Chapter 5

The moment that followed seemed an eternity.

I knew I was staring, knew my mouth was open, hanging agape, knew I needed to say something—a salutation, a greeting, anything —but I found it impossible to form words. His presence—he was tall; Mama had never said just how tall he was—filled me with both wonder and absolute dread.

The stained-glass window at the village temple was wrong, all wrong. He was not a dark shadow, a smattering of grays and purples, navy and ebony. He was as black as a moonless sky, a void completely absent of light.

He cast no shadow, I noted, staring at the ground behind him where my lantern should have thrown even some soft pattern ofgray.

He was the shadow. He was all shadows, every dark thought, every bleak moment. He was god of departures and the departed, lord of endings and the grave.

He was the Dreaded End.

My benefactor.

My savior, I supposed.

"Godfather," I said, finding my voice and dipping into a curtsy that felt patently ridiculous but also somehow right. If you were supposed to show deference to King Marnaigne—a mere mortal with a funny hat—you should do at least that for a god.

I paused before rising.

Should I have bowed?

I should have bowed.

I should have knelt down and humbled my skinny form prostrate before his robes of midnight, pressing my forehead to the ground, pressing my entire body to the ground, into the ground, a worm at his feet.

An errant thought crossed my mind and I wondered what type of shoes the Dreaded End wore. Sandals, maybe? Boots for stomping to dust the souls of people who dared to think such irreverent thoughts in the face of his unholy magnitude?

I was struck with the terrible urge to laugh and clapped my hands over my mouth lest a giggle slip out and damn us all.

"Hazel," he greeted me, and the corners of his mouth rose, his lips pulling back to reveal a line of sharp, pointed teeth.

Was he…was that a smile?

"Happy birthday," he continued. "I…I brought you a gift." He drew back a corner of his cloak, but it was as if the dark fabric swallowed every bit of the lantern's light. I couldn't see anything tucked away in such shadowy depths.

"Perhaps we should go outside?" he suggested, and I was surprised to hear his tone quaver.

Was he nervous? This great, hulking, all-powerful god ? Nervous? Before me?

I wanted to laugh. Again.

Who was I?

A no one.

A nobody.

And yet I couldn't deny what I'd heard. He was uncertain. He had offered a question, not a command.

The Dreaded End swayed back and forth on feet restless with apprehension.

What was he worried about? Did he believe I would say no? Did he truly think it in me to disagree with a god?

"Yes, Godfather," I said, and waited for him to turn. For all the newfound bravado coursing through my veins, I didn't think I could be the one to make the first move, the one to walk past him, brushing too near his cloak, too close to his strangely elongatedform.

He seemed to pick up on my reticence and backed out of the stall. He filled the narrow hall, blocking every sunbeam cast through the barn door, a literal eclipse.

It was only then that I remembered Mama.

She'd gone terribly pale, the sickly yellowish color of goat's milk, and there was a damp sheen coating her forehead.

"Are you all right, Mama?" I asked, feeling indecision tear at me. My body wanted to approach her, feel her temple, make sure she was all right—she looked so not all right—but my feet shifted toward the stall door.

"I…" Her cheeks puffed as if she was about to throw up, and I wondered just how much liquor she'd already had.

"Hazel?"

The uncertainty filling his one word spurred me into action.

"Come on, Mama," I said, and slipped out of the stall, out of the barn, after the Dreaded End.

He waited for me in the yard, an incongruous smear of black against the white linens dancing from the clothesline as they dried in the early-spring breeze. The robes made it nearly impossible to be certain, but I had the distinct impression his shoulders were hunched tightly against his frame, as if he was expecting to receive some sort of harsh words from me, or even a physical blow. After a moment of pained silence between us, his eyes—red and silver and so very strange—brightened as he remembered there was something he could do.

"Your gift," he said, as if he were reminding himself as much as me. He reached into his cloak and removed a beautiful box. It was tufted with velvet and was the loveliest shade of lilac I'd ever seen, like mist rising over the lavender fields on a moody morning, when the earth was finally warm and the air smelled sweet and new.

"I…I wasn't quite sure what you'd like," he apologized, stumbling over the words. "But I imagined you wouldn't have anything like this."

A cry escaped me as I opened the tiny box and the sun hit the treasure nestled within.

"It's a necklace," he explained unnecessarily. "Gold. It's probably a touch extravagant for a girl of ten, but—"

"Twelve," I corrected him thoughtlessly, trailing one fingertip over the thin chain. It was finer craftsmanship than anything I'd ever seen my mother or sisters wear, each link sparkling. A small stone hung from its middle, caught in a net of gold and winking brightly, neither green nor yellow.

