The Martu outstation had only one phone line, for emergencies, but it was unreliable at best and certainly not an option for an international call. But Parngurr was. Hosting a larger community of the Martu, Parngurr also served tourists who came for a rugged outback experience. The small town had a store and a gas station and a laundry—and reliable phone service. Including burner phones in the store and a satellite signal.
It’s where Angelo would go to call the Bishop.
Mouse waited for the flash of temper or rush of panic. She felt empty instead, her mind methodically working through the problem. How much time did they have before the Bishop’s Novus Rishi descended on them? Given the remoteness and difficult terrain, it would likely be days. But Mouse didn’t want to bring that kind of trouble to the Martu. She and Angelo could leave tomorrow and have time to get to—where? Port Hedland, maybe. They could call the Bishop again from there, draw him away from the outstation, and then get on a boat going somewhere else.
She sat back and pulled her knees to her chest. She’d already decided they needed to leave, she reasoned. Angelo calling the Bishop just made it all messier and faster. But the word betrayal sifted into the conversation in her mind.
Mouse pushed herself up and busied herself with counting needles and bandages and making itemized lists of what Ngara would need to order for the clinic over the next six months. A few hours later, one of the children came to fetch her. Ngara, the other adults, and older children were going out to hunt, and Mouse was needed to watch after the little ones. She spent the last of the daylight painting with the children, and then, as darkness fell, they moved out to the hearth fire to tell stories while they waited for the hunters to bring home supper.
The children drew close, a couple of them climbing into her lap as they sat on the ground. The snaps and crackles of the fire drove away the chill that settled quickly in the desert at sunset, and Mouse’s heart grew heavy with the good-byes she couldn’t say.
“Tell us the story about the wolf in the woods,” one of the children said. It was a tale Mouse had told many times.
“Once upon a time in the Sumava forest,” she began.
“A forest has many trees,” a little boy added.
“Juniper and oak and lindenwood,” they all shouted out. They liked hearing about the mountains covered in trees and the wide, rushing rivers and the deep lakes and snow—all impossible pieces of a world they would likely never see. They begged her to draw patterns of snowflakes in the dry dirt.
“And once,” Mouse continued, “a young girl ran away to hide in this forest.”
The children knew the story so well, they took it from her.
“The girl met a wolf,” one of them said. “His name was Bohdan.”
All the children said the name. They held the long vowel, their mouths perfect circles as their tongues played with the unfamiliar sound and then slid over the d and clipped the n at the end.
“The girl saved him because she was ngangkari, a healer,” a boy said.
“And they were friends, the wolf and the healer,” another child added.
“But she was sick, too. Her kurunpa was dark and sad. Her spirit did not live in her heart. It clung to her back and whispered wrong things.”
“It told her she was bad. Broken. No good.” The words, high and bright in the voice of innocents, pierced Mouse like daggers.
“Bohdan saw the dark kurunpa, and he drove it away.”
“How?” one of the littlest ones, new to the story, asked.
Mouse answered this time. “He taught her love—for others and for herself.”
“Then the Mamu came.” The little girl’s eyes were wide and full of the firelight. “They were evil and hungry, and they took the body of Bohdan, and he was gone.”
“But his kurunpa, bright and strong, would not leave. He went inside the girl, the ngangkari, and became her mapanpa, her magic healing, her love.”
“And she was saved!”
“Saved,” they all echoed.
Mouse saw the lights of the jeep far off in the distance—Angelo had come home from Parngurr.
CHAPTER FIVE
Jack Gray stared at himself in the mirror of his hotel bathroom. Steam from the shower still fogged the glass, but his stark white hair cut through the haze.
After several more attempts to wash it out in the tiny sink at the synagogue, he had finally accepted that it wasn’t just dirt from the attic. Something had happened to him. And then the fear set in. What had happened? And was it still happening? Was the spell slowly draining him of life? Was he going to die?
