Nobody's Goddess (The Never Veil)

by Amy McNulty

  “Silence!” he said again. The women instantly went mute. The men stood beside me and behind their master. Never before then did they so remind me of the men of my village.

  The lord tried to intimidate me with his stare, but I wouldn’t let him. There was no flame within his dark eyes, and that fire that glistened unseen would not have power over me.

  The lord broke the stare first and then laughed. He extended a black leather-gloved hand toward me and fingered the tips of my ears. The men relaxed slightly, and the grip on their hilts eased.

  The golden bangle slid from his wrist to his forearm as he rubbed my ear tenderly. I shuddered at the touch and tried to draw back, but the lord seized my arm with his free hand and squeezed tightly.

  “Olivière,” he said. “I see what he meant about self-mutilation. What have you done to your beautiful ears?” A friendly smile beamed across his stunning features.

  My stomach clenched. His face was just the mask of a heartless monster.

  “Nothing,” I said. “I was born this way.”

  Women and men alike whispered to their neighbors. The lord laughed, but the joy that spread across his face soon turned cold. He shoved me to the ground before remounting his horse.

  “Lying to me gets her a day in the stocks.”

  He galloped off, leaving the men free to advance on me, their expressions twisted with both joy and fury. These were not the men of my village. They sheathed their swords, and I shut my eyes tight as dozens of hands set out to grab me.

  I couldn’t wake from this dream. I was still living it. Hours had passed, and I was still here. I’m home but not home. That lord, so pompous, so haughty. I bit my lip. He was the lord I knew and not the lord I knew. But both versions made my blood boil.

  The women wouldn’t look at me. A young girl would sometimes glance as she passed, her face full of both curiosity and terror—Nissa, I’d think in my delirium—and then a woman standing next to her would shield her eyes and push her forward. Not Nissa. Nissa would be comforted by Luuk, not a mother.

  My mother is dying, and I’m lost in a dream.

  Most of the women went out to work in the fields or the quarry. Some piled crops into wheelbarrows and strained to push them into the heart of the village, toward the marketplace and the castle. Some of the women went into the village first thing in the morning, their arms full of tools. A rolling pin. A sewing box.

  A gouge and a chisel. Alvilda.

  Men would sometimes stumble their way into the commune, either intoxicated or merely bold and hungry. They’d enter a shack, or just grab the nearest woman and take off with her, back up the dirt path to the better homes within the village. Some of the men were laughing, some angry. Some were old, others could be no older than fifteen. Every woman looked terrified. Most of the men let their gaze fall over me in the stocks briefly, a few reaching out to caress my ear as they passed. Some would say things I couldn’t hear. One licked his lips and smiled wickedly. I didn’t fight back. I was too weak to care.

  My throat burned with thirst. And my arms, tongue, and back ached with a feeling stronger than the ache of my heart all these past few months.

  No one had attended to my wounds, and I felt my energy draining with each breath. From time to time, I would slip blissfully into unconsciousness, but I would wake again what seemed like moments later, my stomach growling and my head pounding. The sun felt hot and heavy over my head and at last, after what felt like days, I fell asleep and did not wake for quite some time.

  ***

  My eyelids fluttered open. It was nighttime and the full moon had begun waning, but light from moonbeams lit the commune. The dying embers of a fire cast shadows over the empty area in the center. No one stirred.

  I heard a rustle behind me and realized that my back no longer stung. It felt warm and soothed as the ache was leeched from deep within me. My eyes grazed the ground and saw my shadow; I was being bathed in a violet glow.

  A moan leaped from my lips, and I craned my neck as much as the stocks would let me. A small figure moved in the dark, the violet glow surging and receding with its movements.

  “Who’s there?” My lips cracked, and my tongue bled again.

  The figure jumped.

  After a moment, it crawled forward. A little boy.

  Jurij.

  No. I had never seen Jurij unmasked so young. I had never seen any boy so young unmasked. He was seven or eight years at the most. Unless it was a trick of the night, his skin was even darker than a grown man’s.

