The Progeny (17 page)

Her gray eyes are as chilly as the sea. And I can’t tell if she’s wounded or if she hates me.

“What happened?”

“Piotrek and I stayed on in Zagreb. After the underground broke, it became the safest place to be. I was angry at you. I didn’t understand how you could throw it—us—all away. Not when you had access to what you did.”

“Access to what? I don’t even know why I did it, Claudia.”

Her laugh is brittle as glass. “No one does. But what Ivan said is true. He died for you, Audra!”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true! Many people have died for you. And because of you. The underground court has just returned to Zagreb, and you have much to make right.”

I turn and look out over the water. I don’t blame her. I don’t like her much, but I feel for her.

I also can’t help her.

“There are a lot of rumors,” she says, leaning closer. “That you had information from your mother. Maybe even the diary itself. A lot of people feel betrayed. For every person who talks about you as the daughter of Amerie Szabo, there’s one that calls you a traitor. But Ivan had
unshakable
faith in you. Enough to risk his life. And now Ivan is dead. So here I am. I’m going to help you.” There are actually tears in her eyes, but her jaw is like steel. “And you will prove that his faith, at least, wasn’t misplaced.”

I don’t know how to tell her that I can’t prove anything to anyone. That I’m only here because I don’t know how to go back to—or move forward with—my life like this. This isn’t about some Progeny agenda or righting some centuries-old wrong. It’s about staying alive.

She pushes away from the rail. “I’m going to get us some coffee.”

I watch her go to the snack bar inside. And for a moment, I really do wish I could be what she and Ivan hoped I was, once.

But that girl is gone.

*  *  *

T
he brightly colored buildings of Cres go right to the quay, their walls rising from the water to red-tiled roofs. Boats are docked everywhere. Rolan would have had no problem returning to Rijeka, or anywhere along the coast, in the middle of the night. Might even now be in Zagreb. In that regard, Luka was right.

Claudia has
suggested
the cabdriver spend a few hours wandering the outdoor market, taking breakfast at one of the seaside cafés. And he actually looks quite content as we drive off in his car.

Claudia takes us through the center of town past restaurants, produce and fish markets. And then we’re headed south toward the western ridge of the island as I navigate the map on her phone.

It rings as I’m peering at the screen. I glance at Claudia, who takes it from me. Her answer is abrupt.

“Yes. She’s fine,” she says. “We’ll call you soon. Good-bye.” She hangs up just as the voice on the other end demands to speak with me.

Luka. No doubt going out of his gourd. Which I feel bad about—unless, of course, he’s been lying to me.

“Well, that was rude.”

“Slovaks.”

I don’t say that I meant her.

“How well did you know Ivan?” I ask.

“Not as well as you,” she says, the reproach back in her voice. She adds, a beat later, “But enough to mourn for him.”

We pass sheep grazing by the roadside, a few men in woolen coats who look about as old as the stony soil itself. The road is more than winding; it is a labyrinth ascending higher and higher until the ocean has all but dropped away beneath us.

When we finally arrive at Lubenice, I am slightly queasy from the drive, but awed by the view. The sun has begun to burn off the haze and as I stand at the very edge of the ancient fort town, I think one could practically paraglide from here back to the mainland in an emergency.

A tiny whitewashed chapel stands near the edge of the settlement, which doesn’t even qualify as a town; only a few houses look like they’re actually in use. Everything seems to be made of the same white stone as the island itself, the rock that once supported an eastern gate having long since tumbled back down the hill. Shrubs grow in crannies in walls, grapevines and bougainvillea beautifully threatening to reduce anything still standing to rubble in coming years. A lone tree stands in the town center, which is nothing more than a cobbled courtyard between buildings.

“Now where?” I say, glancing at her.

Claudia sets her jaw and looks up, gaze lighting on an old woman setting a pillow to air in the window above us.

“Dobro jutro!”
she calls up to the woman in a voice more cordial than I’ve ever heard from her.

The woman echoes her greeting. Claudia asks her a question, and the woman gestures with a rambling and increasingly agitated answer. After several minutes the older woman abruptly stops, wipes her eyes, and disappears.

