Nobody's Goddess (The Never Veil)

by Amy McNulty

  What have I done?

  “Fret not, my dear,” said the lord to Elfriede. “My servants shall attend to him.” He crouched down and cupped Elfriede’s chin in one gloved hand. “There, there. You have to smile. Today is your wedding day. And was it not kind of me to allow your sister to attend?”

  No. What has he done?

  Elfriede’s mouth cracked upward in a hollow echo of her smile. She opened her mouth to speak, but she bit down on her lip quickly. Was it the idea of our mother in the castle that kept her from asking the obvious?

  Well, I wasn’t afraid to ask the monster a question. “Where are you taking him?”

  The lord released Elfriede and stood now, facing me. He adjusted first one glove and then the other, tugging on the leather cuffs.

  “Well, well, good day, my goddess,” he said. “Did you enjoy the wedding, Olivière? Or did you find the reception afterward more enticing?” His words gathered an extra edge toward the end of his latter question.

  Heat swirled inside of me. “I enjoyed the reception very much.”

  The lord placed his hands on his hips and stood immobile for a moment. Then he motioned a hand toward me and turned to exit. “In any case, I can see I just missed the last of the festivities.” He nodded at Elfriede, the tip of his hat bobbing down and up. “I dare say your sister will be glad to see us leave. The lord of the castle and his goddess alike. Wherever they go, no mere bride can compare. It seems we have stolen all that was owed to her this day. It is, after all, her wedding day.”

  “Noll, how could you?” Elfriede screamed as the specters pulled me toward the second black carriage. She was weeping, barely able to speak between heavy, quivering sobs. Her voice grew quieter, the words catching in her throat. “How could you be so selfish? You won’t be happy until you have Jurij for yourself. You’d rather he die than be with me.”

  “Friede!” I shouted back, doing all I could to break free from the tight grips on my arms. I had more to say, but I wasn’t sure what it was. I hadn’t wanted this. I hadn’t wanted her to hate me.

  The lord seemed amused. “My, what a joyous family reunion.” He nodded at the specters, who pulled me inside the carriage like they were lugging in a sack of grain. The lord grabbed hold of the sides of the carriage doorway and heaved himself inward. “You must be so delighted that you came.”

  ***

  My fingers dug into the black leather seat. It was my first time in the carriage with company.

  The lord sat across from me, his hands folded tightly in his lap. I imagined his eyes attempting to bore through the veil to shoot daggers straight into me.

  “That was not very nice,” he said at last.

  I gripped the leather harder, imagining that it was the arms of his leather jacket instead. “What have you done with him?”

  “Are you going to order me to answer you?”

  “Will you not answer me otherwise?”

  The lord moved his hands up, stopping shortly below where the veil began.

  “I feel compelled to answer you,” he said. “I feel compelled to do anything I so much as think you want done. It is a battle within me not to slit my own throat at this very moment.”

  I smiled sweetly.

  “But I will not let you have power over me.”

  I scoffed. “I don’t think you have much of a choice.”

  “No, I do not,” he said, his head tilting slightly toward the carriage window. “But still, I have the power to fight it. And I will fight it until my last breath.”

  Don’t tempt me.

  I bit my tongue and followed his gaze out of the window. We were entering the woods now. I had missed the chance to bid my childhood home one last farewell.

  A surge of wickedness came over me. There was one place nearby that was still home. And it could save me, if but for a moment. You promised them you would help. Dream or not, I’ve got to know.

  “Were you alive long ago? Say, a thousand years in the past?”

  The lord’s head snapped toward me. “How could you—”

  “Answer me!”

  The lord spoke before he could stop himself. “Yes.”

  I’m not crazy. It wasn’t a dream! “Don’t move,” I said.

  The lord tensed.

  “Have them stop the carriage.”

  He knocked on the window and the carriage halted instantly. “Olivière, if you remember—”

  “Stay still,” I said. “Don’t speak. Don’t move.”

  If I can go back, I can stop him before Jurij was ever hurt. Before he ever took my mother. Before she ever fell ill. What if he caused the illness somehow? I didn’t understand how or why, but it seemed to be too much of a coincidence since it happened right after I met him. Maybe he planned to make me grateful to him from the start.

  I have to go back. Before this village ever became cursed with men and their goddesses.

  I pushed the carriage door open and ran trembling off of the dirt path and deep into the woods.

  My legs burned. My dress snagged on branches and tore. Lily petals fell from my hair, withered already by a day without earth and water. I hiked up my skirt and kept moving.

  I reached the cavern and tore inside. I had no candle to light my way, and my feet stumbled from time to time over a rock or a spike I didn’t fully remember, but I made my way through the darkness.

  And it was the violet glow and the cavern pool that awaited me, called me home.

  Even my wild and racing heartbeat seemed suddenly subdued, quiet, and calm. There was something in the pool that wanted me, a gentle vibration, an unrelenting reminder of life. It was as if until that moment I hadn’t realized that even among the voluble pounding of my heart, there had been gaps every other beat. Moments of silence in which my heartbeat echoed here, in the pool, in the depths of the secret cavern.

