Blood Spirits (51 page)

I ran downstairs, to be greeted with twin expressions of welcome by the sisters, and beaming delight by Miriam.

“I saw the reflection of your light,” Tania said, pointing outside. “The nightmares?”

“You too, I take it.”

“I haven't slept,” Tania admitted. “All the cats are here. No one roaming. They are troubled.”

Theresa briskly passed out cups. “I heard Mama and Papa saying a rosary in their room. I said mine while Miriam sang her prayer of protection of the home. It calls on extra angels,” she added.

“Extra?” Tania asked. “Will you sing it? I think we can use the extra help.”

Miriam shivered, and everyone cast an anxious glance at the holly wreaths in the windows as she sang the ancient Hebrew words in a small, light voice. Then she said, “If I translate, it goes something like this:

“Sheh-khin-ahhh,” Theresa repeated, drawing the word out. “Does that not sound like the perfect word for Divine Presence?”

Miriam tipped her head in the thoughtful way I remembered from summer, her forehead puzzled. “We agree not to tell the other her way is wrong, but if Theresa believes the way to heaven is as the priests teach, and Katrin's third cousin up on the mountain thinks the Orthodox is the way to heaven, and Sister Maria's pen friend in Kosovo, who is Muslim, thinks her way is right, and Katrin's father says that there is no heaven, when we die we snap out like the electrical lights, then how do you decide who is right?”

Three pairs of eyes turned my way.

“Maybe they all have pieces of truth, like my prism? Every day I keep learning how much I don't know about how the universe works. But here's something I do know. Miriam, I think that was you and your school friends defending me in front of the opera house, am I right?”

Theresa grinned in triumph. “That was our class. And everyone joined us, did you hear?”

Miriam made a sour face. “My grandfather says, that man must have been a hireling.”

“How's that?” I asked.

She shrugged her skinny shoulders. “I don't know. Grandpapa said, it was in the way this man spoke. Everyone says Lady Ruli, or Madam Statthalter. This man said, ‘your wife.' But mother says Grandpapa wants to think that everybody in Riev believes the Statthalter innocent, because King Milo's son would not do such a thing.”

Now two pairs of eyes studied me, and Tania looked down at her hands.

“He
is
innocent,” I said. “I can't prove it yet, but I know he is.”

“Hah.” Miriam drank her hot chocolate with a defiant air. “I knew that. Like Grandpapa said, King Milo's son wouldn't. If they do not like each other, they would have a divorce. Mother says that nobody has changed
that
law from the Soviets.”

“But they were married in church,” Theresa said, looking unhappy. “In church law, there is no divorce.”

“There can be annulments,” Tania murmured, then reverted to her imitation of a fence post.

Miriam spread her hands. “Mother says, King Milo's son or no King Milo's son, it takes more effort to throw somebody over a cliff, and burn a good automobile as well, than to go to your bishop for an annulment. What I hate is how such rumors make everyone look horrid, especially the Statthalter, who is so handsome, and who everyone knows paid out of his own pocket for the street lamps down in Old Market, when the Council said the taxes must go to the drain treatment plant yet again.” She folded her arms with an air of defiance, then added: “He would have married Lady Rebekah if he did not have to sacrifice their love for the alliance with the Devil's Mountain people.”

Theresa stole a look my way, and when she saw me doing my own fence post, she said in a long-suffering voice, “You know it isn't true. Your own second-cousin, whose aunt lives right at Ridotski House, said they weren't in love. It was only flirtation.” She flickered another look my way. “Besides, how could he be in love with
two
people?”

Miriam glared into her hot chocolate, then fixed me with her wide stare. “That's true. But Hannah at the dairy said that her cousin at Mecklundburg House heard the family saying that he threw Lady Ruli over the cliff so he could marry you. Yet Tomas Bogdan said that his uncle, who drives an inkri, said that the Statthalter was angry because Lady Ruli had another man in secret.”

