The Hidden Goddess (23 page)

“I’ll be fine,” Emily promised, but was sharply aware of having learned that it was a promise she should not make.

After breakfast, the concierge called Emily a cab, and Miss Jesczenka hovered protectively by the hotel’s front door as she climbed into it. Emily gave the driver the address they had found in the Boston Social Register, and he touched his cap smartly.

The cab took her to Pemberton Square. Tall redbrick houses rose high up on each side of the broad cobbled street. The street itself was bisected by fenced garden plots that probably used to contain neat flower beds, but now contained small kitchen gardens. Here and there, laundry was hung out over the black-enameled fencing that held the sidewalk at arm’s length from the homes. Children played on stoops. On one set of stairs sat a man in his shirtsleeves, apparently indifferent to the overcast sky, reading a paper. It seemed friendly and cozy to Emily.

The cab stopped before a large home. It was very evenly balanced in construction, with four windows on each side of the house and a large red-painted front door right in the middle. There was a fan window above the door, and stone urns that held nothing more than dirt and the twiggy remnants of dead geraniums.

Emily climbed the steps. The front door had a small iron-barred grille in its center that could be slid open from behind to judge prospective callers. On a scuffed and tarnished brass plate beside the door was engraved
The Reverend James Kendall
, with a simple cross shown beneath it. This was the right place.

Taking a deep breath, Emily rapped her knuckles against the wood. The sound hung in the air.

There was no answer for some time, though Emily could hear shufflings behind the door. The little sliding door behind the iron grille was jerked open, and two eyes peered out at her. They peered for quite a long time, Emily thought. Then, finally, the door cracked open slowly.

An elderly maid in limp black and white leaned against the edge of the door, her heavy face pale and slack. She stared at Emily, dumbfounded. The careful words Emily had prepared to introduce herself evaporated at the sight of the woman’s obvious shock; Emily half wondered if she’d have to catch her from a dead faint. But after a moment the old woman managed to force two whispered words past her leathery lips.

“Miss Catherine.”

CHAPTER TEN

Creature of Filth

“No,” Emily said, staring at the stricken old woman. “My name is Emily. Emily Edwards. I’m here to see … Mrs. Kendall.” Remembering, she felt for a card, one of the new ones she’d had made, engraved in simple black letters.

The maid blinked. Emily tried to hand her the card, but the old woman would not take it.

“I’ve come from New York,” Emily fumbled for something to say. “From California, actually—”

“Wait,” the maid blurted and disappeared from the door, closing it loudly. Emily stood on the doorstep, her face flushed. The woman had recognized her—or rather, had recognized her mother in her. Emily’s heart pounded like a drum, blood rushing madly between her ears.

There was more shuffling behind the door, and more sounds. Emily heard a muffled: “Don’t be silly, Liddy!” and small crisp steps coming toward the door. Then the door was jerked open to reveal another old woman, different from the maid in every respect. She was neat and small and pretty, with smooth white hair. Emily was sure she would look nicer without the expression of anger and suspicion that disfigured her face. Her mouth was set in a way that said she was about to tell Emily to shove off, but then her eyes caught Emily’s. The blood drained from her face, but she did not falter. If anything, she stood up even straighter.

“You do look like her,” she said softly. “Very much.”

“My name is Emily Edwards,” Emily said. “Or Kendall. I
don’t really know. I’ve come … I’ve come to speak with you about Catherine Kendall. She was my mother.”

The woman blinked, her face softening for a moment, then hardening again abruptly. “Was?” she said. “She is dead, then?”

Emily nodded.

The old woman blew out a breath, as though a long-held suspicion had finally been confirmed.

“Come in,” she said.

