Because It Is My Blood (Birthright #2)(69)

XVI

I ATTEND CHURCH

ASIDE FROM FUNERALS, I had not been inside a church since Christmas Eve. At first, I had had perfectly good reasons for my truancy—hiding, Liberty, house arrest—but even after I was free, I found that I didn’t want to return. It is probably too strong to say that I had lost my faith but I can’t think of another way to describe it. I had been pious for so long, and where had it gotten me? Leo was dead, and faith-wise, I might as well have been seasick in a cargo ship in the middle of the Atlantic.

(So, why was I going to church that Sunday? Did I hope to rekindle the dying embers of my faith? No indeed, readers.) The reason I was going to church was decidedly ungodly. I hoped to run into Sophia Bitter. I had decided that Charles Delacroix, my foe, was right. The best way to settle the question of Sophia’s involvement was to put it to her directly. Even if she lied to me, that lie would tell me something. And she couldn’t try to kill me in a church.

Natty had told me to wake her so that we could go to church together, but I didn’t want her or anyone else with me. I set out early so that I could walk down to St. Patrick’s instead of taking the bus.

I did not pay attention during the service. From the balcony, I had spotted Sophia Bitter. She sat about halfway toward the front and was wearing a red hat with a spiderlike ornament. Mickey was not by her side.

As soon as Mass was over, I ran down to the gallery to talk to Sophia Bitter.

“Sophia,” I called.

She turned unhurriedly, like she was dancing a waltz. At eye level, I could see the hat wasn’t a spider but two crimson bows sitting atop each other. “Anya,” Sophia greeted me. “How lovely to see you. Forgive me. I was on my way to confession.” Sophia moved closer to me and kissed me on both of my cheeks. Her lips were warm and sticky with lip balm. I asked her where Mickey was and she said that since Yuri’s death, he’d been going to his father’s church if not skipping Sunday Mass altogether. “Well,” she said, “I must get in the confession line.”

I asked her if something weighed particularly heavy on her soul.

Sophia cocked her head to the side and smiled a little. She paused to look me in the eyes, which I made sure to keep friendly and blank. “This is humor, yes?”

I made my voice as light as a butterfly. “Cousin Sophia, the strangest thing happened. I was on Museum Mile, and a man was selling chocolate. Of course, I asked him if he had Balanchine Special Dark. It’s my favorite, you know. And since Nana died and Jacks went to prison, no one ever brings it by the apartment.” I paused to look at Sophia. Her expression was as empty as my own, but I thought I saw her pupils dilate slightly. What had Dr. Lau said about dilated pupils? “So, I bought this bar and I forgot all about it until my boyfriend, Win—you remember him?—wanted chocolate. But when he took off the Balanchine wrapper, you’ll never guess what was underneath. It was a Bitter chocolate bar. I thought, ‘Bitter. That’s Cousin Sophia’s family. How strange that a Bitter bar should end up under a Balanchine wrapper.’”

Sophia opened her mouth to speak, and for a second, I even thought she might have a perfectly logical explanation for what had happened. Other churchgoers were passing us by. She closed her mouth decisively. She smiled more broadly than before. “All this honey,” she said with a snort.

“What do you mean?”

“All this honey. There must be a bee, Anya.” Sophia adjusted her ridiculous hat and then she appraised me with narrowed eyes. “So, we are seeing each other for the first time,” she said. Sophia took off her gloves. “What a relief this is. Of course, I am aware of the oversight that you speak of. It has happened before. The workers are supposed to take off both layers of Bitter wrapping but they’re lazy, Anya. Sometimes they forget.”

“But why are you passing off Bitter chocolate bars as Balanchine?”

Sophia didn’t answer my question. Instead she made a funny clucking sound with her tongue, almost like the sound of a rattlesnake’s tail.

“Did you arrange to have Natty and me killed?”

Sophia said nothing.

“Did you kill Leo?”

“A car bomb killed Leo. That is what Yuji Ono says. And I had nothing to do with that.”

I tried to control my voice. “So you did arrange to have Natty and me killed?”

“What if I said that I had only arranged to have you killed? Would the insult be less? You are a silly girl, Anya Balanchine. Yuji Ono spoke so highly of you, and I have found you nothing but disappointing.”

“I don’t care if you like me. I just need to know whether to kill you or not.”

Sophia let her bottom lip fall into an expression of mock horror. “It is Sunday, Anya. We are in church!” She paused. “No one died except Leo, so maybe you could take what happened as a warning.”

“What about your own cousin? Theo is very sick.”

“He shouldn’t have tried to intervene. I have always hated that side of my family, and they have always hated me.” It couldn’t have been true. Why would they have been so kind to me, who they had been led to believe was Sophia’s friend? “But all this is in the past, Anya. What are you going to do now? If you kill me, that would be a waste of your efforts. My relatives from Germany will come for you and Nataliya, and we Bitters will make you Balanchines look like bunny rabbits.”