Whoa. Where to start? There was no use in slamdunking the girls for gossiping when it's human nature to gossip. I gossiped with Nat every chance I could get. We all like speculating about hidden motives and intentions, and so if I harshed all over the girls for gossiping, they would merely stop talking to me.

But one thing I could try was damage control.

“I know that the Statthalter was not angry with her. They decided she was to go to Paris to spend Christmas with her family,” I said, then explained my reasons for coming.

After I got done describing Ruli's ghost—or apparition, or communiqué—Miriam let out a dramatic sigh. “Of course she would call to you in spirit across the waters! Everyone knows the two of you decided which one was to marry him, for you were seen together in Temple Square. Besides, Lady Rebekah would not befriend an untrustworthy person, everybody knows that.” Miriam nodded so vigorously her glasses bounced on her nose. Fiercely, she said to me, “You will stand up at the trial and smite the false accusers. I wish to be there!”

Theresa shook her head. “Anna says that it could be months and
months
before there is any trial. And Grandfather Kezh thinks they will solve everything behind closed doors. Like the hearing today, everyone knows only the very important people will be let in. No one else.”

“I will be at the trial if I have to sneak in through the rafters,” Miriam stated, her glasses flashing as she lifted her chin. “I shall see justice done.”

Theresa sighed, as if long accustomed to Miriam's fervent vows, and shifted the conversation to who among Tania's pets had stayed in during the storm, and who had shown up safely since. Judging from the many nicknames, Tania had a lot of pets.

By the time we'd finished up the hot chocolate and the slices of delicious rolled walnut and date bread called
petitsa
, dawn was only an hour off. Theresa bounced up, piled everything on one of the trays, and bounded off toward the kitchen, Miriam in tow.

Tania said, “Would you like to come up to my room? The roof is easily reached from there.”

Everybody fetched coats, scarves, and mittens, then trooped to the attic. We squeezed past a jumble of old furnishings to a neat little door, which opened onto a lovely little room with two dormer windows, under the slanting roof.

Tania twitched curtains, straightened an already ruler-aligned rug, and fussed around the scrupulously tidy living space. It was cramped and had the musty aroma of many pets, but it wasn't the nasty smell of untended cages. Fitting under one of the roof slants was a chickenwire screened off area with a kind of basketwork city built for rats. The rest of the room had cats everywhere—at least six curled on the narrow quilt-covered bed, a row of cats in meatloaf shape on the wardrobe, and several on jury-rigged cat scratching posts, with carpet nailed to wood. There were a couple of little houses, with glowing eyes appearing briefly, and I glimpsed a cat tail through a little shuttered window.

“I hope you do not object to cats,” Tania said, her hands gesturing nervously the way some do when someone else first enters their private space.

“What a great rat-town you made! And I love the colors in your quilt. It's so cozy here,” I said, to ease her tension.

The younger girls appeared, Theresa still drying her hands on her sturdy bathrobe before she wrestled into her coat. “Did you see the cat doors?” She pointed to little slatted doors set below each dormer. “And this one for the rats. We can't do anything about what happens outside. They
will
fight, you know, the cats and rats.”

“I wish they wouldn't,” Tania whispered.

“You wish nobody would fight, not people or beast,” Theresa said, patting her sister's thin shoulder. Then to me, “Which is why she will not eat meat.”

Tania fought a yawn, saying, “I just wish they would go out. The wind is not up. Maybe weather is on the way again.”

“I hope it doesn't come until after the eclipse.” Theresa pushed open a little door on the other side of the room, directly beneath one of the pointed eaves. She and Miriam pushed their way out, chattering about cats versus rats, and how much noise they made, and was any of it play, or did they always fight to the death?

I followed the teens out through the roof door, dropping to my hands and knees when I saw that the ridgepole was about the width of a ladder. Tania sauntered with the ease of years of habit, and Theresa and Miriam scrambled about comfortably, exclaiming as they kicked and smacked snow from the ridgepole. In the light from Tania's room, the snow glittered white on their slippers and mittens.

