Angel-Seeker (38 page)

“But she never said—and the
gate!
” Jerusha exclaimed.

Hepzibah shrugged. “Maybe it was never locked. Everyone forgets a chore now and then. And as for Rebekah never saying a word, well, I asked her not to. I am old and despised enough already. I don't want pity on top of it.”

“No one—no one despises you,
awrie,
” Jerusha said. “You are my husband's beloved sister.”

“And you are an empty-headed, hot-hearted, foolish woman,” Hepzibah declared. “Are you done mistreating your daughter? I would ask her to bring me a plate of food to the table. I find I am not feeling so strong this morning, and I need to sit down.”

“Yes—I—Rebekah, go get food for your aunt,” Jerusha said.

No apology first. No apology expected. A woman could abuse her children, just as a husband could abuse his wife, and no one questioned her behavior. Still, Rebekah felt her face must be bright
red as a dera berry, half of the color brought by violence and half by mortification.

“Sit. I will bring you whatever you like,” Rebekah said to Hepzibah in a voice that was almost a whisper.

“A little of everything,” Hepzibah said. “I'm hungry.”

There was almost complete silence as Rebekah moved across the room to where the cooks had laid out a buffet. Hector's other two sisters were standing nearby, and Gabbatha reached out and brushed Rebekah's arm as she passed by. A gesture of sympathy. The other one gave her a tremulous old woman's smile. Out of the corner of her eye, Rebekah saw her mother slowly leave her stance by the door and sit down at a table by Hector's cousin and her daughter. Instantly the three women were in a low-voiced discussion, the other two women no doubt reassuring Jerusha that she had done the right thing.
A girl gets wild impulses. Even if she did nothing wrong this time, who knows when such an idea might sprout in her head? Better to warn her now. Better to frighten her so deeply that she never forgets it. Better now, before she does something terrible and it's too late for her.

It was not the first public fight this room had witnessed between Jerusha and Rebekah, between other women and their daughters. But it was the first time Hepzibah had spoken up to champion anyone. Rebekah moved down the buffet table, filling two plates with food, and could not imagine why Hector's sister had come forward to save her with a lie.

Hepzibah was already seated with her two elderly sisters, all of them deep in gossip about one of the girls in a neighbor's house. “Thank you,” Hepzibah said when Rebekah brought over her plate, but in such an absentminded way that it was clear she did not expect Rebekah to sit with them. Rebekah carried her plate to another table, where Hector's niece Hali was sitting with two other girls.

“I hate my mother,” Hali said, and they all laughed. That was all that was said on the topic for the whole meal.

The rest of the day passed in an odd, unreal way, Rebekah moving through each sluggish moment as though her whole body was weighted. She went to her mother's room to take charge of Jonah, but then her mother complained that she was so tired, she had to
have some rest. So Rebekah brought him with her to the fabric room, letting him crawl through the bolts of cloth and knock over trays of needles. When he turned crabby and fretful, she brought him to her own room and laid him down for a nap, lying beside him on the mattress. Both of them slept for two hours, and Rebekah could have slept even longer if he hadn't woken up and begun to poke at her eyes with his small, curious fingers.

“Frubo,” he said in delight when she sat up.

“Frubo indeed,” she said, running her hands through her hair and yawning widely. “I wish I knew exactly what you were trying to say.”

It was an hour or more before dinner, a time of day when many of the women of the house retreated to their rooms to nap or read. Rebekah scooped the squirming baby into her arms and went down the hall to knock on Hepzibah's door.

“I'm here, come in, don't let an old woman sleep,” came the grumble from the other side. Rebekah pushed open the door and went in.

In fact, Hepzibah was sitting at her desk, writing a letter. She had a sister who had married an unusual man; they had moved away from Breven and gone to live in Semorrah twenty years ago. Hector had had nothing to do with her ever since, because she lived like any Semorran woman, barefaced and brazen, but Hepzibah had kept in touch with her all this time. Rebekah could not think of anyone else the old lady would be writing.

