Our Lady of the Various Sorrows

by Victoria Raschke

  Her visit had been in the springtime, after the rains and melt. The trail she’d come in on had been underwater then, and the springs were bursting from the rocks. It was a dramatic setting in which to meet with a god, but Achelous was a bit of a drama queen.

  She couldn’t remember the last time she’d prayed, at least not when either she or Faron hadn’t been in mortal danger. The words didn’t come easily. Choosing a gift for Achelous had been difficult, too. It needed to be something precious and irreplaceable, at least to her. She wanted whatever she sacrificed to the river to be connected to her father. Whether Achelous could help her recover him was up for debate, but he had a connection to this place, and she had to believe as a god he had more power than she did.

  The spoon was heavy in her hand. “U.S. Navy” was stamped on the handle, though the years had softened the imprint and it looked like someone had hand-lettered the words. It was the one thing she had of her father’s. She’d carried it from Chattanooga, to India, to Ljubljana. Her father hadn’t even been in the Navy. The spoon came from a junk shop in a bundle of flatware her mother had purchased for their first kitchen, and he’d simply liked the heft of it. He’d eaten his Cheerios with it every morning.

  Jo stepped to the edge of the pool and crouched down, knees popping.

  “Achelous, um, thank you for mostly saving me so I could save Faron. I’d like to ask you to help me save my father, if that’s something you could do. I’m still not interested in shacking up with you, but I believe, no, I know you exist and protect this river and place. Amen?” The spoon slid from her fingers into the pool, hardly disturbing the surface at all. She hoped stainless steel wasn’t bad for the local ecosystem.

  “It is one of the more interesting gifts I have received.”

  Jo stood and wheeled around toward the voice, almost toppling into the freezing water before regaining her balance. Achelous no longer sounded like Tom Waits’ morning voice after a cigarette bender. He looked different from what she’d imagined, as well, a pastiche of his description in “The Waterman” poem and every portrayal of a god on a Grecian urn she’d seen. He was tall and athletic-looking, and his hair was dark, but that’s about all she’d had right. His eyes were an unnerving color, the same milky green as the water in the pool.

  “You seem surprised.”

  “A little.”

  “Surprised by my appearance, or that I appeared at all?”

  “Both.”

  He crunched across the crusty snow and hoarfrost toward her.

  It took more willpower than she thought she had to not back away from him.

  “You needn’t fear me. You have made your wishes clear.”

  “Thanks?”

  “I wish I could say I missed the formal prayers and reverence, but it does get old. I think I prefer your reluctant admiration.” His laugh bounced around the iced-over glade like handfuls of glass beads dropped into a crystal bowl.

  “Reluctant admiration is about all I’ve got. I’m still not quite okay with you almost letting me drown in the museum.”

  “I saved you from the demon. It is not my domain to save you from yourself.”

  “And my father?”

  “You already know where he is. That, too, is beyond my domain. And you knew that, as well.”

  “It never hurts to ask.”

  “It does not, as long as you can live with the answer.”

  She nodded. She guessed gods did have a few things going for them on the wisdom front. “I can live with that, but I’m not sure how to continue this.”

  “Continue what?”

  “I don’t know, veneration? I’m really not comfortable with the concept of ‘worship.’ ”

  “It’s been many generations since my priestesses lingered in the marshes of the Dodona.”

  “I don’t want to be one of your priestesses, or anyone else’s, but I will honor you in some way.”

  “Jo Wiley, your prayers are enough. My days of taking what I want are behind me.”

  “Really? What was that business at the museum then?”

  “I did not take you, though I could have. I could take you now. It is not often a mortal offers herself up in such a secluded place. But I gave you a choice, and I respect the one you made.”

  “Thank you, for that. I guess I should be going.” The snow had kept falling, so the walk back to the road was going to be more of an adventure than the trek in.

  “There is something more you would ask.”

  “There is.”