  The boy lifted his hands toward my face, and the violet light fled outward from his fingers. My tongue strengthened, my lips moistened, and the sting on my cheeks receded. I even stopped feeling thirst and was no longer bothered by hunger.

  I closed my eyes and bathed in the warmth of the light, hesitant to open them even after I felt the light fade. And then I remembered. I was home, but not home. I’d seen this boy’s face, and he was all right. No men hid in this place that was and was not my village. My eyes flew open.

  “Thank you,” I said. The words were not enough. He had ended all of my pain.

  The boy nodded and fell backward to sit on the ground. He stared at me, questioning.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “His name is Ailill,” said a woman’s voice that stirred something joyous in my heart.

  A tall, dark woman strode into my sight. I recognized her as one of the few women who had stood alone in front of the fire the night previous. Her features were unfamiliar, her face too young, but I saw a trace of my friend Alvilda in her expression.

  “My name is Avery,” she said. “And I want to know where you come from.”

  It was hurting my neck to look up at her from the stocks, so I let my head fall and focused instead on the boy on the ground. He tensed a bit at my gaze and pulled himself over to Avery, hugging her leg and burying his face within the folds of her apron.

  “How did he heal me?” I asked.

  Avery crouched in front of me, careful not to disturb Ailill much in her decent. She swept him into the crux of her arm.

  “I’m the one asking questions,” she said.

  “I … I don’t know how to explain where I come from. Other than I don’t come from here.”

  “Obviously,” scoffed Avery. “Despite what men think, we’re not stupid. All of us knew immediately you had never been in the commune before, that you weren’t one of our members who had run off, stolen a sword, and lopped off her ears. But few of the men care to remember our faces, so it’s no surprise that not a single one noticed that you were new.”

  These were not men. At least, they weren’t the men I knew. I tensed, thinking of the whip and the muzzle. The stocks and my stolen sword. And Lord Elric. “Will you alert them?”

  Avery sighed. “Your secret is safe. For now. None of the women have spoken to the men about it, but I recommend you go easy on your revulsion, lest you draw even more attention to yourself. There are ways to work around a man’s orders without defying him outright.”

  Ailill adjusted Avery’s apron so that he could peek just a little over the material. I smiled at him. He ducked immediately back under the apron.

  Avery watched our exchange and hugged Ailill closer. She kissed him atop his head and rustled her hand through his short black hair. She stood and pulled Ailill up with her.

  “You’d better get home,” she said. “It’ll be sunrise soon, and they’ll notice you’re missing.”

  She tapped him on the back and pushed him forward toward the dirt path through the village. Ailill stopped a few paces from us, pausing to look back.

  “Go on,” encouraged Avery. She waved him forward.

  Ailill did as bidden, walking up the path until he disappeared into the darkness.

  Avery put a hand on each hip. My head fell and I stared at her legs, which stood slightly apart.

  “Now listen,” she said, every bit Alvilda again. “If there’s anyone who understands hating men, it�
��s me. But there’s a way and a place for certain things, and I don’t want you to ruin what we’ve started.”

  She sighed. “I’ll show you around tomorrow after they free you. If you have any skill with a blade, you may be able to work with an ax. I’m the woodcarver, and tomorrow I’m heading to the woods to chop down a tree.”

  My heart ached, hopefully, for the ax, the chisel, and the gouge—for home.

  ***

  “Stay quiet,” murmured Avery out of the corner of her mouth. “Keep your eyes on the ground and move forward quickly. Stick to the side of the path.”

  I found it hard to follow her orders, but I kept my head down, my hand clenched tightly on my ax. Disappointed I was no better at the thread and the needle than she was, and reluctant to speak to the other women about me, Avery had done a halfhearted job at sewing up the gashes in the back of my dress. They had few frocks to spare, and she thought it best I not attract attention with my healed back exposed. Even so, it was barely holding together, and I had to walk stiffly to keep it from popping open.

