The Woken Gods

by Gwenda Bond

  I can’t believe he told her he was leaving. But no warning for me except an unexplained request and that bundle. I pull my backpack into my lap and unzip it. Before I can change my mind, I pull out handfuls of money and the ID, and place them on the table between us.

  “He left me this and he told me to go. But I can’t just leave. Mom, he’s in trouble. The Society. They have him. I know, about you, about him. They told me. Why didn’t you guys ever let me know who you were?”

  She is quiet for a long moment. Then one of her hands darts forward, pushes the money toward me. “No. No, no, no. You are the one who has to go.”

  It could be worse than us talking in circles, I remind myself. She’s not screaming at me. Yet.

  “Mom, I’ll go… soon. Just… Your father believes Dad committed treason. They’re going to try him. He took a relic.”

  “So he was able to get it?” Mom asks.

  “Wait. You know what he did. But why…?”

  When she glances to the side, her gaze locks on the shrine. I have to push down a surge of pain. All these years, and I’m not even the most important thing in the room. I don’t know why I came here.

  OK, I do. I need guidance from someone who knows more about this situation than me. And Dad wasn’t around to stop me. Painful or not, every time I see Mom there’s a brief period in which it makes me feel better. That’s more important than the after, when it makes me feel worse. I turn my head to see what’s captured her attention and flinch.

  Legba is in the chair beside the shrine. His hand grips the head of the cane, with its shiny metal and dull white bones woven tight as a strand of DNA. His grin reveals those jagged black-pearl teeth.

  Secrets are like wolves, the oracle in the market said. They have sharp teeth.

  “I can see you’re surprised to find me here. I admit, I am surprised as well,” Legba says, with a quiet menace that might be intention or just the way he is. I worry, though, that I am looking at a god I have displeased, without even meaning to. “I hear the missing relic was recovered, along with your father.”

  He stands and strides to the table. His hand hovers over the money. “You won’t need that, not today, but you’d best put it back where it belongs.”

  The money and the fake ID float from the table into the open backpack on my lap. As I sit, unmoving, the zipper closes on its own. I can’t quite breathe.

  “Don’t be too impressed,” Legba says. “Parlor tricks. I have more… rarified talents.”

  Mom says, “Stop scaring her.”

  “I can’t. Look at me. Only you wouldn’t be afraid of me, Hannah.”

  Mom shakes her head. “I am afraid for her, and you know this. She has to–”

  “Shhh,” Legba says, and Mom stops talking. “You know the rules of this game. There are things she needs to know.”

  “I’m right here. What things do you mean?” I butt in, without thinking. When his red and black eyes settle on me, I wish I’d bitten my tongue.

  “I like you, Kyra Locke,” he says. Those shark teeth gleam. “A key in a lock, indeed. And so spirited. That’s good. Your father needs your help. The world needs it.”

  “Eshu Elegua,” Mom says.

  He ignores her. “She didn’t tell you what the relic will cause, did she?”

  I breathe in, out, muster the courage to answer. “I know what it does. Bronson told me. But they have it back now, so that doesn’t matter. I just want to help Dad.”

  His grin widens. “The old man told you. Did he now? But, no, that’s not what I mean. And I’m afraid you’re mistaken about it no longer mattering. Because what it causes is your father’s death on Saturday night. He’s not going to die for treason. He’s going to be the sacrifice in the solstice ritual.”

  I hope I misheard. My heart sets up a fiercer rhythm.

  “I hear the beautiful music of a girl understanding. In her gut. In her veins,” Legba says.

  “Mom – is it true?” I ask her, but she ignores me.

  “Only a few gods can walk through all time,” Legba interrupts before she can answer. “I am one of them. I was tracing threads back – not with my feet, but with my essence – and I encountered your mother, trapped in a moment. Looking at a terrible thing that had been done, and seeing its ripples. The past is that butterfly halfway around the world, always flapping its wings and causing what happens in front of our faces, Kyra. The past and the present are linked. Sometimes the link is weak, other times strong. When the link is strong enough, when it’s trouble, well, that’s what prophecy is.” Mom hasn’t taken her eyes off Legba. He says, “Tell her what you can. Give her a glimpse of why you left. She’ll never ask it.”