“What just happened?” I say.

“She’s upset—she heard the news about Ivan this morning. She says he moved in earlier this month to the room above the wool museum back there.”

“Wool museum
?
”

“It’s open only during the summer. Ivan’s been renovating a wall on the edge of the cliff and made some repairs for the two old ladies living here. They liked him very much.”

I follow her between buildings toward the edge of the hill.

“She said two men were here last night,” Claudia says. “She heard them drive in and assumed one of them was Ivan, that he was up late drinking with a friend. Obviously, she has no idea we don’t drink.”

“We don’t?”

“It dulls the senses.”

“Which is why most people do it,” I say, droll.

“It dulls
persuasion
. And we can’t afford to be without our gifts,” she says pointedly. “The old woman said she went to check on Ivan this morning when he didn’t arrive for breakfast at her house. The latch was broken on his door.”

We come to the small building near the far gate. Claudia steps to the threshold, pauses to listen, and then swings the door wide.

What little furniture there is looks in order, samples of brightly colored wool crafts and some kids’ artwork hung neatly on the wall. I glance up at the open staircase and start toward it. Claudia catches me by the wrist, listens for a moment, and moves up the stairs ahead of me.

We emerge into a sparse apartment with a desk and a single rumpled cot. A dresser stands with its top drawer open, but nothing looks openly ransacked. I search the desk, find pens, a ferry schedule, a calendar with nothing written on it. In the dresser, nothing but a few pieces of clothing that look like they came from a secondhand shop. I rifle through pockets, feel along hems, check the linings. Finally I pull out the drawers, upend them one by one before descending on the cot. Empty-handed, I turn out the small cabinet in the bathroom.

Sweat dampening my nape, I retrace my steps across the floor. None of the boards are loose. With a last look around me, I hurry down the stairs to flip over the rug, overturn a chair, even stick my fingers in a pair of green woolen slippers on the wall—all the while knowing that anything Ivan would have hidden has long since been found.

I can’t breathe; the air in the old building is stifling. I lurch out the front door into the unforgiving sun.

“Audra,” Claudia says, following me outside. A breeze blows up the hillside smelling faintly of sage as bees buzz around a patch of purple flowers near the gate.

“Ivan was smart. I didn’t know him, but I could tell. He would’ve known his memory was at risk . . . found a way—”

“Audra!”

“What?”

“You’re right. Which is why we aren’t looking for anything hidden, but for what seems to be missing.”

“How was he supposed to give me anything?” I demand. “It would have to be something or somewhere he himself couldn’t have known! How could he say he was going to tell me everything? How could he?”

“Audra.” She lays her hand on my arm. “Ivan was very good. Very experienced. He was nearing the end of his age.”

“What do you mean?” He couldn’t have been more than thirty-five.

She tilts her head. “The Utod lose their gifts in their thirties.”

I blink. “You mean they can no longer—”

“Yes. Don’t speak of it here.” She gestures toward the apartment. “Whatever Ivan had for you wasn’t taken from here as far as I can tell. Which means it’s waiting somewhere else.”

“How do we know whoever killed him hasn’t gotten to it first? They have his memory!”

“There are ways. Even with computers, though it’s risky. But Ivan was old-fashioned. Which is far safer when it comes to information, if not to those involved.”

“What does
that
mean?”

“It means if we cannot find anything on our own, we must wait for it to find us.”

But I don’t know how long I can wait.

I had thought the crumbling buildings with their vines and shrubs growing out of every cranny hauntingly quaint when we arrived. Now they look as abandoned as Ivan’s apartment, as forgotten by the ages as the stones themselves.

The old woman calls down as we return through the courtyard.

“Da?”
Claudia says. After a brief exchange, Claudia glances at me sidelong.

“What?” I ask.

“Come. We pray for Ivan.”

A little late for that
, I think, but follow her anyway.

The chapel, though tiny, has enough wooden pews to cram nearly forty into its rustic space. Two figurines sit on minor altars on either side of the rounded apse: the blue-and-white-robed Virgin Mary and a man holding the baby Jesus in his right arm, lilies in his left.

