I felt for the Taser in my pocket.
“Right,” I said. “I’ll be going now.” I’d caught sight of Patience. She was around the corner of the main house, by the outdoor cooktop, which, like everything else, was getting pummeled by waves.
All this time, we’d been mouthing off to the Shepherds about what a mistake it was to build on a spit. The sea was now blasting them from three sides.
Was this the night? Would the seawall hold? Or would the Shepherd house be washed into drift-wood?
None of this seemed to bother my ghost dog, who was unperturbed by the storm. In fact, there was a minor glow by her. It was the glow of a cigarette.
I trotted after her and found Hannah, the Shepherds’ cook, standing on the stoop and desperately smoking, wrapped in a rain jacket, huddled with her back to the weather. She must’ve really needed that smoke to be outside at all.
At her feet was something I hadn’t noticed before—the stone statue of a seated woman with a tattered cloak and wavy hair holding a lotus flower. The figure came up to my calves and looked to have been there a long time. Sand and bits of seaweed had pooled on the lotus in her hand.
And it may have been the glow of the cigarette or it may have been something completely different, something I couldn’t explain, but for a moment I thought I saw the lotus blossom glow and take flight.
Then the moment passed. The statue was once again stone, draped with seaweed and sand and cigarette ash.
But I knew what I’d seen.
“Where did you get that?” I asked. “Who is she?”
Hannah looked up, startled. She probably hadn’t heard me approach over the wind. “Pixie?” She followed where I was pointing. “Are you talking about Kwan Yin?” Hannah said, flicking ash onto the statue’s head.
I ran forward. “Oh, shit!” I said, brushing the ash off. I needn’t have bothered. The saltwater spray washed it off and drenched us both.
“Whoa,” Hannah said. “She’s not that kind of goddess. Kwan Yin can deal with a little cigarette ash. But, Pix, you don’t seem yourself. You’d better come in and dry off. The workers have made their way through most of my food, but I think I have some of that French orange cream tart left. You should come in and try it. Fortify yourself. You work too hard. You’re too skinny.”
I looked around the patio and the beach, which was blowing things over the breakers of the logs and the seawall. I remembered the DANGER – TSUNAMI ZONE signs of a stick person being knocked off its feet. Inside wasn’t such a bad idea.
With a second look at the statue—what had Hannah called her? Kwan Yin?—I followed her into the kitchen.
A wave splashed at the shore, and the house shook. Not like ours did in a windstorm, when we were afraid a window might blow. Here, the foundation shuddered. I was afraid the house might crumble.
None of this seemed to bother Hannah, who had her head in a giant, industrial-looking fridge.
“Hang your jacket up on that peg. Leave your shoes at the door. You can wash your hands in the sink over there, then have a seat.” She motioned to a barstool by the kitchen island, which was lit from underneath by some lights I couldn’t see. They gave the entire block a kind of perma-glow.
I reluctantly parted with my jacket because it had a weapon in it, but Hannah didn’t seem like a threat. She rarely seemed ruffled by anything—unless you didn’t wash your hands. Then she called you a cretin and ordered you out of her kitchen with a deep volcanic fury that made Mom’s diatribes seem kittenish in comparison.
I washed my hands and sat down.
She pulled out the tart, fluffy on top but dense underneath, sliced off two perfect wedges, put one on a plate in front of me, and saved another for herself. She seemed perfectly collected as the building shook around her.
“That statue outside. What did you call her again?”
“Who? Kwan Yin?
“Right. Her. Why do you have a statue of her on your kitchen stoop? Or does she belong to the Shepherds?”
“Nope. She’s all mine. A lot of people have statues of Kwan Yin. She’s the Buddhist goddess of forgiveness and compassion. The goddess of the sea. That’s why I said she wouldn’t mind a little ash on her head every now and then. Kwan Yin hears the cries and laments of the world, puts them in a lotus flower, and sets them free. Kinda cool, huh?”
I remembered the woman from the night before in her tattered cloak and how she’d tapped Lyudmila’s cold, dead heart with her staff and how the light had come from Lyudmila’s chest. Perhaps it had been a lotus flower before it had taken fire and floated off.
I took a deep breath. It’d been a strange day, but there was something about Hannah, something that made me think she wouldn’t judge me for what I was about to tell her. “Did Henry tell you what happened to me last night?”