Nobody's Goddess (Never Veil #1)(12)

“I don’t know. Your brother’s or something?”

Ingrith sighed as if she needed to clear her lungs of all that dusty air in her house. She tossed the mask back onto the table, where it landed with a thud. “I never had no brothers, girl.” She held up a finger. “Tut, tut. And before you go guessin’ it was my father’s, he was a loved man since the day my mama turned seventeen, so no, he had no need for another face when I knew him.”

What did men do with their masks if they had their love Returned and could be rid of them? Smash them, break them, as I might do if I were them? No, they had other things on their mind. Like happiness and goddesses.

Ingrith sighed and shook her head. A white tendril broke free from the cloth covering her scalp, and I was reminded, with a jolt, of Elfriede. “You ever heard of a man called Haelan?”

I shook my head.

Ingrith heaved that weary sigh again. “Of course you haven’t.” She narrowed her eyes. “Your parents ever wonder how come there’s no healer?”

What is she talking about? “Someone who … fixes boot heels?”

Ingrith pounded her walking stick not once, but three times. “No, I’m talkin’ ’bout a healer, you damn fool! Someone who makes people who are sick or injured feel better.”

“No.” Wonderful. I was going to spend the rest of the day talking nonsense with this woman. “Mother tends to us when we’re sick. I suppose women make their loved ones feel better.”

“Some broth-and-huggin’ home remedies aren’t the same as sewing up a man to stop him from bleeding or blowing air into a girl’s lungs if she stops breathin’.” Ingrith let out a breath, and I could smell the sour scent across the table. “What do your parents think of me, then?”

That you’re a crazy old crone, like the rest of us do. “They don’t speak much of you.”

“They think I never had a man to love me?”

“Yeah … ” They think that their daughter is probably going to do no better.

Ingrith scoffed. “Bunkum! Every woman gets her man.”

I cradled one arm against my chest and squeezed my elbow tightly. “I don’t have one, either.”

“Oh, sweet goddess. Can’t be more than sixteen and she thinks no man will ever find her. Well, isn’t that convenient?” Ingrith cupped her chin, pinching her lips together as she looked me over. “You in love with that boy you came here with?”

I bit my lip. “Why would you ask that?”

Ingrith shook her walking stick in the air. “’Cause you’re a fool, girl, if you go lovin’ where love is not needed! That boy’s your sister’s, he says? You get your own man. Love ’im or send him to the commune, don’t matter to me. But if you get your heart so set on another, and your man come callin’, don’t you dare go pretendin’ you’re in love with that poor soul of his, you hear me?”

Don’t pretend you’re in love with him. Elfriede. “But … what happens if a girl convinces herself she’s in love with her man? When she’s really just—I don’t know—in love with having her Returning? Or afraid to be alone?”

“Then she ought to delay the Returning until she’s sure. No need to rush the day you turn seventeen. Don’t know what’s wrong with all these young fool girls, thinkin’ they can’t possibly wait any longer.” Ingrith pointed the top of the walking stick in my direction. “I had my Returning when I was seventeen.”

Something felt sour in my stomach. “But you have no man!”

Ingrith pounded her walking stick and her free palm on the table. “Every woman gets her man! You never heard that lord’s blessing garbage at a Returning?”

I had, but—

Ingrith’s large, round eyes grew even larger, even wider. “We invited them all, you see, we ought to have had the lord’s blessing! He even came, that boy I truly fancied!” She laughed, but the laugh stuck in her throat like a fly caught in a spider’s webbing. “Bernhard. Bernhold. Something. I don’t even remember his name anymore! What a fool I was! He wasn’t worth none of my love, no! He had her!”

My palms rested against the table. I pushed back, letting the chair move slowly away.

Ingrith leaped up, summoning that secret speed of hers. “But I had to have a Returning, you see! My man was good enough. Nice fellow. Did whatever I wanted, though that’d be no surprise, seeing as all men follow their goddess’s orders when they’re still wearin’ those masks of theirs.” Ingrith hobbled closer to me, and my palms pushed forward, my legs tensed, ready to jump as soon as she got too near.

She leaned forward and stuck those bulbous eyes in my face before I even had a chance to jump. “Haelan. Village healer. Yes, we had one of those back then. Lived right here. He had no family by then, so no one else could do what he did.” She leaned back slightly and grinned, but it was a strange smile, a smile out of place on her sour, wrinkled face. “I promised to give him sons and daughters. Told ’im he could teach me and we’d all keep up the trade. Never seen a happier wood-faced man.” The smile vanished. “Though I suppose I could have told ’im we’d be living in the quarry under rocks and mud spending our days eating insects and he’d’ve been just as happy.”