The Hidden Goddess (33 page)

“Didn’t she need it?” Emily said. Her father smiled, reached up to rub another tear that was trickling down the side of her nose.

“He was keeping it safe for her,” her father said. “He had sworn to do this. It was his greatest oath, his greatest promise. That he would keep it safe for her and that he would never let it be broken. So he kept it locked in a box made of gold and silver. But the demons wanted to steal it. They wanted to tear it into a million pieces and make the God of Oaths break the greatest oath he had ever made, so he would not be the God of Oaths anymore. He would just be a man, pathetic and forsworn.”

Thump, thump, thump
. Emily didn’t know what forsworn meant, but she figured it meant something bad. Bad like the full moon, bad like the five days, bad like the fire that was sizzling her skin …

“Da, how much longer?” she wailed. “Two minutes?”

“Two minutes,
kapusta
.” Little cabbage.

Emily wrinkled her nose. “I hate cabbage,” she snuffled.

“Listen. The God of Oaths. He was wandering in a wood, and the demons were hard on his trail. They were closing in around him, foul creatures with black teeth like razors and claws like the sharpest knives. He came to a cabin in the woods, a queer little cabin that sat right up on four chicken legs.”

Emily tried to imagine it. “Chicken legs?”

“In this cabin lived a Witch named Baba-Yaga. She was a nasty, wrinkled old creature who always cooked cabbage, and
sometimes cooked little girls, too. But she was powerful, and the God of Oaths had no choice but to ask for her help. The demons were coming to tear the heart of his true love into a million pieces. Even gods need help sometimes.”

“What did she do?”

“She let down her hair,” Emily’s father said simply. “Her long hair tumbled all around her body, and in it she hid the box made of gold and silver that contained the heart of the God of Oaths’ one true love. When the demons came, they could not find it.”

Emily wrinkled her nose at her father.

“How could she hide a whole box in her hair?” Emily demanded angrily. It was the stupidest story she’d ever heard. She wanted to hear how the God of Oaths had battled the demons, sent them running away, made them go and never bother him again. She would have liked that story. “You can’t hide a whole box in your hair. Even Mama’s hair, and her hair is so long!”

“Things can be hidden in strange places,” her father said softly, as he lifted a jug of clean water. He laid her back over the tub, poured the water over her head. “There we are,
kapusta
. All done. It will feel better soon.”

The cool water played over her scalp, washing away the fire, washing away the pain.

Wagons
.

It was autumn, and the leaves were orange and yellow. It was cold, and they were riding in wagons with men Emily did not know, across mountains that glowed blue with snow.

Father was not there.

She wanted him. She wanted him so badly, to hold her in his warm arms and smile at her and talk to her in Russian. But she knew she could not ask for him. She knew that she could never ask for her father ever again.

Mama was there, swaying with the rocking of the wagon, her eyes dead and flat. She was so tired all the time, so tired and heavy and slow. She kept drinking something, something that made her eyes like plates. Emily sometimes snuck looks
at the bottle her mother drank from. She would look at the bottle and try to sound out the word written on its brown paper label.

Morphia
.

She could not imagine how it sounded. But whatever was in the little bottle made the five days better. It dulled the edge of the full moon like a knife rubbed against a rock. When they were with the men in the wagons, Emily could hide when the moon made the sky glow, when Mama started to yell and break things. Emily could hide, and the men would hide her, let her sleep curled under canvas blankets and feed sacks.

But after a while they did not ride with the men in the wagons anymore. They went their own way, and they came to a cold, wild place, and the round moon stared down at them, and Emily was all alone.

“What did he tell you?” Mama’s eyes were like marbles, glassy and hard. She shook Emily, and Emily thought that she would rattle to pieces. She closed her eyes, letting herself be shaken, because there was nothing else she could do. “He wanted to destroy magic. He wanted to destroy us. He wanted to destroy me!”

Her mother threw her down, fell on her with fists. Emily whimpered, putting her arms up. “Tell me, you stupid little brat! Tell me or I’ll kill you, I swear, I will kill you like—”

The fists stopped. Something came across Mama’s face, something like tears and fury seen in a mirror. She staggered back, holding her own hands. Holding them down hard.

“Run, Emily!” her mother whispered. “Run and hide, Emily. Run and hide! Stay quiet! Stay quiet!”

Emily ran, her small legs shaking and weak. Her face ached where her mother’s fists had hit her. She ran, not knowing where to go. She remembered Volos, the God of Oaths, running through the woods with demons chasing him. Demons with black teeth like razors and claws like the sharpest knives. She did not find a cabin with chicken legs. But she found a thicket of blackberry bushes that scratched her, tore at her skin and her dress, and she climbed deep within them, curling her arms around her knees, staying
quiet, hoping that trembling did not make a noise, hoping that her wildly beating heart wasn’t too loud.

Quiet. She had to be quiet.

Mama did not come looking for her for a while, but finally her voice called on the beams of moonlight:

“Emily …”

Emily tightened her arms around herself, quaking. She hid her eyes behind her knees, squeezing them tight. She heard her mother shuffling through the underbrush, cracking twigs, her footsteps heavy and slow.

“Emily …” Mama’s voice, sweet and honeyed and poisonous. “Come out now, Emily.”

Emily did not move. Five days. Five whole days, the sun had to rise and set.

“Come out, you miserable little brat. Come out or I’ll leave you here. I’ll leave you out here all alone. All alone with the wild animals. They’ll tear your guts out with their sharp teeth. They’ll eat your bones, and there’ll be nothing left of you. Come out, Emily. Come out and tell me. Tell me what you know, and I won’t hurt you. I promise you, sweetling, I won’t hurt you …”

But Emily knew that Mama would hurt her. She would hurt her if she ever told what her father had told her. She would kill her. She would kill her like …

Kill her like …

The light of the full moon streamed through the windows of the kitchen.

