by Beth Goobie
Finally the priest left off chanting and bowing, and the congregation sank into the pews. The priestesses stepped back into the shadows and the two boys walked solemnly down the center aisle, swinging their incense balls. Turning to the altar, the priest began lighting various candles. Arms crossed over her chest, Nellie watched him narrowly. She was beginning to feel a bit fed up with all these fancy goings-on. What did any of it have to do with the Goddess and the suffering of mothers and children? When she’d first entered the church, she’d thought she sensed the deep shadowy thud of the Goddess’s mother-heart, but all this chanting and swinging of incense balls had long since chased the feeling away. Now she couldn’t feel Ivana anywhere.
“Shove over,” she hissed at Deller. “I’m leaving.”
Incredulous, he gaped. “Don’t be an idiot,” he said. “The priest’ll recognize you for sure.”
She shouldered him impatiently and he shouldered her back.
“Wait until it’s over,” he said quietly. “Then I’ll tell you why I was here last night. Just keep your eyes open and see what you can pick up.”
Muttering savagely, Nellie subsided against the back of the pew and watched the priest move about the altar, bowing in one direction then another, lighting candles and making ritual gestures with his hands. Her eyes narrowed to thinking slits and she turned in the pew, sliding her gaze across the congregation. Why were they sitting there like a pack of dolts, watching this nonsense? Couldn’t they tell the Goddess had already left out of sheer boredom?
From the back of the room came the creaking of chains as the two boys filed back up the center aisle, swinging their incense balls. The organ swelled into another mournful dirge and the congregation rose, opening their hymnals. Standing on tiptoe, Nellie peered sullenly over the shoulder of a woman in the first pew, keeping her eyes fixed on the priest. If she was stuck here, she might as well keep an eye on him—he might have everyone else fooled, but she could tell he was up to no good.
Without warning the priest disappeared. Turning toward the floor-to-ceiling statue of the Goddess, he bowed three times, stepped deeper into the shadows at its base, and vanished. Glancing around, Nellie waited for gasps of stunned astonishment, but everyone continued to stare blankly at their hymnals. Even Deller gave no response. Maybe they think he just slipped around the back of the statue, Nellie thought wildly, the way he came in. But he hadn’t, she knew he hadn’t. The shadows at the base of the statue were so dense, she hadn’t actually seen the priest disappear, but she’d felt it with her mind—a ripple in the molecular field as a gate opened and the priest stepped through to some other place. Leaning toward Deller she whispered, “Did you see?”
“See what?” he whispered back.
“The priest,” she said, almost fearfully.
“What about him?” Deller asked. “There he is.”
And indeed there came the priest, stepping out of the shadows at the statue’s base and returning to the altar. Once again he circled it, bowing and chanting, followed by the priestesses and the boys who were swinging their incense balls wildly. Finally the priest turned to face the congregation and made a downward gesture with his hands. As people around her sank into the pews Nellie remained standing, her arms crossed as she glared fiercely at the green-robed figure. Hypocrite, she thought at him savagely. Charlatan. Moron.
The priest’s gaze zeroed in on her and in that moment his face shifted, the features blurring. Suddenly a new face surfaced where his had been, composed of such brilliant light Nellie couldn’t look directly at it. A doubling, she thought, flinching under a vivid kick of fear. Here in the Goddess’s sanctuary, in the Goddess’s servant. Rooted to the spot, she stood motionless as the thing that had taken over the priest scanned her face, then began moving inward, jabbing fiercely at her mind. With a gasp she jerked back, and its hold was lost. Darkness spun in her head, her brain felt as if it had been split in two. Slowly she forced her eyes open and back onto the priest’s face.
The man’s gaze flicked across her own, bland and indifferent, and then he turned once again to bow to the altar. Whatever had temporarily claimed him was now gone, the doubling ended. As she sank into her seat, Nellie realized she could probably walk up to the priest and he would give her the same generic smile he distributed to everyone. This was the way it was with most people—flux came and went like the blink of an eye, a newspaper blowing down the street. Few tuned into its comings and goings. Even fewer remembered.