The girl—he’d never asked her name—had stayed with him as he panicked. She assured him he would be fine. She had touched the amulet, too. It seemed that touching it was the trigger to set off the spell. Once a person let go, the spell stopped. The girl had touched it only for a moment and had a single streak of white in her hair as proof. Jack had held the amulet for much longer.
Once he’d calmed down, he and the girl had gone back outside the synagogue. The amulet still lay on the sidewalk where the girl had flung it. She went back to the utility closet where she’d stored the ladder and came out with a wad of thick rags covered in splotches of different colored paints. She shoved the rags into Jack’s hand. Shaking, he knelt and carefully gathered the amulet in the rags, cocooning it in the thick cloth. When he stood up, the girl was gone.
He had walked back to the hotel holding the rag away from him like it was a snake. Once he was inside the suite, he’d run to the bathroom, tossed the rag and amulet on the counter, and sobbed with relief when he saw that he was still himself, skin still young, eyes still vibrant and dark—all normal except for the shock of white hair. He’d stepped into the shower with one last, desperate hope.
But now the truth was staring back at him from the mirror, inescapable and blinding like snow.
Jack shuddered, a chill running through him as it dawned on him that the girl had probably told the Reverend what had happened to her. That was why he’d been so sure this wasn’t just another of the Rabbi’s pointless quests. The Reverend had known there was something of real power in the Golem’s attic. That was why he wanted Jack to bring it to him and not tell the Rabbi. The Reverend knew the thing was dangerous. He knew—and he hadn’t warned Jack.
Jack slammed his fist into his reflection in the mirror. Cracks erupted like a spider’s web out and around where his knuckles hit the glass. He jumped back, surprised at what he’d done.
“Good Lord, what happened to you?” Kitty Ayres stood in the doorway gaping at Jack, naked and now dripping blood on the bathroom floor.
He snatched at a hand towel and wrapped it around his bleeding hand. “I slipped on the wet floor and slammed into the mirror,” he lied. He stood a little taller, not at all embarrassed as Mrs. Ayres ran her eyes over every part of him and then took a step closer.
“No, I meant this,” she lifted a wet lock of white that clung to the top of his shoulder.
Jack’s eyes darted to the amulet, which had slipped out from the bundle of rags where he’d tossed it on the counter. Mrs. Ayres turned to look, too.
“What’s this?” she asked as she reached for it.
“Don’t touch it!”
She snatched her hand back and looked up at Jack in the shattered mirror. “Why not?” she asked, her face sharp with anger.
“That’s what happened to me.”
She bent closer to examine the silver amulet. “What is it?”
Jack wasn’t sure how much Mrs. Ayres knew about her husband’s non-evangelical alliances with the Novus Rishi, but right now he didn’t give a damn about what he was supposed to say or not. “An amulet.”
“How did it do that to your hair?”
“Magic.”
She turned to look at him over her shoulder, a slow smile stretching across her face. She pulled her cell phone out of her blazer pocket. “Where are you?” she asked after a moment. “He got it. You need to come see.”
“So you knew, too,” Jack said as she put the phone away.
“Honey, I know everything the Reverend knows.”
“Why didn’t either of you warn me?”
“Bless your heart, Jack. We needed to know if the girl was telling the truth. That’s a lot of money we paid her—a person might say and do anything to get their hands on that kind of money.” She laid her hand against his bare back. “Now, we need to get you some clothes on before the Reverend gets here.” She looked Jack over once more before she stepped out into the bedroom. “And bandages for that hand,” she called back.
Jack’s anger was dwindling into defeat. He’d been used. But what could he do about it?
“I need new shoes.”
Kitty Ayres came back in through the door with a pair of pants and a shirt she’d pulled from the closet. “Don’t you worry. I’ll go pick you out something myself this afternoon.” She started to close the bathroom door but paused and nodded to the amulet on the counter. “Be sure to bring that when you come out.”
Jack sank onto the toilet, his head in his hands.