  From time to time, my gaze wandered upward, and I caught a glimpse of men laughing and eating, drinking and dancing on the streets and through the building windows. And women and girls, their eyes always on the ground, serving food, sitting on laps, and being pulled and pushed and forced about among the revelry.

  When we finally broke free of the village and started down the path toward the woods, I opened my mouth to speak.

  Avery hushed me with a slight movement of her hand. “Not yet.”

  When we stepped into the woods, and I felt the cover of the trees hide us from view, I spoke. “What’s—”

  “Be quiet,” murmured Avery.

  I followed her down the path.

  Some of the men in chainmail lined the path in the midst of the woods ahead of us. They chatted and leaned against trees or sat on the side of the dirt road. I remembered Avery’s instructions and snapped my head back down.

  “Off for more wood today, Carver-woman?”

  “Yes, sir,” replied Avery.

  She set a foot off of the dirt path and into a familiar route through the trees. I followed after her.

  “Don’t go far,” said one of the men.

  “Yes, sir.”

  A hand reached out to grab my arm and pull me backward.

  “It’s her!” cried a man’s voice. Instinctively, even against all I knew in my own version of the village, I looked up at him.

  He seemed surprised to see my face. A look of anger and something far more salacious warped his features.

  Avery appeared beside me, her eyes locked onto the ground around our feet. “I needed a sturdy hand to help with the chopping, sir,” she said.

  I dropped my eyes again.

  “She’s a feisty one,” said the man. “Already up and moving. I can see why you’d think she was suited for hard labor.”

  “Yes, sir,” replied Avery.

  “Carry on,” said the man. He let go of me, but as I turned, I felt a strong slap against my backside and heard the echo of the men’s laughter. My face flushed red, and I bit my tongue so as not to scream.

  Avery led me through the unmarked path that I knew led to my secret cavern. The farther we got from the dirt path, the faster she moved. Finally, just before the cave entrance, she gave a tremendous whack to the nearest tree, letting her ax rest in the trunk, and walked into the cave.

  I gripped my ax tightly and followed Avery inside.

  When we finally reached the pool and the violet glow, Avery faced me, one eyebrow slightly raised. “You walk through a dark cavern sightless with a sharp and deadly weapon in your grasp?”

  I shrugged and laid the ax down on a nearby spike. My chest tightened for a moment as I looked at the pool. It could lead me home. But I couldn’t jump in with her watching.

  “I’ve been here before,” I said.

  “So I see.” Avery sighed. “All right, no more games. Who are you and what are you doing here?”

  “My name is Noll—Olivière, as I said, Woodcarver’s daughter. I don’t know why I’m here exactly.”

  Avery scoffed. “The woodcarver’s daughter? I’m the woodcarver, and I have no children, much to my delight.”

  I cocked my head. “And Ailill?”

  “He’s my brother, not my son. Do I look old enough to have a child that grown?”

  I looked her over, bathed in the violet light. I supposed, as much as I kept comparing her to Alvilda, she wasn’t as old as my friend. She was perhaps more Elfriede’s or my age, although her hardened stance and the muscles that rippled over her arms despite her small stature seemed to indicate a much more weighty life than ours.

  “You didn’t really answer my question,” said Avery coldly.

  “I’m a different woodcarver’s daughter, obviously,” I said, trying to meet ice with ice. “I trained under Alvilda the lady carver and observed the work of Gideon, my father.”

  Avery tensed. “Your father works?”

  The grip I had on my elbows loosened. “Yes. Doesn’t yours?”

  Avery cackled. “No man works. And my father, whom I thank the skies is now dead, was the most indolent of all.”

  I shifted from one foot to the other uncomfortably. “And your mother?”

  Avery glared at me. “Dead as well. But in her case, I thank the skies for the end of her suffering. She wasn’t sturdy enough for this world. And she was far too beautiful. That makes you stand out too much.”

