Our Lady of the Various Sorrows

by Victoria Raschke

  Jo opened the door. “I’m sorry.” Her eyes were wet. “What did you see?”

  “Only you. But you were talking with someone, weren’t you?”

  She nodded. “I’ll explain everything on the way back to Ljubljana. Let me get my things, and we can go.” She rushed past him, not even taking her snowy boots off.

  He’d seen last night that she was different. She was surer than she had been since the night she and her son had almost died. She was more the Jo he had met at the cathedral. The memory of carrying her, injured and unconscious, out to the waiting ambulance haunted him. He sometimes wanted to touch her chest where the horrible burn had been, to see if it had healed. She told him she had gotten a tattoo over the scar, but not of what.

  He had a decision to make. If he renounced his vows and left the church, he might have some time with Jo out on the ledge for however long it held their weight. If he was willing to leave for a long shot, he needed to accept he was ready to leave full stop. Though that was a big decision, it wasn’t necessarily a soul-shattering one. He had not made his initial decision to join the church with a clear head, and the weight of it had never settled into a comfortable reality. He could continue his work without the church, and his niece would be happier if he gave up the trappings of what she labeled “medieval thinking.”

  Jo returned. She had a leather bag slung over her shoulder and a flask in her hand. “Let’s go.” She held the flask up. “Coffee. With a kick. At least one of us is going to need it to get out of here.”

  He laughed. “I think I’m going to need to be as sharp as possible.”

  They climbed into the car together and shut their doors in tandem. She pushed her bag onto the seat behind him. “Are you comfortable?”

  The seat was back as far as it would go, and his knees were still folded up on either side of the steering wheel. “Not exactly, but I have yet to drive a car that was.”

  She nodded but didn’t say anything as he backed the car into the edge of a drift before getting them pointed in the right direction.

  He put both of his gloved hands on the bottom of the wheel and looked down the road. It was only discernible as a flat ribbon of snow between the bumpy snow on either side covering undergrowth and post boxes. “So, tell me about the shade you spoke to outside.

  Chapter 12

  Veronika had begged off going to the teahouse again. She missed her friends but not the smell or sound of the place. Her sister working there with that woman was unforgivable. She pulled her hair into a ponytail on top of her head and wound it into a tight bun. She wanted to get to Avgusta’s before the weather got too bad. The rain outside was turning to sleet.

  Coat, scarf, and boots and she was out the door onto the quiet street. It looked so much like their old neighborhood, but the differences annoyed her. Her aunt’s house was stifling and filled with her stuff for work. It made her resent Ivanka more for choosing to live away from them. Her little sister, Ana, acted unaffected by everything and went on about her life. It wasn’t fair. Everything had changed, and she was the only one who seemed to care.

  It would take too long to catch the bus to Avgusta’s, but she’d have to walk fast to stay warm. The heel had worn down on her left boot, and the plastic popped on the concrete with every step. The wind picked up as she went, and she pulled the collar of her coat up to protect her ears. She wished for a long coat that would cover her butt and more of her legs, but she’d chosen the short one when Olga had taken her shopping. She thought it was more stylish, and her aunt hadn’t insisted.

  The sky would’ve matched her mood a month or two ago. Now she was too angry to be sad. Her emotions were more like the tiny ice chips smacking against her face in the wind. She had a plan now. She could make that woman pay for her parents’ deaths. If she and Ivanka hadn’t started going to that place, if they hadn’t met Faron, none of this would have ever happened. If her father and her aunt hadn’t known Jo and Gregor, her parents would still be alive, and she wouldn’t be wedged into her aunt’s life where she didn’t belong.

  Whatever bad luck that clung to Jo and Faron Wiley had spilled all over Veronika’s family and ruined her life. She was grateful Avgusta had helped her see things more clearly and given her the skills to settle the score. Their mutual hatred for Jo Wiley had been a bonding point, though Avgusta’s feelings came from an even darker place than hers. Avgusta would barely speak the woman’s name. Veronika was grateful for whatever luck led her to the job posting. It had started as a reason to get out of the house more after school, but it had become the thing that had given her anger purpose and direction.