He entered the suite’s sitting area several minutes later, dressed, hand bandaged, hair dry and coiffed, the amulet again wrapped in rags. He held it carefully in front of him and then laid it on the marble coffee table. The Reverend was sitting on the couch, stretched back with his jacket open and his belly spread out over his lap. He chuckled and shook his head when he saw Jack’s hair.
“You okay, son?”
“Sure.” In addition to the fresh clothes, Jack wore a cloak of indifference. He knew not to expect any remorse; the Reverend never apologized for anything. All Jack could do was move forward, a little more wise and a little more wary. It was another gift he prided himself on—his ability to cut his losses and start looking for the next open door of opportunity.
Mrs. Ayres came around the room divider from the kitchenette with a cup of coffee in her hand. “Here you go, honey. You could probably use a pick-me-up.” She handed the cup to Jack and then settled onto the couch beside her husband.
“Well, sit and tell me about it,” the Reverend said.
Jack sat on the black leather stool beside the coffee table across from them. He told them a truncated version of what had happened and then waited for questions.
“Since you’re the scholar here, what do you think it is, Dr. Gray?” the Reverend asked, leaning forward and peeling back the rags to expose the silver cylinder.
“It’s an amulet, usually worn for protection.” Jack mimicked the dusty tone of one of his least favorite history professors. “Typically, a spell or good omen is engraved along the surface, but this one only has decorative markings.” A small sigh slipped past his stiff lip; he knew where his next words would take him. “There’s something inside.”
“How do you know?” Mrs. Ayres asked.
“Sometimes the amulets were made to carry the spell or a protective talisman inside. And . . . I heard something rattle when I was examining it in the attic.” Jack pulled at the back of his neck as a little shiver ran up his spine.
“Well, open it up and let’s see,” said the Reverend.
Jack swallowed. “After what it did to me already, I’m not touching it again.”
“How’d it do that to your hair?” Mrs. Ayres asked, her voice charged with curiosity as she leaned even closer to the amulet. “You said it was magic. How does that work?”
“I’m a historian, I don’t know anything about these kinds of—”
“Let’s be honest, son. You’re not a historian. The only thing you’re really a scholar of is your own ambition.” The Reverend chuckled. “Now, I don’t see that as a bad thing, but you’re young still, which means you’ve got a lot of ladder left to climb. And what that means is when I tell you to open it, the only answer I’m looking for is ‘Yes, sir.’”
Jack held the Reverend’s gaze, testing his own courage. And then he blinked. “Yes, sir.” He looked down at the amulet, his face hot with shame. “I’ll need a pair of tweezers.”
Without a word, Kitty Ayres got up and came back with a pair of gold tweezers in her hand. “Here you go, honey.”
Jack bunched the rags up around one end of the amulet and held it tightly while he used the tweezers to tug at the other end. It took several minutes to scratch through the corrosion and then even longer to use the tweezers as a pry bar to ease the silver lid from the cylinder. At last, it popped free like the cork from a wine bottle.
As Jack tilted the amulet, the Reverend and Mrs. Ayres leaned in close to watch a rolled scroll of silver slide out. Jack moved toward the scroll with the tweezers, ready to unroll it and read the spell.
“Stop.” Surprisingly, the command came from Kitty Ayres rather than the Reverend. “We’ll take care of it from here. We just wanted to be sure there was something in there.”
“Don’t you want to know what it says?” Jack asked.
“We’ll know soon enough,” she answered as she wrapped the rags around the amulet and scroll.
“But I—”
“I think you need to be gone before the others get here,” the Reverend said.
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve met Bishop Sebastian,” the Reverend answered.
Jack looked at him, confused.
“Your hair,” Mrs. Ayres said.
“Ah.” Jack leaned back as he began to understand. “And the Rabbi will be joining by video. He’ll want to know what happened to my hair. He’ll ask me about—wait, did he know the amulet was dangerous?” Jack wanted a full lay of the land. He needed to know where the mines were hidden if he hoped to get out intact. “Did he know it could—”
“He didn’t know about the amulet. He thought he was sending you to find a bit of parchment with the spell that other old rabbi used to give the Golem life,” Mrs. Ayres said. “Our Rabbi thinks if you put that spell in the mouth of something already alive, it’ll have the opposite effect—regardless of whether it’s human or immortal.”
