The Atheist's Daughter (14 page)

How could it? They were already blind to the world around them. What made them think they could see magicks?

Held in Miss Sweet’s fingers, the rock opened itself to her. Across its face, dots of color appeared. Shimmering, the dots spun, faster and faster, becoming an unrecognizable swirl.

Inside the swirl, an image formed. It was a middle-aged man of average height, his body starting to soften. He sat alone in his house, the light of a television set shining onto him and his overstuffed chair.

Miss Sweet said, “He waits in solitude. He has no one.” The swirl swept over him, a wave of red. “His heart aches.”

“For who? I mean, is there someone he wants? Someone he needs?”

Miss Sweet gave thought to her question and the answer appeared. A silver-haired woman stood inside a small fenced yard. A hedge trimmer in hand, she shaped the branches of a small green bush.

The woman was not Mary Ellen Stark.

“There is,” Miss Sweet said. The view of the woman wavered before her then froze. It became a still picture, its color disappearing. Like a picture, it curled at the edges then blackened, crumbled, and disappeared. “She’s gone.”

“Gone?”

“She died.”

Mary Ellen’s eyes brightened. “Then there’s a chance – ?”

Miss Sweet shook her head. “I don’t see you with him.”

“Jack has always had a thing for me. Even before he met Diana.”

“All I can offer is the truth.”

“What you
say
is the truth!”

Someone came up the stairway, taking the stairs with a heavy step. Raising her eyes, Miss Sweet gazed past Mary Ellen and into the hallway.

No one was there.

Undoubtedly, the candlelight had let the others know she was at work. Whoever this new visitor was, they were staying out of sight. Eavesdropping on her words. Listening for whatever she might say next to her new client.

Which meant it had to be Mr. Locke. If Alice Poe was true to form, she was standing next to him, her fingers locked in his.

Not because she wished to know of this woman’s future. Only because she was oblivious to her own.

“Enough of what isn’t to be,” Miss Sweet said. “Instead, let me consider the life you have yet to live.”

Inside the stone, the dots turned to mist. Through the mist, Mary Ellen slept on her bed. A new vision of Mary Ellen formed, still sleeping, but slightly thinner.

Again –

Again –

Again, she appeared. Growing older with each new appearance. “You have five years ahead of you.”

“Only five?”

“The next five years is all I’m given. All I’m allowed to see.” The mist blew across the center of the stone. Inside, Mary Ellen held a letter, weeping onto the page in front of her. 

“The first year will be marred by sorrow.”

Her sentence stirred the lurkers in the hallway. The corridor creaked unhappily as Mr. Locke went down the hall. Alice Poe followed after him, mewing words of weak comfort.

Unseen winds shifted inside the seer stone, sending a cloud of dots swirling around the woman inside. When Miss Sweet saw Mary Ellen’s image, she was on a hospital stretcher, her eyes closed as she was pushed forward.

“The second year is marred by disease.”

The fog covered the vision of the woman. When it lifted, it showed her in the embrace of a gray-haired man. The man was a stranger to Miss Sweet. Short and rotund, he wasn’t Jackson Lawrence.

The tiny image of Mary Ellen beamed as the stranger leaned in to kiss her.

“In the third year, you’ll find joy.” She raised her hands from the stone.

“What kind of joy?”

“It’s vague, uncertain.” Her lips tingled, threatening to melt. Reluctantly, she said, “I saw a man, well-dressed, with short, gray hair. He was holding you.”

“I don’t know anyone like that.”

“In three years, you will.”

Clearly doubtful, Mary Ellen stood from the table. “What else?”

“Let some time pass and we can talk again.”

“You talked about five years.”

“That’s what I seek for my clients. Five years of strength and good health. Five years of happiness. Five perfect years.” Miss Sweet puffed at the flame of the closest candle. “Do you know how hard that is to find?”

Mary Ellen shifted the strap of her purse. “Are you really a gypsy?”

“I never said I was a gypsy.”

“So you’re not.”

“My people came before the gypsies. Before the Travelers. Our people have ever been.”

The second candle’s light passed over the folds in her sour face. She blew on its wick and the candle vanished into darkness. With pride, Miss Sweet said, “We will ever be. We are the Unending.”

Mary Ellen shivered, as if she felt a chill run down her spine. “I’d better go.”

* * *

Tall and slim and perfect, he waited at her bedroom window. When she’d seen him the first time, his skin was the color of caramel. His hair was straight and black, his eyes warm and brown. The first time, he seemed more beautiful than one of the Gods.

Now, nearly empty, he still made her heart race. A translucent statue, he scowled at the street below them.

“There she goes,” Mr. Locke said. “Flawed. Useless.”

“You have to be patient.”

“Because she says we have to be patient, right? It’s the only reason, isn’t it? We do as she tells us.”

Yes
, Alice Poe thought,
but there’s wisdom in what Mrs. Norton says. It never hurts to be patient. Patience can feed our family. A rash act can send us all running.

I’m so tired of running.

On the street, a car engine purred to life. Watching as its headlights illuminated an empty sidewalk, Mr. Locke said, “Miss Sweet wastes her time with these old ones. She should focus on the young. They have the years we need. Most of them have five times the years we need!”

“They have to be of age.”

“You don’t think I know?” Releasing the window curtain, he turned to her. “You’ve told me often enough. Everyone here treats me as if I’m fresh from the Void. It’s been a year.”

“Nearly a year.”

“If we took the meat at seventeen years old, eighteen years old, we’d have more than enough for our needs. We could all feed tomorrow.”