“Oh. It's you,” Hepzibah said, and folded over her paper.

“I just came—I wanted to thank you.”

Hepzibah gestured to an overstuffed red velvet chair, covered with a brightly patterned shawl, and Rebekah sat. Jonah wriggled from her arms and scurried across the room on his hands and knees.

“Let him go,” Hepzibah said. “You sit and talk to me.”

“I wanted to thank you,” Rebekah said. “For helping me this morning.”

“For lying for you, you mean.”

Rebekah nodded. “Yes. I don't know why you did it.”

Hepzibah snorted. “Because your mother is a stupid woman who does not understand that she lives in a prison and that any sane woman would want to break free of it.”

Rebekah merely stared at her. Hepzibah gave a parched laugh. “Oh, the prison works for me well enough now. I'm an old woman, and I like to live in a house that someone else provides, eating food that I don't have to cook. I can sit in the garden on a sunny day, and sit under a roof when it rains. I have an easy life. But I'm old. The life wasn't so easy when I was young.”

“Did you—when you were younger—”

“Not going to tell you of any of my rebellious actions! You're as foolish as your mother, and just as little to be trusted. But I wasn't a happy girl. I wasn't a happy wife. I don't imagine you're very happy either.”

“I was,” Rebekah said, “until recently.”

Hepzibah nodded her head. “Well, don't tell me anything you've been doing. I don't want to know it. I don't want to stop you, but I can't protect you. I just want you to know that. There will be nothing I will be able to do for you if you are found out.”

“You have done so much for me already—today—”

“And I am willing to play that game again. But if you are caught outside these walls, nothing I say will save you.”

“I'm going again tonight,” Rebekah said.

Hepzibah nodded. “I was sure you would. Be careful.”

“I will be.”

“Do you need money?” the old woman asked.

Rebekah just looked at her for a moment. Jansai women never had cash, since they were never out in public places where they might spend it. All the household expenses were discharged by the men. “I don't think so,” she said. “But why do—how do—”

Hepzibah brushed her hand through the air. “My sister sends me some from time to time. It is a good thing for a woman to have her own coins, in case—well, just in case.”

“I won't be leaving Breven,” Rebekah said.

“No? And you'll marry this Isaac in—what is it now, a little more than three months' time?”

“Yes.”

Hepzibah leaned forward. “Think long and hard before you do that,
kircha,
” she said, using the term more fondly than her mother
ever had. “A Jansai marriage is not so wonderful a thing. For a girl who is not so docile.”

“Hector has decided,” Rebekah said. “I have no choice.”

“Do you not?” the old lady said. “Don't throw away the choices you do have. And you know better than I do what they might be.”

Across the room there was the sound of objects falling and then Jonah's long, accusing wail. Rebekah leapt to her feet. “Oh no, I'm so sorry, he's pulled down your tapestry—”

“Just what I'd expect from a son of my brother's,” Hepzibah said with a sniff. “Destruction and turmoil.”

Rebekah crossed the room to extricate him from the folds of fabric and upended hanging rods. “Let me give him to my mother, and then I'll come back and fix this. I'm so sorry—”

Hepzibah laughed, her dark little eyes alight with amusement. “You can fix it tonight,” she said, “when you come in to rub ointment on my back.”

Rebekah was caught so much off guard that she actually opened her mouth to explain where she would really be this night. And then she realized it was a joke. Amazingly, she started laughing, too.

It never would have occurred to her that she would be sharing any jest with Aunt Hepzibah. Particularly one like this, not actually funny.

“If you ever
do
need oil rubbed into your back—” she began, but Hepzibah snapped, “My back's just fine,” and they both kept on laughing. Rebekah was still smiling as she delivered the baby back into her mother's arms.

“Thank you,” Jerusha said, and that was their only conversation for the day. If you overlooked the conversation at the door of the dining hall that morning.

