The Hidden Goddess (6 page)

Shocking either way, but never mind. She wasn’t going to let herself become indebted to some strange Russian, potentially unclean expectations or not. She pushed her way to the ticket counter, jostling and being jostled mercilessly.

“Just to Dutch Flat!” she called to the harassed ticketing agent, over the din of dozens of other would-be passengers. “I’ll ride on the cowcatcher if I have to!”

“Not for days,” the harassed ticket agent hollered back. She pleaded with him, told him about her sick father, then added in five starving siblings for good measure. The ticket agent glared at her from underneath his green eyeshade. “Everyone’s got a story, kid.
Next!
”

Emily pushed her way back through the crowd toward the front of the station where it was cooler, where she could get a breath of air. The 4:45 train was just pulling into the station, all billowing steam and coal cinders and squealing brakes. She considered sneaking over the fence, climbing surreptitiously onto the caboose, but it seemed that other miscreants had had the idea before her; the fence was guarded by dozens of soldiers in Army blue.

Emily sighed, took her hat off, and ran her good hand through her hair. She should have taken the ticket from the Russian, pervert though he may have been. It was her own evil assumptions that had done her in. She hadn’t even considered the third possible explanation for his strange behavior—that he was a perfectly nice man, without an ounce of guile, just trying to be helpful. People helped people in California. Why hadn’t she thought of that? She’d only been in New York a few weeks, and already she was turning hard and suspicious.

She sat down on the steps, rubbing a flake of ash from her eye. As she sat, something crinkled in her pocket.

She put her hand there and withdrew a train ticket.

She cast a look around herself, half expecting to see the gleam of the brown man’s eyes. Without an ounce of guile indeed. She looked over the ticket for a moment, hardly believing it could be real.

How on earth had he …?

The steam-blast whistle and hoarse shout of “All aboard!” jolted her out of her reverie.

“Damn Russians,” she muttered, jumping to her feet and breaking into a flat run.

*   *   *

Emily stepped off the platform at Dutch Flat just before midnight, footsore and tired. She’d had to stand the entire way, of course. Wearing the costume of a young man always made her feel sorry for young men. They were always having to surrender their seats, help ladies with improbably heavy bags, hold cages full of squabbling chickens, get kicked in the shins by annoying little brats, and suffer torrents of abuse from sour old geezers who were of the opinion that any able-bodied young man who hadn’t stayed behind to protect San Francisco was little more than a lily livered coward, a weakling, a
woman
.

It was a Wednesday night, so there wasn’t much doing in Dutch Flat. Emily was reassured by the air of calm and quiet that prevailed. There were no soldiers here, no smell of oily smoke, no screams. By all appearances, everyone was safely asleep in bed. Her heart, which had been thumping like a drum ever since she’d left the Institute, settled a bit. If things were normal here in Dutch Flat, then it was that much more likely that everything in Lost Pine was all right, too.

Still, she’d come this far, and she was looking forward to seeing her pap. Her only chance to get up the mountain before daybreak was to rent a horse, and the livery was shut up tight. The Gold Bucket saloon was well lit, though, and after she’d put down money for a couple of shots of monstrous whiskey, the bartender pointed her in the direction of the livery’s proprietor, who was sitting a few stools down. She bought the half-drunk man another couple of glasses of the rotten brew, thus persuading him to provide her with a nag and a saddle, all for the usurious sum of a dollar a day.

Once in the saddle, with the two glasses of monstrous whiskey working to their full effect, Emily felt the fear that had gripped her since her Cassandra in Mrs. Stanton’s parlor recede. The night was beautiful and clear, a full moon lighting her way.

She turned the horse up the familiar trail, through sweet-smelling pines with new tips of bright green. Silence enfolded her. The only sounds she could hear were the night calls of birds and the wind rustling the pine boughs far above,
and her own horse’s feet, crunching on old pinecones and occasionally clopping on a piece of weathered granite.

