The Multitude
hadn’t welcomed her into his castle since the days of the Puritans. Although the Salem witch trials had ended over three hundred years ago, he still harbored a grudge over her small role in the matter—a few whispered suggestions gone awry. Why was an angel always to blame? People made their own choices. She hadn’t forced anyone to follow her wishes.But perhaps the smoke breathing down her neck was Henry’s awkward attempt at extending an olive branch after all these years. What better time than this? After losing Asura, she surely needed a friend.
Gabriella found him puttering in a garden outside the castle walls. The man stood as tall as ever and still cut a handsome profile in a rugged sort of way, despite the toll of centuries. He’d shaved his beard and trimmed his dark mop of hair to a civilized length since the last time she’d seen him. Now he looked like just another ordinary, suntanned fellow who happened to rival Moses, Abraham, or Noah in lifespan.
Henry glanced up from a bush he’d been pruning and stared at her for a long moment. “Well, look who the wind blew in.” Not smiling, exactly, but not frowning, either. He set his shears on a worktable beside an assortment of roses.
The flowers might have been meant for Sarah. He’d been visiting his wife’s grave for centuries. Or perhaps he’d found a new love interest at last. Gabriella would have probed Stoddard’s mind, but the man had a sixth sense for detecting such an invasion, and he always got grumpy over it. He’d extended an olive branch. Improper behavior on her part could set their relationship back another three hundred years.
“What have you got following you?” Henry had humor in his voice. A fine start.
“You tell me.”
He stepped up to the smoke, held a hand near it as if testing it for heat, then plunged inside, up to the wrist. He pulled out, none the worse for wear. “How would I know?”
“I thought you conjured it.”
Stoddard glanced from her to the smoke and back again with hand on chin, lips pursed. “To what end?”
He had to be bluffing. Maybe if she just stole a quick peek inside his—
“Are you rooting around in my head, Gabriella?”
Slogging through a morass of irritation would have been a more apt description. She almost tripped over his scowl on the way out. “I’m having a bad day.”
“That’s no excuse.” Whatever friendliness might have been evident in his expression at the start of this conversation had now turned to ice.
Gabriella almost melted into a puddle of tears. She fought them back and shook her fist at the smoke curling from bottom to top in its never-ending rush. “This thing rose out of the Hudson River and decided to shadow me wherever I go.”
“Move along, then.” Henry took up the shears and bent to a bush.
“But I came to see you.”
“Go away. You’re a maloika.”
The scent of flowers brought too sharp an image—a Japanese girl, the shared bite of an apple. The tears were getting harder to hold back. “A what?”
“A maloika. Trouble. The evil eye. You bring bad luck wherever you go.”
She couldn’t stop her shoulders from trembling.
Henry took a step back. “Oh no, you’re not going to—”
The well of tears burst, bringing racking sobs, helpless sobs, lonely sobs.
He wrapped his arms around her. “We all have bad days. Wait for tomorrow.”
“But what will I do tomorrow?”
* * *
They sat at a table in the middle of Henry’s kitchen. Every time Gabriella looked up, his disapproving expression sent her scurrying for cover. She told most of her tale to the steam rising from her mug of hot chocolate.
Fire roared in the hearth on her left, but her column of smoke had positioned itself in the way, diminishing her view in that direction to glowing shadows. A few blackened pots hung from pegs on the opposite wall, a sink with a water pump stood against the third, and an old wooden cutting table rested at the fourth. Henry could browbeat her all he wanted. He had his own set of issues. Rather than let go of Sarah, he still lived centuries in the past.
On the positive side, the wise man did keep a crucifix on the wall above the cutting table. And she’d seen him kneel before it for morning prayers. Despite his magnificent gifts, Henry knew who was mortal and who was God.
Too late for her to follow that example. Having finished her story about miracle workers and bombs and failed suggestions to insane kings, Gabriella dared look into Henry’s scolding eyes. “Can you blame me for what I did?”
“Let me get this straight. You took it upon yourself to change history by trying to kill the most influential figure in two thousand years—someone I happen to believe was the Son of God—and you don’t think you should be blamed for it?”
“You had to be there, Henry. In Hiroshima.”
“You better hope God doesn’t take this personally.”
“He shouldn’t. I was interpreting His will.”
The mop-haired, self-righteous, scowling curmudgeon spread his arms and looked heavenward. “Did you hear that? She didn’t think you’d mind!”
“Go ahead. Twist the knife.” What had she been thinking? Why hadn’t she talked to someone like Henry before heading to Judea? The signs she’d read in Japan had been ambiguous at best. Fury must have clouded her judgment, even though she’d imagined herself calm when she met with Herod. She’d been as crazy as the king!
Henry lowered his arms and stared into her soul again, sending her running for cover, back to the warm steam of her drink. “I know you have a moral code, Gabriella, warped though it may be. You must have had a guiding hand at some point.”
“Not really. I figured things out on my own.”
“Heaven help us.”
“I did hear voices when I was very young, but they weren’t useful.”
“What did they say?”
“No, no, no, no, no, no, NO!”
Henry burst into guffaws. “You should have listened.”
“Do you enjoy making fun of me?” She