Nobody's Goddess (Never Veil #1)(10)

“Let me guess. Ol’ Ingrith is the last to know. Ol’ Ingrith just has to be invited, though there’s no one who actually wants her to come, but goddess help us if the lord don’ give his blessing. I take it you two are having a Returning today?” Her eyes rolled up and down, as she examined Jurij from head to toe. “You look too young to get married.”

I didn’t often ask the first goddess for anything, but I prayed that no one would notice the flush that I could feel spreading across my face.

“She’s not my goddess.” He said it in the same manner one might say, “Please pass the potatoes.”

“Huh. If you say so.” The way Ingrith stared at me, I had a feeling the first goddess had failed me. Again.

Jurij didn’t seem to notice. “But I’m having my Returning today. This is my goddess’s sister.”

Ingrith’s eyes narrowed as she looked up at the wooden face beaming down at her. “And let me guess. The goddess is too busy primpin’ to bother with the likes of someone like me.” Her gaze fell on the basket in my arms. “What’s that? A collection for your blessed day? I haven’t got no gifts left to give all these young’uns Returning every other week.”

“No gift is necessary.” Jurij uncovered the offerings within the basket. They looked even more pitiful strewn haphazardly among the old cloth, with plenty of empty space beside them. “We just brought you some food. We thought you might like something. And yes, we’d like to invite you to my Returning.”

Ingrith stuck her head over the basket so fast I jumped backward, thinking she might be intending to ram her head into my chest. She leered up at me. “There’s not a thing here worth havin’, but for that apple.” She snatched it out of the basket and took a bite. I might have heard her teeth crack. “You go take the rest of that garbage back where you came from.” Bits of apple and spittle escaped from her mouth with each bite. “You invited me. The lord is satisfied. I’m not goin’. Now get out.” She tossed the half-eaten apple on the ground, snatched the basket from me, and shoved it at Jurij so quickly he had no choice but to catch it before it fell to the ground. She started hobbling back to what she called a home.

Jurij sighed. It took a lot to make him sigh. Especially when you considered the mother he had. “Come on, Noll. We invited her.”

Ingrith turned around as fast as someone a tenth her age. “No, you go, boy. Girl, you come in here and help me. Time you make up for that foolin’ around you did years ago.”

Jurij’s head tilted slightly. It was possible the only thing he remembered about that day four years prior were the parts with his golden-haired goddess.

Well, why not? What else was I going to do for the rest of the day? Find Elfriede and tuck that golden strand into her bun for the fiftieth time? I squeezed Jurij’s shoulder. “It’s all right, Jurij. Your mother might have noticed you went missing by now. I’ll see you later.”

I let his shoulder go and stepped forward. Ingrith nodded and went back to hobbling. In a few short hours, Jurij would be gone. He would vanish, or he would be hers. Either way, he was gone forever from me.

Goddess, if you hear my prayer, you’ll make time stand still, just for a little while. Or take me back. Back before love could hurt me.



We’d barely stepped inside when there was a pounding on the door. My chest squeezed in fright, but it didn’t bother Ingrith. She hobbled over to the corner of her small shack, where a chest lay at the foot of the rotted wooden frame and the mildew-covered slab of hay she counted as a bed and mattress.

“Ingrith! Ingrith, you in there?”

The pounding wasn’t stopping. Something thudded behind me. I pointed at the door. “Should I—”

Ingrith’s dark, bulbous eyes were right in front of me. She was shorter than I remembered—or I was taller, I supposed—but she was no less frightening when viewed so close. “Should you nothing, girl. This is my house.” She seemed to have lost a front tooth since the last time we’d had the pleasure of talking face to face. Or, rather, face in face.

“Ingrith! Why can’t you open this door when I ask nicely?”

“I don’t have to open my door for nobody but the lord’s men.” Ingrith leaned around me and cupped her free hand around her mouth. “You one of the lord’s men? I suspect not, since I can hear you speak.”

“Ingrith, we’re coming in.”

Ingrith pushed me aside and hobbled to the door, ripping it open with that one-tenth-her-age speed once again. A man stumbled inside, grabbing the door to steady himself. “You almost killed me, you crazy old—”

Ingrith shook her walking stick a little off the ground. “If I’d wanted to kill you, I’d’ve popped this under your mask and knocked it off. You’re not welcome here.”

She was right. He was still wearing a mask. And he didn’t seem like one of the skinny, gangly teenagers running around the village. His face was that of a wooden fish, complete with a puckering set of lips over the black hole covering his mouth.

Behind him was a man whose face was uncovered. He had no reason to fear my eyes or Ingrith’s. His love had been Returned.

Fish Face shook his vacant mask. “Did you cause that earthquake?”

Ingrith poked at his abdomen with her walking stick. “I did. What of it?”