  Petitioning a god, even on another’s behalf, was an awful lot like asking for help. She still struggled with it, struggled with putting her faith in another person, another being, to do what they promised. “If my prayers are enough, will you offer your protection to Faron?”

  “I offer my protection, such that it is, to you and, by extension, to your son. I doubt he will require it much longer.”

  “What–”

  “Do not ask if you cannot live with the answer.”

  ——

  Henry watched storm after storm wade through the mountains, wrapping the world in a blanket of dazzling whites and pale blues and grays. The cold could not reach him, but he remembered it and remembered the warmth of Jo’s skin against his flesh. Flesh she had the power to bring back into existence. He drank her wine and ate her food and loved her body, but she was as much a ghost to him as he was to himself.

  She would return. He could believe that much. Her return would put an end to his miserable existence here in the purgatory he had made for himself. He hadn’t earned her pardon, but it was her lot in life to offer it to him regardless. For the others on the mountain, his hell would be the genesis of their release. His final coin paid at the table and in the bed of a woman born after he had died. Were he a physical person, and if his prison had walls he could touch, he could scratch the days until she came back onto the stone. Instead there was waiting and the counting of suns as they passed overhead and sank back to the valleys beyond the peaks.

  Chapter 22

  Vanilla and cinnamon and the vegetal haze of black tea greeted Jo like an old friend at the entrance to the shop. A muscle in her chest relaxed when she tied on the long, black French apron, crisscrossing the ties under her breasts and finishing the bow in the back. Her tongue softened in her mouth, and her jaw unclenched as she read down Fred’s prep list for the day. It was a temporary reprieve. That’s probably all she would ever get. But she’d take it today, or however many days it lasted. Grandma and Achelous had made it clear in their individual ways that she wasn’t piloting this ship. All she could do was steel herself against whatever, or whomever, was coming for her family, this time.

  “No music this morning?” Fred stirred the day’s soup before tasting it.

  “What are you in the mood for?” She would be in the mood for that red lentil soup long before lunchtime.

  “Your choice. Igor came by to see Vesna this morning and dropped off a stack of CDs he thought you might want.”

  “We don’t have anything to play them on here.” She didn’t even have anything in her flat she could play CDs on.

  “He was a step ahead of you.” Fred walked out to the service area where the tea bar was arranged and pulled a beat-up MacBook off the shelf where she usually stashed her iPod to play music for the shop. “He said he’d come and get it after you ripped whatever you wanted.”

  “Cool.” She took the laptop from him and set it on the bar to pick up a stack of CDs in plastic jewel cases.

  “Pick something, and I’ll pull the mise for the scones and shortbread for you.”

  “Sure. Thanks.” She was distracted, already swimming in the nostalgia of music from her formative years. She had a lot of what Vesna’s boyfriend had brought, but not everything. Halfway through the pile there was a copy of XTC’s English Settlement with the white outlines
of the Uffington Horse against a forest-green background.

  She pulled the disc from its grippy little circle and slid it into the slot on the side of the computer. She figured out how to open the disc file and get it to play. The speakers in the shop popped when she plugged the line in. Andy Partridge’s voice was almost lost in percussion, layered 12-string chords, and soft synth mesmerism as he implored an abused runaway to come home on the opening track. She was dragged back to her college boyfriend Turner’s dorm room, draped over his bed, stoned out of her gourd. At 17, every lyric had some import directed solely at her. Her father had never hit her, but he’d left her with a mother who had. She tucked the laptop back onto the shelf and stacked the jewel cases next to it.

  The bells on the front door banged against the wood. Faron came in with Ivanka. She hung her snowflake-sprinkled coat on a peg by the door. “Did Fred pick the music this morning?”

  “Nope. Reliving some college nostalgia.” Jo smoothed her apron.

  “This doesn’t sound like something you’d be into.” Ivanka headed for the kitchen and threw a look back at Faron.