  She walked through the courtyard of Avgusta’s block of flats. The sleet turned to snow before she made it to the door, which was even with the sidewalk. Avgusta was lucky to have found the apartment; much of Ljubljana wasn’t accessible to someone who used a wheelchair. It was why she’d hired Veronika, to run errands and take care of things she couldn’t manage.

  The errands had taken her into stranger locations and sometimes to places she didn’t exactly feel safe. Avgusta had told her not to worry. The people she did business with would never bother someone who worked for her. Veronika didn’t doubt her. Avgusta was the kind of person you believed whether you wanted to or not. After Avgusta had sent her to Plave for some herb concoction that smelled of grass clippings and paint stripper, she’d gotten brave enough to ask why she needed all these weird things.

  Avgusta had looked at her hard and long enough to make her feel like it had been a mistake to ask. Without a word she’d beckoned Veronika to follow her into the one room in the tidy apartment she’d never been in. When Avgusta opened the door, the smell of snuffed candles and lilies nearly knocked Veronika flat. The wall of scent was more oppressive inside the airless room. Avgusta lit a few candles, revealing walls hung with representations of horned gods and dark-eyed goddesses. A table, she’d learned it was the altar, made from a felled tree was pushed into the center and covered with statues and beeswax candles that had dripped down onto the bases of the silver candle holders like stalactites and stalagmites in Postojna cave.

  Avgusta had turned around in her chair, the gold flecks in her eyes glinting in the flickering light. She’d said: “I am a witch, Veronika. Are you going to be able to handle that?” Veronika could recall the sound and steel of Avgusta’s voice as if she had just said it to her. It had made the blood in her veins turn to ice with the memory of what happened to her father–

  She didn’t go back there, not if she could stop herself. Occasionally when she looked in the bathroom mirror, she could see the spots of her father’s blood on her face like she’d never tried to scrub them off. She’d backed away from Avgusta and turned to run when the door slammed in her face. Now she was grateful Avgusta had forced her to stay, but that day, that moment, had almost been too much.

  Veronika knocked on the door, three hard raps, to let Avgusta know it was her before letting herself in with the key she wore around her neck on a leather cord. The front room was dark, but the kitchen light was on and the smell of stew greeted her. Veronika took her boots off at the door and set them on the rack to dry. Avgusta had her clean the tray out regularly. She hated for anyone to bring in dirt from outside; she said it stuck to the rubber on the wheels of her chair and marred the floor.

  Veronika stood in the doorway of the kitchen. It was surprisingly large for an apartment, but Avgusta needed the room to maneuver. The counters had been lowered to accommodate her. She’d told Veronika once that her son worked in construction and had customized everything. Veronika had wondered if he’d set up her “work” room, too, but she doubted it. She’d let it slip once that she’d only had to hire someone after her daughter had been killed. It had made Veronika trust her more because Avgusta knew what it meant to have someone ripped away.

  “You’re late.” Avgusta stirred the stew and didn’t turn to look at her.

  �
�It’s snowing.”

  “Then you should have left earlier.”

  Veronika nodded.

  “I can’t hear you nod.” Avgusta turned in her chair and looked at Veronika for the first time.

  “I’m sor– Yes. I should have. It won’t happen again.” Avgusta hated it when she apologized for every mistake and screw-up. She said it made her look weak.

  “Good.” She wheeled over to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of wine. “Get some bowls. We’ll eat first.”

  Veronika wasn’t sure what the plan was. She’d been grateful Avgusta had called to give her a genuine excuse not to go to the teahouse. It was getting harder to stomach being there, and as much as it pissed her off to admit it, it was getting harder to hide things from Ivanka. Avgusta took down two flat bowls and ladled the soup into them. Fat dumplings with soft carrots and pork floated in a rich broth. Veronika’s grandmother had made the same soup, and she missed it. She carried the bowls to the table, already set with white napkins and Avgusta’s heavy silver flatware. Veronika imagined the older woman living in a grand house before whatever had happened to her.

