Page 70 of Spring's Arcana
Nat studied her hands. They looked just like they always had—Mom’s long fingers, a ghost of clear nail polish because Maria Drozdova said anything else was for streetwalkers, a cupped palm that was very much like Leo’s too, now that Nat thought about it, and her wrists fine-boned and slim like Mom’s as well.
The lines on her palms were the same. Or were they? She’d never really looked at them before. Who memorized their palms?
“First time’s hardest,” Dmitri repeated. “Sometimes it happen before you know it too. Like riding a bicycle,da?”
She almost flinched. But it was a cliché, he probably couldn’t know about Leo and the Pink Princess bike.
Or could he?
He waited for an answer; when none came he continued, soft and reflective. It was a new tone, and one she wasn’t sure she liked. “Gets to where you get used to it, then you hit something can’t be changed and… well, the bitter with the sweet,zaika,no vodka without the sting. Then you make bargain.”
Is that what happened to you?Nat cleared her throat. “The cats,”she managed, dryly. “They told me things, but Mom… she pretended I was lying.”
Said like that, it was a horrible thing. Getting upset over it didn’t help. Besides, you weren’t supposed to get angry at your own mother. There was even a whole commandment about it.
What divinity, she wondered, was in charge of that one? Was Moses’s God still alive? How about the sisters’ Mary, looking down with her vacant smile, promising intercession but never quite delivering?
“Now why she do that, you think?” Dmitri didn’t look at her, staring at the wintry river. No chill crept inside the car, but then again, it was magic, wasn’t it? Or damn close.
This divinity thing wasn’t waving wands and glittering bibbidi-bobbidi-boo. It was huge, overwhelming, and flat-out terrifying.
Just like everything else in the goddamn world.Goddamn,what a word. If one god damned you, did you just find another?
Now why she do that, you think?
Mom was dying as Nat used the divinity-stuff. Getting the Heart would stave it off—but if that was true, why hadn’t Maria Drozdova just consumed the damn thing, standing in the office with that little baby bump and her pretty bare feet? She couldn’t eat it, but she could trade it back to Baba, maybe?
But why not justdothat, without all the fuss? Why this giant production? There had to be a reason; Maria Drozdova didn’t believe in wasted effort. Charged silence filled the car, touching Nat’s hair, filling her with the nervous desire to fidget. It was like missing something in math class; she knew the hole was there, but not what shape or number would fill it.
“I am biggest uncle,” Dmitri said heavily. “The nephews and other uncles, they come to me for… things. I rule what is stolen, by greed or by desperation. They invoke me, and I keep the wolf from the door. But sometimes,zaika,Iamthe wolf. You, now, you are the Drozdova. Nice baby lambs on green fields,da? But you also the storms and the deep black mud. Everything got a cost.”
“So…” Her throat was so dry. A drink suddenly sounded wonderful, just the thing to stop the merry-go-round of carnivorous questionsinside her head. “But Mom stole your heart. Doesn’t that… isn’t that something you have, you know, control over?”
“Oh, you’d think, eh? But spring came before the rubes—before the animals at all, you know—and spring be here long after all the rubes gone. Sheendure. I follow nice juicy littlezaikawho doesn’t know to protect herself from me, and maybe I get it back, you see? Baba tell melook after herbecause you still growing, and others maybe not so nice as Dima. In a little while, nobody be able to do shit to you. But right now, you bloom while Mascha Drozdova fades, and you a little snack. Nice and juicy.”
I bloom while Mom fades. But spring endures.That had a hopeful sound; maybe she could fix Mom and move out into a place of her own. “So you couldn’t find it because Mom’s a bigger, uh, deity? Divinity?”
“Not bigger,zaika. Different. Your mama have hiding place evenIcannot find, that’s deep magic. Could be dangerous for little you, so if Dima doesn’t follow, no chance of getting heart back at all. Other way…” He shrugged. “Who knows? Chance is there, that’s all.”
“So you’re playing the odds.”And Baba’s betting I’m smart enough to find it and keep it away from you, but not smart enough to take it directly to Mom?That didn’t sound quite right either, and Nat longed for a room with a nice solid door she could shut and justthinkabout some of this bullshit.
“You could say that.” He lifted an admonishing finger, wagging gently. “But remember,zaika,you talking to a thief.Thethief.”
Well, wasn’t that comforting. “The convenience store.” She stole a glance at his profile. “Because the guy was a robber, you helped him.”
“Maybe.” A slight shrug, his jacket moving against the leather seat with a whisper. “Another day, I let him get caught. If he sloppy, or don’t give his nice loving uncle a slice, you see? I give, or I don’t.Theypray tome.” His tone shifted to a quivering falsetto. “Oh, Uncle, don’t let me get caught; oh, Uncle, let me kill this fucker; oh, Uncle, get me out of this cell. Sometimes I do.”
“So it’s just… random?” Finally, someone was explaining basicprecepts—if she could trust his explanations. “Or it depends on your moods?”
“Summer, fall, winter—thatrandom? Friendly and his fucking Law, that random? The Cold Lady, well, maybe she is, maybe not so.” Another shrug, and he dug in his breast pocket again, extracting what looked like a pack of Pall Malls. “Come on. Safe for a little while; I get you drink.” He reached for the door, a cold mineral breath of winter evening filling the car’s interior, chasing the warmth away.
Nat scrambled out on her side, ignoring his aggravated sigh—the god of chivalry was probably good and long dead, trying to open her door all the time wouldn’t bring it back—and followed him across the parking lot, her peacoat pulled close even though the cold didn’t bother her.
Oh, she knew there was ice, but it didn’t matter. Her backpack rode her shoulder, a familiar weight, and her boots crunched gravel and frostbitten weeds. Her fingers tingled. Mom could make anything grow; why did she let the garden die back every year, if she was… what she was? Could she violate the laws of seasons?
Could Nat? A galvanic shiver went down her back, and the breeze from the river turned warm.
“You see?” Dmitri had lit another one of those cigarettes; he exhaled a cloud of incense-spiced smoke. “Feels nice. But come on.” He hopped up two steps that looked nailed together out of lath and plywood, and Nat was surprised the entire edifice didn’t sway and tremble. Frankly, the place looked condemned, but a thump of music came from inside, and there was a row of motorcycles parked around the side.
