Page 11 of Spring's Arcana
Everything.Nat opened her mouth to say as much, but the cat hissed, ears suddenly flattened. It stood bolt upright—fur stiffening along its spine, tail straight skyward and fluffy as a brush—staring at the back fence where a sinuous shadow moved. There was a twinkle of silver, a flash of pointed ivory; Nat stepped back and almost fell onto the bench when her uncle’s boots tangled together.
The wind swept across the yard, a curtain of tiny rattling snowflakes.
“Who’s there?” Nat called, stupidly, as if there would be an answer. At least her uncle didn’t throw the back door open, and Mom wasn’t here to see her making a fool of herself.
The tabby’s tail lashed, still puffy. Nat cast around for some kindof weapon, and a faint nasty baritone laugh pierced the snowy quiet before shredding into the distance.
She thought she knew that voice, and all the vodka in her veins couldn’t stop the cold.
Finally, the tabby craned its neck, peering over its shoulder. The golden eyes narrowed, and the cat considered her speculatively. “Beware,” it said, very softly, under the whispering wind. “Beware of shadows, child, beware of light promises. But most of all, beware of thieves.” A tail-tip flicked, and the tabby turned toward the fence again, its fur sleeking down once more.
But slowly. And it watched like it expected something to appear.
“Shadows, promises, and thieves.”Sure. Of course, nothing would make sense until after the absolute worst had happened; cats were worse than birds for speaking in metaphor.
At least felines—and canines—had longer attention spans. Most avians couldn’t keep their mind on business for more than a few seconds. And sometimes the cats said something unequivocal, though Nat knew better than to tell anyone else about it.
She wasn’t very bright, God knew, but eventually, she learned. Long ago she’d given up wondering if other kids heard what she did but didn’t want to be different, and so trained themselves out of it. Other parents might not do things Mom’s way, but they still agreed, without exception, that imaginary friends and talking animals weren’t real.
Nat thought maybe they should visit a certain floor of the Morrer-Pessel building and find out differently, but so many callers might make that particular grandmother a little cranky.
De Winter. What a laugh.
“It’s all real,” she murmured, staring at the back fence. The marks along the top were just smears of knocked-free snow, but she thought the alley might show prints of sharp-toed boots before falling white filled them in. Shivers, only barely controlled by a warm vodka-fueled buzz, made her teeth ache. “All this time.”
“Go inside.” The cat’s tail lashed again. “We will keep the shadows away, as we always have. Nothing will disturb your dreams tonight, daughter of the Drozdova.”
TheDrozdova. LiketheGrandmother. Everyone was putting stress on definite articles today.
Ever since she’d walked out of her job at the Humboldt Insurance office that afternoon, impelled towards a downtown skyscraper by the faint fading dream of helping her mother stave off death, the world had been just a degree or two off-kilter. Something told her it wouldn’t right itself anytime soon. Nat felt behind her for the doorknob. “Are you sure you want to be outside tonight?”
“I won’t stay,” the cat repeated, and its tail twitched again. “Go.”
Inside the mudroom, Nat slumped against the back door, fumbling for the deadbolt. It threw with a tiny click and she was glad Leo had already shuffled off to his small bedroom, where a white plastic television perched atop his dresser was already muttering some infomercial or another. He loved shopping shows promising cheap new products, the American dream hanging tantalizingly just out of reach, hucksters enthusing through perpetual grimaces of agonized good cheer.
It took a long while before she could step out of her uncle’s boots, peel off the outer layer of thick hand-knitted socks, and slip her feet into her old, familiar embroidered slippers. She kept peeking through the door’s beveled windows, her breath causing a faint mist. The snow kept whirling down, and the piled freeze knocked off the fence-top looked entirely natural now.
She couldn’t see the tabby, but tomorrow morning the kibble dish would be empty and she’d miss another day of work—at both jobs this time, an insurance office and the big box store on 158th would both need a new cog to shove into their corporate wheel.
Nat would be on an errand for a Mob grandmother with a very literary name who could stick someone to a wooden chair with just a harsh glare. If that was a skill, it was one Nat Drozdova could use, if she could just figure it out.
The feeling that she’d stepped off the side of the world and into whirling, dizzy-sick space just wouldn’t go away. She scrubbed at her chapped cheek with cold fingertips, seriously debating the advisability of stopping in the kitchen for another hit off the bottle in the freezer.
An internal vote was taken, and passed with a minimum of fuss. Maybe she’d wake up and find the past day a particularly vivid nightmare like she used to get in high school.
It would mean she’d also wake up with Mom still dying, the business card still pristine in her purse, and the constant querulous questions following her all through the day.Have you visited her? Did you go? What did she say?
God and Christ both help her, as Leo would mutter, Nat couldn’t help hoping she’d wake up and find out the world really was magic, instead.
It would mean she had a shot at making her mother better.
A WILLING EAR
Laurelgrove Hospice near Fort Greene Park used to be a Gilded Age mansion, and a few graceful touches remained—wall sconces, the pressed tin ceiling in the entryway, and heavy wooden wainscoting painted so many times its grain and carvings both blurred. There was a plastic tree in the lobby, blinking with strings of lights; empty, brightly wrapped “presents” huddled at its base. It was trying to be cheerful, Nat guessed, which was about all you could do this time of year.
Signing in, showing ID, filling out the questionnaire—if you had symptoms of anything you couldn’t visit, because of the immunocompromised—it was all familiar by now, and Nat knew exactly when to smile, how to make the right self-deprecating joke, which staircase to head for. She knew the nurses on the third floor and passed all the same rooms as usual, each with a handmade sign on the door’s left proudly announcing trapped occupants’ names to the world.
Did prisons have those signs too? Her mother’s sign bore bright yellow crayon stars and the room also had a window, which effectively doubled the price. Nat didn’t even want to think about the bills.
