Nobody's Goddess (Never Veil #1)(62)

I felt something strange clutching my heart, like I could feel the man watching me. “Mother told me it was just a story.” But if that dream was real, and that was the lord when he was younger, it’d have to be long ago. So you’re actually certain you went into the past. Through a pond. I knew it was crazy, but it felt true. Maybe spending so long alone in the castle had made me lose my sense of reason.

“I have to admit,” said Father, running a nervous finger over his palm, “it seems to be the only explanation. No one can remember when he came to be.”

“Nonsense,” said Alvilda, waving a hand. “All of this talk of immortality in our blood is merely an old wives’ tale.”

I cocked my head to the side. “And what of the men and the masks? And the power of their goddesses?”

Alvilda looked thoughtful for a moment but then shrugged. “That’s just the way things are.”

I mulled that over. What was in front of us was fact. What we couldn’t prove was nonsense. But still I didn’t understand why men and women were so different. Or why men and women were so different in such a very different way in my drowning dream.

“So you really don’t know more about him than the whispers I’ve heard myself.”

“Did you believe those whispers then?” asked Alvilda.

I shrugged. “Maybe. There are far too many things about the man in the castle that set him apart. You have no idea of the lengths to which he goes to offset the power I have over him. I wasn’t exaggerating about his threat to kill Mother. It’s like he can’t stand that he loves me. I’m not even sure he loves me. Not that I want him to love me.”

“Kill? A person? Like the animals we kill for meat?” Alvilda shook her head thoughtfully. “No. I’m sure not. But even so, I can’t picture a man who had found his goddess who would do anything other than agonize and wish to please her. Younger boys can manage to engage themselves in different pursuits from time to time because their hearts haven’t yet given up hope. But once a goddess turns seventeen, a man pretty much knows whether or not he’ll ever have her—in one form or another.”

She sighed. “For a man to actively plot against his own goddess seems something altogether new. I know men can be torn between their own desires and the desires to make their goddesses happy, on the rare occasion that those desires don’t line up. But for one to grab hold of his own wishes while knowingly making his goddess so unhappy goes against everything we know. If that were true, maybe there could be hope for men without the Returning to find happiness in another form. But that simply is not so.” She stared over my father’s head at the art on the wall. It always came back to her brother.

“What if I told you I have reason to believe he’s different? That he has lived a long time. Longer than he ought to have.”

Alvilda seemed genuinely curious. “What do you mean?”

“I … ” I bit my lip. “Did anyone—your grandparents, talking about their grandparents maybe—tell you of a time when men walked around without masking their faces?”

“No … ” Despite the flush on Father’s cheeks, he seemed to think I was the one who was drunk.

“You mean, like the tales of the first goddess?” Alvilda asked. “That’s just a story, Noll. A way to explain why thing are. But there’s no proof things were ever any different.”

Father shook his head. “Maybe they were. Long ago. But the legend of the first goddess must be a thousand years old.”

We three sat silently for a while. I felt stupid. A thousand years? You really think you traveled back in time a thousand years, and that the lord lived then and has lived to this day? How? It just can’t be. It felt real then, but now it’s just a memory.

Finally, Father let out a deep breath. He didn’t seem interested in my visions of the past. Not when his goddess’s life hung in the balance.

“Whatever you think of the lord, Noll, he saved your mother’s life.”

Both Alvilda and I turned toward Father.

Father traced a pattern in the sawdust on the table with his finger. “Everyone who got sick from that illness died, Noll. Every single one. And I think all of her stress over your refusal to love your man made Aubree susceptible.”

I grimaced. This revelation explained much of the unspoken strain between us after Mother’s “death.” My mother was his goddess, and whatever I was to him, nothing could match the worth he put on her health and happiness. He could feel free to blame me. I no longer cared. “Mother understood. She didn’t want to rush me. She wanted me to be happy.”

Father licked his dry, cracked lips. “But that’s only because she assumed you’d eventually Return to him. Like decent women do.”

Alvilda reached across the corner of the table and smacked Father on the back of the head. She sent me a satisfied smile.

Father rubbed his head and looked at Alvilda wearily. “That wasn’t a comment on you, Alvilda.”

Alvilda pounded her fist on the table. “I don’t care. It’s a darn careless thing to say about your daughter. What about a woman’s choice?”

Father shook his head. “What worth is a woman’s choice when it comes to the lord of the village? I’d hoped she would learn to love him. At the very least, that she wouldn’t wish for him to be as wretched as those in the commune.”