  Mom’s eyes are wide and black, wild. She says, “No, no, I won’t do it.”

  Legba leans one hand on the table in front of her. “Yes, you will. Now.” He waves that hand in front of her face, like you might do to see if someone’s pupils are reactive. I don’t know if hers are or not, because her eyes drift closed. Her eyelids flutter, and the flames of the candles leap.

  “Mom?” I try.

  But she begins to speak. I press against the back of my chair, wishing I wasn’t witness to this. Legba’s grin stretches wider.

  “When the gods woke,” Mom says, wetting her lips with a nervous dart of her tongue, “I knew it was not meant to happen. I had a mother too, that I had lost some years before. My father had lost her in the field. It’s why he forced me to become an oracle. We are not usually made quite so young. I was sixteen, but he did not want me to have a choice. He wanted me confined, safe, and so I was named a Pythia and free only when I looked into the pool. It is a great honor to be one… or it was, before.” Mom shakes her head, remembering. The ghost of a smile returns. “Your father and I met. We went dancing. When Dad found out, he was furious, but I was eighteen by then. The Lockes are a family as old as ours, a suitable match. He could not object to a marriage. And so he watched as we wed. He made the cuts on our palms and held the cup as we joined our blood together. I love your father, still. I dance with him in the dreamtime.”

  I look over at Legba, who is seemingly enjoying the happy story about weddings involving blood. He’s still showing his teeth, anyway. “Don’t just listen,” he says. “Hear. You need to know all this.”

  Mom stops, uncertain. Her eyes pop open. “Am I hurting you?”

  What a question. There’s no way to answer. “Not anymore. You can go on.”

  Her lids flutter shut again. “We were happy, and we had you and we were even happier. I remember you, racing through the Great Hall, up and down the staircase at home. The shadows of the past had not yet reached you, and they were never going to be allowed to. My father had agreed to leave you free. It seemed like you might live in the light.” She purses her lips. “But then the gods awoke. And it was as if I had felt it coming. Felt all our happiness coming to an end. I did not believe it was chance. I went alone to the pool, and I looked. My father had woken the gods, but the ripples of it were worse. I saw what it had done to you. To us. The gods were awakened and it changed everything. But I could tell no one.”

  “You told me,” Legba says.

  “Hush,” Mom says, looking at him. “Not until much later, and you already knew.”

  “But how could Bronson do that, wake them?” I ask.

  “I could not see that, only his triumph,” she says. “Only the ripples. The use of a relic, its power can cloud our visions…”

  Legba nods. “And I’m not inclined to divulge the specifics. The problem is not what he did, but what it caused. The tragedy of a prophetic vision is that you can’t just pull the person at the center aside and say, ‘Don’t do that or the world will end.’ Attempts have been made with very bad results. There aren’t many laws I observe faithfully, but that’s one.”

  “Who’s the subject? Of the prophecy?”

  “It’s why he asked you to go,” Mom says. “Why you should. He knows something dark is coming. The end of our happiness. Again
.”

  But we don’t have any, I want to say. There’s none left. This time, I do bite my tongue.

  Legba vigorously disagrees, shaking his head. “She’s the only one who might be able to stop it, to save her father. She’s the only one I see who might prevent this. He knows that there’s fire and brimstone coming. I told your father, Kyra, that the ritual was planned, that you, that all of us, the peace and everything preserved by it, are in danger, and it’s true. Someone wants that door open, and there are others who would like that access to the Afterlife restored. I warned him, and suggested he take the Was to Enki House, should he be able to liberate it. They are inclined to friendliness in these matters. Peacekeepers.” Legba shrugs. “But despite the fact I didn’t break the rule, that didn’t work out. So your dad’s onto plan B. He intends to sacrifice himself.”

  I try to take it all in. “But why would Dad do that?”

  Legba shrugs. “Humans are foolish. He’s doing it for you.”

  Mom makes a noise.