Mama with the knife in her hand, gleaming. The big knife, the butcher’s knife she used to hack bones to make soup.

“Stop it, Catherine! Fight him. For God’s sake, fight him—”

Father’s arms around her, holding her close. Father watching Mama, watching the knife in her hand.

“I read your papers, Lyakhov.” Mama’s voice, flat and old. Her eyes like scratched glass. “You think you can keep the woman drugged up on morphia all the time? I control her more than you know. What she knows, I know. I read your papers. I know what you’re going to do. And I’m not going to let you.”

“I swear to you, I won’t let her die.” Father’s voice, desperate. “I swear to you, Cowdray. You don’t understand … there’s another way!”

“Lies!”

Mama struck out with the knife; Father pulled back, wrapping himself tightly around Emily. Mama took another step forward, but Father reached for the large table—the table on which Emily had watched her mother’s hands kneading bread. He pulled it to the floor with a crash, crouching behind it.

“Catherine.” Father’s voice was low, pleading. “Please. I beg you. Don’t let him.”

Mama stopped her approach. She put her hands up to her face, swaying slightly. She moaned—a tight miserable sound. Father threw Emily out of his arms, sending her tumbling toward the door. He jumped to his feet, jumped toward Mama, his hands coming up to grab her wrists. He wrestled her backward against the dry sink, using the weight of his body to hold her. She fought against him wildly, screaming, the knife still clenched in her hand.

“I won’t let you, Lyakhov! I won’t let you give them the poison. I won’t let you kill me—” The knife flashed down, sinking into Father’s shoulder. He grunted, staggered; the knife flashed down again, finding his throat. Blood gushed over Mama’s hands, over her wrists, over the white apron that covered her dress.

The knife came down again and again. Father slumped forward, falling to the floor, his hands scrabbling for something. He made a terrible sound deep in his chest, and blood came out of his mouth, spilling across the floor, flooding the entire world …

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The Black Carriage

Emily woke with screams ringing between her ears.

Dried tears cracked on the sides of her cheek … or was it blood? Was it blood, flooding over the floor, flooding the world …

Her head ached and her gut was cramped with pain. She tasted vomit in her mouth. Something smelled bad.

She was outside. She was in the street, outside under a gaslit sky, her cheek pressed against hard cold stone. Hadn’t she been inside? In a building? A nice building, made of brown stone … or a kitchen. A kitchen, terrible with moonlight. Where had she been? Where was she now?

There had been rain. It was early, the sun hadn’t risen yet. But the sky was lightening, a heavy dead gray. She was outside, in the street, and it was damp. The pavement glistened. She was laying on the pavement, staring down into the muddy street, at the place where the cobblestones met the sidewalk.

Trash was swirling in the water that was running toward the gutter. She smelled earth and leaves. She felt the presence of something in her mind, something old and vast.
Ososolyeh
, she thought it was called …

Words formed in the water, in the scumming foam that swirled on its surface:

Gold Eye
.

Words formed in the detritus flowing toward the gutter grate. Words built on words, spelled out in orange peelings, tobacco flakes, snippets of dung-stained hay …

You must get to Gold Eye
.

Mama’s knife, coming down and down again, and her father screaming an ocean of blood …

“Oh, Da …” she moaned.

Emily curled in on herself, wrapping her arms around her knees. Words trickled from her mouth like blood, and her chest ached as if Mama’s knife had stabbed into her, not into her father.

She felt people looking at her, stepping around her. She was laying in the street, and she didn’t know how she’d gotten there.

You must get to Gold Eye
.

The Faery Reader.

Emily sat up abruptly, remembering a smiling Irish accent and laughing children. She sat up, looked around herself. Her feet were cold; something had happened to her shoes. They were gone, and her socks, too. Her feet were scraped and bruised. Her ankles were muddy.

“Here, you, move it along!” The voice came from above her. A policeman stared down at her. He hit the side of a cast-iron fireplug with his billy club; the loudness of the sound made her jump and shake.

“I said, move it along! Sleep it off somewhere else.”

Emily climbed to her aching feet. She wrapped her arms around herself, staggering away from the policeman, her bleary eyes searching for a street sign. She found one. Third and Catherine Street. She was in New York, she remembered. New York.

You must get to Gold Eye
. The message echoed through her head, vibrating insistently, and she knew that it was the message that had driven her from the Stanton house. She remembered it now, how she had run through dark tangled streets, stone buildings rising above her like murderous mountains. Everything in her head was so tangled and mixed up. Her father was dead, slaughtered, butchered. Mama had killed him. Mama had driven a knife into his chest, again and again, blood spurting and soaking.

Mama, no … please …

The Faery Reader.

You must get to Gold Eye
.

The Faery Reader had given her a card. She felt in her pocket for it, and found that it was still there, crisp and hard. She brought it up to her blurry eyes, trying to make them focus on the small type. She squinted up at the street sign again. She thought she knew how to get there. It was important that she get there. She had to get something back, something she had left with him …

She started in what she thought was the right direction, leaning with one shoulder against the buildings as she walked. She felt unmoored, like a balloon that wanted to float up from the ground. She stopped to vomit again, letting her stomach heave itself up out of her throat. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand then kept moving.

When she got to the Faery Reader’s shop, there were dozens of people clustered about outside of it, their faces grim and nervous, their conversations low and regretful. And there were police, many police in blue coats with shiny brass buttons. And there was a black cart with the words “County Morgue” written on the side.