Emily was shown into a large sitting room, and though she hardly considered herself au courant in matters of fashion, even she could tell that the decor was severely outdated. The furniture in the room was gothic and austere, all angles and corners. There was a notable absence of the kinds of ornamentation—needlepoint pillows and wax flowers, cut paper and painted china—that Emily had become accustomed to. One prominent piece of decoration, however, caught Emily’s eye. On the wall, a simple red cross. Her heart thumped nervously, but she pushed the anxiety away. Lots of people had crosses in their homes, she thought. And red was a very popular color.

The old woman perched on the edge of a horsehair settle.

“My name is Emily, too,” she said.

“I know this is very unexpected.” Emily clutched her reticule tightly. The action made the diamond ring on her finger flash like a shooting star. The speck of brilliance was sufficient to draw Mrs. Kendall’s attention to Emily’s good hand, and from there to her prosthetic of ivory. The old woman looked away from the appendage quickly. Emily cursed herself for forgetting to wear gloves.

“And you believe Catherine was your mother?” The old woman’s voice caught upon speaking her daughter’s name. “In what manner do you intend to support this claim?” There was a high tense note in the woman’s voice, both eager and forbidding, as if she wanted Emily to both prove and disprove her kinship.

“I have this.” Emily pulled out the calling card with her mother’s name on it. She showed the card to the old woman,
who took it with trembling hands. “That’s how I found you. It was in my mother’s things.”

“My daughter handed out hundreds of cards,” Mrs. Kendall said, turning the card over with slender fingers. “That means nothing.”

“There are also these.” Emily reached into the reticule and withdrew the hair sticks, holding them out for Mrs. Kendall to examine. The woman shook her head curtly.

“I have never seen them before.”

Emily fought discouragement. Was it possible this was all an elaborate mistake? It just couldn’t be. She leaned forward, gesturing to her ears.

“And these,” she said. “She was wearing them when she died.”

This time, the old woman paused. She leaned forward, too, so that she could more closely scrutinize the eardrops. She lifted a trembling hand, touched one of the glimmering amethysts, then let her hand drop wearily. She said nothing, but stood, and went to the drawer of a tall sideboard. She pulled out a velvet box. Without a word, she handed the box to Emily.

Awkwardly, aware that Mrs. Kendall was watching her, Emily opened the box. Inside there was a velvet separator with a place for earrings and a necklace. The earrings were missing, but Emily knew exactly where they were—in her ears. The necklace was there, a perfect match.

“Tell me what happened to her,” Mrs. Kendall said.

“I don’t know all of it,” Emily said, thinking guiltily of the bottle of memories and the knowledge that this woman would relish of her daughter. “She died in California, at a place called Lost Pine. I was with her. She was going to San Francisco—”

“San Francisco?” Mrs. Kendall snapped in disbelief. “Why on earth would she go there?”

“I don’t know,” Emily said. “That’s why I’ve come to you—”

“What do you want here?” The words came from the doorway. Emily looked up and saw an old man with a sour face and acidic eyes. Tufts of white hair stood out over his ears. He
wore a suit of black and a priest’s collar. He bore an electricity of anger into the room with him, anger that focused on Emily.

“James!” Mrs. Kendall said, taking one unconscious step back from him.

“I asked what you want here, young woman.” Mr. Kendall’s words were for Emily alone, spat with barely restrained fury.

“I wanted to meet you,” Emily whispered.

“Why?” he barked.

“Because Catherine Kendall was my mother.”

“My daughter is dead,” the old man said. “And any bastard she had died with her. Or should have.”

“No,” Emily said. “I didn’t die. I was raised up in California. I have her earrings—”

“You could have gotten those anywhere.”

“James, please,” the old woman said. “Look at her. She looks just like Catherine.”

“And a poisonous mushroom looks edible until you die from eating one.” The old man looked sidelong at his wife. “The Russians have been back here, Mother. They steal my daughter, lead her to a strange death somewhere in the wilderness, and then they have the brass to come back!”

“James!” Mrs. Kendall said. “What did they want?”

“They were here less than a week ago, asking me questions about Catherine, and about
you
.” The last word was punched at Emily.