When she came to the Hanging Oak, spread branches gleaming in the moonlight, Emily pulled her horse to a stop. Beneath it, she’d crafted the Ashes of Amour over a month ago. With everything she’d learned since then, she could hardly believe that she could have been so stupid, so ignorantly cruel. She hadn’t been able to remove the love spell she’d put on Dag Hansen—the lumberman she’d hoped to marry for his money—before she left Lost Pine, but she could do it now. She was in a hurry, but the moon was full, and she owed it to Dag. She stripped off her clothes, for such magic had to be performed skyclad. Naked in the sweet summer night air, she knelt before the tree and spoke a very simple incantation.

“Friend, I release you.”

It might not do much good. Dag had said he’d loved her before she put the love spell on him, but she hoped with all her heart that it would help.

“Dag, I’m sorry,” she whispered, wishing she could say it to his face. But she might never see him again, and it was probably better that way. Now that she understood the power of love, she realized how truly horrible her actions had been.

She dressed as quickly as she could, but her missing hand made it an arduous process. Another part of her life that could never be made whole again, only accepted and compensated for. Pushing the uncomfortable association out of her mind, she climbed back onto her horse and rode on.

By the time she got to Pap’s cabin, the sun was rising, drawing a luminous veil of peach and orange over the tops of the tall pines.

The little cabin stood in a wide clearing, with a little crick running behind it, fresh and fast and dark. When she’d left in the spring, only a few tender little plants were peeping shyly up through the dark mud; now everything was a rich riot of tangled green. A few chickens, scrabbling around in the cabin’s front yard, clucked welcomingly to her.

Home sweet home
, Emily thought, hitching the nag to a
tree. She found that her heart was beating hard again, and she hardly knew why. The cabin’s door was open slightly.

“Pap?” She removed her hat as she called inside. “Pap, it’s me. Emily.”

She had to blink to get her eyes to adjust to the gloom inside. The cabin seemed smaller and closer than she remembered and swelteringly hot as usual, with a huge fire blazing on the hearth. In the light of the fire, she saw a small hunched form, silhouetted in darkness. He was covered in cats, dozens of them, the beloved animals that always surrounded him. They stared at her as she entered, their eyes glowing accusingly.

“Em?” The voice came from the hunched form. Pap’s voice was terrible, choked and broken. “Oh, Em, it’s you! Blessed be … you’ve come back!”

CHAPTER THREE

Bottle of Memories

Emily rushed to Pap’s side, wrapping her arms around him, sending cats scurrying in all directions. Burying her face against his shoulder, she felt his leathery hand reach up to touch her hair, his fingers pressing against her scalp as if to convince himself of her solidity. “Oh, Em, blessed be,” he said again.

She knelt before him, looking up into his face, her violet eyes searching his white-rheumed, sightless ones. He looked awful. His face was heavier, older, new-lined with worry. The spiderweb of old scars stood out on his face, pale with tension.

“It’s all right, Pap.” She reached up for where his hand trembled against her hair. “What’s wrong? What’s happened? The earthquakes and Aberrancies—have they been up here?”

Pap looked at her, his sightless eyes quizzical.

“Earthquakes? Aberrancies? We ain’t had none o’ them. That’s all happening down in San Francisco.”

Emily pressed Pap’s hand with hers. “Then what’s wrong?”

“They came after you, Em. All those men! They meant to kill you, I know they did …”

Emily sat back on her heels, releasing a pent-up breath. The Maelstroms—the Army’s division of blood sorcerers, led by Captain Caul. Emily had forgotten just how recently they had stormed through Lost Pine, searching for her and Stanton. Was this what she’d come all the way from New York for?

“They won’t be coming anymore,” Emily explained. “They wanted the stone—you remember, that stone I found
up at the Old China Mine? Mr. Stanton and me, we took it to New York and … well, we got rid of it. It’s gone now.”

“But they’re
still
looking for you,” Pap said, his voice low and urgent. “They was up here just a few days ago, asking questions.”

Emily’s brow knit. “Who was here?”