  Little droplets of purple rose up from the surface and spread out to banish the darkness trying to invade the corners of the cavern. I moved closer to the edge of the pool, dipping one hand into the water to grab a droplet of violet. But they were too quick.

  Can I do this without Elgar? Was the blade the key?

  The violet light came from a sphere, large as the pool, covering the bottom. I scrambled to my knees, shoving aside my skirt and scuffing my legs on the cold stone, and bent as close as I could to the water’s surface. The little droplets tore off from their shells and rose up to the surface, but as many droplets as there were, the sphere grew no smaller. It seemed to be contracting and expanding, like the beating of a heart.

  I took a deep breath and submerged my head beneath the water. The violet droplets soared toward me, and I fell in. The sphere drew me in like a man to his goddess. I would swim to the heartbeat that called mine and embrace it.

  I can do this. Even without Elgar.

  I snapped awake. A familiar feeling. I felt the sudden shock of the water being disturbed and a moment later a strong arm pulled me violently upward. The figure next to me struggled. It thrashed with such force that eventually, I pulled away from the light. My heart ached as I saw it grow smaller in the distance.

  Black leather gloves. A pale arm.

  My lungs exploded to life again with a strong slap against my back. The watery violet blood of the beating sphere spilled from my mouth and burned my throat as it left my body. I hacked and choked and sputtered for air while that strong arm remained wrapped around my shoulder, my back to the man who supported me.

  “Do not fight the reflex,” said the lord from behind me. “You must purge yourself of the water.”

  I’ve been here before. Not just in this place. In this very moment. The first dream in the cavern, when Jurij saved me from drowning.

  And now he has stopped me from going back to where I was needed. Where I wanted to go.

  The hand slapped my back again, and my throat widened, letting the water flow out in a steady stream. Despite the part of me that was reluctant to see it go, still glowing violet even as it poured from wit
hin my body, it came easier with each blow.

  The hand reaching across my chest slid softly to grasp onto my left shoulder just as I felt the hand that had struck me grasp hold of my right. The hands were wrapped tightly in gloves of black leather—wet leather. But I had already guessed as soon as I heard his voice. There was no one else to rescue me now.

  “Olivière,” he said. “You could have died.”

  I felt gentle pressure across the back of my head, the tickle of breath as it whisked past my ear.

  “Do not try that again,” he said. His hands squeezed my shoulders harder. “Please.”

  His arms wrapped tightly across my collarbone, his hands coming to rest on the opposite shoulder. He still wore his leather jacket. The smell of wet leather made my stomach rise with a sharp new wave of nausea.

  He rustled slightly, thanks to the telltale squeak of his wet leather pants. I felt soft, damp feathers against my cheek and then a light pressure against my right ear. His hair, his lips … he wasn’t wearing his veil. And he had kissed me!

  I lurched forward, hacking again. I met some resistance from him at first. It annoyed me to find that even with all of my strength I couldn’t push his arms off of me. But he let go of my shoulders and let me fall loosely forward. His hands caught me again around the chest before I could hit the ground. Nothing came out of my throat, but I couldn’t stop retching.

  “Let go … of … me!” I managed to sputter between hacking. Falling forward, I tried to use the small window of time my command afforded me to flip around, to turn my body to face him and let my eyes assault the sanctity of his face, but within moments, I felt a hand push hard against my shoulder, forcing me to lay face down.

  “DON’T!” His voice seemed all the more commanding as it echoed with the life force of the cavern.

  We stayed still a moment longer, locked into our positions. With my cheek flat against the cavern floor, I faced the pool with my back to the darkness down the entry passage.

  The hand released me. The cavern echoed with the steady pounding of his boots, which muted the sound of the rustling, wet leather.

  “Rise,” he said. His voice was once again composed, but there was an edge of iciness that conveyed everything.

  I rolled over, fighting the pounding in my head. I sat up and stared at him. He’d retrieved his black veil from the darkness and had tied it around his head once more, placing the hat atop it. They were the only items of clothing he wore that weren’t soaked. He towered over me, his arms akimbo, his legs slightly parted. I didn’t see any of the specters.

  I struggled to stand on my shaky legs. The lord’s legs trembled slightly forward, but he stood his ground. Until I lost hold of mine.

  He swooped in to steady me, and I pushed his chest, much like Alvilda had done with Jaron.

  The sudden comparison brought fresh pain to the ache in my chest. Right after the kiss. Right before Jurij was taken by the heartless monster.

  “Stand back,” I told him, not bothering to disguise the bitter taste in my mouth. “The smell of wet leather is making me sick.”

  He let me go and took two steps backward.

  I stumbled over to one of the spikes jutting from the ground and used its sharp edge as a grip with which to steady myself.

  “You are nothing but ungrateful.” Iciness.

  I sneered. “Oh, I’m sorry. Thank you ever so much for injuring my dearest friend and then ripping him from my sister’s arms on the day of their wedding.”

  The lord laughed coldly. “It seems to me that you and your dearest friend had done enough on your own to ruin the celebration before my arrival.”

  I scrambled to my knees and drew myself up to stand as tall as I could, trying to match his height and ignoring the wobbliness in my legs. “That’s no concern of yours!”

