abnormally warm. Something was happening! But it hadn’t vibrated yet. I kept at this for what felt like several minutes, the penny growing hotter all the while—beginning to burn my palm. Suddenly, the penny’s heat faded and it gave a soft vibration, almost like a cat purring.
I opened my eyes. Though the penny was still dull copper, it now had a strange sort of glow about it. I did it. I held it in my hand, seeing it shine from the darkness between my fingers. My heart sped. This was magic—my magic. It felt more real, more true, more destined, than anything had ever felt in my life. And as I held the penny in my hand, I could feel the warmth of it, the power of it, coursing through my whole body like blood. I felt awake. Alive. Connected.
A connection to the world, Mother Morevna had said. So this is what she meant.
Mother Morevna. My heart sank. What would she think if she found out I’d disobeyed her—and on the very first day, no less?
From inside my palm, the penny glowed reassuringly.
“Mother Morevna doesn’t have to know,” I said to it. The penny seemed to glow brighter in response.
Across town, from his place on his cot, Asa Skander heard the door to the jailhouse open. There was a sound of footsteps, and Mr. Jameson, the sad-looking man from before, trudged into the light.
“You can come on out,” Mr. Jameson said, taking a ring of keys from his pocket. “We got a place for you now, ’long as you agree not to cause any trouble.”
“Just when I was getting used to my lovely abode.” Asa grinned.
Mr. Jameson didn’t answer; he merely unlocked the door and let it groan open.
“Come on, boy,” he said, and Asa scrambled to his feet and followed him.
Outside the jail, the sky was clear and dark, and when he looked closely, Asa realized that the stars were different. Gone were Orion and Cassiopeia and the Pleiades, and in their places were patterns of stars that he’d never seen before. He had to give the Goddesses one thing: They were thorough.
Somewhere out in the night, something howled. Asa followed Mr. Jameson carefully, through winding lanes that separated the smaller houses toward the middle of the city, focusing on the glow of Mr. Jameson’s lantern until he stopped abruptly.
“Here we are,” Mr. Jameson said. “This is all we had on short notice.”
The house was small and dusty, with a broken window in the front, the porch littered with broken bottles, dried flowers, and dust. But the kerosene lamp on the porch had been lit and it made the broken glass sparkle in the orange light.
Asa was overjoyed. A human house of his own!
Mr. Jameson led him onto the porch, kicking bottles aside.
“Soon, you’ll receive rations and all of that. We’ll bring the paperwork by first thing in the morning.” Mr. Jameson unlocked the door and opened it to reveal a rectangle of dusty darkness that seemed to Asa like it might be hungry. Mr. Jameson went into it, and Asa followed.
In the sphere of Mr. Jameson’s lamplight, Asa saw that the people who lived in it before seemed to have been quite messy, indeed. In the kitchen, a chair had been broken and lay on its back with its legs in the air. On the green iron stove a cast-iron frying pan still sat, with the solidified frying grease turned to mud. The counters were practically caked with dust.
“There’ll be plenty of time for you to clean it up later,” Mr. Jameson said. “There should be a broom in one of the closets.”
Mr. Jameson led him down the hallway, narrow and short, and it creaked as they passed through it. A bedroom lay just past the kitchen. Mr. Jameson pulled a match from his pocket and lit a lamp on a table by the door.
Down on the floor was a broad, dark stain.
Asa moved toward it, bent. One sniff confirmed his suspicions: blood. Old blood. And there was a feeling in the room… a darkness, but not the thrumming, pregnant darkness of Life. An ominous darkness, empty, gaunt, hungry. On the walls hung several crucifixes, suffering Jesuses (Jesi? What was the plural form of Jesus, anyway?) dying for sins innumerable. Beneath them, Asa saw that the walls too were spattered with dark bloodstains, set deep.
“What happened here?” Asa asked.
Mr. Jameson’s wrinkles seemed to deepen in the lamplight.
“That story’s not for me to tell,” he said.
Mr. Jameson shut the