arrest right up until the time came for her to set off for the ship. She was watched everywhere except while she slept. In the garden, in the library, in the sitting room... It was enraging. She couldn't even read without one of her parents or siblings coming up and looking over her shoulder just to make sure her book had nothing to do with necromancy. Any more of this and she would go stark raving mad.

She made a point of behaving as mundanely as possible. In fact she went a step further and tried to make herself downright boring. She pored over lengthy treaties on sewing and gardening. She did her best to entrap Arafaren, her designated watcher on most days, in a conversation about tadpoles. For the first time in centuries she consciously made an effort to follow her etiquette lessons to the letter. Overnight she became a model of proper behaviour -- outwardly, at least. The only problem was that this method bored her just as much as the rest of her family.

While in search of something, anything, to do, Abi hit upon a useful occupation that would pass the time and that no one could possibly object to. Like all Saoridhian families the Sinistrahs placed a great deal of importance on family trees. There was an entire room in the palace dedicated to family records and portraits. Every few decades someone was supposed to go through it and make sure everything was in its proper place. In practice it was usually left alone for several centuries at a time.

Arafaren made a despairing face when he heard she intended to sort through the record room.

"Oh no!" he wailed. "You're trying to bore me to tears, aren't you?"

Abi shrugged and didn't deny it.

He grumbled and complained all through dinner. But it was no use. Their parents gave their permission for Abi's project, so Arafaren had to tag along. The housekeeper left out a stack of dusters for them both. Abi handed them all to Arafaren and let him carry them to the record room.

She opened the door. Immediately she began to reconsider this plan. There was a collection of portraits piled in the corner under dust-sheets. Obviously someone had intended to put them back on the walls then forgot all about them. The only filing cabinets that were clean were the ones holding records about the most recent generations. All of the older cabinets were covered in dust. The wooden floor was coated with a thick carpet of dust too.

Arafaren dropped the dusters down on a bench beside the door. He drew his breath in sharply. "Whew! You've picked the hardest job you can find, haven't you?"

Abi said nothing. She was already trying to figure out if it was too late to change her mind. Alas, it probably was.

"Get a broom and sweep the floor," she said. "I'll see where those pictures go."

Arafaren scowled and folded his arms. "You get a broom. This was all your idea. I'll have nothing to do with it."

The only good thing about having a prankster for a brother was the amount of blackmail material he had given her over the years. Abi stared him in the eye without blinking. "Go and get a broom, or I'll tell Mother the truth about the incident of the table, the paintbrush, and the scarf."

Arafaren made a noise somewhere between a squeak and a groan. "You wouldn't!"

Abi nodded solemnly. "I might even tell her about the incident with the water bottles."

He sank down onto the bench with the air of one who had just been condemned to death. Looking up at her with an attempt at defiance he said, "You're hardly one to talk, Miss Necromancer!"

As a threat it might have worked before the scandal was revealed. Now, though, it was worse than useless. For years Abi had waited for a chance to get back at him for his worst pranks. Now she had that chance, and she wouldn't let it slip away because of his attempts to scare her.

"Oh, but you see, everyone already knows my deepest, darkest secrets. There's nothing worse for them to learn. You, on the other hand..." She trailed off.

Arafaren groaned again. "All right, I'll get your bloody broom. Don't you dare think you'll get away with this! I'll make you regret it!"

"You sound like a toddler," Abi said in a bored tone.

Her brother left, growling imprecations under his breath. Abi looked around the room again, taking note of everything that had to be done. She sighed and went over to the portraits. The first one turned out to be a portrait of her grandmother as a young girl. She stared at it incredulously. If it wasn't for the name and date written on the frame she would never have believed the little girl with pigtails and elaborate bows in her hair could possibly have grown up to become Empress Raivíth.

Heavy footsteps outside announced Arafaren's return. He stomped down the hallway, threw open the door of the record room, and made a point of treading very heavily on the floorboards as he stalked in. This backfired on him. His footsteps disturbed the dust and made it fly up into his face. For several minutes he coughed and spluttered.

Abi ignored him in favour of finding a spare place on the wall to hang the portrait. No wonder all of these pictures were left in the corner. There really was nowhere for them on the walls. Every available space was taken by a portrait of some past emperor or empress -- usually either a coronation or wedding portrait. Childhood pictures were given much less importance.

Maybe Líusal will add these to her collection, Abi thought.

Arafaren finally recovered from his coughing fit. Without even needing to be asked he set to work with the broom and a dust-pan. Judging by his aggressive swipes he now had a personal grudge against the floor.

Abi moved on to the next pictures. There was one of her grandfather as a young boy, one of her mother and two of her aunts -- at university, going by their uniforms. Below it was a portrait that was really more of a sketch. It showed someone's wedding. Odd. Wedding portraits tended to be very elaborate and expensive. Take her parents', for example. Not only did it show the bride and groom, it showed the priest, the bride's parents and siblings, the groom's parents and siblings, and as many of the guests as the artist could fit into it. This one showed only the bride and groom.

