Page 19 of Spring's Arcana
“Sign says closed, Dima.” Her voice was a pleasant burr, sliding between lips as candy-apple as her nails but far more matte. “I know you can read something other than Cyrillic. Besides, you’re late.”
“I can tell Baba you refused, Gabi.” Dmitri tilted his head in Nat’s direction. “And take this little girl somewhere else for a rag.”
That strange colorless gaze swung to Nat.
The woman pushed past him, her hands dropping to her sides. “Oh.” She took three steps, halted, and flat-out stared. “Oh, Dima. I forgive, I forgive youeverything.” A faint hint of an accent touched the words, but not like his. This was softer, throatier, ther’s burredand the words losing their endings. “Look at that. The bones, the coloring… oh, she looks like—”
“Now will you be helpful?” Dmitri turned on his heel, looking past the woman with a wolfish grin. “Says her name’sjust Nat,won’t answer any questions.”
“Then she’s wiser than most. Answering a man’s questions is boring.” The woman’s hands fluttered at her sides, clawlike nails gleaming. “Come in,enfante,come in. Just look at you. We must get you out of those rags,n’est-ce pas?”
Nat dug deep into her store of high school French, her wet boots squeaking as she stepped forward and offered her hand the way Mom did when she genuinely liked someone. “Enchanté, madame.Merci.”
“And so polite, too!” The woman clapped her hands. “It is Coco to you, my darling, and Dima, go fetch us some champagne. Where are you taking her, Jay’s?”
“Of course. Baba’s request.”
The woman in black absorbed this, nodding as her gaze continued devouring of Nat inch by inch. “And she’s…”
“The daughter.” Dmitri’s lip didn’t curl, and Nat had the sudden woozy certainty thatthiswoman knew her mother, too.
What other secrets was Maria Drozdova hiding? Maybe, just maybe, she hadn’t been cruelly flattening her daughter’s imagination, or even lying. Maybe Mom had been trying, strange as it sounded, to actually protect Nat from this?
It was, she supposed, just barely possible. It sounded like some bullshit from a Victorian book about orphans or secret gardens, but Mom had sent her to a woman namedde Winter,after all.
“Ah, now I see.” Coco clasped Nat’s hand, a cool, tender touch. “Such skin. Oh, we will make youtrès belle, enfante, you’ll be the toast of the party. Such a shame about your mother.”
Oh, God, you probably think she’s already dead. “Yes,” Nat said numbly. There was a strange humming in the other woman’s touch, the blurring buzz of a power transformer sleeping on a dusty summer afternoon, deadly voltage dream-humming under a metal carapace. “Do you know her?”
“I knewofher, of course; I’m just old, not dead. Come, come.” She tugged at Nat’s coat, pulling her past Dmitri. “Dima, I told you to go fetch champagne; it’s boring to repeat myself.”
“Champagne.” He rolled his eyes, that sharklike smile widening, and headed for the door. “Don’t take all night, Coco.”
“Evil man,” Coco said,sotto vocebut not very. “He’ll bring us something nice, though. Not like that terrible Corleone, with his filthy fingernails.”
“Don’tmention him.” A snarl rode under Dmitri’s tone. “I’ll be back in time to see you undress,zaika.”
“Pay no attention.” Coco claimed Nat’s arm and all but dragged her past the glass case. A heavy maroon velvet curtain next to it rippled enticingly; she pushed it aside as the bell over the door jangled again. “Men, all beasts and children, and he’s no different. Take that coat off,chère,and let us see what we have.”
I am not nearly skinny enough for this. “I, uh, don’t have any—”
“Don’t insult Coco by mentioning money,enfante,it’s so boring. Green, I think, like your mother… or was that her cousin? But a different green. They were so violent, and you are so fair.”
The atelier’s back room was as cheerfully crowded as the front was bare simplicity. Bolts of fabric all but leapt from cubbyholes, sewing machines—some antique, others brand new—hummed as they worked, and Nat’s breath left her in a rush.
There was nobody at the machines. Fabric gathered, bunched, and was stabbed with bright needles; heavy wooden tables past the rows of humming activity stood stolid, cloth under gleaming metal shears cut into strange shapes and whisked away as soon as the last thread was snipped. Scraps fluttered on warm breezes, flocking together by size, and either vanished into a small, deadly black hole in the wall or were whisked to progressively smaller cubbies receding into infinity, snuggling home like dogs into warm kennels.
This place must take up the whole block,Nat thought, and the swimming unreality of seeing something impossible wasn’t the problem.
No, the problem was how familiar it felt.You and your imagination, Natchenka,her mother would say, wearily. Why?Whywould she keep lying, over and over, to her own daughter?
Whatever else this was, it was alsoreal. And terrifying.
“It’s beautiful,” Nat breathed. “It’s… magic?”Please don’t laugh at me. Please don’t let it be a practical joke.
“Of course it is,chère.” Coco laughed, a bright trilling sound with the rhythm of a flashing needle underneath. “Even better, it isfashion,and you will beélégante. I can tell already; it is in the bones. Come, the private dressing room. We must try one or two before we find the right color. Don’t worry about Dima, I won’t let him peek.”
If magic was real, a peeking gangster was, Nat suspected, suddenly the absolute least of her worries. She began to clumsily unbutton the peacoat, and Coco hurried her through another door.
