Page 4 of Spring's Arcana
The lady behind the desk was definitely what Mom would calla power playerand Uncle Leoa cast-iron bitch,devotchka, and I should know. Mrs. de Winter was tall and spare despite generous swellings at hip and chest, and even those curves looked hard and unforgiving. Her eyes were a little like Mom’s when she got angry—so dark iris and pupil blended together instead of Maria’s usual cornflower blue, but still impossibly vital, a coal seam burning underground. Her tarnished-ivory hair was swept into a braided coronet held decoratively fast by two dull black pins that were probably iron to match her presumed temperament; the whole ’do looked heavy ashell. Her suit was designer if Nat was any judge; those pinstripes were amazing.
The office itself was empty as an unlocked warehouse, a dark wooden cabinet—also looking custom-made—along one curved wall holding all its mouth-drawers prissily tight. The floor was the same wood as the massive desk; the desk’s top was empty though a sleek black computer was placed on a small additional cabinet to the right, and the chair was a very expensive ergonomic number.
Looked like things were good in the import-export business, all told, and a faint familiar swimming unease began at Nat’s fingertips, sliding up her arms. Her toes were cold, too, but that could just mean they were wet.
Don’t start your “imagining” bullshit. Come on.
The only other piece of furniture was a kidney-shaped black leather couch, and the man taking up all of it despite his leanness was in a suit similar to de Winter’s, but with no pinstripes. Bright silver caps decked his sharp-pointed boot-toes; his hair was slick-combed back from a ferocious widow’s peak, and everything about him shoutedgangster. Uncle Leo had even told young Nat what some of the bluish tattoos on a man’s knuckles, chest, or back meant in the old country.
Oh, for God’s sake. Mom’s sent me to the Mob. Nat swallowed hard, holding Mrs. de Winter’s gaze, and the silence turned ridiculous. The wall behind the woman was sheer glass from top to bottom, and the snow was whirling past. If Nat let herself, she could probably even see faces in the swirls and sheet-veils.
So inventive,Mom always said, indulgently, despite a sobbing child’s insistence that it wasreal,that she wasn’t lying, that she heard, shesaw.
“Maria Drozdova,” the hot-eyed woman finally said, a ghost of an accent fainter than Mom’s riding each word. Her desk was bare of even a pen cup, and the surface was buffed to a high shine. The janitorial staff probably left it for last each evening, and cleaned it twice to make sure. “I see. And you are?”
“Nat, ma’am.” She couldn’t help it; she put one toe behind herand bobbed a little curtsy, like in kindergarten ballet. Office parties around here were probably a real hoot. “Her daughter.”
“You said that, yes.” De Winter’s eyes narrowed, and her lips parted slightly. Strong white teeth peered out, and Nat’s arms were completely numb now. Her legs were following suit. “Well, well. Little Marotchka had a daughter after all.” Her fingers were tipped with bloodred nails, the polish impeccable and glowing gemlike; her left hand twitched, sending each varnished fingertip tapping against the desk in turn. “Come in, come in, sit down. Dima, fetch the chair, the poor thing has come through the snow to visit her old grandmother.”
What the hell?Nat’s jaw threatened to drop. “Ma’am—”
“Not old enough to be ababa,” the man muttered, each word flat and uninterested except for a faint edge of amusement. His own accent was eerily like Leo’s; her uncle never sounded this coldly amused, though. “Is that what I should say? Should I also bring bread and salt?”
“Nasty child.” The businesswoman’s lip curled a little further. Her lips were painted with pure business gloss, not matching the crimson nails at all. “Pay no attention to him,vnuchka. The hospital, you say? What could be wrong with my darling Marotchka?”
You don’t know? You look like you’ve got enough money to find out whatever you want to.Nat bit back both the words and a welcome burn of irritation. It was her usual response to one of Mom’s games, at least nowadays.
Now that she was an adult, thank you very much, with plenty of bad teenage decisions firmly in her past and the ability to check out self-help books at the library.
“Cancer,” she said, perhaps a little more loudly than she needed to. “That’s what the doctors think. And some dementia. She collapsed two months ago and—”
“Doctors, with their scary words.Diagnosis,they say. Most of it’s lies; they guess as much as other mortals.” Those red fingernails jabbed, not straight at Nat but slightly to the side, and the man from the couch glided into Nat’s peripheral vision, carrying astraight-backed wooden chair that must have come from a hidden closet.
In fact, it looked an awful lot like the Penitence Chair in her elementary school principal’s office. Nat suppressed a flinch as he settled it precisely in front of the desk, a little too close to be comfortable, and stepped smartly aside. Those silvery toes glittered—twinkle toes,she thought, and had to suppress a giggle that might have tasted like lunch if she’d been able to eat anything.
“Mom wanted me to come see you.” Nat took care to make the words as brisk and business-adjacent as possible. “So I have. I don’t know what happened between you two, but she’s dying.” Her chin set, a tiny defiant movement she couldfeelvibrating down her aching neck. “Maybe she just wanted you to know.” Her right foot squelched as she shifted her weight, and it was probably the last moment she could have stamped out, taken the elevator, gone through that bone-clicking turnstile, and plunged into a winter afternoon with her duty done. “I’m sorry to have bothered—”
“Dima,” Mrs. de Winter of Yaga Imports said, “put her in the chair, please.”
One moment Nat was getting ready to exit in dramatic fashion, the next the gangster in the almost-black suit had her arm and was dragging her. His lips skinned back from his similarly pearly teeth; he thrust her into the chair and shook his hand like she’d burned him. “Fuck,” he snarled in Russian, just like Uncle Leo when he was working on a car engine. ButunlikeLeo, who really wasn’t her uncle at all, this man didn’t immediately raise his dark gaze to ceiling or sky and mutter to Christ for forgiveness.
“There it is.” The businesswoman folded her arms, and those bleak, black eyes pinned Nat to hard wood. Just like being in school again, teachers watching your struggles with narrow-eyed pleasure.
Nobody cared, not in this world. The sooner you figured that out, the better.
“Now,” the woman continued, “Marotchka sends her daughter here. How quaint. How verydroll.”
The man, still shaking his hand ruefully, cast de Winter a sly sideways glance. “Not word I’d choose, but if it make you happy—”
“Shut up, Dima. Now, as for you…” She returned her coal-hot gaze to Nat and leaned over the desktop, flattening bony, ruby-tipped hands on its surface. The custodial staff would probably swear at all the smudges, Nat thought hazily, and tried to move.
No good. She was nailed to the chair, held invisibly fast, and hadn’t the faintest idea how the hellthathad happened.
“Tell me,vnuchka moya.” Now de Winter sounded almost kind, but she leaned avidly forward, lips slightly parted and those white teeth gleaming like the snow-filled window. “Would you like to make your mama all better?”
DRAMATIC EFFECT LOST
“You’re insane.” Nat strained against the chair. Her hands gripped the arms, her knuckles white with effort, and in a moment she’d get up and run for the door.