  “It is, my goddess, every concern of mine!” He started walking back and forth a few paces before the pool. “Have you no idea of the curse by which you have bound me?”

  “I’m the one who’s cursed,” I shouted, “for I am denied a choice that was promised to me!”

  He stopped walking and spun toward me. “You never had the choice to love the man who belongs to your sister.”

  “You’re wrong! I’m a woman and I can love where I will, even where love will never find me!” I bit my lip. Even if it hurt others. Even if I was foolish. I’m sorry, Elfriede. But I can’t help but hurt you. Just like you can’t help but hurt me.

  The lord started convulsing, his right fist struggling to find a place between pointing at me, resting on his waist, and being raised upward to the sky. “And I am a man! And I am forced, against my will, to love just the same!”

  His fist unclenched, and he grabbed my left arm with a force I hadn’t felt since his struggle against the violet glow’s pull.

  “Do not speak!” He echoed my words from the carriage. “Do not move against me, or I shall do more than wound your lover and safeguard your mother. I should have let you drown!”

  I tried to tear my arm from him as he dragged me forward into the darkness, choosing the pain of struggling against his tight grasp over letting him have hold over me so easily.

  “I should have ordered you to drown!”

  He stopped. His grip tensed on my arm, and his weight shifted from one foot to another. I thought he might run past me and jump back into the water. Instead, he grabbed my other arm tightly with his free hand.

  “I do not want to hear another word from you!” he said. “Every word that passes through those twisted lips is poison enough to break me.”

  “Good,” I replied. He said nothing for a moment, and I stared right into where I guessed his eyes might be, a hungry smile curling the corners of my mouth.

  “Is your heart so cold and closed to me?” he said at last. His grip slackened.

  I clenched my jaw and gazed straight into the void that his veil created in the violet glow. I hoped my eyes, flameless though they may be, would burn straight through him. “I do not need my words in order to answer that.”

  He picked me up, slung me over his shoulder, and carried me into the shadows.

  I could see by the leather-gloved hands just below the billowing black gauze of the curtain between us that the lord had little appetite. He picked at a piece of meat with his fork and had barely lifted any of the potatoes. My own appetite was surprisingly strong. I devoured every last crumb on my plate nearly as soon as a specter laid it in front of me.

  A specter came to retrieve my plate the moment I put down the fork, and the black-gloved hands lifted slightly to call another specter to his side. The servant removed his plate and exited the room, but no one swooped in to place the veil and hat on their master. The lord remained seated, his palms resting atop the table.

  He lifted the tips of his fingers again, and the specters filed out of the room, every last one.

  The dining hall door closed. A gust of wind suddenly seized upon us through the open window, causing the curtain to flutter as if a giant hand had run itself across the gossamer surface.

  “Speak now,” spoke the lord. “They will not hear. They will not strike.”

  My tongue was struck dumb. It was impossible. I couldn’t trust him. He was always two moves ahead of me.

  Fine, I would play along. But he would be surprised to see that I could play by his rules and still come out victorious in the end. I’m going back to the pond. I have to stop him before it comes to this. I have to stop all the men.

  “Tell me where Jurij is,” I said, my tongue suddenly snapping back into action.

  “On the top floor,” he replied. “In the room next to your mother’s.”

  “What have you done to him?”

  “I staunched and treated his wounds.”

  My lower jaw was grinding. “To the best of your ability?”

  He didn’t hesitate to answer. “No.”

  “What are you going to do with him now?”

  “Nothing.”

  I sighed and
rapped my fingers on the table impatiently. “Why did you bring him here?”

  “To heal him.”

  I snorted. Really, he had been so eager to follow my orders for once that I had forgotten to actually form the words correctly. “Tell me why you brought him here.”

  “To heal him and to punish you.”

  There it was. I laughed and breathed a sigh of relief. “Release Jurij.”

  The black hands waved upward. So the specters were still able to follow his orders even when not within sight of their master. Is this how he is always watching? I wondered if somehow my wedding escorts had seen the kiss and had alerted their master from a great distance, or if it was the goddess curse that wreaked the pain of the kiss straight to his heart. I hoped it was the latter.

  “Release my mother as well,” I said.

  Another wave of the black hand.

  How simple. How dubious.

  “Prove to me that they’re going home.”

  A black glove gestured to the open window. I moved across the room, keeping a suspicious eye on his extended hand. I tore my eyes from the lord and let them fall outside the window, my body still facing the billowing curtain.

  After a few moments, specters carried Jurij and my mother from the castle door to the two awaiting black carriages. Jurij, his face wrapped in bandages, shifted slightly, but my mother didn’t stir. For a moment, I wondered if they were well enough to travel, but my instinct was to get them as far from the lord as possible.

  Mother and Jurij were laid one after the other into the carriages. Without a sound, the black horses started moving, and the carriages disappeared down the dirt path through the middle of the woods. The specters who didn’t drive the carriages walked in two steady lines after them. More and more specters poured from the castle door and out into the woods until finally, the last of the specters disappeared from view and into the trees. There had to have been a hundred at least, more than enough to keep watch over the entire village.