Page 69 of Spring's Arcana
But if she could lock herself in a bathroom for a few minutes maybe she could call Leo, even if there was nothing to say. As long as she kept it short.
Mom might never sigh heavily at another Nat-induced bill, phone or otherwise, ever again. But divinities didn’t need money? It was confusing, and even the deep new eerie sense of well-being didn’t help, just gave her more questions.
Dmitri hit the brakes, the exit curved under them like a startled cat’s back, and the seatbelt grabbed at her hips and shoulder. Nat clung to her backpack and waited for him to say something cutting or nasty, but instead he simply jabbed a finger at the traffic light at the end of the off-ramp.
It turned green, and her jaw threatened to drop.That’s a nice trick.
“First lesson,devotchka,” Dmitri said conversationally. “World wants to obey, all you gotta do is ask. Even the rubes wanna do what you say, more so because of who you are. Drozdova.”
But I’m not…Nat stared at the dashboard. Was he actually trying to be helpful, or was there a sting in the words? “So I just ask?”
“It’s a muscle, you gotta find it. First time’s hardest.” The car banked into a left turn, and a long hill swung into view, starred with traffic lights and orderly rows of cars. “Point at the road,zaika,and get them out of our way.”
Just point at the road?“I’m not sure I can—”
Dmitri gunned the engine, the car leapt forward, and Nat yelped. Two blocks of clear road ran out at high speed as the black car made a low evil chuckling; Nat’s hands threw themselves out, fingers spread and palms throbbing as a semi’s hind end loomed before them.
There was a deep grinding, felt more than heard, and the black car slewed wildly as Dmitri twisted the wheel. “Close,” he said, calmly, as the tires smoked and they zoomed into oncoming traffic. Headlights gleamed, bright blaring diamonds. “Try again.”
Oh for Chrissake I just woke up!A trapped scream burned Nat’s throat, her fingers flexed, and suddenly a great painless gout of force bloomed in her middle, bubbled past her breastbone, curved her shoulders forward, and snapped through her arms. A stinging ran down her back, like a broken rubber band recoiling against skin; the scream turned into a ringing “—fuckyou, you gangster sonofabitch!”
A crash and tinkle of broken glass, another tire-smoking fishtail, and they were back in the right lane. Cars jolted aside, the traffic lights swaying on their poles and blinking red, yellow, green with no discernable pattern. Nat swallowed another cry and Dmitri laughed, a harsh cawing of effort and amusement at once as he spun the vehicle through the tangle with bare centimeters to spare on either side.
They crested the hill, sparks flying, and Nat was swearing as she had only heard her mother swear once or twice in her life, both times while hiding in her closet, breathing the fusty muddy smell of shoes and her school uniforms, hearing the faint mutter of Leo’s voice as he tried to calm the sudden storm.
Other mothers didn’t smell like ozone when they were angry, and some of them didn’t ignore their children or heave deep pained sighs when the kids grew out of their shoesagain, Natchenka, why do you do this?
It wasn’t like she could help growing or breathing or needing things, and the old familiar hopelessness filled Nat’s skull like colorless gas fumes.
“Try it again,zaika!” Dmitri gave another sharp yip-laugh. More traffic lights bloomed on the hill’s downslope, a very busy intersection. Cars were shining metal beetles, a popslither spatter of sleet smacked a crystalline windshield, the hood ornament twisted to snarl over its fluid silver shoulder, and the fumes in her head ignited.
Easy, devotchka,Leo’s voice said in memory as he held the back of the bicycle seat. The big rusting pink contraption hadn’t looked like much, but once he finished oiling and sanding and repairing it wasfast,and he even found a little bell to clamp to the handlebars. A press of her thumb on the lever and the bright silver ratcheting sound would warn people out of her way.Don’t you go out into traffic, or Uncle will have to come get you from hospital.
A glass bubble of silence descended on her, and the bell rang again. Nat blinked, a deep endless breath filling her lungs, spreading her ribs so hard they creaked. The moment riding a bike really clicked and she found her balance, pedaling furiously in PrincoPark’s green blur while Leo yelled and cheered behind her and the sweet song of wind began in her ears—oh, she loved that sound, because it was almost flying, escape and freedom and a high sweet spillskin ecstasy like a ripe fruit just on the edge of bursting all at once.
The car’s engine settled into a sweet soft decelerating purr, and a warm breeze touched Nat’s face.
“And there you are,” Dmitri Konets said quietly.
The traffic had cleared, the lights were green, and the black car flickered between other vehicles trapped in a curious stasis, pedestrians caught in the act of turning to look at the source of a long howl of abused tires or the jolt of crumpled metal and broken glass. People paused like a special effect, their feet hanging between one step and the next, their winter coats flapping at the hem, or their mouths slightly open.
Oh, wow.It was the only possible thing to think.Oh my holy wow.
Nat’s hands were out as if ready to catch a dodgeball in gym class. Golden coruscation slipped over her spread fingers, gloves of living light. It was warm, and for a moment something else trembled just on the edge of understanding inside her skull.
Of course she’s sick,Nat thought.Losing this would be like dying.
Then they were through the intersection, a big green SUV a few inches from her left window held in an invisible cage, and she wondered blankly if anyone had been hurt in the accidents left behind.
The light on her fingers snuffed, darkness swallowing the interior except for the dashboard instruments and the gleam of Dmitri’s teeth. His smile was wide, gleaming white, and full of carnivorous good nature.
“Not so hard, eh? But now you really need drink,zaika. I take you to a place, and after that, we talk.”
RANDOM DISAPPOINTMENT
When he cut the engine in a weedy dirt lot overlooking a dark river fringed with fingers of rime-ice, the headlights died. A ramshackle building cobbled together out of plywood and spare oil drums crouched on the other side of a row of shiny vehicles; the black car surveyed them all and the river itself with a satisfied air, metal ticking as the engine and hood cooled.
Whatever it ran on, it had probably used a lot today.