"It reminded me of your eyes," he said, his voice rounding out with fondness. "Everyone always says babies have blue eyes, but when you first looked at me…"

He trailed off, clearing his throat, and I could hear Mama finally making her way out from the barn.

"What is it, Hazel?" she asked, tottering unsteadily.

"A necklace," I said, turning to show her the box.

She swiped the present away from me, raking one of her fingernails across the back of my hand. She didn't notice my wince of pain. "You brought this for a child?" she asked, and her eyes were sharp and hard as she looked up at my godfather.

"Not just any child," he said, the corners of his lips turning downward as he took it from her. He lifted it up and fastened it round my neck. "My child."

"Yours," she repeated, and there was something about her tone that charged the air around them, electrifying the space between us. It was as distinctly felt as an approaching summer storm. The oppressive might of it rolled over me, a weighty foreboding.

My godfather didn't reply but studied my mother with fresh interest. There was a slight tilt to his head that reminded me a little of Bertie, when we would roam the river basin, searching for berries. He'd spot a sleek green lizard or a little snake winding its way through the brush and stop everything he was doing to watch it, his eyes wide with curiosity, seeking to understand how this tiny creature functioned.

That was how my godfather looked at Mama, as if she were a little tiny something that would normally carry out its life beyond the notice of someone such as him but that he found fascinating now that he had stopped to take note.

Such rapt focus made my insides quiver like a bow screeching over the strings of a violin. It felt decidedly wrong to have the full weight of a god's attention on me.

"Mine," he finally said, his agreement given most begrudgingly.

"If that's so, where have you been all this time? All these years? You were meant to collect her when she was a babe. You were here on the day she was born, and then you just…" Mama made a gesture of something flittering away, nearly losing hold of her bottle.

My heart beat heavily in the hollow of my throat. Her audacity shocked me, but I found myself hoping he would answer her. These were the same questions that had filled my thoughts for years—when would he come again, why had he ever left me behind at all.

"I've returned," he said, offering no further explanation.

Mama made a noise of disgusted dismissal. "What good does that do us now? She's nearly grown. We raised her in your stead. We cared for her, clothed her, fed her. All the things you promised you would do. All the things you swore you'd pay for."

I winced.

She sounded so hard, so full of condemnation. It didn't seem as though she was speaking to a god at all, more like she was chastising the village butcher over a bad cut of meat.

I expected his anger to rise, for lightning and thunder to strike us down, for the earth to tremble and part beneath our feet and swallow us whole.

But none of those things happened. Instead, my godfather nodded carefully, consideringly.

"I suppose you did, Madame. What would you estimate all your care and effort to be worth?"

Mama frowned skeptically. "What?"

"How much money do you suppose Hazel has cost you over the years? That's what you desire, is it not? A reimbursement? A settling of the books? Go on. Name your price. What has Hazel's first ten—twelve"—he corrected himself, his silvery red eyes darting toward mine—"years cost you?"

Mama's eyes drifted across the yard toward the house, oddly unfocused. "I…I couldn't begin to—"

"What do you think is a fair price, Hazel?" my godfather asked, turning toward me.

My mouth dried as terror spiked up my throat. My chest felt as though it would split in two. Where did my allegiance lie? With the mother who had raised me, most begrudgingly, or with the godfather who claimed to care but had only just arrived? "I…I don't know." I looked helplessly toward my mother, but she didn't notice.

"Would five gold coins be enough?" he asked, his attention whipping back to Mama. "A year? Five gold coins for each year of care? That makes sixty. Do you believe that enough, Madame?"

"Sixty gold coins?" Mama repeated, her eyes suddenly growing sharp. She sucked in a breath of air and it whistled through the crooked gap between her front teeth. "Do you mean it? Truly?"

The Dreaded End snapped his fingers and the coins fell out of the sky, conjured into existence midair. "As you say, I owe you. And you're right, of course. I do. So let's double it." More coins fell. "Triple, even." Another snap and the golden disks rained down, showering the ground where Mama stood. "Do you think it enough, Madame? Is this sufficient payment for the care and keeping of your own flesh and blood?"

Part of me longed for Mama to say no, to say that she'd changed her mind and no amount of money in the world was enough to ease the pain of losing her daughter.

I held my breath, wishing, waiting.

After a painful pause, she nodded.

"Good," he said, and then held out his hand to me. His fingers were too long, too long and dotted with too many joints. They bent into impossible angles, like the strangely segmented walking sticks found deep in our woods.

