Ever again.
Tristan allowed the tears to break through and the pain to exorcise itself, weeping until her lungs ached and her head throbbed. Then she bit back her sorrow, swallowed it and buried it in the place she forbid herself to access forever after, the place where she still danced with Rosa, and Mami Treszka never spoke of her youngest daughter, and Tristan grew up into a normal woman. Regret served no purpose except to distract her. Remorse did not kill monsters.
“We are alike,” she whispered, wondering if some remnant of Anasztaizia or even of Blessing still clung to the earth. But no goose bumps pebbled Tristan’s skin, and no one was left who shared her blood that might hear its silent beckoning. At least none that had been Called, if any would ever again answer.
She’d been in love with an idea, a myth; she’d sought to mold Mira into the universe that filled her celestial emptiness. Everybody was someone’s puppet. Mira had almost tricked her into believing otherwise, but Anasztaizia exposed an undeniable truth. Human lives, in the grand scheme of the cosmos, meant nothing on their own. And there was no one to miss them if they were all gone.
She thought of the people in the village, who would celebrate her victory. She might stay in Zsofika’s hut and learn from whatever her aunt had left behind from her sacred intimacy with the spirits, learn how to be more like her. How to be what they needed without an emotional investment.
For them, if no one else. Something must be worth saving.
When Tristan emerged from the castle at last, she gazed up at the diamond sky glittering over the village. Directly overhead, shining brighter even than Sirius, was a teardrop-shaped star that hadn’t been there before. Tristan knew the stars, their locations, and their meanings, though she regarded astrology as so much New Age crap. But she could not deny that weeping star’s existence, and she walked down the path to Bodi with a heart made of lead and a sorrow that could have drowned the world.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Skeletal tree limbs clawed at the sky as if to rip open the expanse of clouds that buried the sun. The thick gray puffs created strange shadows over the grass. A chill breeze, laden with the threat of late-season snow, passed over her and she shivered. Wood stoves puffed rich, earthy smoke into the air. Something white fluttered in the corner of her eye. Probably a stray plastic bag.
Tristan stood on the front walk of the semi-detached brick and stone house, one of the more modest homes in the neighborhood yet valued at over half a million dollars. Mami Treszka used to make jewelry on the porch until her arthritis put an end to it. She simply found another hobby when age or circumstance prevented pursuit of the existing one. A resilient woman, like so many of her ancestors. And so unlike Momma. Momma didn’t come from ordinary stock, and even Daddy’s death shouldn’t have been enough to shatter her so completely.
Steeling herself with one deep breath, Tristan walked up the steps and knocked on the door. A few moments passed. No one peeked out from behind the glass, so she knocked again. When her second attempt went unheeded, Tristan tried the knob. She still had her keys, even after three years, but this wasn’t home anymore.
Unlocked. The door swung open, and Tristan swept her gaze over the spacious living room. She didn’t know why she expected it to be different, but then everything was different. Still, the familiarity of the house brought with it an odd sense of solace. The same polished hardwood floors, the same curtains on the picture window, the same carpet on the stairs. An indentation in the couch cushion where Momma sat on Monday nights to watch Hoarders and tsk tsk the homeowners on their housekeeping failures.
Tristan set her bags beside the couch then passed through the dining room and into the kitchen. The stainless steel appliances gleamed. A bowl of Granny Smith apples sat upon the spotless black and mica-flecked granite countertop, and a vase of flowers adorned the small breakfast table by the brightly sunlit window. From the open basement door, the sound of an agitating washer drifted up the stairs.
One morning many years ago, after a particularly bad nightmare, Tristan had sat on the edge of the bed with her head in her hands and thrust her feet into a pair of pink slippers. The scent of Turkish coffee drifted in from beneath the door, that and maple syrup. Her stomach growled in response. Tristan patted it and made her way downstairs to the kitchen, where Momma had set out a plate and a coffee mug, along with a stack of pancakes. The kitchen was large, but since there was a separate formal dining room, only a café-style table for two offered any seating there.
