Nobody's Goddess (13 page)

“Here,” she said, tossing a small chunk of wood and a chisel on the table. “It’s the most I can do for you. You’re going to learn woodcarving.”

Woodcarving was the only thing I had, the only thing that quieted my thoughts. When I worked, I was able to forget. I first took a tool in my hand and turned a rough piece of wood into a sphere. It wasn’t much, but I controlled what the wood would be. And no one told me I didn’t really get to choose.

I’d grown better in the past few weeks. Elfriede thought woodcarving was a wonderful idea—as a
hobby
, she emphasized. And then on further introspection, as a hobby
for now
, she would add. As if I could forget that I had so little time before I was expected to perform a miracle. I already had a miniature sculpture of Elfriede’s new golden puppy, Arrow, to present to her as a gift. It was only after I had finished that my numbed mind remembered that Arrow himself had been an early wedding gift from Jurij, and I probably shouldn’t have spent so much time carving his image into my mind before the happy coupling and I went our separate ways.

Father had little to say about my talent, or the tools I borrowed from him without asking. But I forgave him. I felt as numb as he did these days.

Mother was only sometimes with us.

Father was behind the house on a tree stump, whittling what looked to be a bowl or a cup. Mother sat beneath the shade of a tree on the edge of the woods, her hand clasping a small piece of wood. Mother should have known that if she was near Father when he worked, she’d wind up distracting him. But lately she was loath to part from him at all.

“How are you feeling today?” I nestled into the grass and leaned against the tree beside her. I clutched little wooden Arrow in my hands to work on the finishing touches, although my model was off somewhere with Elfriede and Jurij.

It took a moment for Mother to acknowledge me. She turned her head slowly. There were dark circles beneath her eyes, a sallow tinge to the once-beautiful oaken shade of her skin. “Better,” she lied.

I looked up to watch Father’s reaction. He held the bowl and chisel in his hands as if he were still carving, but his hands were frozen.

“Your father’s working,” Mother said. “He’s making beautiful things.”

Father’s hands moved again, slowly.

I took a closer look at the wooden figure in Mother’s grasp. “What’s that?”

Mother turned it over and lifted her arms weakly to bring it closer to me. “It’s a lily. Isn’t it beautiful?”

Seeing the hint of a smile on Mother’s face made me genuinely happy. I gestured to the fields behind Father. “It’s lovelier than all the ones around us.” It was getting colder, and those blooms were dying.

Mother leaned her head against the tree bark and shut her eyes. A moment passed and she began to breathe deeply.

I shifted the wooden flower that was slipping from her grasp to the center of her lap. I laid her hands across it. She didn’t stir.

“She’s getting worse every day.” Father continued to carve his bowl. His interest in me was usually so decidedly little it took me a moment to realize he was speaking to me.

“The others in the village are still sick.” I pulled my legs to my chest and wrapped my arms around my knees. A merchant’s wife. The butcher’s daughter. Even little Nissa’s mother. All struck ill, the same day as Mother. The day after I visited the castle.

But Father had little interest in the rest of those ill in the village. He threw the bowl and chisel down into the grass, cradling his forehead. “I don’t know what to do.”

I swallowed. I didn’t know what to say.

Father looked up from his hands. “Will you ask the lord if he can help us?”

“The lord?” I’d tried my best not to think about that night. Even though I always failed. “What could he do?” My voice faltered.

As if in response to my question, I heard the sound of a wooden wheel and the clip-clop, clip-clop of horses’ hooves on the dirt path. It could have been perfectly timed, but the same thing had happened every evening since the specters brought me home the night I met the lord.

The black horses and the carriage burst through the trees and halted in front of our home. A specter sat atop the carriage, his back stiff, his hands clutching the reins. Two specters stepped out of the carriage and stood in front of it, their hands clasped behind their backs, as still as if there was no breath within them.

Now, as always since that first night, I was drawn to their eyes, all of them red like blood on ice. As a child, the eyes had scared me a little. But then I noticed that there was no trace of flame there, and that too set them apart from other unmasked men. Somehow, this made the specters more sad than horrifying.