But a doubling here, in one of the Goddess’s priests?
The woman seated beside Nellie shifted impatiently as the congregation began filing out of the pews and up the aisles to the front of the church. Kneeling in a long row, adults and children waited as the priest moved along the line, placing his hands on their heads and reciting a few words.
“I’ve seen enough of this,” Deller hissed into her ear. “You going up there to get blessed by the priest?”
“Uh-uh,” Nellie responded vehemently.
Slipping from the pew, Deller ducked into the crowd, pushing his way against the stream that was flowing toward the pulpit, Nellie at his heels and clutching the back of his T-shirt with both hands.
Chapter 8
COMING THROUGH THE church entrance, Nellie felt the evening open before her like a deep-scented susurra blossom. For a moment she stood on the top step breathing it in, releasing the thick weight of incense and candlesmoke and the pressure of closed-in places. Then she was tearing down the stairs behind Deller, hesitating as he veered to the left, but he turned and beckoned so she followed, sprinting along the sidewalk. The Sanctuary of the Blessed Goddess disappeared behind a row of doogden trees, and she was filled with a desire to leap, scissor-kicking, into the air, to spin and shriek like a mad woman. Instead she pursued Deller’s quick darting form through a series of back alleys, keeping pace, sensing the test in it, the wordless challenge. As they neared downtown, the festival crowd grew and they were forced to slow their pace. Coming around a corner she almost ran into him, leaning against a corner store, eyes closed and chest heaving. Slumped next to him, Nellie bent double and sucked her own raw air.
“Did you see the men guarding the doors to the rest of the church?” Deller wheezed. “Sure didn’t want anyone wandering off to use the cans.”
With a start Nellie realized she’d been so caught up with gawking at candles and shadows, she’d probably missed half the things the Goddess had intended to show her. Instead it had all been revealed to the pagan Deller. Flushing, she turned toward the crowd and pretended to study it. “They were probably just standing around,” she said dismissively. “No big deal.”
“They were blocking the doorways,” Deller insisted hoarsely. “It was the same men we saw last night. I saw them turn an old lady back. I think she wanted to use the can.”
“Was the Interior agent with them?” Too late, Nellie realized what she’d said. Weasely and intent, Deller’s eyes honed in on her.
“What agent?” he asked slowly.
She shrugged, ducking his gaze. “That extra guy that came to the meeting last night.”
“How d’you know he’s from the Interior?” demanded Deller.
“Just do,” she said lamely, letting her gaze settle on a middle-aged woman standing several feet away, engrossed in a mindjoy. The crowd parted as it passed, paying her no more attention than a fire hydrant.
“You’re an odd one, aren’t you, Bunny?” Deller’s voice was speculative, thinking its way word to word. “With scars like that on your head you should be dead, or at least half-crazy. You think and run like a boy, but you’re always by yourself, messy and dirty, and you smell like you think water’s your worst enemy.”
“I had a bath a couple of days ago.” Nellie scowled defensively. What was she supposed to do when she lived in a shack that smelled like a fart? Without thinking she rubbed at an itch in her nose, then began to slide her finger into her left nostril. Realizing what she was doing, she yanked it out and shot Deller a
glance. His mouth twitched, but his eyes kept their weasely look, studying her.
“How’d you learn to get into other levels like that?” he asked abruptly.
“Just did.” Shrugging, Nellie let a calculated boredom slacken her face.
“And I suppose that’s how you learned to pull me from thin air back into my body too?” Deller said wryly.
Nellie shrugged again. If he didn’t shut up about this soon, she was taking off. Some things were private. Besides, she didn’t answer nosy parker questions.
“Okay,” Deller sighed. “So it’s your secret. But at least tell me this much. What were you doing out in the middle of the night, spying on the denerren?”
“The what?” Nellie grimaced at the unfamiliar term.
Deller turned and spat deliberately, then pulled a package of oolaga candy from his pocket and offered it to her. “Denerren,” he repeated, and spat again. “Traitors born of our blood, but sold out to the Elfadden.”
