The Winter Thief

65

Two days after Apollo’s arrival, twenty men gathered in the rectory after midnight. They conversed in hushed voices for several hours, then slipped out into the dark. Apollo tiptoed into Vera’s room and sat beside her on the bed. He held her hand and leaned in. “I’m leaving, Vreni. Don’t worry. I’ll be back. Can you be ready to go in three days?”

Apollo’s mellifluous voice seemed to her an oboe, his words a symphony. She hung suspended from the sounds until Apollo shook her shoulder.

“Wake up, Vreni, and listen to me. This is serious. In three days I’ll come and get you. By then you’ll need to have packed warm clothes for the east. Get some boots. Marta will help you.” He leaned closer.

He smelled like cloves.

“Are you listening?”

Vera sat up, clutching the cover about her, and brushed her hair from her eyes. “Of course I am.”

“Don’t mention this to anyone else. Father Zadian doesn’t approve of your coming along with us.”

“I’ll be ready.” Impulsively, lured by the scent of cloves and the sound of oboes, Vera leaned forward and kissed Apollo on the mouth. He didn’t pull back but let their faces linger so that first their lips, then their cheeks touched.

“Farewell, Vreni.”

She couldn’t fall asleep for a long while. When she did, she dreamed of the east. She was running through a barren landscape, falling to her knees, rising again, trying to outpace the creature chasing her. She could feel its foul breath on her heels, then the back of her legs. Her lungs were bursting. She tripped and fell headlong, her pursuer lunged, and then her breath was burned away as she was taken. She woke up screaming.

When Marta and Vera returned home from shopping two days later, they could see from the lane that something was wrong. The rectory gate hung askew and four unknown horses were tied to the fence. The streets were abnormally quiet. The boy they had hired to carry the basket of groceries bent over and dumped its contents on the ground and then ran away.

“They’re looking for you,” Marta whispered. “Hide in there.” She pushed Vera into the neighbor’s stable.

Shaken, Vera cowered among the bales of hay. Banging and loud voices came from next door. She heard Father Zadian say, “I will complain to the kadi about your desecration.” Vera was so relieved that he was unharmed that she almost didn’t hear the response.

“This isn’t a church. You’re not sacred, and neither is your house.”

Vera shrank back against the wall of the stable and scrabbled frantically to pull a bale of hay over herself. She recognized Vahid’s voice. Panicking, she slipped through the stable door and ran.