“Oh, not that way.” I raised my hands to call her to a stop. “Just beds and sick people. Not very… scenic.”
Sybil nodded, but the twist of her lips was clearly perplexed. I shrugged sheepishly before I noticed her gaze moving to my upheld palms. Everyone stared at my scars the first time they noticed them; some people even hesitated to shake hands with me. But being accustomed to the odd looks and unspoken questions didn’t make me any less sensitive to them, and I quickly tucked my hands back into my pockets.
With nothing else to see, Sybil stood a little ways from me, looking me from head to toes and still visibly puzzling.
“Are you very devout, Penwell?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Not particularly.”
Less and less since my father died and I joined the Bone Men. Losing his body to the cult was a staggering blow in itself, and finding out that Merrick was the one responsible did further damage. My time in Ashpoint had given me no greater belief in either god than I had before, just less faith in the people who worshipped Eeus.
It made me think of what she’d said about the Paneus, what my mother might believe until she learned the truth of what happened to her husband’s remains.
My nose scrunched in a frown, and I looked away. “If I was, it would be hard to believe Paneus cared much for me. According to some members of my family, I’ve been a curse since the day I was born.”
Sybil clucked her tongue. “Now, you can’t believe that. Every soul has value in the eyes of the gods.”
“And the ability to spoil that value with foolishness,” I quipped. Or wickedness, but I didn’t say that part out loud.
I’d told Kit this didn’t make him a bad man, but itfeltbad. Not for any religious reason, simply because I was raised better than to pillage and pilfer from others.
“Is something troubling you, son?” Sybil asked.
So many things had been piling up for months. Things I didn’t even tell Kit about for fear he’d blame himself. Like he’d corrupted me. But I’d insisted on my own ruination. I demanded to come and stay here, for my family, for my farm, for my pride… My lips pursed.
My silence served as answer enough, and Sybil bobbed her head. “Why don’t you come into the kitchen? We can talk more comfortably there.”
She motioned toward the door I’d knocked on, far from the cellar, and I obediently followed her lead. Inside what was clearly her living quarters, it was crowded but quaint. Furniture lined every wall from the kitchen through the sitting area to the curtain hung to create a barrier between more public spaces and what I assumed was her bedroom.
She motioned first to the hook by the door, where I hung my cloak, and then to the pair of sagging chairs on either side of a small table. I went and sat while she took a kettle from the top of her cast iron stove and poured from it into a pair of tin cups. I was remiss to take anything else from her, even hospitality, but I mumbled thanks when she gave me my cup, then held it between my palms, letting the drink’s heat pulse through my skin.
Once she had settled beside me, she set her tea on the table and swept her hands down the front of her dress before turning a sweet smile on me.
“It’s not often I am sent a wanderer,” she mused.
I frowned as she explained.
“A seeker,” she said. “You have questions.”
Did I? Maybe one…
“So, you don’t believe in curses? At all?”
“What sort of curse?” Sybil asked.
“Like… Eeus.” It seemed almost disrespectful to say his name here, but I forged on. “If someone is given to him as a sacrifice, do you not believe they’re cursed? That their family is cursed?”
“You mean taken by the Bone Men?”
My stomach surged into my throat, and I fought to keep my expression from betraying me. I couldn’t respond, too thoroughly choked, so I nodded.
“They have planted fear where it shouldn’t exist. Twisted Eeus’s true nature to suit their designs. It’s a tragedy, truly.” She lifted her tea to blow off the steam, then took a sip. “They’re trying to do something that’s been done hundreds of times, in calling the gods down into mortal form, but they’ve bastardized what was supposed to be an act of celebration and reverence by seeking to control Eeus once he’s here.”
That was the purpose of the Vessel, that unseen monstrosity built of stolen bones. My father was part of it now.An honor, Merrick claimed. I failed to see it as anything but an abomination.
As for the Bone Men’s efforts to bring Eeus to walk among us, or to control him as Sybil claimed, I couldn’t fathom any good coming from it. Or, if it had been done before, what had come from it in the past. No one had attempted it in my lifetime. Not that I was aware of.
“People have always longed to be closer to the gods,” Sybil continued. “So the gods gave us a series of rituals to call them to our lower plane, to be with us for a time before returning to where they belong.”