I looked around, trying to get used to my perch. The roof was a complication of angles, with a thick, smooth blanket of white where the girls hadn't marred it.

As the view cleared, Theresa and Miriam settled themselves where they could not only see the eastern mountains, solid black against the deep midnight blue of the sky, but also the southern end of the city. They leaned out to examine the street below. Tiny golden glows from lanterns, no larger than fireflies at this distance, appeared here and there on the visible streets immediately below us. As the girls discussed who lived where, and who they thought might be outside doing the assignment, Tania was turning in a slow circle, her face serious.

The scene was peaceful to look at, but wow, was it cold. A few clouds drifted slowly across the sky, stars still glowing. I turned my attention to the streets. No sign of any ghosts, either glowing, smoky, vaporous, or anything else. The back of my neck tightened, however, when I peered into the dark shadows between buildings. The absence of light seemed . . .
intense
.

“That's weird,” I muttered, my breath clouding.

Tania leaned out so far my stomach dropped and the muscles in the backs of my legs twitched. “Tania?”

“There. What do you see?”

She pointed below, at the intersection near the shop where she'd once worked.

“I just noticed that,” I said. “How the light isn't getting between that building with the brick decoration and the one with the frog gargoyles, though it gets between all the others.”

“I see,” Tania said. “And there. Oh! Did that shadow . . .” She swallowed. I heard it. “Move?”

She didn't wait for me to answer, but called, low-voiced, “Theresa.”

The teens were peering at the eastern mountains, impatient for any sign of the sun, and muttering dire predictions as the graying shapes of clouds silently blotted the northern stars. Both turned.

Tania said, “I think you said you know someone who sees . . . shadows.”

The way her voice dropped to a whisper on the last word carried such a freight of meaning that Theresa's jaw dropped, and Miriam gasped, both hands pressed over her mouth.

Theresa said doubtfully, “Horrible Haru
says
he does, but . . .”

“Can we fetch him?” Tania asked.

Theresa said, “Katrin thinks he's making it up as one of his horrid jokes. Maybe it would be a good test, eh?”

I peered over Tania's shoulder at the girls. “Theresa, show us where Katrin lives, would you? It could be important.”

That was all it took. The four of us scrambled back into Tania's room, then Tania uttered a terse order, “Meet at the counter in one minute.”

They left, Theresa muttering, “But the eclipse hasn't even begun yet!”

Since I was already dressed, I stopped by my room to grab that crystal necklace, then I ran downstairs, where I found Theresa lighting three glass-sided lanterns. The girls appeared, tugging and tucking and buttoning various pieces of clothing, Miriam squirming impatiently as she braided her thick red hair. Theresa let hers hang loose, a glossy, straight, black cloak as long as my own hair. Their round faces were solemn in the warm glow from the lanterns; as the flames inside leapt and flickered, our crystals answered with red and blue and yellow glints and winks and glitters.

“I could only find these three,” Tania said in an apologetic voice. “The summer lanterns are locked in the storeroom, and my father has the key. Shall I rouse him?”

I felt way out of my depth. “I think we need to hurry. How about I go without, but we stick together and avoid any really dark shadowy places, okay?”

“I know every step of the short cut,” Theresa said. “If there is a new shadow, I will know it.” She fingered the crystal on a cord around her neck

‘Then let's go.”

We dashed out of the empty inn, and Theresa led the way between the houses across the street, the lanterns making three swinging, jiggling pools of light.

In an effort to avoid looking at the lanterns, which would give me light blindness, I peered up and around. On a little balcony overhead, I glimpsed several school children with an adult who lectured about how the moon and the sun interacted to create eclipses. A kid said mournfully, “I see the clouds over the mountain. Will teacher see them, too?”

We passed too quickly for me to hear the answer.