“The what?” repeated Nellie. Warily she took a piece of candy and unwrapped it.
“Kids disappearing,” Deller continued, ignoring her interruption. “Their mothers frantic. Men found dead with the Mark of Silence on their foreheads, and everyone watching their backs, wondering who’s going to get it next. Not knowing where it’ll come from, now that our own are beginning to turn.”
“The Mark of Silence?” Suddenly Nellie remembered the body of a man she’d come across in an alley several months back. The man’s throat had been slit, and on his forehead there had been an odd smudged mark. Quickly she sketched it on her own and Deller nodded.
“How’d you know that?” he asked tersely.
Nellie scowled, twisting her entire body vigorously. More nosy parker questions. “What are you saying?” she demanded. “Those men in the church are stealing kids from Dorniver and sending them to the Interior?”
“You heard them talking.” Deller’s eyes fixed on her, clamping her to the wall. “They’re planning to hit West Daven next. I guess they’re finished with Glover Heights. Mothers there are getting so paranoid, they won’t leave their kids with the neighbors.”
Images of the birdlike machines and the four children she’d seen near the quarry kept flashing through Nellie’s mind. Had those children come from Glover Heights or some other Dorniver suburb? For some reason she’d assumed they were from the Interior. “What’s all this got to do with you?” she asked cautiously. “Why were you spying on them?”
“They got my brother.” The words twisted out of Deller, a corkscrew sound. “About half a year back. He went to bed like normal, but he wasn’t there in the morning. Must’ve gone out for some reason, maybe to play a joke on someone, and they grabbed him. He was a year younger than me and except for our eyes, we looked so alike people used to mix us up. I’ve been looking and looking for him. Started hanging around the hospital ...” Deller’s voice faltered. “... and the morgue. When I joined the Jinnet, they got me spying on the priests. That’s why I was there last night.”
“The Jinnet?” Nellie was hit with a memory of eating supper with her mother while pictures of unshaven men flashed across their TV set. The Jinnet had received frequent coverage on Interior news broadcasts. One of several underground resistance movements, they sometimes managed to blow up an important building or assassinate a politician. Nellie’s brain hummed with admiration and she looked at Deller with new eyes.
“But I don’t need them anymore,” he continued, again ignoring her interruption. “Not now I’ve got you. You’re ten times better than the Jinnet, all on your own.” He stared at her, his weasely eyes fierce, almost exultant. Rerraren. Nellie felt the thought pass through his body like a prayer, and took a cautious step back. Involuntarily, Deller jerked forward.
“Your brother’s gone now,” she said gruffly, putting up a hand to ward him off. “He’s dead, or they took him to the Interior for some kind of experiment.” Again, the memory of the birdlike machines flashed through her head. “I can’t do nothing about that.”
She watched hope flutter and die in Deller’s face. His mouth opened in a soundless stammer, and then the usual weaseliness returned, tightening his expression. “Okay,” he muttered, his shoulders slumping. “If that’s the way you want it, Bunny.”
A wail took over the inside of Nellie’s head. “I don’t get nothing the way I want it,” she hissed. As she turned away, she felt Deller’s hand grip her arm. Enraged, she swung round, but he saw her claws coming and pulled back.
“Wait,” he stammered. The weaseliness was gone again, and a kind of helplessness twisted his face. “Can’t you just stick around a while? Hey, you could come to the clubhouse, or—”
“For what?” Nellie snapped, taking another step back. “So you can put your mark on me? I’m not going to your clubhouse, Mr. Skull. I’m not stupid. I read magazines. I know what you do to bunnies.”
Heat reddened Deller’s face. “That was just something to call you,” he mumbled. “You were just another girl then. Just some ... girl.”
“Yeah, well I’m still a girl,” Nellie said grimly. “A girl that’s got to go. See ya.”
“When?” The word shot from Deller like a physical force.
Nellie turned to stare back at him. “When what?”
“When ... D’you want ...?” He looked baffled, as if trying to speak an entirely new language. “Well, like, d’you want to meet somewhere?”