  She thanks the skies, but not the goddess. But what love have I for the first goddess myself?

  I nodded, thinking of the women grabbed by the men during my day in the stocks. Instinctively, I swept tendrils of hair over my ears, thinking of the hungry looks to which I had already been victim due to their discrepancy. I looked at Avery. She was pretty in her own way, but I wondered if she purposefully kept a sour look on her face to distort her features.

  “My mother is not well,” I said. “But even before her illness, she never had to work like the women here. And Father’s always eager to help her with the housework.”

  Avery came a few paces closer, her gaze fixed down on me. “Then you are definitely not of this land,” she said. “I don’t know how you crossed the mountains or what exactly there is that lies beyond. All I want to know is if you can take us back with you.”

  I swallowed and glanced guiltily at the cavern pool behind her.

  The chorus of voices calling my name was but a whisper now. “Olivière.”

  I watched Avery to see if she wondered why the cave echoed my name, but she didn’t move. Her eyes betrayed hearing nothing but the undying echo of the trickle of water.

  Can I, alone, hear it? Do the voices call only to me? The chorus of voices had led me here, and they were no longer shouting my name, demanding me to come. They whispered, letting me know I could go home, but the pool didn’t want me to go just yet. But I do. How can I stay here, when Mother is ill?

  “No,” I replied.

  Avery sighed and stared hungrily at the ax I had propped against the spike. “Then there’s only one hope for us.”

  I followed her gaze and asked a question I had wondered since I first entered this dream version of the village. “Why don’t the women fight back? The men seem open to a surprise attack.” It felt appropriate to have a real battle here, a battle like that from stories, where there was such wrongdoing.

  Avery scoffed and picked up my ax, turning it backward and forward in her hands. “I cannot rouse enough of them. The men seem lazy—and they are—but they have quick reflexes and brute strength. Our only advantages are in our numbers and the men’s smugness. But most of the women will not even entertain the idea of revolution. They’re too scared.”

  “But surely they can see that with enough of us and a directed attack, the men will fall.”

  Avery smiled. “Us? So you’ll help us?”

  “Of course!” I lied.

  Avery put the ax down and leaned on it, much l
ike the men did with their swords. “Perhaps you’re not so bad, outsider. Then there is just one more thing you’ll need to know. The men of this village have a gift in their blood.”

  “A gift?” I asked. “Like Ailill’s healing?”

  Avery nodded. “They all can heal. But you’ll only find little boys willing to use it for our aid before they get too corrupted and their hearts turn black. In their lives of luxury, men have little need for healing for themselves. If you want a man to die, you need to take him by surprise so he and his companions won’t be able to heal him in time.”

  She spoke of killing a person like it was a possibility, like people would ever think to do that outside of play and stories. Perhaps I’m living a story right now.

  She sighed and leaned the ax back on the rock. “Let’s go chop down a tree. I’m sure you’ll find it relieves a lot of tension.”

  It probably would. But this wasn’t my fight.

  As soon as she disappeared into the darkness, I dove back into the pool.

  My mind was blissfully blank as I walked back through the village—yes, this was my village, it had to be—and onto the path home. It was all a dream. My clothing, ripped and torn, dripped from the pond’s water. Ripped mostly on the back. But that had to be a coincidence. I’d probably torn it on some sediment. Maybe I’d been sick under water, even unconscious. I could have died. I’d been stupid. I’d lost the sword I’d demanded from the lord in that water, but I had no desire to search for it. I needed badly to go home.

  “Olivière,” the pool had whispered as I put it behind me. But I ignored it. To believe what I’d dreamed was real was more than I could bear. Everyone already thinks I’m an oddity. First I’m nobody’s goddess and then I’m the veiled lord’s. I don’t even want to think of what I could be after having such visions.

  I had to prove to myself I’d just been dreaming. If I closed my eyes, I could still feel the pain of the whip across my back. But my back was smooth now. Unhurt. There was no proof I was ever there.