“Does the Rabbi want to kill someone?” Jack asked, though pieces of what he knew were starting to fall into place on their own. All the research he’d been doing for the Rabbi—combing through ancient texts for references to immortal beings, collecting variations on the Book of Enoch, picking through spells and magic artifacts purported to be weapons against evil, trying to track down the legendary, lost Book of the Just—it all added to what he knew about his old mentor. Even as Dr. Em’s student, Jack had known her to be odd, but during the two days he’d spent with her in Nashville, he’d learned that she had the power to control people, that she was connected in some visceral way to the Devil’s Bible—which meant that she was also very old. Maybe immortal. It didn’t take a keen analytical mind to connect the dots—the Rabbi wanted the Golem spell so he could kill Dr. Em.
“Not some one. Some thing, more like,” Mrs. Ayres said. “An abomination before the Lord.”
Jack could’ve sworn the Reverend rolled his eyes at his wife before he muttered, “He’s an old fool looking a gift horse in the mouth. And that’s enough talk, Kitty.”
Jack nodded to the scroll that had been hidden in the amulet. “Is that the spell? The one that gave life to the Golem?”
“I honestly couldn’t say, son.”
“Are you going to give it to the Rabbi?”
“I’ve got someone who can tell me what it says. And until I know what it is, I don’t want anyone else, including any of the Novus Rishi, to know I’ve got it. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
Kitty Ayres gasped. “Oh, Reverend! We should send Jack to The Redeemed.”
“What?” Jack asked, leaning back. He didn’t like any of the scenarios his mind was playing out.
“It’s our boat,” she said.
“Yacht,” the Reverend corrected as he pulled out his buzzing phone, a smile playing at his lips while he read the lit-up screen.
Mrs. Ayres sighed. “Jack would be out of the way until we figure
out what to do about his hair. No one from the Novus Rishi would know where he was to ask him any pesky questions. He could just—”
“Our boy will be leaving in the morning to do another chore for me,” the Reverend said.
“Well, I’m at least going to go get you some new shoes, and then we’re going to send you out on the town for the night. I think you’ve earned it.” Mrs. Ayres got up and headed toward the door, ruffling Jack’s hair as she went. “Oh my, that’s soft as lambswool. And it’ll be striking against dark clothes. Just you wait and see—you’re going to be a girl magnet, honey.”
“I’ll walk down with you, sweetheart. I’ve got to get back to my Righteousness meetings.” The Reverend bent to collect the rag-wrapped amulet and scroll and put them in a pocket inside his briefcase. “Have fun tonight, but get back to the hotel first thing in the morning,” he said to Jack as he lifted his belly to button his suit.
“Yes, sir.”
Days later, Jack was still living on the decadent indulgence of that last night in Prague while he watched a foreman rake mud from the legs of his overalls, sending chunks of it splattering down to the ground. “You can’t go in yet. It’s not safe.”
“Why not?” Shaking a piece of mud from his otherwise clean boots, Jack Gray stepped back, his own bright orange overalls, still pristine, glaring as he moved into a patch of sunlight.
“Need to finish with the hydraulic supports and clear away a bit more of the overhead debris,” the man said. He turned and pointed behind him at a tangled mess of toppled trees and sunken earth. “There’s some crawl space down there, but it gets tight. Seems pretty settled—looks like the structure collapsed maybe a year or so back—but I want to be sure before I send people down there.”
Jack would have been happy to wait. He would have been happy to never come out to the Czechia backwoods or coop himself up in a tiny hotel in quiet little Chrudim for a whole damn week, watching men in overalls play in the dirt. And he would certainly be happy to never climb down into that muddy rubble and take the risk that it would all come crashing down on him. But it wasn’t his decision to make. The Reverend was already impatient. He wanted to know if there was anything to find in the ruins of the monastery at Podlažice.
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