The Hidden Goddess (14 page)

Their steps echoed dully against the stacks of leather-bound books. Finally they came to a door over which was written, in letters of gold, “Social Practices and Customs.” The room was lined with dark wood shelving, close packed with books and smelling of parchment and vellum and ink. Miss Jesczenka went straight to the circulation desk, where a young man sat in close concentration before a pot of ink that was levitating in the air directly before his eyes.

“Excuse me,” Miss Jesczenka said softly, but not softly enough; the young man startled and flinched. The pot of ink began to fall—but before it could hit the desk, Miss Jesczenka darted out a hand to catch it without spilling a drop.

“Thanks awfully,” he said. “I ruined a whole ledger of entries that way, just last week—” As he reached up to take the pot of ink from her, he realized for the first time just who was standing before him. He blanched. “Oh! Professor! I didn’t know … forgive me …” He hurried to stand, brushing his hands on his trousers and smoothing back his hair.

“I need the Boston Social Register,” Miss Jesczenka said.

“Certainly,” the young man said crisply. “Allow me to fetch it for you.”

The young man was gone and back in moments, bearing a thick volume.

“It’s an updating copy, just refreshed this month, so it should be current.” He laid it on a nearby table for their use.

“Updating copy?” Emily asked, as she came to peer over Miss Jesczenka’s shoulder at the book, on which the title
Boston Social Register
was stamped in gilt letters.

“It automatically updates itself with current information every quarter.” Miss Jesczenka opened the book, and pointed out the date: June 1876.

“But if my mother were in it, she wouldn’t be in it now,” Emily said. “She died when I was five … in 1856, I guess that would make it.”

“By 1856, she wouldn’t have been Miss Kendall anymore,” Miss Jesczenka pointed out. “So let’s start with 1850, a year before you were born. She should still have been Miss Kendall then.”

Miss Jesczenka gestured to the clerk. He came over with great dispatch, a look of helpful eagerness on his face.

“We need this returned to 1850,” she said, handing him the book.

“Certainly, Professor Jesczenka. Of course you’re welcome to use the Chronos Cabinet yourself, if you’ve got several years you need to return to.”

They followed the young man to the desk, behind which was a large ebonized cabinet, decorated with scrolling floral patterns. On its lid was a series of wheels, white dials enameled with black numbers. The young man turned the wheels with his thumb. Then he opened the cabinet and laid the book inside.

“I’ll be just here if you need me,” he said, taking his seat and resuming his attempts at ink-pot levitation.

“What is this thing?” Emily asked as Miss Jesczenka closed the lid of the cabinet and latched it shut. She pulled down a large handle on the cabinet’s side. There was a small whirring sound, like the sound of something being sucked up through a pneumatic tube.

“The space within the cabinet reorients itself briefly to the year you direct it to,” Miss Jesczenka said, waiting a moment before she raised the handle and lifted the lid. “Anything inside it returns to that year as well.” She lifted the volume out of the cabinet, laid it on the counter before her, and opened the cover. Emily read the date on the frontispiece.

June 1850
.

“Would that work with anything?” Emily breathed, astonished. “If you put a cat in there and turned the dial back a year or two, would it come out a kitten?”

The young man sniffed disapprovingly from his chair. “Don’t think there aren’t cutups around here who haven’t tried it.”

“It’s not advisable,” Miss Jesczenka said. “Living creatures are not meant to travel in time.”

“Can it be turned forward?” Emily persisted. “Could we find out who is going to be in the Boston Social Register in 1900?”

The young man stifled a chuckle. Miss Jesczenka gave him a frosty glance.

“No, Miss Edwards, because 1900 hasn’t happened yet.” She said this so kindly that Emily was willing to overlook the slight smile that curved her lips. “Now, Kendall …”

She leafed through the pages until she found the K’s, then let her slim finger travel down the columns. It stopped at a point on the middle of page 132.

“Kendall,” she read. “Rev. and Mrs. James (Emily Grace Nesbitt).” And, below that, connected by a line, read “Kendall, Miss Catherine Olivia.”

Emily felt her heart flutter, leaned forward for a better look. There it was, in black and white. Catherine Olivia Kendall. And other names, too, the names of Catherine Kendall’s parents … Emily’s grandparents. And beside the line that connected them, an address.

