Household Gods

She didn’t even think before the words poured out of her. Let me go home. Let me go back. I don’t belong here. I belong there. This – and God, it hurt to say so, to admit she’d failed at anything – this was a mistake. I should never have come here. I want to go home!

When she’d shaped a wish into a prayer back in West Hills, not even knowing she’d done it, Liber and Libera had responded in an instant. Why not? They’d had nothing better to do – probably hadn’t for centuries. Who believed in them enough to pray to them? Nicole hadn’t, either, but she’d wanted out so badly, and been so absolutely desperate, that it hadn’t mattered who or what answered her prayer.

Now she was in their world, a world full of believers, and therefore of prayers. Nicole could dimly sense others winging their way to the god and goddess, as she sometimes heard the ghosts of other conversations on the phone when she waited for a long-distance connection to go through. She might as well have been calling Ticketmaster, trying to land seats for a hot show. Sometimes your call went through right away. But if everyone decided to jam the lines at once, you’d get a busy signal… again and again and again.

Just as she rang – dialed – prayed again, driving the force of her need at the unheeding gods, her spirit made its own, completely unwanted connection. As suddenly as it had left, it was in Umma’s body again, trapped in the reddish dark behind her eyelids. Someone had taken the covers off her. She was freezing cold. Hands groped under her tunic, tugging at her drawers.

Her eyes flew open. Gaius Calidius Severus loomed over her, the face so like his father’s, the pitting of adolescent acne on the cheeks, the beard that was still coming in in patches. She gasped, coughed, choked. Gaius violating her? Was he out of his mind? Was she? No way in the world she could fight him off. But – Gaius -

He raised his eyes from what he was doing with her drawers, and caught her stare. “Oh, good,” he murmured in profound relief. And then, louder: “Can you understand me, Mistress Umma?”

It took several tries – her head was as heavy as one of the gaudy statues in the baths – but at last she managed a nod. His expression lightened immeasurably. “My father made me promise to look after you,” he said. “Everyone else is too sick to help. You’ve – fouled yourself.” He blushed while he said that, like the boy he was, but he went on gamely: “I’m going to clean you off and get you a fresh pair of drawers. I’m doing the same thing for him. By the gods, that’s all I’m going to do. Do you understand? Is that all right?”

She sighed faintly, relaxing a tension she hadn’t known she had, and nodded, a little more easily this time. He pulled the soiled drawers off her, strode to the window, undid the shutters, and pitched the drawers out. They landed with a wet splat. He turned back into the room, leaving the shutters open to let in a pale gray light, and rummaged through the chest. He emerged with a rag, which he wet in the washbasin, and wiped Nicole clean. She got the strong impression he would have averted his eyes if he hadn’t needed to see what he was doing. The water on the rag felt icy cold on her burning skin.

He found another pair of drawers, and awkwardly, with much shifting and fumbling, got them onto her. She was as weak as a baby; she couldn’t even lift her hips to help him. When he was done, she was as glad as he must have been. “There you go,” he said. “Wine?” She nodded; words were still a long way beyond her.

He held the cup to her lips. She drank, a few swallows’ worth. Even that little exhausted her.

He didn’t try to force more wine into her, but let her lie back. He slipped his arm free of her, laid the blanket and the cloak over her, and stood for a while, as if he couldn’t think what to do next. Then it came to him. He turned without a word and all but fled.

She lay where he’d left her, clean, drowsy, and almost warm. He’d been real, then. Her spirit was secure in Umma’s body again, or as secure as it could be with the disease eating away at it. She tried to slip free once more, but the anchor was sunk, the chains secured. She sighed. No more out-of-body experiences – or more likely, no more being out of her head from fever. She’d tried to telephone Liber and Libera, hadn’t she? She could remember something. Lines busy. All our representatives are currently assisting customers. Your call is important to us. Please stay on the line. A representative will take your call as soon as…