“-in connection with spirit,” Carnahan finished with her. “Yeah, I know the words.”
“But not the meaning. Stan, we all took a conscious leap of faith when we came here. I won’t have it denigrated by someone like you.”
“Someone like me?” he repeated. He glanced at me and winked.
“Yes. Someone who says he believes, but doesn’t. Someone who says he wants to change, but not really. You’re a liar, Stan, and you and I aren’t the only ones who know it.”
Stan smiled at me. “Sense of humor is the first casualty of enlightenment.”
Betty rolled her eyes, grinned and mussed his hair like a boy.
“You believe this Epona is a goddess?” I asked Betty.
She thought for a moment. “Do you know what I was before I came here? Nothing. Well, that’s not strictly true, I bore my late husband’s children, then raised them to be men like him and women like me. We left no mark on anything. Every special jagged edge had been smoothed away by time and our sense of propriety. I knew that when I died, I’d leave no trace behind. Even my children would forget what I looked like. But I was resigned to being a woman, a person, of absolutely no consequence.”
Her whole demeanor changed. The amusement was replaced by a look of wonder, all the more powerful for its completeness. “Then I met Epona. She didn’t try to convince me my life was wrong, or my choices bad. She just… she showed me I could be more. I could matter.”
“By moving to the woods and opening a tavern?” I asked, with as little sarcasm as I could manage.
She smiled one of those infuriating, patient grins the enlightened always have for the rest of us. “I understand why you say that. After fire ants, cynicism is the most difficult thing to kill. But look around. Every tile, every crossbeam, every book and decoration and piece of furniture is there because I put it there. This place is mine, in a way my life never was before. And a cynic could never see that, or even comprehend it. But once the cynic inside us dies, the idealist can dance in the moonlight. Epona showed me that. That’s why I love her, and worship her. So yes, I believe she’s a goddess.” With that, she left to attend to something in her kitchen.
“She feels pretty strongly about it,” I observed to Carnahan.
“Ah, they all do. I tell you, if I hadn’t promised to stick it out for a year, I would’ve already blown this place like a port city whore.”
“How much longer do you have?”
He shrugged. “This is boring,” he said abruptly, and stood. I followed him to the end of the counter. He removed the darts from the dart board, then nodded at a big bowl of apples. “Grab those.”
We went outside. It was completely dark now, and the enormous full moon rose in the east. Orange torchlight illuminated the whole town.
Carnahan stuck all the darts but one into the wall by the door. He readied the remaining one in his hand. “We can at least try to keep our skills sharp, right? Those apples won’t feel anything. Toss one up.”
“Which way?”
“Surprise me.”
I threw one high into the darkness above the torches. Carnahan’s eyes flashed upward, his arm jerked, and the dart stuck neatly into the fruit as it came down.
Betty, watching from her tavern’s back door, said, “Not bad.”
Grinning, Stan reached for the bowl. “You try.”
I plucked a dart, and he hurled an apple higher and harder than I’d done. I made myself relax; no conscious skill could help me with this, only the instincts I’d honed over the last few years. My elbow flexed before I even knew it, and my apple landed with the dart fully embedded.
A few other townsfolk stopped to watch and politely applauded. The three girls we’d seen inside joined Betty in the doorway. I took the bowl back and threw another apple. Carnahan hit it dead center. I did the same on my next turn.
By now we’d attracted quite a crowd, including several charming young ladies. Miraculously we both hit our next two apples, to much appreciative clapping. At last one girl, a shapely lass with long red hair, took an apple from the bowl. She wobbled a little, tipsy from the celebration, but the gleam in her eye was unmistakable.
She took a big, voluptuous bite from the apple. Torchlight glinted on the juice as it ran down her chin. “I have an apple-flavored kiss,” she said, “for whichever of you puts their dart closest to the center of this bite.”
Carnahan and I exchanged a look. This was more like it. We each plucked a dart, his red and mine green, and waited.
The girl looked up into the clear, starry sky and took a deep breath. “By Epona’s white mane, I ask that my wish come true,” she called to the night. Then she threw the fruit as hard as she could.
The moment grew silent and immobile. No one breathed. Again my arm snapped, and the fruit hit the ground on the open space between the girl and us.
With a sly smile, she bent and picked it up. The crowd gasped.
Our two darts could not have been closer together. The flights were interlaced and the shafts side by side in the exact center of the bite.
The crowd cheered. Carnahan and I both grinned. The girl pulled the darts from the apple and, holding them side by side, licked the juice from their tips. “Looks like,” she said with an unmistakable smile, “I owe two kisses.”
My grin grew wider. Heck, I could grow to like this place.
A familiar voice suddenly cried, “Will you people get the hell outta my way!” Cathy pushed roughly through the crowd, oblivious to who she shoved. Behind her, Nicole almost ran to keep up. Cathy seemed uninjured, although her hair was tousled, but something bad had clearly happened. She marched right up to me and faced me with cold, suddenly haunted eyes. The crowd fell into a murmuring semi-silence.
“I’ve done my job and made my delivery,” she snapped. “I am now going to take the longest, hottest bath of my life, and then I am leaving. What you do is entirely your business, but I advise you not to go anywhere near this Epona.”
I stepped close to her, aware that all eyes watched us. “Are you all right?” I asked softly. “Did something-”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she muttered, and pushed past me. I started to go after her when I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“Mr. LaCrosse,” Nicole said. Her eyes were even sadder than they had been before. “Epona would like to see you.”
“I’ve just been told that wasn’t a good idea,” I said. I didn’t know if I should pursue Cathy or not.
“Miss Dumont will be fine,” Nicole insisted with gentle authority. “She wasn’t hurt in any way. And neither will you be. Epona merely wants to meet you.”
A murmur went through the crowd.
“Why?” I asked.
Nicole stepped closer. “She said to tell you,” she whispered, “that she knows how hard you tried to save Janet.”
I went cold inside. Cathy knew nothing of my past; certainly I hadn’t seen anyone from Arentia in the village. There was no way, no fucking way, this Epona could know about Janet.
Nicole smiled sympathetically at my reaction. “She is a goddess, you know.” She pointed at my sword. “You won’t need that.”
“I usually need it the most right after someone tells me that.”
“You’re going to meet a lone woman half your size. Who’s also deathly ill.”
“I thought she was a goddess.”
“Then going armed won’t matter, will it?”
“Don’t worry,” Stan interjected. “Seriously. Being with Epona is the safest place in the world.”
I unbuckled my sword. I would’ve preferred to leave it with Cathy, but I handed it to Carnahan. He took it easily, the weight barely registering. “Keep it clean for me, okay?”
He nodded. “Like it was mine.”
Nicole took my arm. For the benefit of the crowd she said, “Now come into the forest, Mr. LaCrosse, and meet the Queen of Horses.”