Emily’s mouth felt dry again, and she longed for another drink of the ice water that Miss Jesczenka had given her when she’d stepped out of the Haälbeck door.

“Pemberton Square,” Miss Jesczenka mused. “I believe that was a good address in those days.”

So it was entirely possible that her mother was respectable, Emily thought. On one hand, it was nice to think that she might be able to lay claim to an actual heritage even more respectable than the cattle-baron history the Institute wanted to manufacture for her. But on the other hand, it raised so many more questions than it answered. How did a respectable girl from Boston end up frozen to death in Lost Pine? Why would a respectable girl from Boston be looking for the Sini Mira?

“Now, we need to find exactly when she ceased to be a Kendall and took on her husband’s name,” Miss Jesczenka’s voice broke through Emily’s thoughts. “The register is updated every quarter, in January, April, July, and November. We’ll just have to go one by one until Miss Kendall vanishes and Mrs. Whoever-She-Is shows up on the marriages page.”

They didn’t have far to look. They advanced the book through the remaining issue of 1850—November—and Miss Kendall remained firmly entrenched below her parents. But
when the register was advanced to January 1851, her name was missing from below James and Emily Kendall’s.

“I believe we’ve got her!” said Miss Jesczenka, turning quickly to the page titled “Marriages of 1851.” Miss Jesczenka ran her finger carefully down the page, and Emily looked intently over her shoulder, but Catherine Kendall’s name did not appear on the marriages page. Miss Jesczenka said nothing, but advanced the register to the next issue—April 1851. Still no Miss Kendall, and no wedding. Miss Jesczenka tried a third and last time, advancing the register to the July 1851 issue, before she finally closed the book.

“Thank you, we’re finished with it now.” Miss Jesczenka returned the book to the young clerk. “You’ve been a great help.”

“My pleasure, Professor,” he said, the ink pot hovering satisfactorily before his eyes.

Miss Jesczenka seemed sober as they walked back; Emily couldn’t help but notice the furrow in her brow.

“Well, we found something, at least,” Emily ventured. Inwardly, she was bubbling with excitement, but there was something in Miss Jesczenka’s face that worried her.

“We found more than you may like,” Miss Jesczenka said quietly. She looked around them to make sure that no one was close enough to hear her next words. “Miss Edwards, there’s only one reason a woman’s name would be expunged from the Social Register like that. She got into a … difficulty.”

Emily stood stock-still, looked at her. “A difficulty?”

“The date of her expungement coincides with the time she would have been carrying you. Don’t you understand what that means?”

Emily shook her head. Miss Jesczenka sighed.

“Your father, whoever he was, was not married to your mother.”

Emily was silent for a long moment. The excitement in her chest took on a slightly queasy cast.

“So I’ve gone from orphan to bastard in one fell swoop?”

“I am afraid so,” Miss Jesczenka said. “No one needs to know, of course—”

“Of course not,” Emily muttered. No problem at all. The Institute would pay people to believe she was some mysterious cattle baron’s daughter, and the fact that she’d sprung from the wrong side of the sheets would be covered up just as completely as the fact that she’d grown up in a timber camp in California. The shortcomings of her unseemly history would be eradicated with the Institute’s money and power—because she was going to be the wife of the Sophos, and the wife of the Sophos had to be beyond reproach.

“Miss Jesczenka,” Emily asked as they reached the threshold of the Library’s main door, “what does fait accompli mean, exactly?”

“Something already done,” Miss Jesczenka said. “Something that cannot be helped.”

And at that moment, Emily felt very fait accompli indeed.

It didn’t take long—from the Library doors to the high vaulted Main Hall—for Emily’s despondency to mellow and her excitement to rekindle. Well, she was a bastard. So what? She was no worse off than she’d been before. If Stanton was willing to marry someone with no parents, he should be willing to marry someone with just one. And she was more excited at having discovered a mother—a real mother whose existence could be empirically verified—than at losing some small measure of legitimacy. She had a mother, and her name was Catherine Kendall, and the Sini Mira were looking for her. And Emily was going to find out why.

“What is the time?” Emily asked as they headed back toward her rooms.

Miss Jesczenka consulted the gold watch that hung at her waist. “Nearly nine-thirty. Why?”

“I’ll see myself up,” Emily said. “I’m going to drop in on Emeritus Zeno.”