“The Russians?” Emily said softly, the words catching in her throat. “The Sini Mira?”

“Oh, you know about them, do you?” Mr. Kendall came closer to her, so close she could smell the mentholatum and talc on his clothes. “If you think that knowing will help your cause, young woman, you’re wrong.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Mrs. Kendall said to him, her voice low and hot.

“I saw no need.” The Reverend Kendall’s eyes continued to burn into Emily. “I didn’t want you to know. She was raised a
Witch
, Mother. And she intends to marry a
Warlock
.” The word “Warlock” was spoken with such disdain that
Rev. Kendall’s mouth went through precisely four discrete contortions.

Mrs. Kendall lifted her hand to her mouth.

“No,” she whispered against her fingers. “It can’t be.”

Emily’s amorphous fears seemed to coagulate all at once as she saw the horror in the eyes of the woman who had just begun to soften toward her. Now there were two pairs of hostile eyes scrutinizing her. The red cross on the wall wasn’t just an ornament. It
did
mean what she’d feared.

Emily remembered New Bethel, the knife-faced preacher and his parishioners, Stanton tied in preparation for being burned at the stake for the sin of being a Warlock … they had been adherents to an ultraconservative theology, Eradicationists who wanted to see all Witches and Warlocks wiped from the face of the earth …

“You’re Scharfians,” Emily whispered.

“I count the good brother as one of my closest friends,” Rev. Kendall said. “My church was the first in Boston to loose itself from the shackles of sinful appeasement and reform under the Scharfian banner. The banner of decency and godliness.” His voice seemed to gain intensity as he spoke. “You are a sinner, girl. You are a foul and accursed thing, an abomination before the Lord—”

“There’s nothing wrong with being a Witch,” Emily stammered, standing quickly. She suddenly felt as if she might need to flee at any moment. “And the fact that I’m a Witch doesn’t have anything to do with what I came for—”

“You came here to make some claim to being a Kendall,” the old man interrupted. “But even if my daughter did have the misfortune to give you life, you’re no Kendall. The Kendalls have hated Witches for three hundred years. The hatred is in our very blood.”

Emily said nothing, but felt her way backward, toward the archway that led to the hall that led to the front door.

“The Kendall family moved to Boston only recently,” Rev. Kendall said, driving her before him as he advanced on her, step by step, fingers held like claws.

“James, no,” Mrs. Kendall said, under her breath. He did not seem to hear her.

“We arrived in Boston a hundred years ago. Before that, we were residents of Salem.” He paused. “We were Witch hunters. Celebrated Witch hunters. My great-grandfather personally executed two hundred Warlocks, and almost as many Witches. Burned most of them. Hung a few. Chopped the heads off the rest. Hell-shackled sinners, each and every one. Sinners just like you.”

He had backed her all the way to the front door. The large brass doorknob pressed into the small of her back. He stopped right before her, his face a mask of abhorrence.

“Mark my words, creature of filth.” Spittle flecked her cheek; she did not dare reach up and wipe it off. “If I have anything to do with it, you and everyone like you will be dead before the century is out.”

“James, please,” Mrs. Kendall was saying. She was coaxing him backward with pleading hands laid on his arm. It gave Emily just enough space to reach behind herself and open the front door.

“Leave my house.” Kendall shook his wife’s hand away as Emily hurried out the door and down the steps. The old man watched her go, his voice rising in fury to follow her.

“Leave, and return to the bed of Satan from which you came! Leave, that the earnest faithful may not be sickened with thee! Leave, foul and accursed thing …”

Emily stumbled along the sidewalk, epithets ringing in her ears, until finally she heard the door slam shut. Then she stopped, and stood still for a moment, fighting tears that prickled the corners of her eyes. She looked around, suddenly realizing that in her nervousness, she’d forgotten to tell the cab to wait. Cursing her own stupidity, she wrapped her arms around her trembling body. Surely she could find a cab if she walked. And she wanted to get away from the Kendall house, far away.