She could feel it rising within her like a hand, desperate to grab what was being offered and never let go. Someone wanted her, someone actually wanted to see her, maybe tomorrow, maybe even the day after that.
Turning, she ducked into the crowd and ran like a scream.
HIGH ABOVE THE SHACK the crescent moons rode the sky, a pearly whisper calling her home—home to be with her mother, reunited and traveling eternity where no one chased her down streets or bugged her about missing brothers, looking like a busted heart when she said no. Nellie’s feet scuffed the dusty grass and her shoulders drooped as a voice in her head lectured her sternly, telling her she’d done wrong, she’d done mean.
“What do I care about his brother?” she muttered, kicking at a shadowy clump of weeds. “We’ve all got someone missing. No one’s coming back. What makes him think he’s so special?”
The drone of an approaching vehicle sent her ducking into the undergrowth where she crouched, watching several trucks with dimmed headlights pass by. In this area night convoys were frequent, traveling the dirt roads that angled everywhere through the bush. Last week she would have written them off as smugglers and land pirates to be avoided and otherwise ignored, but now Nellie watched them with new eyes. What if these trucks carried stolen children from West Daven or Glover Heights? What if it wasn’t smugglers driving them but denerren, double agents for the Interior?
With a low growl she crept onto the empty road and knelt, her palms pressed to the packed dirt, but no images of children came to her, just the usual jumble of cartons and crates. So the trucks belonged to smugglers, as she’d thought. All this talk of Deller’s was making her jumpy, causing her to see missing children everywhere. Coming back from Dorniver tonight she’d been skittish as a cat, certain that Interior agents were about to ooze out of every shadow. Like that one over there between the trees, ducking down so as not to be noticed. Freezing in her tracks Nellie stared, then hissed and relaxed. Just a stupid bush, playing games with the wind. First chance she got she was trading in her brain for something more useful, like an extra bladder.
Still she felt something, kind of creepy and close by—a darkness within a darkness, waiting. Turning uneasily, she stared in every direction but saw only the calm easy shift of bush and tree. What was it? What was it? Abruptly she broke into a trot, refusing to look back. As she neared the shack she veered into the shrub, picking her way carefully until she reached the copse, then swung herself up into the familiar route of branches. Reaching the shack, she was about to drop to the ground, when a shadowy outline juttin
g from the front wall caught her eyes and she froze.
The door was open. Fear pounded in Nellie’s mouth, solid and tasting of blood. She always wedged the door shut with a large rock, then tied the handle to a bent nail with a piece of rope. From where she was crouched she could see the rope, lit faintly by the twin moons, hanging loosely from the door handle. Cautiously she listened, but no sounds came from within the shack. Probably the intruder had been nothing more than a wild dog, come and gone. But what if it was something bigger, like a bear? No, the bottom of the door was jammed open as far as it would go in the uneven ground, and that left only a narrow gap. Even Nellie had to suck in her gut and slide sideways through the opening. Whatever had entered the shack tonight had to be as thin or thinner than she was.
Striking the closest wall with her fist, Nellie listened and heard nothing. She pounded a second time, harder. Again there was no response. Relieved, she dropped to the ground and peeked through the doorway. Still no sound came to her, but the smell wasn’t right and the air seemed uneasy, muttering as if something unwelcome had passed through it. Slipping into the shack, she lit the black candle stub and looked around. Everything seemed to be in place—the crate in front of the window, her nest of blankets, the tea towels. The tea towels ...
With a cry she leapt across the shack and yanked at the towels, scattering them. A patch of bare earth stared up at her, blank as the sudden nothingness of her brain. Wordless sounds crawled up Nellie’s throat and she bent double, disbelieving. The remembering dress was gone, and with it all the money she’d stored for a rainy day. The remembering dress gone. The remembering dress, the remembering. She always wore that dress to remember. Without it, the few memories she had of her mother were sure to disappear. Who would want to steal her memories? There could be no other reason to take that specific dress. Who but she, Nellie Joan Kinnan, would have any interest in a dirt-stained, oversized, gold-brocaded remembering dress?