Miss Jesczenka quirked an eyebrow, indicating that Emily’s whimsical fancy to “drop in” on the father of modern credomancy was unprecedented, but she said nothing.

Emily said her good-nights to Miss Jesczenka at the Veneficus Flame. The flame burned in the uplifted hand of a wise-looking goddess whose statue occupied an honored
place in the very heart of the Institute. As had become her habit, Emily looked up at the flame that the goddess held aloft, pleased to see how high and strong it was burning. To her, the strength of the Veneficus Flame was the material representation of the benefits she’d bought at the price of her hand. The knife flashing down, the dull thud, the sudden blinding pain … the memories made her wince. If only she could trade
those
memories for the ones in the Lethe Draught.

She shivered and laid her living hand on the goddess’ ankle, closing her eyes to steady herself. She could feel the power surging beneath the smooth cool surface, the strength of the Mantic Anastomosis rushing beneath her fingers. And then, suddenly:

Treachery
.

Emily’s heart jerked, and she pulled her hand from the statue as if she’d been burned. A message from Ososolyeh, as clear as if the word had been whispered in her ear. She looked around the darkened hall, but there was no one there. Her heart beat in her throat as she hurried away from the statue. Wasn’t that just her luck lately—to look for comfort and find only something more alarming.

She turned down the hall to Zeno’s office, pausing when she heard the sound of men talking around the corner. It was probably just a few students, or a cluster of instructors. None of them had ever paid a moment’s attention to Emily. She was willing to wager nine-tenths of them didn’t have the slightest clue who she was or why she was hanging around the Institute. She kept on walking.

But as she turned the corner, it wasn’t an instructor or a student that she ran into.

It was Rex Fortissimus.

Fortissimus wasn’t a large man—he was a little over medium height and somewhat paunchy of build—but he carried himself like a colossus. He had neatly groomed steel-gray hair, a luxurious silver mustache, and the sharpest, whitest teeth Emily had ever seen. He wore a ring on every finger—two on some. His watch chain glittered with jeweled
fobs and ornaments, and the enormous blazing diamond set in his gold stickpin made Emily frown at her own ring. The thought of the Institute buying her engagement ring was bad enough, but the thought of Fortissimus procuring it from his own jeweler—some snooty joint, no doubt—was simply unbearable.

Fortissimus was wearing evening clothes and an overcoat and had his gloves in his hat. Even though he was dressed to go out he stood entirely immobile, critically examining a large swag of gold bunting. He was surrounded by a group of tired-looking laborers.

“I’m so sorry,” Emily said quickly when Fortissimus finally noticed her. What was it about Fortissimus that always made her apologize?

“Miss Edwards,” he said, flashing his white teeth at her scornfully. “Good evening.”

Suddenly Emily regretted very much not having changed into a dinner gown; she felt Fortissimus’ eyes over every inch of her limp and rumpled afternoon dress. She crossed her hands in front of her and attempted to look composed.

“Where is Miss Jesczenka?” Fortissimus’ eyes continued to scan Emily’s body, as if she might have secreted Miss Jesczenka somewhere on her person. “Is it not her duty to accompany you?”

Keep me from causing trouble, you mean
, Emily thought. “Oh, I just … I was just stretching my legs.”

“It would be better if you
took your exercise
away from the master’s wing,” Fortissimus said, obviously unwilling to let a reference to Emily’s legs proceed from his lips. “Emeritus Zeno must not be disturbed.”

“Of course,” Emily said. “I didn’t know you had business with him tonight.”

“I do not,” Fortissimus said curtly. “But I fear that the arrangements for the Investment tomorrow haven’t been seen to with the care I’d hoped.” He directed the last words like spitballs at the hangdog laborers standing before him. “But correcting such incompetence will have to wait until morning, as I have an engagement this evening.” The way he said “an engagement” made it sound as if he was having the
Empress Eugenie over to buff his nails. This infuriated Emily, and she lifted her chin impetuously.

“Yes, if by ‘an engagement’ you mean beer at Delmonico’s,” she said, striving to match his supercilious tone. “Mr. Stanton told me.”

“Most gentlemen would hesitate to impart such knowledge to a lady,” Fortissimus said. “Perhaps next time Mr. Stanton volunteers such vulgar information about his schedule, you could remind him that you are his fiancée, not some common female who is expected to take such things as a matter of course.”