  Veronika poured the wine and waited for Avgusta to start eating before she picked up the hefty spoon and took the first bite.

  “The soup is very good. Thank you.”

  “You’ll need the sustenance.”

  The last time Avgusta had fed her before they worked it had been for the spell with the bird. Veronika’s stomach had turned as she’d watched it struggle against its wrappings and then die. She’d thrown up in the street and showered immediately when she’d gotten home to get the smell of incense and death out of her hair. “What are we working on tonight?”

  “A summoning. I need to speak with my daughter.”

  Veronika almost choked on her soup. “You can do that?” Why had she not offered to summon Veronika’s mother or father?

  The woman nodded and took another sip of wine as if the thing she’d said hadn’t opened a hole in the floor beneath Veronika.

  She took a deep breath. Avgusta hated it when she was overly emotional. “I didn’t know you could do that. Can you call up anyone who’s died?”

  “Of course not.” She didn’t even glance up from her soup.

  Veronika knew that was the only answer she would get.

  “If you need ingredients for workings, you can ask me or you can purchase them yourself.”

  Veronika’s face burned. She hadn’t been as careful as she’d imagined.

  “Petty charms are beneath your abilities. There is a book with more appropriate workings marked for you by the door.”

  Veronika nodded and started to get up to retrieve the book.

  “Finish eating. You can collect it when you leave.”

  When they’d finished the meal, she got up to clear the dishes.

  “Leave it. You can do that while I speak with my daughter.” She turned her chair and rolled toward the workroom.

  Veronika followed her, a little resentful she wasn’t going to be allowed to meet this ghost or whatever it was. She’d started to buy books with more information than Avgusta seemed willing to share. But Avgusta’s attitude seemed to have changed. Still, she’d have to look up summoning the dead when she got back to her stash.

  ——

  “Hey, where’s your sister?” Marko looked up into Ivanka’s face.

  She still had her apron on, and Faron could see the pulse in her neck. She had gotten so thin, even more so in the last few weeks. He wanted to protect her. Maybe the only way to do that was to let her go. Tell her to run.

  “Being Veronika and sulking somewhere.” She picked up Marko’s empty soup bowl. She didn’t usually wait tables, but with his mom gone there wasn’t anyone else to pick up the slack.

  Aleš and Marko laughed, but it was hollow. The story they knew of the Novaks’ deaths was a lie the police and Gustaf Lichtenberg had cooked up to hide the truth. It painted them as thieves and worse, and it left Ivanka and her sisters with a legacy that indicated their parents had deserved what had happened to them.

  If Veronika was sulky, she had a reason to be. Her life had been turned upside down in the span of one night. Ivanka had a job and another place to live, but Veronika had no choice but to go with their little sister to live with their aunt. He caught Veronika looking at him sometimes. There was something in her gaze that disturbed him, but he couldn’t explain it exactly. She avoided him now, avoided all of them.

  Ivanka shrugged and walked back to the kitchen, maneuvering between the tables with her arms full of dirty dishes.

  Marko bent his head to whisper. “Is Ivanka doing okay?” He’d had a crush on her before she and Faron got together, and Faron was pretty sure he had a thing for Veronika now.

  Faron nodded. “As okay as you would expect. A lot happened to her family.” A lot had happened to his family, too.

  Marko and Aleš both nodded and went back to drinking their tea. Faron stared into his cup. They should get Veronika to come back to the teahouse on Tuesdays. He personally shouldn’t be the one, but maybe Marko would be able to convince her. It wasn’t good for her to be alone so much, not if her thoughts looked anything like his.

  Chapter 13

  “Would music make this any easier?” Jo turned in her seat to look at Leo when she spoke.