“They’re still warm,” she said, peeking sideways at Tristan as though a mere glance from her daughter might transmit some unspeakable disease. Thus, her culinary efforts that morning came as something of a surprise. “I didn’t know when you were getting up. Mami Treszka is at the senior center today. Are you feeling all right?”
“Yeah, I…just had weird dreams.” Tristan slumped into a chair and loaded her plate with four pancakes, slathered in butter and syrup. No matter how much she ate, her body never changed. She couldn’t complain about that, at least. “Momma, I have to ask you something.” Tristan set her fork down and turned in her chair. “Please, will you just make eye contact with me for once?”
Momma blinked. She poured a cup of coffee and leaned against the counter. “What is it?”
“Why didn’t you ever tell us about our aunt? About your younger sister.”
Tristan might as well have struck her. Momma’s eyes welled up with tears, and her face reddened. “Where did you hear that?”
“The first time I was in hospital. Mami Treszka mentioned her. She said she was like me. I thought maybe I had imagined it, but then I remembered, because I…think I had a dream about her this morning. What does that even mean, “like me?””
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head. “No, I cannot. Tristan, please understand—”
“That’s what I’m trying to do, and no one will tell me anything! All my life I’ve felt like you can’t stand me, or you’re afraid of me, and I don’t know why!”
“I wanted to protect you. I wanted you to live a normal life, even though it will never happen.”
“And how did that turn out?” Blood pounded in Tristan’s ears. “I have nothing keeping me here except people that can’t ever give me a straight answer!” She flung the plate away with more force than she had intended, and the sticky fork clattered onto the floor. “I’ve had it with you! I’ve already lost everything that mattered to me anyway.”
“No, you haven’t.” Momma’s fingers trembled against the porcelain cup. “You have no idea what that is like. You still have your family. You still have your life. Maybe you can’t dance anymore, but that isn’t the end of the world.”
“You keep the memories of Daddy all to yourself, and it’s not fair! We never had the chance to know him, and you won’t let us!”
Momma’s lips quivered with imminent sobs. “Believe me, Tristan, if I could rid myself of the memories I carry, I would. You do not want the ones I have. I can’t even remember the good parts anymore because of the things that happened after that day. Because of what I did. I should have listened. They were all right, but what did I care? It was my life that ended, not theirs.” Momma set the cup down, snatched her purse from the coat rack, and stormed out through the back door.
When she remembered those moments, loneliness gnawed at her like some nocturnal scavenger. It will pass, she told herself, as all things did eventually. Little by little, Tristan had purged herself of any emotion or memory tying her to the comfortable middle-class world Toronto had provided for her first eighteen years. There was no running from her destiny. The demons found her whether she sought them out or not. She pretended she no longer had a family, or friends; her history was, for the safety of those few whom she loved, a pile of discarded bones.
She could never come home again.
Momma’s footfalls on the stairs stopped Tristan from calling down to her. As she crossed the threshold her hand flew to her mouth, and she nearly droppe
d the basket of folded laundry under her arm. Tristan took it from her and set it on the counter.
“Hi, Momma.”
“Tristan! What in God’s name—where have you been? You disappear for three years, Jinny will tell me nothing—” Momma’s hands fluttered between her chest and her mouth, uncertain of their purpose. They settled for twisting strands of the dark hair cut to just above her shoulders. Her eyes filled with tears. “I thought you were dead!”
“Don’t be mad at Jinny. I didn’t even tell her I was leaving. I didn’t tell anyone. Momma, we have a lot to talk about. About what I am.”
Momma’s face paled. She glanced around the kitchen—searching for a drink, perhaps. “Well. I suppose I cannot go on pretending anymore, can I?” She opened a cupboard and pulled out a box of Hungarian tea blends. “Darjeeling?”
“Sounds great.”
“There is a box of Carmina on the other side of the dishwasher. I used to have to hide them from your Mami…” She lowered her head and pursed her lips, her hand frozen midway to the coffee mugs.