“There’s too much turmoil at that age. Upheaval, uncertainty, change. Such things are hard on us. To avoid it, Miss Sweet would have to see a hundred –”

“Then bring her a hundred! There’s no shortage of them!”

Not responding, Alice Poe knitted her fingers together.

Mr. Locke rubbed his hand across his eyes. “How many of their kind did she see this week?”

“Fifteen.”

“To find one. One we can use.”

“She’ll find others.”

“Not soon enough.” He pushed her and she fell upon the bed frame’s bare mattress. He towered over her. Even this depleted, he appeared so powerful. So ready to act.

She felt frightened.

She felt aroused.

“Did the Dark Ones give me this body,” he said, sweeping his hands down his bare chest, “only to have me starve?”

He waited above her, posing. Alice Poe wanted him and she knew he sensed it. She knew, too, how little he wanted her.

It should have mattered and it did – but not enough. She’d never desired anyone more. “You’ll feed. Just not yet.”

Contempt filled his eyes. When he spoke, his words were so deep as to have come from the Void itself.  “I’m
hunnnnnnnngry
.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Mr. Locke’s growl came to her from the adjoining room. His words were lost behind the walls but Mrs. Norton knew what he wanted. What they
all
wanted, even her.

Everything in due time.

She scratched a wooden match across the face of the ceramic table. The match flared to life, smelling pleasantly of phosphorus, and she touched its head to the wick of a squat, turquoise candle. A bead of flame caught hold, grew larger, and licked at the air beneath her hand.

At a push of her fingers, the bedroom door slid closed. Its latch caught so quietly she barely heard it.

Its walls painted gray, its only window painted over, the room was nearly as black as a tomb, with only the wavering finger of the candle’s flame providing any light. In the middle of the room, barely visible in the gloom, was a large, raised platform. Invisible in the shadows, a black cabinet filled the chamber’s furthest corner.

This was her space. The others knew they were not welcome here, especially during her time of worship. For safety’s safe, she’d arranged for Miss Sweet to be occupied and given Alice Poe and Mr. Locke new chores.

While Alice Poe worked, Mr. Locke would hide himself away. Neither one would come to her door. She didn’t concern herself with Mr. Brass. Unless she called him, he wouldn’t dare interrupt her.

Years ago, shortly after he’d entered her service, he’d been punished for his curiosity. He never wanted to be punished again.

Tonight, she couldn’t indulge in her usual communion. She wouldn’t chant from the Book of Forgotten Lies; she wouldn’t drink from the Cup of Misery; there would be no animal sacrifices. The canary she’d purchased would remain caged in the café’s storage unit, trilling in terror.

Maybe I’ll let it starve
, she thought mildly.

This particular bird acted less stupidly than most of its kind. If she let it die, no one would notice. Besides, pet stores kept a flock of the yellow things. The clerks never questioned why she wanted a new one every seven days.

She’d always been comforted by her weekly rituals but dared not enjoy herself tonight. She had a question to ask her gods and an interruption at an inopportune time could have dire consequences for them all. It was best if she acted quickly.

Carrying the candle’s silver holder to the cabinet, Mrs. Norton watched as the box’s intricate carvings danced below the yellow light. When she rested the base of the holder on top of the container, the carvings hissed at her.

“Foul mood, my little
Wunderkammer
?”

The engraved images shifted and flowed, circling the candle holder and reaching for it. Trapped in ebony, they  writhed unhappily, forming and reforming, but forever unable to escape their lacquered prison.

Grasping a pair of ivory handles, Mrs. Norton opened the cabinet doors. Pulling out the first of the container’s four drawers, she considered the offerings  there.

Not many left. I’ll have to tell Mr. Brass.

Pinching a thin rectangle between her forefinger and thumb, she laid it onto the palm of her opposite hand. Soon, eight tiny strips had been collected. Two of the rectangles were nearly as dark as the box itself. Two were brown in color and the remaining four were in varying shades of peach.

All were marked with letters and a number, the symbols inked by her hand. Other than the markings upon them, there was nothing distinctive about the rectangles. Each piece was more common than a blister beetle, more fragile than paper. Each specimen had come from an individual donor but only one of these sections had been donated willingly.

At her command, Mr. Brass would walk the streets, seeking more of the wards, but even he had grown tired of the chore. It would be less challenging if people weren’t so possessive about their skin.

She circled the room, placing each
telesma
. Soon, the walls, the doorway and the black window were locked. Only the ceiling remained unsealed and available as a portal to other dimensions.

From this point on, Mrs. Norton would have to suffer. At one time, she’d have gloried in the pain, stimulated by the heat of her discomfort. Now, there was only the knowledge of the danger ahead. 

To her surprise, she felt a whisper of...
something
... drumming quietly inside of her. Was it fear?

If so, there was reason. Once released into the world, few of the Unending dared scratch at the Void’s door. One errant note, one misplaced sound, and the wrong deity might answer. Summoned without cause, an angry god might choose to return a careless supplicant to the fold.

How long had it been since she was afraid? Decades?

Inside the cabinet’s lowest, deepest drawer was her blade, wicked and cursed. She lifted the knife from its bed. Refusing to indulge herself in the luxury of hesitation, she clutched its handle tightly. The thousand tiny needles mounted on the hilt impaled her palm, biting into her.

Mrs. Norton gasped but held her voice. As the wires pierced her hand, there was a
swoosh
of sound. The candlelight vanished as air escaped from the room. The strips of skin brightened, each rectangle glowing, as the space around her lost its light. The dark blade in her hand turned white, its luminosity guiding her to the platform at the center of the room.