I wait, awkwardly, as Claudia genuflects, and I wonder if I should leave her alone. But instead of sliding into a pew, she moves toward the second altar and considers the figure draped in wooden rosaries on top of it.

“The woman said to me, ‘At least the last time I saw him, he had just come from mass.’ So she is confident that he is in heaven. But Ivan”—Claudia glances at me—“was not religious.”

She runs her fingers beneath the white cloth draped over the altar’s edges.

“Which saint is that?” I ask.

“This is Saint Anthony, the patron of lost people and things. Forgive me, Saint Anthony,” she murmurs, as she gets on her knees and peers beneath, practically looking up the robe of the saint. A moment later she flips up the corner of the cloth to reveal a small slot carved into the altar itself.

I get down beside her, slide my fingers into the narrow space. “What is this?” I say.

“I think . . . a mailbox,” she says.

But whatever was there is gone.

Of course it is. Anything Ivan might have left has already been picked up—either by the so-called mailman or most recently by Ivan’s killer. I slump into the front pew. So much for Saint Anthony and his lilies.

I look to Mary as though for guidance, and then at the purple flowers beside her. They are the same ones as on the hill.

My gaze shifts to the vase beside Saint Anthony. The fuchsia petals are lettuced around the edges. Fresh.

And not from Lubenice.

“Claudia,” I say slowly as she pushes up from her knees. “Who conducts mass here?”

“A priest from Cres town, I suppose.” She shrugs.

That could be any number of people. But that isn’t the right question.

“Who was Saint Anthony?”

“I told you, the patron saint of—”

“Before that. Who was he?”

“Saint Anthony of Padua? A Catholic priest. Franciscan.” She glances at me.

Ten minutes later we are speeding down the hill past miles of rocky terrain and oblivious sheep seasoning their own meat on a diet of wild sage.

When we finally reach the south edge of Cres town, Claudia slows near the cemetery.

“There.” She nods toward a brick building across the street. A monastery.

It is bathed in flashing blue light, surrounded by police cars.

20

“T
his is very bad,” Claudia whispers.

For the first time since my arrival, we are in agreement.

I exhale a breath, take stock. Three empty patrol cars means the police are inside—except for the officer standing at the entrance beneath the crest of two crossed arms. A round window with a blue stained-glass cross is set in the brick face above it and the broad front walk is lined with trees I recognize as myrtles, each of them exploding with fuchsia flowers.

I start to get out of the car. Claudia grabs my arm. It is the first time I think I have seen her truly afraid.

“Audra, no.”

“You said yourself Ivan was smart. If he meant to give me something but knew the danger he was in, he wouldn’t have brought it with him. He would have left it at the chapel to be picked up and stashed someplace or given to someone he wasn’t aware of. Someone in
there
knows what and where it is.”

“Can’t you see? Something terrible has happened here. It’s too late!”

“We don’t know that! You wanted to know that Ivan’s faith in me wasn’t misplaced. Well, I want to know that he didn’t die for nothing!” I say it with more bravado than I feel. In fact, it’s desperation.

She purses her lips and then nods, though I sense that she may be shaking. Crossing herself, she gets out of the car. Mutters, “Piotrek is going to kill me.”

A small crowd has gathered on the edge of the street. As we reach the door, the officer—a woman—moves to block our way.

Claudia steps ahead of me to talk to her, tone as imperious as ever. She pulls her ferry pass from her pocket, holds it up like a badge.

A moment later she says something to me in Croatian as though I speak the language. And then we’re pushing our way through the door.

“That wasn’t horrible,” I murmur, following after her.

We step into a colonnaded courtyard, the grassy middle of which has been set with chairs, as though for a lecture or some kind of concert.

I hear static of walkie-talkies somewhere beyond the short corridor to the right. Claudia pulls me down the long side of the colonnade to the left, into a reception office. It’s filled with pamphlets in Croatian about some kind of art exhibit, a calendar of events. There’s a door on the other end of the room, but when I try it, it’s locked.