“No one should have to lose as much as you have, Momma. And I am so sorry.” Tristan hugged her from behind, arms around her waist like a child. Back then, Momma’s body tensed up immediately as if Tristan were about to hit her, and Tristan quickly dropped her arms to her sides. The implicit rejection was unbearable to a little girl who did not yet possess the perception of her own inheritance. But now Momma relaxed into Tristan’s embrace and patted her hands.
“Mami would be proud of you.” She grabbed the teakettle off the stove and filled it with water then measured tealeaves into it. Tristan retrieved the caramel biscuits from their hiding place and arranged them onto a small plate. “I’ll be right back,” Momma said and trotted back down the basement stairs to put another load of laundry in the dryer. Momma must have been so lonely in a large house all to herself. It wasn’t natural for Romani to live like that. Tristan picked up the basket of clean clothes and carried it out into the living room, up the stairs. She left it beside Momma’s bedroom door at the end of the hall and hurried back down. If she peeked into her own room, she’d be tempted to stay longer than she intended.
By the time she returned to the kitchen, the teakettle shrieked for attention. She turned off the burner and poured water into the mugs, over the tea bags. Momma resurfaced from the basement. She picked up one mug and the plate of biscuits and carried both into the living room, then set them on the coffee table. Tristan followed. Uncomfortable silence reigned. She should make small talk to break the ice. Maybe ask if Momma was dating anyone. She hoped so. No one should have to be alone.
“I owe you much more than an apology,” Momma said. She eyed the contents of her mug. “I was not the mother I should have been to you. But I was frightened. My sister…my husband…my own mother.” Momma smiled, but there was little humor in it. “You girls are all I have left. But I know you will not stay.”
“I can’t.”
“That is why Zsofika isolated herself from us, to protect us. But I wanted a sister so badly.”
“Me too,” Tristan murmured, wishing Jinny had visited. Wondering if she would ever lay eyes on her again.
“I did not understand why she could not be with us. But she saved me from him; he would have killed me, certainly. Yet he had already…” Momma snapped off a small piece of biscuit, crumbling it until it was nothing but caramel-colored dust. “Your name means ‘full of sorrows.’ A cruel thing to name a child, perhaps, but I knew what my sister was, and that you were like her. I saw the solitude, the…death. I tried to pretend we were something else, to forget where we came from, as if it would stop you from becoming a Hunter. It is too great a burden for a child to bear, saving the world from these…things.
“And I tried not to love you; God help me, I tried. I did not want to go through that again.”
“Momma—”
“But I did love you, Tristan. For all that I fought it, I did. And I do. You are my child. Do you understand me? I pushed you away because I could not bear to lose you!” Momma folded her arms over her lap and buried her face in them, her shoulders shaking from the force of her sobs. Tristan, stunned into silence, set her hand on her mother’s back, her own tears slipping down her cheeks.
After a few moments, Momma righted herself. Her dark eyes were still glassy, but something had changed in her face. The hardness was gone, the lines somehow smoother, no longer straining to hold back her emotions. She was more striking than Tristan remembered, if she’d ever truly noticed her mother at all.
“Please know it was nothing you did. I’ve no right to ask anything of you, but I ask your forgiveness.”
“Of course, Momma. Of course I forgive you.”
“And look at you.” Momma held Tristan at arms’ length, as if admiring a portrait. “You have grown up so much in such a short time. I never told you, God forgive me, but you are a beautiful girl. You are so much like her.”
Warmth crept up Tristan’s neck and into her face as she envisioned her wiry hair, her boyish, compact body and slightly-too-big nose. Something only a mother could love.
And her mother did.
“Thank you, Momma.” Tristan sipped her tea, savoring the peace Momma’s words had brought to her. Momma contemplated her tea again, perhaps trying to divine something from the pattern of leaves clinging to the inside of her cup as so many of her ancestors had done.
“May I see it?” she asked in a near whisper, not meeting Tristan’s eyes.
