“You’re just trying to be nice to wheedle me into agreeing.”
“No, I’m not. I’m finding it hard to believe this has happened so quickly and made you change so much. I feel as if you’ve gone away from me—that I can’t rely on you anymore.”
“You know how you felt last time, when you lost Gogu?
When you really thought he’d been trampled to death, but you wouldn’t say so?”
I nodded, surprised that she had noticed: she had seemed entirely wrapped up in her own woes.
“Multiply that by a thousand, and you know how I feel when I think about never seeing Sorrow again. It’s the most awful feeling in the world—like having part of your heart torn away.”
“A thousand? Isn’t that rather extreme?” I thought the way I’d felt that night was about as wretched as I could possibly get. Gogu had been my constant companion—an unusual one, true, but no less loved for that—for more than nine years. She barely knew Sorrow.
“Well, after all, Gogu’s a frog. Sorrow is a man.”
It was just as well I’d left Gogu with Paula while I spoke to Tati. I was certain he’d have been offended by this, even though it was half true. “That’s the point, isn’t it? Sorrow
“What?”
“Have you asked him straight out if he’s one of the Night People?”
167
“We’ve talked about it, of course. He couldn’t tell me.”
“Couldn’t? What do you mean?”
“It’s something he can’t talk about. I don’t know why. It seems to be somehow forbidden. He wants to, but it’s not allowed. He seems so alone, Jena.”
“They’re all like that. Tadeusz said, ‘We all walk alone.’
Maybe Sorrow’s mother was a human woman.” I shivered. “A victim. Only instead of dying, like that girl, she changed into one of
“He’s not at all like the other Night People, Jena. He’s so sweet and thoughtful.”
“Just a ploy to win your affections.” Sweet and thoughtful would work with Tati. For me, Tadeusz had held out the heady prospect of perception beyond my wildest imaginings.
He had flattered me, too, and I was forced to admit that I had liked that. His words of admiration had stirred something in me—they’d made me realize I would have liked to be a beauty.
Tadeusz had known how to tempt me, and Sorrow knew how to work his wiles on my sister.
“Tati,” I said, “what do you and Sorrow talk about? Do you actually have anything in common?”
Tati stared into space, smiling. “We talk about everything.
And nothing.”
“Everything. And you still can’t tell me what he is. How about his teeth? You’ve had a good chance to see those up close.
Are they like yours and mine?”
Tati hesitated.
“Well?”
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“Not exactly.” She spoke with some reluctance. “They are a little odd. He’s very self-conscious about it. But they’re not
“Nor are Tadeusz’s teeth,” I said. “And
“Jena, I’m not just playing at this, you know, and neither is Sorrow. Do what you like. Have your party. Let Aunt Bogdana trot out her eligible young men. Bar me from Full Moon dancing. I’ll find Sorrow anyway, somehow. Or he’ll find me.
Whatever you do, we’ll be together. You can’t stop us.”
“Ileana can,” I said, chilled by my sister’s certainty. “If she banishes the Night People, you’ll have no way of finding him.”
“I will find him,” Tati said. “Wherever he goes, however far away she sends him, we’ll find each other.”
It was then that I noticed what she was wearing around her neck: a very fine cord, black in color—just a thread, really—
and on it, a tiny amulet that caught the light. I was certain I had never seen it before.
“What’s that?” I asked her, intrigued. Tati’s hand shot up to cover it. “Show me, Tati.”
Slowly she drew her fingers away, revealing the little charm, dark against her creamy skin—a piece of glass shaped like a teardrop, and red as blood.
“Did he give you this?” I hardly needed to ask. Such an item had Sorrow written all over it.
“We exchanged.”
“You exchanged? What did you give him?”
“My silver chain,” Tati said in a whisper.