Dinner was quiet, and Rebekah left early to go lie down. She was always tired these days, it seemed. No wonder, of course, when she spent half the night awake and out of the house, leading a secret, second life. But Obadiah would leave in a day or two, perhaps even as early as tomorrow morning, and she could sleep away every one of the weeks he was gone from her.

She rose from her mattress a couple of hours before midnight and bundled up her boy's clothes under her arms. As before, she stood outside her own door a long time, listening to the noises down the hall. As before, she moved absolutely silently through the sleeping corridor. But this time, on a hunch, she did not take the stairway down toward the kitchen, but up, toward the third story. And from there, she took the winter stairwell up again, pushing open its flat doorway and climbing onto the roof.

The angel was there, waiting for her. She threw herself into his arms and covered his pale face with kisses.

B
y now, Elizabeth and David had settled into a routine that seemed to suit them both. He was not a man who seemed to require, as Faith put it delicately, that his physical needs be met with a great deal of frequency. Nor, as Elizabeth put it more bluntly, did he satisfy those physical needs with a great deal of finesse. But he seemed to like the idea of regular sex, without having to go to much trouble to achieve it, and it was Elizabeth's goal to make his life as trouble-free as possible.

So she began to organize their relationship. Each time she saw him—which was always late at night in his own room, no romantic dinners or flowery speeches required beforehand—she inquired into his schedule for the next week or so, and they would agree on the time she should return to his room. Sometimes he forgot, but she never raged or reprimanded him. She simply left him a note: “I see you've been detained. I'll come back tomorrow night.” And he was always happy to see her that following night, no matter how inebriated he might be.

His skills as a lover never improved much, but since her expectations had gone down to zero, neither of them was ever disappointed.

And the life suited Elizabeth well enough. She felt she was finally in control of her destiny, working toward all the things she had ever wanted to achieve. She possessed an angel lover—who, truth to tell, took very little of her time and even less of her heart—and the
remainder of her life was filled with relationships and activities that she found most agreeable. She and Faith had become truly close friends, confiding all the rather grim details of their previous lives and sharing all their observations about their current existence. They both hated Shiloh, they both adored Tola, they loved the same foods, they had the same goals. They were soul mates.

Faith's own fortunes had turned brighter, as she had begun a romance with a rather callow young angel named Jason. Unlike Elizabeth, Faith seemed to feel some real affection for her angelic suitor, though she was under no illusions about the permanency of the relationship.

“But he's very sweet,” she told Elizabeth over dinner one night. They were both earning enough that they could afford a night out once a week, and they looked forward to this evening above all other events in their lives. “He told me yesterday that his mother would like me. And of course you know she wouldn't. But I think if we were up Gaza way where she lives, he might actually take me to meet her!”

“She'll like you well enough if you have his baby.”

Faith sighed. “And I thought this month—I really thought—well, you know, I was three days late. But then—” She shrugged. “No baby.”

“Listen,” Elizabeth said. “They're a little expensive. But Mary's sold me these herbs that are supposed to enhance fertility. You can only take them on certain days, and you can only take them three times a month. I tried them, and they gave me a headache for a week. But if they help—” She shrugged. “You could try some.”

“Oh, yes! I'd love to! But why can you only take them three times a month?”

“Because they'll kill you if you take them too often.”

Faith's eyes grew big. “Then I guess I'd better be careful.”

So Elizabeth asked Mary for a set of the herbs to sell to her friend, and the healer only reluctantly agreed. “You're not lying to me, are you?” the small woman demanded. “You're not pretending these are for somebody else, and then planning to take them all yourself?”

That hadn't even occurred to Elizabeth. “No, of course not! It's just that Faith's seeing this angel, and he's very good to her, but who knows how long it will last? So she wants to improve her chances while she can.”

“Well, you be sure to tell her all the warnings,” Mary said, shaking some of the dark crushed leaves into a little vial. “This is a very dangerous drug.”

