“To bring some light into your dark world.” The words feel like the right thing for me to say at this moment. Essos is watching me closely as I let it go and look up at him, blinking away my confusion. His eyes close for a long moment, and I wonder if I’ve done something wrong, said the wrong thing, and I want to fix it. Very nearly, I reach out to cup his cheek.
“Something like that. You’ll keep my secret?” Essos confirms.
I lean away from him, settling back into my spot on the couch. “That you like bright colors and wearing jewelry? I promise not to out the God of Death.”
“Not the God of Death, God of the Dead, but thanks for the demotion. The first is a grim reaper, and the other a guardian. I shall hold you to that promise. If you want to be part of the process, I welcome you to stay…but this is your chance to leave.” He pauses, waiting for me to speak, but when I open my mouth, his eyes shutter, locking away any thought and emotion on his face.
“I actually wanted to ask a favor.” Essos’s eyebrows lift. “Can you…” My voice breaks, and I take a breath. His hand is on my knee this time, giving me warmth. “It’s stupid and inconsequential, but can you fix my phone? It was broken in the accident. I don’t want to send any texts or anything, but I want to be able to look at photos of my parents and my cat.”
At the mention of Waffles, Dave lifts his head, then shakes it in the dog approximation of disgust.
“Of course,” Essos says, nearly leaping out of his chair. He raises his hand from my leg and holds out my phone to me, conjured from the air. The screen is now glossy and uncracked. I take it gratefully and squeeze it in my hand.
“I’m sure you get a lot of stories about people’s regrets when they die.” I shrug, not looking at him but staring instead at the dark screen of my phone. “My mom sent me a text asking what I wanted to do for the summer, and I ignored her. I was getting ready for a party and was tired of having the same conversation about what I wanted to do after college. My last text to my mom was to tell her I was going to miss Mother’s Day for this volleyball game. It took dying for me to stop adding a qualifier, too. I’ve always called them my adoptive parents, but they were so much more. They were my parents, but I felt like if I didn’t add that, I would somehow be dishonoring my birth parents.”
“You’re allowed to have complicated feelings about your parents. Relationships of all kinds are complicated, and family probably the most so. Even I have complicated feelings about family.” His hand is on my cheek, brushing a tear away with almost reverence.
“Do gods have families like humans do?” I ask, trying to move my focus from how badly I want to cry. Breaking down into tears hardly seems queenly.
Essos leans back with a harsh laugh. “I have a mother and father and siblings like most people. It’s possibly more complicated because I have lived for so long and seen so much. You’ll learn about my family, but not until the final month before the ball. They can be overwhelming, so we—Sybil and I—keep that information back until it is need-to-know.”
“Mommy and Daddy gods?”
Essos snorts but barrels on. “They are the mother and father to this world. They created many minor gods and goddesses and plants and trees together with their magic. Only my siblings and I are their true progeny, however.
“This evening we will have a formal dinner and a small gathering afterward. This will happen regularly so that I have a chance to get to know those of you who stay.” Essos tucks his necklace back in and buttons up his shirt carefully. “Do not be surprised if other gods come to the house. I am still conducting business, and, as I mentioned, the Calling requires a specific set of circumstances to begin, so it is rare. We try to limit interference as much as possible to avoid disturbing you, but my sister, well…” He trails off.
I wait patiently for him to gather his thoughts.
“Some people will seek to manipulate you and turn you against me. They will fill your head with falsehoods about me, or worse. I am trying to keep them away at all costs, but I cannot guarantee it. All I ask is that, if you decide you don’t want to be here any longer, you tellme. You are not my prisoner. But most important, Daphne….” He pauses until I look him in the eye. “I need you to trust me. Things are not always what they appear, and I hate that I can’t tell you everything, but it’s dangerous if too much is revealed too fast. I promise that, when this is all over, the truth will be revealed, but for now, as I explained, there are rules, and everyone here must follow them. Will you trust me?”
“Why can’t you be fully honest with me?” I ask. Trust is a concept that has always been difficult for me to comprehend. I’ve found that when it’s easily given, it’s easily broken. When I first started in the foster care system, I was trusting, but that trust was abused time and time again. If I don’t trust someone with my heart, they can’t break it. And yet, at this moment, I want to believe that I can trust him. Sitting here, looking into his eyes, I can see the depths of how badly he wants me to trust him. So far, though, everything I’ve experienced here has been a careful manipulation. We were led here under cloak and dagger pretenses and told the truth only when it was convenient for him.
“Because there is only so much information that we can share at any time. Think of this process like an onion—we have to slowly reveal the information. I’m not going to beg you, but I will ask you one last time. Please, trust me.”
But did I trust him? I would have to wait and see.
CHAPTER7
Itake my time walking back to my room, studying the artwork in the hallways as I go. I catch sight of a Monet and pause before the painting from theWater Liliesseries. My mind goes over and over what Essos said about being the king or god or manager of the Underworld.
I think about all that I know about death and the Afterlife. I think about the mythos surrounding it—heaven, hell, karma, reincarnation. I think about what I learned in my World Religion class and in life. I wish that I had used my time to ask him more questions about what to expect from the hereafter. Instead, I squandered it admiring how his glasses made his eyes bluer and wondering what it would be like to unbutton his shirt myself.
I should have asked who was right about the Afterlife. I should have asked him why he has been alone for so long. I should have asked so much more, but I was on the defense, too afraid of what it would mean to open my heart to him.
There is so much more to this house, not just Essos’s office and the main area. As I climb the stairs to our rooms, I look to the right, toward the other wing of the house, and wonder if that is where Essos’s rooms are. Is he only steps away from us every night, able to hear us gossip in our rooms? When he’s lying in his bed, what does he dream about?
I hear chatter upstairs along with some tears as everyone speculates about what is to come and what this means. As I walk down the hall, murmurs make their way through the doors, snippets of the conversations the girls had with Essos as they tell their closest friends, their lifelines.
Cat is waiting in my room when I get back. As much as I love her, I wish she wasn’t here so I could really think about my conversation with Essos. It feels like a raw nerve, opened to the elements. Can I put my trust in this man? Open myself up to the possible heartache of a rejection? I never had the same social worker for more than a few months, never the same family until I turned ten and was adopted. Him asking me for trust after I’ve known him only a day is like asking someone to get into a van labeledFree puppies.
At the same time, I can’t stop thinking about the sun pendant. I believe that, if he never wanted me to see it, I wouldn’t have. Was this his way of bridging trust with me? Then there was the matter of our accidental pre-breakfast meeting. Of course, he wouldn’t want anyone to know about it, since it could end this entire process, and who knows when the next bus full of coeds will drive off a cliff.
“So that was…strange,” Cat starts, pulling Honey Bear closer to her chest and her knees up to her chin. It’s not surprising that she chose to bring her comfort animal into my room while she waited for me.
“I think at this point, we need to accept that strange is the new normal.” I sit on the bench at the foot of my bed and pull off one boot and then the other. Should I tell Cat about meeting him this morning? I trust her, but something is holding me back, something about keeping it just between Essos and me. Well, and Sybil, but it seems that he trusts them completely. “How was your fireside chat?”
“Well, we talked about how becoming his partner is akin to becoming president. I wouldn’t just be some powerful man’s wife. Whoever he chooses will have powers of her own, and he said he wants a true partner, someone to make decisions with jointly.” Cat has already changed out of her outfit and into lounge clothes. I envy her, knowing that because my interview was so late, I have only a short amount of time before we need to change for dinner.