She studied their faces. With a jolt she realised the woman was her mother. This must be a record of Hartanna's ill-fated first wedding, then. Abi had never seen her stepfather before. She didn't even know his name. All she knew was that Hartanna had met a fellow student at university. Against the advice of all her family she had eloped with him and gone to live in obscurity somewhere. Thirty years later she came back with the news her husband was dead. She brought with her a toddler -- Abi's half-brother Gulreon, who was so much older than her she barely even knew him.

Years afterwards Raivíth had arranged a marriage between Hartanna and Mihasrin. How well that had gone could be seen in their icy indifference to each other. Though at some point before Abi's birth they must have gotten on better. Abi was their ninth child, after all.

She dusted the drawing and put it aside with the pile of cleaned pictures. The next one was a portrait of Gulreon. Abi compared his face to his father's and was mildly amused to see he resembled his half-siblings more.

Poor Reon, she thought.

Judging by his portrait her stepfather had been quite handsome, while Abi and her full siblings were not noted for being good-looking.

Below that one was another unfamiliar portrait. It was a young man, about the same age as she was now, with the distinctive silver eyes of the Sinistrah clan. But his eyes were the most vivid shade of silver Abi had ever seen. They were almost eerie.

She looked at the label. Birthday portrait of Imrahil Mihasrinsilru, born 2654 in the 3086th year of Emperor Junhasan.

In her family's plot of the royal crypt there was a memorial to her oldest brother. A memorial, but no grave. Until now Abi hadn't had a face to put to his name. He had died less than five years after she was born.

For the first time it occurred to her that it was strange Imrahil's portrait was not on display. Hartanna's and Mihasrin's were, as were the portraits of all their other children.

Arafaren finished sweeping a path from one side of the room to the other. He wiped his forehead and tossed the broom aside. "You can do the rest." He leaned closer to see what she was looking at. "Who's that?"

Abi held up the portrait and pointed to the label. "Why do you think his picture's locked up here instead of being out in the gallery?"

Arafaren sat down beside her and stared at the picture. "You don't remember, do you? You were too young." He sounded smugly superior about that, as if he wasn't less than a hundred years older than her and would hardly remember much more. "It's because of the scandal."

Scandal? All Abi had heard about Imrahil was that he died very young in a tragic boating accident. She tried to imagine what could be scandalous about that. None of the things she came up with were plausible for a man who died when he was under two thousand years old and hadn't even been a full adult. "What scandal?"

Arafaren shrugged. "He had a fight with Granny and Granddad. I don't know what it was about. But apparently he threatened Granddad with a sword. So he was arrested and sent off somewhere to calm down. But then the boat sank and he drowned."

A scandal that led to the person responsible being sent away? That sounded familiar. It seemed Abi had more in common with her oldest brother than she'd ever known. She looked at his portrait curiously. There was no immediately obvious resemblance between them. It was never easy to tell what someone was thinking from a portrait -- mainly because, as she knew from personal experience, very few people thought about anything while sitting for a portrait. It was an interminably boring business.

The more she looked at it the more she noticed something odd. Usually artists depicted their subjects from an angle, with their heads turned slightly to the side. Not this one. Imrahil stared directly ahead as if he was looking at her. That thought made her shudder.

Abi set the portrait aside. Obviously it wouldn't go on display, and it was doubtful if Líusal would accept it. Something about that didn't sit right with her. No matter what he'd done it wasn't fair that Imrahil should be eternally locked away and forgotten. It wasn't as if he'd killed someone, after all.

She and Arafaren tidied up the room for the rest of the day. Arafaren left before she did. When he was gone Abi picked up Imrahil's portrait and carried it out with her. She had a slightly uneasy feeling about this. But she put it down to wariness about being caught and having to explain what she was doing.

Luckily it was a smallish portrait and not one of the huge ones on display. She managed to carry it upstairs without much difficulty. No one saw her. At first she'd considered putting it in her room. But when she thought about that she realised someone was bound to discover it there. Much better to put it in one of the guest rooms. As for what she'd do with it then... Well, she hadn't thought that far ahead. She just didn't like the idea of leaving him alone in an empty room. They'd never known each other, they'd barely even been alive at the same time, yet somehow she felt as if she knew him.

I wonder if he was reincarnated as someone I know.

Saoridhin religion taught that people were usually only reincarnated as their own descendants. Imrahil had no descendants -- as far as she knew and unless his fight with their grandparents had been about something very scandalous indeed -- so who would he have been reincarnated as? Would he ever be reincarnated at all?

Abi set the portrait on the bedside table in one of the guest rooms. In the dim light that filtered through the closed curtains she could have sworn the portrait was smiling. She turned on the light to check. No, it still wore the neutral expression common among portraits.

Must have been only her imagination.