“I've already told her,” Elizabeth said. “We'll both be careful.”

The other reason Elizabeth was enjoying life so much these days was that she loved working with Mary. The initial two-week apprenticeship had become full-time employment since, as Mary had predicted, her original helper never did come back. That was perfectly fine with Elizabeth. Every day she worked with Mary she learned something new, and every day the healer spoke to her with approval. She couldn't remember the last time anyone in her life had appreciated her on a consistent basis. Oh, her mother had loved her, had complimented her often on her beauty and her sense of fashion, but the things her mother had valued had been useless, really, when their old life had fallen apart. These days, she was being commended on her quick wit, her ability to learn, her steady hands, and her cool nerve. Qualities she had not even known she possessed, but qualities that seemed to benefit her more than a heart-shaped face or ropes of auburn hair.

At Mary's side, she had treated broken bones, massive hemorrhages, gangrenous toes, dehydration, rashes, fevers, and hysteria. She'd seen three women give birth, and one almost die from the experience. No little angels had come into the world under Elizabeth's watch, but Mary said she had delivered about a dozen in her time.

“They're rare,” she said. “And difficult.”

“Difficult how?”

Mary shook her head. “In many ways. So often an angel child is a stillbirth, or a child that dies only a few hours after it's taken from the womb. It's as if whatever there is in angel blood isn't meant to mix with mortal blood—as if there's an alien compound in there somewhere. And the angel children that do survive often kill their mothers on their way to being born. They're too big. You wouldn't think their wings would bulk them up so much, but they make the passage hard. More than once, if I've thought the chance was good that it was an angel child inside, I've knifed open the mother's belly and cut the baby out. Saved more than one life, I promise you.”

Elizabeth listened to this recitation with some dismay. “But then—if I become pregnant—or Faith—”

“I know it's what you're both wishing for. But the minute you're carrying an angel child, you're putting your life at risk. Think of that next time you meet that dark boy at night.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “If I ever find I'm carrying David's child, I'll move in with you. I'll follow you everywhere. I'll never be more than three feet behind you till the day I deliver.”

Mary smiled. “Well, that'll improve your chances, that's for certain. That's the best I can promise.”

But nothing—not the frequency of their meetings, not the dried herbs, not the simply wishing for it so much—did anything to improve Elizabeth's ability to conceive. Again, she was intensely disappointed when her monthly bleeding stained her morning clothing. She had had an angel lover for more than two months; she had desperately hoped for better results than this.

But someone in Tola's house, it appeared, was actually able to celebrate. A week later, Shiloh came down to the dinner table, all smug and blushing. “I have news,” she informed the rest of the residents, pretending modesty but clearly gloating. “I am carrying the child of the angel Stephen.”

Of course, they all had to act as if they were happy for her, and lavish her with attention, and offer to fetch things for her if she grew tired or sick. But Faith and Elizabeth exchanged private glances and shared their true opinions later that night in their room.

“Of all the lucky cows!” Faith spat out. “And I don't know how she can be sure it's
the angel Stephen's
child she's carrying, when she's been in the beds of half a dozen other men. That I know of!”

“How did she get him to notice her? He never speaks to anyone except the other angels.”

Faith made an unattractive sound. “All the men notice Shiloh. I think she uses potions.”

“Potions,” Elizabeth repeated, intrigued by the idea. “I hadn't thought of that.”

Faith laughed. “Oh, you know of some?”

“Mary was telling me. Something about a love potion made from manna seeds. Does that really work? Or is it just a fable?”

Faith laughed again. “I've never actually tried any, but the
story
is that if you grind them up and put them in the food of the man you're interested in, he'll fall in love with you.”

“Huh,” Elizabeth said. “Mary and I use the salve all the time.”

“Does she have seeds, too?” Faith asked.

