Julia Vanishes (29 page)

“Casimir,” I say.

“Mrs. Och figured we'd make it to Naripi before he'd be able to find us again. We're splitting up after that. They're taking Bianka and the baby somewhere. Gregor's up in arms because he thinks we aren't getting our money. I have a feeling your Mrs. Och is good for it, though.”

“I expect so,” I say.

“Esme did a nice job patching up the witch. Set the bones of your fingers right too.”

“Is Bianka all right?”

“Moving slowly, but she seems it.”

“And Theo?”

“Right as rain, by the looks of it.”

I swallow my tears and ask, “What about everybody else?”

“Everyone's a bit beat up, I guess, but no worse than that,” says Dek. “Wyn's got a broken arm from the first storm. I took a bullet to the leg, the good one too. Still, I'd say we got off lightly, for the most part.”

He stays and chats with me awhile, and once or twice he tries to ask me about what happened in the Terra Room, but I find I cannot answer.

The professor helps Mrs. Och into the cabin, lies her down on the bunk opposite mine, so I have the odd sense we are bunkmates taking a rest. She looks ancient and very frail.

“I have come to apologize,” she says. “I do not like to borrow the life force of another, especially when you have been through so much already. I could see no other way.”

“What does that mean, borrowing my life force?” I ask.

“It is exactly as it sounds. Every person has a life force, an energy. It is strongest in the young, of course. Borrowing it is something I learned to do long ago and have needed more as I got older. But the demands of the storm I summoned and your own weakened state resulted in a rather close call for you. I am sorry.”

“I'm all right. Or, I reckon I will be. What now?”

“We will take Theo somewhere safe. But he will not be safe for long. Casimir will be looking for him again.”

“But that witch or whatever she is, the hunchback, Shey, is dead,” I say. “Doesn't he need her?”

“I highly doubt that Shey is dead,” says Mrs. Och.

“I shot her four times,” I say. “She was bleeding everywhere.”

Mrs. Och says nothing to that, and I am thinking, these terrible people, nothing seems to kill them.

“I suppose Pia isn't dead either,” I say gloomily.

“Pia, I think, has nine lives,” says Mrs. Och. “I do not know how many she has used.”

I can't tell if she's joking, but I get the gist. I am not safe from her, not yet.

“Will you go back for Gennady?”

Mrs. Och shakes her head. “I cannot save Gennady,” she says.

“But he's your brother.”

I would never leave Dek behind in a place like that. Never.

“Casimir is my brother too,” she replies.

I take a deep breath. “Casimir said he
chose
me for the job in your house, because he knew my mother. He said she tried to kill him. Is it true?”

Her brow furrows. “Who is your mother?”

“She's dead,” I say. “She was drowned years ago. Her name was Ammi Farian.”

Mrs. Och makes a sound like a long sigh. “You are Ammi's daughter. I did not know. Oh, Julia. I do not think Casimir will want to let you go.”

“You knew my mother?”

She shakes her head. “I knew of her,” she says. “I never met her. But I think she knew how it might end, Julia, in choosing to be his enemy.”

“That doesn't make me feel any better,” I say.

“No, of course not.”

“How do you choose witches to save?” I ask her. “Why Jahara Sandor, but not the other witches who were drowned that day?”

I'm thinking of the young witch with brown hair. I'm thinking of my mother. I'm thinking of the witch she killed, but I don't dare ask about that.

“I can't save everyone,” she says, and some childish part of me wants to demand
Why not?
“If there is to be change in Frayne…I try to help those who might best effect it, when the time comes.”

“The time for what?”

“The time for change.”

“My mother wanted to change the world. Nobody saved her.”

If Casimir was telling the truth, then Mrs. Och's rescue of him is what cost my mother her life. She saved him, and he hunted my mother down. I am torn between hurling accusations at her and feeling gratitude to her for saving us today.

“No,” she says calmly. “I didn't save Ammi. I didn't want to involve myself too closely in Casimir's business, at the time, but Casimir's business is becoming unavoidable. I am responsible, in a way, for his desperation. I'm dying, you see.”

“Oh,” I whisper. I still don't know how to feel about Mrs. Och. I don't know how to respond to her almost casual dismissal of my mother's death, the idea that she
might
have helped her and chose not to, and I don't know if I am sorry she is dying.

“It is taking rather a long time. Still, it has put in Casimir a fear of his own death. He thinks he can restore us to our earlier power with
The Book of Disruption,
that death will not be able to claim me, or him, or any of us, if he can reassemble it. Perhaps he is right, but I do not want to see the world that Casimir would make.”

