The Hidden Goddess by M K Hobson Page A

were things about my mother I never knew. He gave me this.” She pulled the heavy blue bottle from her pocket. “It’s called a Lethe Draught.”
    “A Lethe Draught!” Stanton settled himself beside her. He took the bottle between his fingers and held it up to the light. He examined the card that was attached to the neck.
    “ ‘Catherine Kendall,’ ” he read. “ ‘Boston.’ ”
    “It was my mother’s card,” Emily said softly.
    “Unglazed bristol board, excellent engraving. This is the card of a woman of good family.” Stanton paused, obviously surprised. “How unexpected.”
    “Thanks a lot.”
    “When I can spare a second, I’ll take you down to the Institute’s library, and we’ll look up the name in the Boston Social Register. The Institute has copies of all of them back a hundred years or more.”
    “I hardly think my mother would be in the Boston Social Register,” Emily said.
    Stanton did not comment, but continued to peer closely at the contents of the bottle. “Why would he Lethe you?”
    “He said my mother was evil.”
    “Evil?”
    “He didn’t want to explain,” Emily said. “He just said that my memories were so bad that I had to be protected from them.”
    Stanton frowned. “That
is
the commonly accepted usage of Lethe Draughts—to mitigate the harm of traumatic memories. But it’s a pretty drastic step, one that most practitioners don’t take lightly.”
    “I’m sure Pap wouldn’t have done it if he didn’t have to.” Emily felt suddenly cold, and pressed closer to Stanton for warmth. “Well, what do you think? Should I drink it, or what?”
    Stanton’s response was immediate. “Drink a Lethe Draught decocted by your pap? I think not!”
    Then he quickly lifted an ameliorating hand. “Not that he isn’t an able Warlock, but they’re awfully tricky potions, Emily. Easy to get wrong.”
    “So I should let my memories of my mother go? Just like that?” Emily said. “Let my history stay dead and bottled up?”
    “Sometimes it’s better to let sleeping dogs lie,” Stanton said. Then he let out a long sigh. “But knowing you, you won’t let them. Promise me one thing. If you decide to drink it, don’t do it alone. Wait until I can be there with you.”
    Emily nodded assent, remembering her similar promise to Pap.
    “A Lethe Draught!” Stanton shook his head in disbelief. Then, in a darker tone, he added, “He kept a lot from you, didn’t he?”
    “He did it to protect me,” Emily said.
    “I wonder if that makes it right,” Stanton mused. Then his eyes widened. “But you still haven’t explained your ankle!”
    “Well, that happened when I ran into the Sini Mira,” Emily said. The words had the predicable effect of making Stanton blink twice at her; Emily compressed her lips, but did not smile.
    “The Sini Mira sent men to Pap’s cabin to ask about my mother,” Emily explained. “They are interested in her. They wouldn’t tell me why.”
    “They wouldn’t tell … you spoke to them?”
    “I spoke to one of them. His name was Dmitri.”
    “He
hurt
you?”
    “No …” Emily was hesitant to go into all the details of her battle with the Aberrancies; she felt he’d been alarmed enough for one day. “There was an earthquake … you know, there’ve been terrible earthquakes in San Francisco … and I twisted my ankle. He was there, he helped me up …” She waved an impatient hand, as if to brush aside the strands of her story that didn’t hold together. “He had been following me. He said he’d been sent to protect me.”
    “The Sini Mira is not interested in protecting Witches.”
    Emily frowned. Dmitri had said as much himself. “Why do they hate us so much?” she asked, inching herself back on the ledge and extending her ankle to rotate it. “Magic is as natural as … sunshine! They might as well hate sunshine!”
    Stanton lifted her foot and let it rest in the crook of his arm. With his large hand, he began lightly