“I'll ask her tomorrow. I'm seeing David again in a couple of days. Now would be the time to mix up a potion.”

“Could you—if there was enough—”

“I'll get some for you, too,” Elizabeth said with a grin. “Those boys will fall in love with us yet.”

Mary was less than impressed by Elizabeth's reasoning when Elizabeth made the request the following morning. “Oh, sweet god of the skies and waters,” she exclaimed. “Don't you girls ever think about anything except snaring the attention of an angel?”

“Not very often,” Elizabeth replied.

Mary hunted through the sealed jars on one of her tall book-shelves. She did own about thirty books, all tattered and much-read medical texts, but most of the shelves contained other items: boxes, vials, dried roots, a bone or two that Elizabeth had never had the nerve to examine too closely. “Don't you have more pride than to try to make a man love you against his will? Wouldn't you rather have him court you because of your pretty laugh or your kind heart than because you'd poured an elixir into his wine?”

Elizabeth shrugged. “I don't care why he loves me, just as long as he does. Anyway, I don't even care if David loves me. I just want—” She searched for the right words. “A little more of his time.”

Mary turned away from the shelves, a tall jar in her hand. It was filled to the brim with tiny white seeds no bigger than grains of rice. “I don't even know if this tale is true,” she said.

“How much should I use?”

Mary shook her head. “I don't know that either.”

Elizabeth was alarmed. “Well, I don't want to kill him!”

Mary laughed. “It's manna. It's a gift from the god. I don't think it'll kill anybody, no matter how much you dose him with.” She opened the jar and shook about a half a cup of seeds into a small bowl. “That being said, I'd use some caution if I were you. No more
than ten grains in whatever you serve your angel lover. Grind them up finely and put them in something with a strong flavor of its own.”

“Will he be able to taste it?”

“Who knows? I've never been so foolish as to try such a thing! But most ingredients you add to a recipe have some kind of tang. Cover it up as best you can.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much,” Elizabeth said, pouring the seeds into a blue handkerchief and knotting it up securely. “I'll pay you, of course. What do they cost?”

Mary just watched her with a peculiar smile on her face, shaking her head. “They're a gift from the god,” she said again. “And all such gifts are free.”

Faith and Elizabeth spent a good couple of hours that night grinding the hard white seeds into powder, a task complicated by the fact that they didn't have the right tools. They'd borrowed a cutting board and some heavy glassware from the kitchen, and these had to serve for mortar and pestle, but they were left with a lot of hulls and oversize chunks that they feared might be visible in water or wine.

“But ale,” Faith said. “That's got a strong taste, and you'd be likely to overlook something like this floating around in the foam.”

“David doesn't drink ale,” Elizabeth said glumly. “Only wine.”

“Well, try to crush it down again.”

In the end, they came up with a few teaspoonfuls of a respectable enough powder, which they divided equally.

“Will David wonder why you've brought him wine, since you've never come to his room with liquor before?” Faith asked.

“I don't think so. He'll just be happy it's there.”

“Will he wonder why you don't drink any?”

Elizabeth laughed. “I don't think so,” she said again. “Anyway, I might have a taste or two. Why not? Mary said that, according to the legend, the manna seed is only supposed to have an effect on men.”

“And even if the potion worked on you—” Faith began.

Elizabeth shrugged. “Is that so bad? To fall in love with him?”

Faith sighed. “I'm already in love with Jason.”

“Then I hope this potion works on him.”

They both had assignations planned with their lovers the following night, Faith meeting Jason at a concert in the main hall, Elizabeth, as always, awaiting David in his room. He was just unreliable enough that she did not want to uncork the wine and pour in the powder before he arrived, because what if he never showed up at all? There was a good bottle of wine, and a few hours' worth of work, wasted. But she did not want him to see her sifting substances into his drink. So she carried in the unopened bottle and two white ceramic mugs, and poured the powder into one. He would laugh at the container, but she didn't think he would disdain the offering.