"Come, Hazel," he said as though we were about to go for an afternoon stroll, as if he wasn't about to take me away from my home, away from my entire life, all my knowns and certainties, however painful they could sometimes be.

I glanced back to my mother.

Surely she was going to stop this.

Surely she would protest.

She couldn't just let me leave home with a complete stranger, however venerable he might be.

"Go on, Hazel," she said instead. "You always knew this day would come."

Had I?

I'd been told of it often enough. I'd heard my parents rail and lament each year he did not come. But with every year that passed, the story grew a little less defined, less a promise and more a concept, an event that might never occur.

I turned to the Dreaded End.

"Where are we going?"

"Home."

My feet instinctively took a treacherous step toward the little cottage behind me that had never been mine. My pulse felt funny in my veins, racing in thready tempos, and I suddenly feared I could not draw breath.

"Our home," he clarified.

I looked over his broad shoulders as if I might somehow spot it behind him. "Is it far?"

"You could say that," he said, his tone gentling. "And yet the trip won't take but a second."

His hand raised and I stepped toward him, frightened he'd snap those terrible fingers before I could stop him.

"Wait! I…I'll need to pack," I said, nearly shouting in my haste.

His gaze drifted—not to the house behind me, but to the barn. He knew my possessions were there. He knew that was where I slept. Shame burned hot.

"Anything you require can be replaced once we're away," he said, offering his hand once more.

Away.

The word scared me in ways I'd never known before.

I'd never been away. Not anywhere farther than the village market. Not anywhere past Celeste Alarie's cottage, deep in the Gravia.

I'd spent years imagining life away, but faced with the very real threat of it now, I'd never felt more rooted to our little patch of land. Never felt more pulled to the tiny little cabin, never so longed for the family who alternatively ignored and despised me.

"My quilt," I said, grasping on to the flimsy excuse. I needed time, time to think, time to worry through my doubts. Black dots danced over my vision and I felt as though I might throw up. "The one you gave me. I don't…I don't want to leave that behind."

His fingers did snap then, and in an instant, the tattered velvet quilt was in his hands. He looked over the worn fabric, undoubtedly taking note of the tears I'd tried to mend, the stains I couldn't remove. It showed its age, showed its use. It was shabby and small, all traces of its sacred luster long gone.

My godfather traced a line of my clumsy stitching, his two-toned eyes inscrutable.

"Anything else?" he finally asked.

I could feel my control of the situation slipping away from me, like grains of sand pulled back into the sea by relentless waves.

"Can't I…can't I at least say goodbye?" My throat felt tight, swollen with painful burrs closing off my air supply. I couldn't draw breath, couldn't breathe. My lower lip trembled with the force of any attempt.

"Say goodbye, Hazel," he instructed, nodding toward Mama.

"And to everyone else! Papa and Remy are out hunting. Am I not allowed to say goodbye to them?"

His brow furrowed as he pondered my distress. "You'll see them again," he finally said, deciding on a way to comfort me.

"I will?"

It had never occurred to me that I would.

It had never occurred to me that I would want to.

Not really.

But now, when offered a promise to return, I felt my heart thud with bright hope, and my departure didn't seem nearly as forbidding.

My godfather smiled again, sunlight catching on those strange teeth, making them seem sharper. "I'm not spiriting you away forever." He let out a sound that was almost a laugh. "That was never part of the plan."

"The plan," I echoed. "No one has ever told me the plan."

"That changes today," he promised, and offered his elbow, as if he were a gallant gentleman at court and I a lady in a fine gown. "Shall we, then?"

I nodded, feeling suddenly happier.

I was leaving, but I would return.

"I'll see you soon, Mama," I said, tucking my arm through my godfather's. The shadowy cloak was the softest thing I'd ever felt, a cut of wool impossibly fine, impeccably smooth. "I…I love you."

Mama stared at me with watery eyes and bobbed her head once, taking my affection in without response.

"You'll want to be sure to collect all those coins, Madame," my godfather told her, adjusting the quilt under his other arm. "After all, you've earned each and every one of them."

Without hesitation or shame, Mama dropped to the ground and began scooping them into her dirty apron. They clinked with more merriment than seemed appropriate for the moment.

"Ready?" my godfather asked me.

I stared at Mama, willing her to look up at me, willing her to say something, anything. But she didn't, too fixed on her foraging, lest any coin escape her count.

That warm rush of affection I'd felt just moments before began to harden inside my heart. It was tiny, just the size of a kernel for now, but as pointed as a barb.

I nodded. "Ready."

Tucking me close to the swelling heft of his robes, my godfather, the god of death, snapped his fingers, and we disappeared into thevoid.