Chapter 42
42
The golem looks down at me as I approach. I keep the chisel behind my back so he won’t see it. I don’t know if he will identify it as a weapon. Do golems engage in self-defense? Will he see me as a threat? I swallow my fear and gaze at him.
As I look into the handsome face of my monster, uncertainty flutters through me. We had so many good moments. He was attentive, intrigued by new experiences. He drank coffee. He learned new words. He slept with me, for Christ’s sake, and finally made me feel something again. Which is, obviously, not something I can ever tell anyone about.
But all things considered—I can’t just destroy him. Not without giving him a chance to change his ways. Not without making sure I’m not about to make a terrible mistake.
“Paul,” I say, voice trembling. “You have to let these people go.”
“Safe,” he says firmly.
“That’s not your call,” I say. “Maybe some of them...some of us...don’t feel safe. Maybe we’re afraid, every day. But we still choose to go out into the world. To take risks. It’s our choice. And you have a choice, too. You can choose to let us go.”
“Safe,” Paul repeats.
The fiery Hebrew letters on his forehead pulse slightly.
Alef, mem, tav.
I remember their meaning: truth .
“I’m telling you the truth,” I tell the golem, hoping he’ll believe me. “Do you remember...do you remember when we were at the restaurant? When we had the eggplant parmesan, and the chicken Florentine...?”
The golem nods.
“And I explained to you about options,” I say. “About choice.”
“Choice,” he repeats.
“Yes,” I say, hope rising in me like a balloon. “Choice. You have a choice. One option is to keep us here, against our will. Trapped. Prisoners. The other option is to use your free will, and make a different choice. Let us go.”
The golem slowly shakes his head.
“No choice,” he says. “Not safe.”
“Not safe,” I agree, “but there’s still a choice.”
“No choice,” he repeats. “Not safe.”
The balloon of hope in my chest deflates. This won’t work. He looks human. He feels human, sounds human, sometimes acts human. But he has no free will. Because that’s how he was built. He can’t make a different choice even if he wanted to; all he can do is protect his people, at all costs, without compromise, forever.
And he’s already very nearly killed two people in doing so.
Real harm is being done, and more harm will be done. He won’t be able to stop himself from hurting people in the name of saving people. He doesn’t have a choice.
But I do.
You’ve got this, Evie.
My father’s voice echoes through me. My grandmother’s strength urges me forward. With a cry that comes from my very soul, I lunge at the golem, aiming the chisel for the alef on his brow.
In one effortless move, the golem catches me by the wrist.
He takes the chisel and tosses it across the room. It clatters uselessly across the floor.
From somewhere nearby, I hear Sasha let out a strangled scream. The golem still has my wrist, and his eyes are boring into mine.
“Eve,” he says sternly. “Not safe.”
“Put her down, or I’ll take you out, I swear to God.”
The golem turns to look at my slim, silver-haired mother.
Her manicured fists are raised, and her ready-for-a-fight posture in her mother-of-the-bride pantsuit would be hilarious if our situation wasn’t so dire. My mother is flanked by Rosie, Ana, and Sasha, all of them with fists balled and eyes radiating determination.
A surge of love and loyalty burns through me. I pull my wrist from the golem’s grasp, stumbling toward the most important women in my life. I wrap my hand around one of my mother’s fists, and as I do so, I feel something sharp and hard.
Bubbe’s ring.
Emerald, diamond, and gold.
Small enough to fit in my palm.
Harder than solid rock.
I tug at the ring, then release my grip and position myself in front of my mother, hoping she’ll understand. I put my hand behind my back, waiting. In an instant, my mother slips the ring from her finger onto mine, all out of view of the golem.
I flex my fingers, feeling the heavy weight on my ring finger, unaccustomed to wearing anything there. Now all I have to do is figure out how to get close enough to the monster of my own creation to finally destroy him.
I take a hesitant step toward the golem.
“I know you just want to keep me safe,” I say.
“Safe,” he agrees.
“I’m grateful,” I say. “Grateful for everything. For all the times you kept me safe. For saving my sister. For...everything. Honestly, these past few days have been... They’ve been life-changing, Paul.”
I take another step toward the golem.
So close I can almost touch him.
“Eve,” Sasha whispers from behind me. “What are you doing?”
“Paul,” I say.
Another step.
And then I say the magic words. The ones I wish I could say to my father, but will instead whisper to the other protector I can no longer hold on to.
“Thank you,” I say, closing the distance between myself and the golem. “Thank you.”
And then I kiss him.
The kiss is rough, but the force is coming from me, not him. It’s always been me kissing him, I realize. He has never initiated a thing. He can’t want, or not-want. He’s not here to love me or hate me. He’s only here to keep me safe. And after so much loneliness, that briefly felt like enough.
But it’s not actually enough.
Then, my mouth still pressed to his, I drag my bubbe’s ring across the first letter on his forehead. Scratching against the surface with all my might, I erase the alef.
The golem shudders and reels back.
I put a hand to my mouth, tasting sand.
Tears are pouring down my cheeks now, as I watch the light go out from behind my protector’s eyes. Doubt and guilt lance their way through me, perforating my heart, seizing my lungs. I know it’s the right thing to do, but destroying my shield feels vulnerable, and cruel, and dangerous.
“Eve,” says the golem, eyes momentarily widening in shock and bewilderment.
Then his lids fall down like curtains, and he takes one step backward before sitting down heavily on the floor, then falling all the way to his back. Dust flies up in a cloud around him, golden and shimmering.
He remains on the floor, motionless.
For a moment, looking at him lying still and supine on the cafetorium floor, I’m convinced I’ve done the wrong thing, yet again. I’ve never been good at making decisions, and this one has left me alone and unguarded.
But then something breaks open within me. All the pent-up emotions of the last year, emotions I tried to just ignore, or submerge in alcohol, or fend off with a golem, wash over me. Not drowning me, but immersing me. Cleansing me, like a ritual bath. Reminding me of the whole person that I am. Alongside my grief, I feel a resurgence of everything else, too. All the things my father, grandmother, and everyone else I’ve ever loved would want me to feel. Hope. Strength. Love.
And then my stomach lets out the loudest rumble of my entire life.
Sasha lets out a triumphant cry, and in a rush of relief and joy, they’re all embracing me: Sasha, my mother, my sister, my new sister-in-law. Arms wrapped around me, all of us crying and sweating and dirty and alive.
I was wrong. I’m not alone.
I’m surrounded.
“Your father would be so proud of you,” my mother whispers in my ear.
I half laugh, half sob. Because it’s so wonderful for us to be acknowledging my father again, and how much we miss him. But also because if my father found out that I destroyed a golem only after first bringing it to life and wreaking utter havoc, I’m not sure if he’d be proud or absolutely appalled at my stupidity. Both reactions would be fair.
But in the end, he’d still tell me, You’ve got this, Evie .
All around us, wedding guests begin emerging from under tables and behind chairs. I don’t know how many of them saw my final battle with the golem, and I don’t care. Whatever we tell people about tonight, no one will believe us. And they don’t have to.
We know, and that’s enough.
Maybe this whole time, Bubbe really was trying to get a message to me—but maybe it wasn’t a warning. Maybe she was trying to give me something even more important: a reminder. Because there will always be threats, and the most important thing isn’t to be on guard. The most important thing is to go out there and dare to live anyway, even in a world full of danger. To be there for the ones who matter most to us—and let them be there for us, as well. That’s how we overcome the threats.
That’s how we survive.
“What in the bloody hell...?”
I look up, and the most surreal night of my life gets even stranger.
Because there, in the midst of the rubble and tumult of what was once my sister’s wedding reception, is Hot Josh.