Father clasped his hands together and leaned his arms over his thighs. He tilted his head toward them. “Go with them. Ask.”

I stood, quickly. “I can’t.” I couldn’t. Going there in the first place had been a terrible mistake. But I couldn’t possibly explain it to Father.

Mother’s eyes fluttered open. She brushed a hand against the hem of my skirt. “Noll … ”

“They’re here again.” I swallowed the sour taste in my throat. “The specters. His servants.”

Father appeared beside Mother, kneeling beside her. “How are you feeling, darling?” He placed the back of his hand against her cheek. “Warm.”

Mother laid a hand on Father’s knee gently. “Gideon, I’m fine.” She turned her head to look up at me. “Does he want you to visit him?”

“I … I think so.” The specters appeared day after day at twilight. If I walked near the carriage, they gestured inside. I’d never once stepped foot in it since that first night it had brought me home.

“She should go visit him,” said Father. “It’s rude of her not to. He ought to be able to see her.”

“Gideon, no.” Mother cupped Father’s cheek in her hand. “How many times have I told you? You can’t rush these things. Let her be.”

It was odd how I’d finally gotten a man of my own as she wanted, and here she was, the only one to counsel patience. I ran the chisel over Arrow’s wooden rump too hard, nicking it. Tossing the figure and the chisel down on the ground in frustration, I sighed and cradled my knees against my chest.

“Aubree—”

Mother put her finger over Father’s mouth to stop him. “Go tell them she’s not coming today.”

He may not have been compelled to follow her orders, but he did anyway. I poked my head out from my knees. “Thank you.”

Mother pulled one of my hands away from my knees to squeeze it. She cradled her wooden lily with her other fingers. “I just want you to be happy. I need to know you’re happy.”

Would I ever be happy again?
“Don’t.” I squeezed her back and did my best to smile. “Don’t talk like that.”

Mother pulled her hand out of mine and placed it over her wooden flower. We sat quietly for a moment. The specters crawled back into the carriage, never once opening their mouths to respond to Father. The driver flicked his wrists, and the horses turned around by crossing the grass. They’d done that so often over the past few months, the lilies were crushed and broken in that small patch of grass in front of our home.

“Noll,” said Mother, her voice quiet. She coughed a few times. “Let love find you.”

“It did.” I clutched my knees even tighter. “And I don’t want it.”
Not from anyone but Jurij.

Mother patted the flower in her lap. “I won’t rush you. It’s not fair that it took so long for love to find you. You haven’t had enough of a chance to get used to it.”

“You mean like Elfriede got used to Jurij?”
Until she tires of him. If she hasn’t already.

Mother nodded weakly. “You were right, you know. She used to be so cold to him. One day, she stood inside the house, helping me wipe the dishes. She looked out the window in the kitchen, at you two running off to play beyond the hills. When she saw you whap him across the side with your tree branch—”

“Elgar.”

Mother smiled. “Right. She asked me, ‘What if I never Return Jurij’s love? What if he’s doomed to walk around with his face hidden forever? What if I send him to the commune?’”

So I was right. She only forced herself to fall in love so she wouldn’t feel guilty.

With a grunt, Mother placed her wooden flower in my lap. “I told her that love, even when you didn’t expect to find it, can prove a beautiful thing.”

And what of the love that never came from where you hoped to find it?

Father kneeled down beside Mother, sliding his arm around her back. I carefully set the wooden lily beside my attempt at a dog and did the same, reaching across her shoulders to support her other side. Father grimaced as I did; he probably hoped to support his goddess all on his own. I wasn’t sorry to disappoint him.

The three of us walked across the knoll and back into the house, a distance that might have taken either Father or I a tenth of the time on our own. Neither of us minded the pace, though, and for once, it was peaceful, with the tepid breeze that rustled the lilies all around us.

I tucked a strand of golden hair behind Mother’s ear just as we reached the door. Father nodded toward it. “Open that, will you?”