“See… Oh.” Tristan glanced at the travel bag next to her mother’s feet. “Are you sure?”
“I want to understand you, so I can understand my family. Will you show me?”
Tristan leaned over to unzip the bag. She groped beneath layers of clothing for the bloodstained metal blades, then pulled them out and set them on her lap. Momma reached out one hesitant hand, which she withdrew just as her fingertips grazed the knives, perhaps remembering Beebee Zsofika’s weapon as it plunged through Daddy’s body.
“There was another one, like me. Her name was Blessing. She saved my life.”
Momma shifted a little and averted her eyes, her growing discomfort more than evident. She wasn’t as ready as she’d believed. Tristan tucked the knives into the bag again and zipped it shut.
“Sometimes I still get mail for you,” Momma said as if she’d never seen the tools of her daughter’s bloody trade. “I left it on your bed.” She finally bit into the Carmina rather than progressively destroying it, and smiled. A few crumbs clung to her lips. Tristan fought the momentary urge to share her adventures with her. But extended conversation led to dinner, dinner led to Jinny visiting, and the enticement to stay was one she could not afford to entertain.
“I’ll go get it. Be right back.” Tristan mounted the stairs, each step a deliberation on whether she should continue. Moments later, she stood before her bedroom door. When she stepped inside, the linen-scented sheets and purple bedspread invited her to lie down. It had been a long trip, after all, and an even longer one awaited her. She sat on the edge of the bed instead, pointedly snubbing the fluffy pillows, and picked up the mail. A couple of postcards from community colleges, and credit card offers. She would have to fake her own death, get herself off the grid entirely. No matter the damage to Momma, and for the safety of this family she must finally forsake.
She turned back in the doorway and surveyed at the room once more. Three years, yet it was another life. Someone else’s life. A child had lived there, with those purple sheets and those band posters taped to the walls. That child was dead.
Momma had retreated to the kitchen, where she rinsed the mugs and the plate. Tristan watched in silence as she committed everything about her mother to memory. Her hair, her clothes, and the way she nibbled on her lower lip when she was lost in thought.
“Momma, I have to go.”
“So soon? You just got here! Can’t you stay just one night? I will call Jinny and we’ll have dinner together. One more time.” T
he hard edges of Momma’s face were the seams where she had glued herself back together so many times, and now she looked ready to break apart permanently. Tristan ached to see such unhappiness in her eyes, but she had no time left to give her. The desire to find others of her kind scratched at the back of her mind like a tree branch against glass. She was a different person, Momma part of a different life—one no longer hers.
“I can’t, Momma. I’m sorry.”
“No…I understand.” Momma gathered Tristan into her arms. “Please be careful, baby. And if you can ever come home…”
“I will. I promise.” Tristan leaned into her and closed her eyes. Safe in her mother’s arms, if only for a moment.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Mount Pleasant was more a park than a cemetery, with flower gardens and sculptures, and so many trees it had been designated an arboretum. Mami Trezska lay beneath the branches of an ash tree, whose implicit words guided Tristan to the site. She knelt on the dead grass, the earth hard and cold under her legs, and pressed her hand against the tree trunk. Tristan closed her eyes as the trunk warmed beneath her hand. Mami’s spirit imbued all things, from the grass to the flowers to this tree. Once returned to the earth, she had found her way to the afterlife in peace.
An old Romani saying inscribed the red bronze marker below Mami’s name and dates:
“Bury me on my feet;
I have spent my entire life on my knees.”
Tristan smiled a little as her fingers traced the gold letters. Momma hadn’t forgotten everything.
The sun had begun to die in the west, and the cemetery closed soon. Leaves skittered across the bleak, empty park. Somewhere in the tree, a solitary bird screeched out a few syllables and fell silent. Tristan shivered inside her coat, the one she’d forgotten to take with her when she left Toronto. She didn’t know if she needed it where she was going next, wherever that might be. The thought filled her with an excitement and a terror not unlike the day she met Mira.
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