  “For you, for her,” he says. “For the foolish world. He’s a fool, and he doesn’t know what he risks. He can’t know. He thinks he’s saving you all, but if that ritual happens… Hannah, tell the girl what she’s won if that ritual happens.”

  Mom doesn’t want to, that’s clear. But she speaks in a flood, closing her eyes again. I assume what she describes is visible to her, and I wish I could keep her from having to watch it. No one should have to bear such visions. “There will be war among the gods, and between the gods and men. The end won’t come so fast this way. Blood and fire, doom and death, blood and fire, doom and death… blood on the marble like a river… It will be worse than the end of the world.”

  Legba snaps his fingers, and Mom blinks. “I think she gets the picture,” he says. Then to me, “Your grandfather just wants that door open. It was closed too quickly after we awakened for him to get what he wanted. He doesn’t care about any of this, or we’d be talking to him.”

  “Bronson is behind this,” I say. “That’s what you’re telling me.”

  “You’re a smart girl. He woke us up. You have to ask why? You’ll figure it out. You’ve heard the story,” Legba says. “And you can save your father.”

  “No,” Mom says. “No, no, no. That was not to be the plan.” She shakes her head. “That’s not what I told Henry. Not what he told me.”

  Legba swings his cane in a circle, props it against the table. He towers over her, forcing her to peer up at him. “That’s because of the rule. This is a better plan. The only way it can be changed. Trust me, Hannah. You do, don’t you?”

  He gazes down at her, steadily, waiting.

  “Yes.” Mom finally nods. Two quick dips of her chin. “You have been a friend. I trust you. But I wish I didn’t have to.”

  It’s the most lucid statement she’s made in years.

  Legba takes his walking stick. He knocks it against the floor, and speaks to me. “Not all gods believe fate is changeable, but I am a god of divination… among other things… and I do. The future is never fully set until it becomes the past. Ripples are in motion, which means they aren’t fixed. It’s up to you, Kyra Locke, to find the path that stops the ripples by stopping the ritual. You might stop the blood and fire, too. I would say there’s no pressure, but you know better. If it helps, I’m rooting for you.” His grin returns. “I find the Lockes endlessly fascinating. You understand what you have to do?”

  I can’t manage to speak. Dad will die unless I save him? There has to be someone else. Someone who can actually do this.

  “You are it. The only option. Do you understand?” Legba prods.

  My heart hammers in my chest. I have to force my response out. “No problem. Got it. Stop the ritual. Done.”

  I’m not as confident as I sound.

  “You got it. The game is on. I am officially no longer bored.” Legba’s fingers caress the top of the walking stick. His head cocks, as if he’s listening to something. “I’ll be going. But, dear girl, should you need to, you can always find me at the crossroads.”

  “Wait!” My chair clatters to one side as I get to my feet. “How much time do I have?”

  His voice lowers. He’s right next to me, speaking into my ear. “Hardly any from my view, but enough in yours. The ritual must take place when, as they say, the stars align.”

  I struggle not to move away. I barely breathe.

  “The moment of solstice. Saturday night at the witching hour. My favorite. Midnight. Get cracking.” With that, Legba vanishes.

  The candles gutter and die, leaving Mom and me in the dark. The stale smell comes back.

  “Kyra?” someone calls.

  I’m pretty sure the voice belongs to Oz.

  “The switch is inside the door,” my mother calls back.

  A bare bulb overhead flicks on, revealing that it is Oz joining us. Better than another god.

  That makes me wonder if Legba’s departure and arrival tipped him off. “Why’d you come in?” I ask.

  “What are you guys doing in the dark?” he counters.

  “We weren’t, it was…” I shouldn’t mention Legba or what he told us. I’m not certain of much, but that is plain.

  My madwoman mother is in league with a god to try to save my doomed father. My doomed father who apparently doesn’t know he’s doomed but wanted me out of here before the fire and blood. And my grandfather has plans to do a ritual to kick off the end of the world by killing my father. But why?

  Legba said I should know, that it was in the story… I think back, searching it.

  Then I grasp it.

  The woman in the painting. My grandmother. Mom’s mother. She died. Bronson lost her in the field. He wants to bring her back. First he woke the gods, and now he’s going to open the door to death.

