The Woken Gods (24 page)

“Try taking a step,” he says.

I lower my hand to take Oz’s free one, and do as he suggests. I encounter another spectacular oddity. I’m not hobbling along. The shoe has conformed to ensure both my feet are perfectly balanced and light and soundless. We are in our own tiny world. I’m glad the relic demands my attention, distracts me from Oz. Because he’s so near, and there’s no pushing him away. Not yet.

“Remember,” he stage-whispers, “before you think about running off, I’m the one who knows the back way to the second level of the Reading Room.”

“And you’re the one who’d shout my name and get me caught,” I tell him, not letting go of his hand.

“But I’d feel really bad about it,” he says.

“I’m sure.” I envy his certainty that the Society is a force for good. I envy that
kind
of certainty about anything and, at the same time, I’d pluck it out of his brain or his heart – whichever place it lives – if I could. “You wouldn’t be able to sleep at night.”

“You forget,” he says, “I already can’t.”

But I haven’t. That’s something we
do
have in common.

“I didn’t tell you everything yesterday,” he says, and his tone makes me stop and listen. “The truth is I dream about them. My parents. The last time I saw them wasn’t when they were fighting. They were losing. Mom ordered me to hide, and I did… I should’ve done something. Anything.”

“Oz, you were thirteen and not ready,” I point out. “You did what they wanted: you lived.”

He nods. “I just wanted you to know you’re not the only one. With nightmares. With regrets.”

“I already knew that, because the world is full of them.” I wait, poised for him to say more, or maybe for me to. For us to get closer. There’s an intimacy to being within the circle of the relic together, and I try to blame the impulse on that. I shouldn’t want us to get closer, and I definitely shouldn’t wait for it.

“We’d better get that door closed,” I say.

“Right,” he agrees, and lets out a breath in what might be frustration or might be something else entirely.

We silently, magically, make our way back toward the door together, stealthily holding hands. The key spits out into my free hand and I put it back in my pocket. Now for phase two, though all I want is to keep holding on. I’ve never told anyone the stuff I told Oz.

“Kyra?” Oz asks.

I don’t move for a stuttering heartbeat, two. When I turn toward Oz, he’s pointing up the hallway, the way I’m praying he wants to go, because it’s the way Bronson’s reliquary is.

Two ghosts approach us from that direction. The women drift along, long white dresses skirting the marble. They are pale, so pale.

“Is the Jefferson haunted?” I whisper, even though they shouldn’t be able to hear us.

“Worse,” Oz says. “They’re real. They’re our oracles. The Pythias.”

We watch them, me with a different kind of interest. These women are supposed to be like my mother, but they don’t remind me of her. One is far older, stooped and leaning on a younger woman, who walks straight and tall.

“They can’t see us,” I say.

“They shouldn’t be able to. But… They can’t
live
in the room where they have visions, but I have never seen them anywhere else. Never heard of them
being
anywhere else.”

“I want to get a better look,” I say. “We’re safe in here.”

After all, Mom was one of them before. I think of her kohl-rimmed eyes, her ragged black dress. I can’t imagine her given over to such pallor, an eerie purity that’s almost like a reflection in water.

“I don’t know if this is such a good idea,” Oz says.

He doesn’t fight when I pull us forward to meet them. “We’re invisible,” I remind him.

Once we’re close enough to reach out and touch them, I move to one side of the hall and stop. I figure we’ll let them pass us. Then we’ll keep going, on to Bronson’s reliquary. But as they amble by us, the old woman stops. She turns so her milky eyes are, by all appearances, fixed on me. Which is impossible.

“Hello?” I try.

She doesn’t seem to hear. Neither does the other woman. Of
course
, they don’t.

“You are trying to do what you can,” she says. “That is good.”

Oz’s hand tightens on mine. The young woman is looking right at us too.

“Do you think they
can
see us?” I ask.

“It’s not possible,” Oz says. But he hesitates. “Not with their eyes. I suppose…”

“We saw you in the pool,” the young woman says, voice nearly musical, “We needed to tell you something. For your mother and what we owe her. We miss her.”

The old woman says, “We are pleased the brave boy is at your side, as he should be.”

“I’m so dead,” Oz says. “I’ll lose my stripes for this. For bringing you here.”