  “What can I say? My interests are multitude.” Jo watched her son fidget nervously next to the coat pegs. “You look like you need to talk.”

  “Yeah. I’m just not sure I want Fred to hear. Or Ivanka.”

  Jo walked back to the MacBook and cranked up the sound a bit. Andy and the band had moved on to “Jason and the Argonauts.” She’d forgotten about that song.

  Faron sat at the table nearest the door, his coat still on like he would flee at any moment. She pulled a chair out and sat next to him.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Helena and the mouse and—”

  “You don’t need to apologize. I get it.” They were cut from the same weird cloth.

  “I’m still sorry you had to hear it from Dušan.”

  It was petty, but she was glad Faron didn’t call him Dad. “That was unexpected, but not any more than–”

  “Than everything else. Yeah.”

  “How much did he tell you?”

  “All of it, I think. If I bring someone back from the dead, I’m the white god.” Faron played with a leather bracelet tied around his wrist.

  “That was the overview I got, too.” This was more awkward than the sex talk and the drug talk combined. She couldn’t help but swim around in her guilt: If she hadn’t been attracted to Dušan. If she hadn’t let herself be drawn in by him. He’d used her, however he rationalized it, and Faron was paying for it.

  “I’ve tried to send Ivanka away or break up with her. I can’t do it.” He looked anguished by his failure.

  “Why do you think it will be her?”

  “Just feels like it would be.” He was waiting for her to give him the answers, and she didn’t have them.

  “This stuff … I don’t know. I don’t think you can out-think it. Don’t make yourself miserable in an effort to try.” She put her hand over his. “I can tell you one thing though: if it’s me, let me go.”

  “I couldn’t do that, either. How can you say that?” He pulled his hand away.

  She hoped he could see the empathy in her face and didn’t mistake it for pity. “I think Ivanka would tell you the same thing, if you asked her.” He had already made up his mind, she could see the determination in the set of his shoulders. His body language was so like Dušan’s, though they’d never even spent a whole day together.

  He leaned back in his chair. “She would.”

  Jo stood up. “Are you going to be late for class?” She wanted to keep him there, keep him safe, whatever the cost to her. She couldn’t try to out-think it either, though. There were too many variables, and in her effort to prevent one thing, she would invariably cause another, possibly worse, outcome.

  “Maybe.” He stood up and pulled her into a hug.

  “Faron, you know whatever happens, whatever choices you make, I’ll still love you. I’ll still be here for you.” Somehow. If her great grandmothers could get to her, she’d figure out how to get to him. “Even if I’m not here, here.”

  “I know.” He kissed her on the forehead and headed out into the morning.

  Jo remembered the thing her Aunt Jackie had said to her when Faron was born, something like having a child was like watching your heart walk around outside your body. She had thought she’d fear for him less as he got older, but no pithy quote could have prepared either of them for this.

  Vesna and Reka appeared in time to join them for family meal. Jo was deep into a bowl of Fred’s spicy lentil soup pondering her conversation with Faron when Vesna dropped her birthday surprise bombshell.

  “We’re closing the shop a little early. Say 9?” Vesna took a bite of a smoked salmon sandwich and beamed at Jo.

  “And why would we do that?” Jo leveled her gaze at her friend and birthday nemesis.

  “So we can all go to your birthday party.”

  Jo had promised herself she would go along with Vesna’s weird idea of birthday celebrations and thus kept her eye-rolling to a minimum. “And will there be paper hats and parlor games?”

  “No. I’m pretty sure Niko would have a shit fit about blindfolded, drunk people poking holes in the gallery walls.”

  Reka snorted. “He’d probably paint a frame around it and call it art.”

  Vesna sat up straight in her chair. “But seriously, birthday party. 9:30-ish at Niko’s gallery.”

  “If you insist.” Jo went back to her soup.

  “Could you not be that way?” Vesna was snippy in lieu of being hurt.