“Russians,” Pap said softly, his sightless eyes gleaming. “Em, they had so many questions. So many questions about
her …
”

At the back of the cabin, there was a sound; the slow creak of the door. Emily tensed, looking up—but it was only Mrs. Lyman, the red-faced mining widow who had taken to keeping house for Pap. When she saw Emily, she dropped an armload of firewood with a resounding crash and clatter. She then burst out in screams of delight, enfolding Emily in a bark-dusty embrace.

“Emily! Why, I can’t believe it, you’re home! Oh, we read the book!”

She babbled more words as she spun Emily around the small room, but Emily could barely hear them, for Mrs. Lyman was squeezing her so tightly that the blood was beginning to pound in her ears.

“Abby …” Pap said. When the words and spinning didn’t stop, he barked,
“Abby! Enough!”

Mrs. Lyman stopped and stared at Pap in surprise.

“Why, Ignatius, I don’t—”

Pap made his voice milder. “Could you give Em and me a little while to talk? Then she can tell you all about things later. Over dinner, maybe?”

Mrs. Lyman was silent for a moment, then nodded.

“Why, sure. Dinner! That’s a lovely idea. I’ll run back over to my place and chop the head off that old hen that’s stopped laying. And there’s new potatoes from the garden, and half a pie left …”

Muttering to herself, Mrs. Lyman bustled out as quickly as she’d bustled in. Emily rubbed her cheek with her hand to see if the old woman’s kisses had left bruises.

“Emily, come on over here.” Pap reached for Emily’s
hands. When she gave them to him, his fingers traveled inquiringly over the smooth ivory of her prosthetic.

“What’s this?”

“I lost my hand.” Emily always hated saying that. It sounded so careless, as if she’d just misplaced it. But she didn’t want to explain what had actually happened—the clang of steel, the smell of blood … not to Pap, most of all.

“That’s the hand the stone was in,” the old man said softly.

“Yes.”

Pap said nothing for a moment, letting his calloused thumb play thoughtfully over the intricately carved fingers. Then he let out a long breath.

“But you’re all right now, Em? You’re not … you’re all right?”

“I’m all right,” Emily said softly. “Tell me what’s happened.”

Pap was silent for a long time, as if debating something with himself. Then he made a decisive movement.

“Em, you know how you came to me. You were just a little thing, not five years old. Your mother, she came through the pass in the middle of winter with you wrapped in her coat, and then she died without saying a word. That’s what I always told you.”

“Yes,” Emily said warily, not liking the sound of Pap’s last sentence.

“I didn’t tell you everything, Em. I couldn’t. I didn’t want you to grow up remembering—” He stopped abruptly. “There was bad things around you, Em. I had to protect you from them. If you could have seen yourself, just a little girl, sweet as could be—you’d understand. You’d forgive me. You’d understand that I couldn’t let anything hurt you. And after what she’d done to you—”

“She?” Emily interrupted. “My mother?”

“She was
bad
, Em.” Pap’s voice became a whisper, as if the very air around them could coalesce into the remembered badness just by speaking of it. “And it wasn’t just bad around her, it was bad in her, bad down to her bones. Wicked bad.”

“Wicked bad?” Emily echoed softly.

“
Evil
, Em.” Pap clenched her hands hard. “I know evil.
I seen it, in the eyes of the men who tried to burn me back in Kentucky, all them years ago.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Your mother, she was on her way to San Francisco. To be with them Russians who come to see me … the Sini Mira, they call themselves.”

He paused expectantly, waiting for her to make some sound of astonishment. But Emily had already met the Sini Mira—a shadowy group of Russian scientists who had tried to kidnap her on her way to New York. She remembered the iceberg-blue eyes of their leader, a man who called himself Perun, whose white hair and pale skin made him seem to be carved of snow and frost. But he’d said they just wanted the stone, the fragment of the Mantic Anastomosis that had been lodged in her hand. Now that that was gone, what could the Russians possibly want with her?