But the old woman says, “You have nothing to fear from us, boy. And you, sweet Kyra, have more things to fear than I have time to number.”

“I’m not sweet,” I counter, forgetting they can’t hear me.

The old woman’s mouth quirks up at the side. “For now, I will say that you should beware of the crossroads. The crossroads is where bargains are made, deals sealed. Where decisions are done that can’t be undone. Not by anyone. Avoid it if you can.”

“Run,” the young girl says, and it’s as if she’s staring straight at me. Her eyes are black pools. They
do
remind me of Mom. I am within seconds of doing just that. She adds, “Not now, but soon. Run, and remember.”

They continue on their way, drifting off like clouds. I don’t suggest we follow. Oz steps in front of me and places his free hand on my upper arm. His thumb moves against my bicep. “Kyra, are you OK?”

“I don’t know seems to be my only answer today. But I honestly don’t know.”

“Do you know what that meant, about the crossroads?”

“No idea.” But we all know who the god of the crossroads is. Legba. Good thing my plan is to avoid him.

I shake Oz’s hand off my arm. Our linked hands remain clasped together. “We better go,” I say, and start us on our journey back up the hallway. I ignore the slight injury on Oz’s face. I’m not even sure it’s real. It might be what I want to see there.

“The relic that started all this, the Solstice Was,” I say, because where we’re headed next is House Bronson’s reliquary. I have the key in my backpack, and in my other pants pocket, my stripes. I put my hand in to touch the cool metal, making sure. “It’s in Bronson’s keeping, right?”

I put off mentioning it as long as possible, because this should be an alarm bell for Oz. But he appears to be unconcerned.

“No,” he says. “It’s evidence. The gods only believe what they see in front of them. It’s the subject of the trial, so it’s up there.” He pauses. “Did you think the oracles were going for that? They don’t interfere in our affairs. Other than to talk about them. They couldn’t get into a reliquary…” He sounds unsure, and who wouldn’t after being tracked down and talked to while supposedly invisible?

I let him go on while I regroup.

That the relic isn’t down here means I stole Bronson’s key for nothing. It also means I will come face to face with what I engineered all of this to avoid – my dad on trial at the mercy of the gods and my grandfather.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The one thing I have on my side is that from Oz’s perspective nothing has changed in the least.

“Where’s this famous back way to the Reading Room?” I ask him.

“We’re headed there now,” he says.

I glide along beside him, our hands linked as if we’re on the same team. For now, I let it stay that way. I can’t risk the trial ending before we get there.

We don’t go up right away, but instead through an unmarked door to another secret passage that – just when I start to get antsy – connects with a set of stairs that do. Those we take two at a time. There are no more encounters with oracles whose visions allow them to ignore our invisibility, but we pass plenty of operatives. Most go to and fro on guard duty, some gossip together. No one gives any sign of detecting our presence.

I overhear two rangy guys taking bets on Dad’s innocence or guilt and want to thank the one taking Dad’s side… until I learn what his odds are and that he’s only doing it so he can be in the pot, gamble away some money on a colleague’s future. Not because he thinks he’ll win.

“Jackass,” I declare, glad the shoe also hides any sounds we make.

“He is one,” Oz says. “Don’t let it bother you.”

We split off to a hall with no traffic on the second floor, and round a corner. Oz directs me through a door, and from there to a small metal-lined opening in the wall that probably hasn’t been used for anything in years. We duck through the empty spot, crouching awkwardly, and come out below a window and behind a marble arch.

Most of the view is blocked from this angle. But the otherworldly voices can’t be missed. Across empty air, at the top of a swirling reddish brown marble pillar, I glimpse a tall ivory statue perched high above us. She wears a flowing gown and holds a mirror to look behind her. Above is an inscription in gold, from a poem, I think:

One God, one law, one element, and one far-off divine event, to which the whole creation moves
.
Tennyson.

Ironic, given the circumstances. By the words and the mirror together, I recognize her. She’s History. That plus the voices means we are
finally
in the Reading Room.

There will be other towering goddess-like statues level with her, and more normal-life-sized bronze ones of so-called great men on the one below. We’re above the main floor.