  “I’m sorry. It’s just that celebrating my birthday is the last thing I’m interested in doing.”

  “Maybe your friends would like to celebrate you.” Fred looked at her over the rim of his teacup.

  Jo sighed. “Point taken.”

  “Good. Then you should leave about 8 or 8:30 and shower and change or whatever you’d like to do. We can wrap up here and walk over together.” Vesna stacked the dirty dishes and got up to take them to the sink.

  ——

  Tuesday. Again. There was no backing out this time.

  Veronika was determined to complete her spell that evening. Avgusta had grilled her about how she would release the spell, but she’d also been distant and withdrawn. Veronika hadn’t remembered messing up more than usual, but she never knew with Avgusta. She’d finished the few chores Avgusta had for her and taken off. If this spell worked, Avgusta might trust her to help with more-powerful workings. Maybe she would trust her enough to show her how to pull her mother or her father up into that bowl.

  Ivanka was at work, and the Tuesday night crew was supposed to meet around nine, despite the weather. The snow had stopped, at least for the time being, but the roads were kind of a mess and the buses weren’t running. She’d rather walk, anyway. Being crammed into an overheated bus wasn’t her idea of fun.

  She hitched her backpack up on her shoulder and looked behind her. She had a sense that someone was watching her or following her, but nobody had a reason to, as far as she knew. Avgusta didn’t have any other assistants, and she hadn’t told anyone else she could do magic. She headed on to the tea shop, her stomach fluttering. There was excitement, but she was nervous, too. What if the spell didn’t work? It would be hard to deny what she’d tried to do. She was also anxious about finding Jo alone. Her best bet was to catch her if and when she took the trash out to the receptacles down the street. The shop was too small to catch her alone unless Veronika managed to meet her on the stairs down to the basement toilets.

  Veronika had to admit to herself that the nerves came partly from worrying about what the curse would look like. She’d never been the cause of someone else experiencing physical pain. What if she was too weak a witch to bear what she’d done? She needed to let that go. Jo Wiley deserved whatever she got.

  Faron, Aleš,
and Marko were walking out to the courtyard when Veronika got to the arched doorway. She tried to walk toward them but couldn’t move past the entrance. The air was dense, and she bounced off it.

  Jo must have warded the entrance after the vandalism. Shit.

  “You okay there? We didn’t mean to startle you.” Marko joined her on the street. “Hey, Vesna’s closing the shop early. We’re all going to Niko’s in Metelkova for a birthday party for Faron’s mom.” The others followed out through the arch and clustered around her.

  “Okay.” So much for ending this tonight.

  “Don’t look so disappointed. You’re invited. We’re walking out there now. The buses still aren’t running.” Faron joined them and chucked her lightly on the arm.

  Veronika moved away from him. “I know. I walked.” She adjusted the backpack. It wasn’t heavy except for the weight of what she planned to do. Still, the straps dug into her shoulders. “Where’s Ivanka?”

  “Closing the kitchen. She’s going to walk over with Mom and everyone else.”

  She followed the men out to Breg. This was not the plan, but it would probably be easier to get Jo alone in Metelkova than at the teahouse. Maybe some god of witches was smiling on her.

  ——

  Jo pulled her heavy coat on over a layer of silk long underwear and a black ballet dress. It was her birthday, whether she was overjoyed about it or not, and it was cold. If the phones were going to come out for pictures, she might as well look nice. Vesna hadn’t shared the guest list with her, but she assumed it would include Leo. Jo wanted to see him, and yet she didn’t. There was no denying her feelings about him, even to herself, and she was a gold medalist in emotional denial. She couldn’t dismiss him for not knowing the darkness she attracted, the darkness she was. The thing she could do was fret about him leaving the church for her. Gods were jealous. What would breaking his vows unleash on him? On her? Maybe Leo’s god had mellowed like Dušan and Achelous. Or maybe he had enough swagger still, with his millions of believers, to smite those who turned away.