Neither do I.

“Tell me what happened at the fortress,” she says. “Shey was able to immobilize all the others, except you. How did you escape them?”

I don't want to talk about it—I don't want to say aloud what happened—but then who else might know what any of it means? So I tell her everything. I describe what I saw, how it felt. When I am done, she says nothing, which is annoying, given what it cost me to get it out.

“Gennady told me…he said that other place was Kahge,” I say.

“Impossible,” she says, though her expression tells me she believes him. “Not even the Xianren can cross into Kahge.”

But I can.
I come to the point. It is not easy to say, and so I whisper it: “What
am
I? What am I, that I can do such things?”

For the first time, I see a hint of something that might be fear in her eyes. She says, “I don't know what you are, Julia.”

Frederick comes to help Mrs. Och go up on deck.

“The Naripi harbor is in sight,” he says. And then to me, “You look better.”

“Yes,” I say. A strangled little yes, in lieu of crying out
I'm so sorry
or
Please forgive me.
I find I can hardly look at him, and yet I must.

“Shall I come back down to help you?” he asks me, a little taken aback by the intensity of my gaze, I think.

“No,” I say. “I can manage on my own.”

“Well, I am glad to hear it.” He bends over Mrs. Och, helping her out of the bed. They are halfway into the little hall when I manage to get the words out: “Please don't think me…what you said.”

They both turn to look at me, Frederick looking puzzled, Mrs. Och faintly amused.

I make myself say it: “Evil.”

There is something terribly like pity in his expression, and I shrivel.

“Taking Theo was evil,” he says softly. “What you did to get him out—that was very brave.”

I follow them out into the brilliant sunshine. Everybody comes crowding around to greet me, and there is a great deal of frantic talk, exchanging of stories, and so on. When I meet Wyn's eyes, I cannot be sure if he wept at my bedside or if I dreamed it. He squeezes my good hand once and says, “Stars, Brown Eyes, it's good to see you up and about.” I bob my head stupidly, and we are awkward and silent until the others break in talking again. Gregor hugs me so it hurts, weeping drunkenly, but I manage to hug him back.

Naripi is all low buildings around a sparkling harbor. The coast is dotted with islands. Fishing boats and trade boats traffic the water here.

“Our first foreign country,” says Dek, grinning at me. But I can't find joy in it, not yet. I search the sky for a winged man, scan the boats for Pia's ghoulish smile. I think I will never be free of fear again, as long as I live.

Everybody takes a turn looking at Naripi through the telescope. I join Csilla and Esme, leaning on the gunwale.

“Shame about your pretty nose,” says Csilla to me. “But I can't tell you how relieved I am to see you walking about. You looked like death for a while there.”

“What does my nose look like?” I ask, touching it tentatively. It still throbs.

“At the moment? Hideous.” She smiles warmly.

“It will be a bit crooked, I expect,” says Esme. “But it could be worse.”

“War wounds,” says Csilla. “Everything heals a little crookedly, and then you forget how it was before. Your friend Frederick was terribly concerned about you, by the way.”

I look over at Frederick in some surprise. “We're not exactly friends,” I say.

“I'd say he feels otherwise,” says Csilla, raising an eyebrow at me. Then she looks toward the harbor again. “We've got to go to the market for Sirillian silk! We might as well get some lovely dresses, after all this unpleasantness.”

“I'm sorry,” I tell her awkwardly. “I didn't know…how awful it would turn out.”

“Oh, Julia.” She gives my arm a friendly squeeze. “I've had worse days, believe me. I'm going to have a go with the telescope!”

She flounces over to where the others are taking turns looking at the harbor through the telescope. I watch her go, thinking that I know nothing at all about her life before she took up with Gregor.

“I couldn't ask them to do it for less,” Esme says then, in a low voice. “There was no question about the danger. The reward had to be equal to it.”

Is she explaining why she asked for so much gold?

“I don't think they'd have gone along with it if you hadn't.”

“If Mrs. Och comes through, I'm retiring,” she tells me. “I'd like to set Wyn up with an apprenticeship, or even his own studio. Give him a shot at something else. I'd send Dek to the university if I could, but they'd never take him. Still, he might do well with his own workshop, a laboratory, if he can make a few connections. It's you I worry about, Julia. You could take over for me, if you wanted to. You'd be good at it. But you're still young, and you don't have to go down this road.”