The gods are arguing. The sound of it is sharp, hard, fast, confused. They talk over each other – bellowing and booming, raging and raucous. Trying to pick out anything I can decode from the cacophony makes my head
hurt
, as if a nail sits against my eardrum, a hammer poised on the other side. I tune it out the best I can manage and focus on Oz. I have to deal with him before I can go any further.

He says, “It might not be as bad as it sounds. Let’s go see.”

Frown lines crease his forehead when I don’t move right away.

When I do, it’s to raise my hand and rest it against his cheek. “Oz,” I say.

His worry transforms into intensity. He looks at me, his eyes blue and gray, gray and blue, and his face descends toward mine by slow degrees… His lips are near enough he could steal what comes next, except I turn my face to the side to prevent that from happening. I pronounce the word like he taught me, “
Kah-tah-DAY-tay
.
”

I drop my hand from his cheek. He doesn’t move. He can’t.

“Bronson gave me my stripes last night,” I explain. “You tell him I couldn’t let him get away with this. Not if Dad’s the cost. I’m leaving his key with you, though. Tell him not to come after me and maybe someday… maybe we
can
be a family.”

Unlikely, but maybe it will comfort him. Maybe it will even keep him from pursuing me.

Oz stands in the light coming through the window, but he’s hidden from the rest of the room by the columns and arches. He may as well belong here, be in that spot on purpose. Like any of the statues placed just so in this majestic space. He always appears at home in his surroundings, and here, frozen in his navy uniform in the sunlight, is no different.

“Oz,” I lean in, close to his ear, lowering my voice. “You can’t trust people, not like you do. Not people like me. Tell them whatever you need to. I don’t mind.” I move so he can see me paste on a fake smile, shrug one falsely carefree shoulder. I want this to strike him as genuine. I don’t want him to feel bad about betraying
me
. “It’s all probably true, so do your worst.”

I don’t say I’m sorry, because there is no reason for him to believe I am. Sorry is what people say when they are unwilling to do anything but what they want, or when they can’t do anything at all. I might as well ask for forgiveness, and I don’t expect that either.

Slowly, I withdraw my hand from Oz’s, so at least the sight of me no longer plagues him. I’m alone again within the transparent bubble of Vidarr’s stealth. I place Bronson’s key at Oz’s feet, slide the straps of my backpack over my shoulders. Then I slip from behind the column to get a better look at what lies ahead.

Three levels’ worth of flawlessly grand statues and paintings and wide marble columns are crowned by a high dome. I have the benefit of my childhood, allowed – on occasion – to explore even here, off limits to all but researchers then. Off limits to all but gods and Society heads now.

The main floor below is surrounded by inset rows of shelves packed with reference volumes. That the thick books with faded lettering on the spines remain in place is a comfort. The world hasn’t changed
that
much, if they’re still here.

But maybe it’s changed
more
. The desks and central dais that used to be down there have been removed, so that the gods can range freely in a loose circle, too agitated to keep still. I hold onto the rail, dizzied by the attempt to take them in at once.

With a broad furry chest and the head of his namesake, Coyote paces, his tongue lolling to one side in between exchanges with the god lounging against a nearby pillar. Hermes. Twelve feet tall in blinding white robes, a gold wreath atop his head of angelic blond curls, wings fluttering on his thick sandals. His skin is a golden brown, as if the sun reflects off him even here, inside. He wears an expression of faint amusement, as if he’s above the fray.

Loki has a fearsome elfish face, red hair and beard curling like flames on every side of his massive shoulders, and he’s in deep conversation with Legba. Who is amused, as usual, by the look of his grin. He taps his cane against the carpet, and his suit strikes me as a touch fancier than the ones I’ve seen him in so far.

I remember the oracle’s words, and wish she would have told me something more useful. Anyone who’s met Legba would know to avoid him. Anyone who’s met any of these gods should be wiser than to desire a repeat experience.

Take the next god in the quorum. He might be mistaken for some alien monster. Tezcatlipoca has a yellow and black striped face over an enormous blocky body that features a gleaming black mirror set square in his chest. There are rumors that occasional human sacrifices present themselves to meet the day on the flat top of Tezcatlipoca House, their hearts offered as food for the gods, but no one is alive who can vouch for it. Despite that, he has a devoted following. He shows interest only in the two gods in greatest conflict.