  All this for that? It seems like nonsense. Except look at what I’m considering doing for Dad.

  I might as well die if I can’t keep you safe. That’s what he said to me, below Enki House. He knows the ritual is going down, and he’s agreeing. But he doesn’t know the full stakes. He doesn’t know why he shouldn’t, because the prophecy rule means he can’t. Which does make sense.

  What a mess this is.

  Oz frowns at my silence, and I try to step out of the flood of thoughts. Act natural.

  But Mom starts babbling, inventing a completely new story I wouldn’t expect her to have the presence of mind to spin. “I was giving my daughter some advice. Do you see, my heart?” She waits until she has my attention. “No matter what he says, you should still go.”

  “I won’t let you down.” She has to know I won’t abandon Dad. In case, I add, “Or him.”

  “My sweet Kyra, we have done what we have done, and now it must all play out, and I find I’m not ready for the future. Not ready in the least.” Her words slur and her eyelids droop, and I realize she’s bone weary. Legba and the blood and doom have taken her energy.

  Oz stops beside the table. “Like I said before, it’s harder on oracles when they forecast alone,” he says, for me to hear only.

  I rise and go around Oz to her side. “Mom?”

  “Tired,” she murmurs. “So tired.” She peers at Oz over my shoulder, though, and points a lazy finger at him. “This is a good boy. Good Society boy. All the mothers must love him.” Her head bobs with fatigue.

  “I think you’d better lie down,” I say.

  “She seems sharp enough to me,” Oz says. “I am a good boy and all the mothers do love me.”

  I roll my eyes at him.

  When I slide my arm under one of hers to get it around my shoulder, he’s there on the other side to help me lift her without a word from me. She leans into me as we take her to a long, low sofa that’s seen better days. Sinking onto the worn brown fabric, she pulls a pillow to her chest and hugs it, like a child with a stuffed animal.

  “I hope I see you again,” she says, “my daughter.”

  I hold onto those words, ones I never thought I’d hear. �
��You will. I promise.”

  Mom’s last words drift out, take away that warmth, “Only if I’ve been alone all this time for nothing. Only if there is no fate.” Her eyes close, her breathing steadies. Her features become peaceful. I smooth a twisted lock of hair back from her face, and find a soft quilt on the back of the couch. We have one like it at home. A gift from Dad, then. I settle it over her. I smooth her hair back one last time, careful not to wake her.

  “I hope your sleep is dreamless,” I whisper. Mine rarely is.

  When I look up, Oz is watching me. “Are you OK?” he asks. I find that I don’t want to lie to him, either, even though he’s not really my friend. Not like Bree and Tam. Even though I know I’ll have to. And soon. For now, I stick with a harmless truth.

  “No,” I say, “but I’ll live.”

  I lead the way up the dark hallway and to the door. I swim around in the new information from Legba as if it’s the river he mentioned. I consider what I have to do next. I let it rush over me like the waters of the abzu, as I lock the door behind us.

  Bree rushes to me, Tam behind her. “Is everything alright?” she asks.

  Justin’s there too, and he and Oz close ranks. Shoulder to shoulder, watching and listening. Legba left right before Oz came in, almost as if he knew Oz was about to show. That can’t be a coincidence. I’ll have to be careful with them.

  “Fine,” I say.

  Tam takes too much pleasure in saying, “She can’t talk in front of you guys.”

  “I don’t see why not,” Oz protests. But he must get it, because the protest is weak. “Kyra, you should come back with us. Your grandfather’s worried about you.”

  “I know he is,” I say. The words flow out so smoothly I almost feel bad – except I don’t have time to feel bad. “We need to get these guys home first, and then I’m coming with you. Back to the Jefferson. I’m sick of doing what my dad says, and my mom can’t take me in. So I want to join. When can I get my stripes?”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  On the way to Tam’s house in the big black Society carriage, Tam and Bree try their best to talk me out of going with Oz and Justin. I’m ready for them, though. I have a purpose now, and my first objective is to get them out of harm’s way and myself further into it.