  “Maybe. Do you have something on your phone? I think the car has a port somewhere.” He wanted her to talk, but she wouldn’t until she was ready. He hadn’t loosened his grip on the steering wheel since they’d left the farmhouse. There had been a few moments when he’d been certain only his will, or God’s, was keeping the car on the road. Jo sipped her doctored coffee and watched the snow-covered landscape’s slow parade past their windows. At this rate, they would make it back to Ljubljana sometime next week. Maybe he should have asked her to drive, though he wasn’t entirely sure she had a license or even knew how.

  She pulled her bag from the back seat and rooted around until she produced a cable. She plugged in her phone and fiddled with the console. He recognized the song but not the singer.

  “It’s a cover. Nick Cave singing Leonard Cohen.” She turned the volume low and settled back in the seat, still watching him.

  When he got to the next intersection, the back end of the car fishtailed as he braked. He kept it on the road, or what he thought was the road, but the engine died. The crossroad was more travelled, and snow had been pushed into a mound where the road they were on met it. A snow-covered shrine to the Madonna stood in the corner of the crossroads where they stopped. The faded blue of her dress was the only point of color in the black-and-white landscape. He didn’t remember there ever being a shrine to Mary there.

  “The lady of the various sorrows.” Jo’s voice was quiet.

  “What?” He turned to look at her.

  “It’s from a song.” She tapped the screen on her phone, skipping ahead through the playlist.

  A steady low beat on a cymbal opened into ambient guitar and incessant piano. He reached over and turned the music off when Cave and his backing band wailed the title lyric, “Do you love me?”

  Her expression was difficult to parse. He would’ve given almost anything to have his niece’s gift in that moment. Instead he had to go with his gut, and there was no way to know where it would lead.

  Everything he wanted to say to her compressed into one syllable. “Yes.”

  He took off his seat belt and opened the door. His pulse hammered in his ears on the walk around the front of the car. He pulled her up out of her seat and into him. She’d never cried in front of him before.

  She leaned away and he expected a joke to cover the embarrassment at her tears. Instead she looked like she was waiting.

  The scent of vanilla came off her skin and hair even in the cold. She kissed back but not the hungry, open-mouthed kiss he wanted. Her hand moved up his ch
est to his neck. She stopped at his collar and pulled away.

  She glanced down at the sliver of empty space between their bodies. When she looked back up at him, her expression was open, though her eyes were still wet. “Do you really want this?” It wasn’t incredulous so much as cautious.

  “Yes.” He paused.

  “But you’re still uncertain.” She stepped backward and wrapped her arms around herself. It was freezing, and he’d dragged them out of the warm car.

  “Not uncertain. Maybe afraid.” He motioned for her to get back into the car.

  He closed the door and walked back around the front, trying to collect his thoughts, to tamp down the emotion threatening to override his better judgment.

  When he sat down again in the car and arranged his legs the best he could, he looked out the window past her. The sunlight barely made it through the low wisps of cloud. It would be dark by the time they got back. The Madonna had watched them, a woman who could speak with the dead and a priest breaking his vows. She held a crowned heart in her hands, unchanged under the snowy eaves of her shrine. Or had her eyes been closed before?

  The engine protested its way back to life when he turned the key in the ignition. The Opel made it through the pile of slush and debris with some difficulty but got them onto the clearer road. They’d be on the highway soon. He loosened his grip on the steering wheel and turned the music back on but with the volume down. He could still hear the lyrics, a man who had found his god and all the devils inside the woman he loved.

  “Do you still want to tell me what you were doing up there on the mountain?” It wasn’t exactly the smoothest change of topic, but it would have to do.

  “Finding my purpose.” She was looking out the window again but not at the landscape of snow-covered evergreens lining their path. She simply looked away from him. “Or, being found.” She pulled her coat tighter around herself. “It found me.”

  “And what is this purpose?” He wanted to stop again. This wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have watching the road instead of her face.