As I did so, I got a fairly good view of the figure seated at our table, lit by the small lantern on the table before him. His hand, still clutching the lantern, trembled.

“Luuk? Jurij isn’t here. He and Elfriede—”

“It’s Nissa.” Luuk’s muffled voice was shakier than ever. “Her mother’s dead.”

***

Mother was the last one living. The illness had claimed the lives of three women in the village, one by one.

And because life without a goddess is apparently too much for men to handle, three men died shortly thereafter. Vanished, out of grief. Poor Nissa had no one left but Luuk, and because she was his goddess, Mistress Tailor decided to let her live with them.

Because she was his goddess.
I need to see him. I need to ask him to save Mother.
It was ridiculous. What would I do, command the lord to save her? Why would he be able to save her?
But you have to try.

I let it go four more days after Luuk came looking for Jurij. Four more days of women and men dying. Four more days Mother moved closer to death.

Four days I’d clung to my woodcarving and felt sick to my stomach and let my stubbornness stop me from acting.
Ask him. And then you can tell Father how ridiculous it was to hope for anything.

When the carriage came down the path as the fourth day shifted to evening, I was ready. When the specters opened the door and one extended a hand, I took it.

I clutched my shawl and felt the sweat pour off my palm in waves. The black leather seat beneath me felt hot. The air was stifling. But I had to try. I had to breathe.

Halfway through the woods I felt queasy—my mind playing tricks, that whisper of my full name in my ears—but it soon passed. I straightened my shoulders.
What am I so afraid of? He’s my man. He’ll be happy to see me.
But that was just it. By going, I was acknowledging he was my man.

You can’t run away from this forever.
I’d spent long enough trying.

The carriage ground to a halt too soon, the short trip made even shorter with the horses’ assistance. The door opened and I took a specter’s outstretched palm with my own trembling hand. It was cold, so cold, and I wondered not for the first time how these men could seem so lifeless and still be among the living.

The gates and then the castle doors opened as the specters approached, and I stumbled inside the thunderously shaking castle. Only once I was indoors did the earth settle. The castle wasn’t dark this time. Torches lit the entryway, revealing an empty room, the scene of our first meeting. Even with the slight warmth of the air outside, it felt cold in the castle, like a gust of frigid wind encircled it forever.

I jumped as I felt a hand on my shoulder. Shivering, I turned, expecting to come face to mask with the lord at last, but it was one of the specters. He stepped back and gestured up the nearby staircase. Other specters lined the stairway, each gesturing upward. I cringed at the strange, inviting yet somehow unappealing sight. But I straightened my shoulders, clutched my shawl tighter around my throat, and ascended the stairs.

The line of specters continued onto the second floor and up another stairway to a third. I lost count of how many specters there were, perhaps a hundred, red eyes bearing down on me, red eyes watching from the edge of the light, each with one foot in the darkness. By the time I reached the top of the second flight of stairs, I exhaled, relieved there were no more steps awaiting me. Instead, a line of specters gestured down a hallway, their red eyes watching. I followed the path set out for me, stopping halfway when a line of specters blocked my way.

“I’m here to see the lord.”
Who are these men?

The four specters before me nodded and gestured to an open doorway. I let go of my shawl, rubbed my palms against my skirt to dry them, and stepped in.

The room was huge—far greater even than the cavernous entryway two floors below. But it was practically empty. I followed a long, thin, and threadbare black carpet thrown down over cobblestone flooring. At the edge of the carpet against the wall was a large black chair—a throne, no doubt, like something out of the myths about rulers called kings and queens, only they would have kept their throne rooms on the lower floors of their castles. Above the throne was a sword that glowed violet. A
sword
. Something I’d only seen in drawings for made-up tales about the kings and queens who wielded them. Something there was no use for in everyday life, so there simply was no need for our blacksmith to forge. Axes were for chopping wood. Knives were for butchering and cooking. But a sword? The kings and queens of tales used them to battle, and once men found their goddesses, they simply lost all interest in swordfights and adventure. And most women never had such interests to begin with.