Page 30 of The Salt-Black Tree
Baba might even make it painless for him. Or she might not.
There were other dangers, too. The little girl was lost in a garden of wickedness, wandering among sharpspine trees and hungry rocks. Though slim, there was always a chancethose who eatwould find her despite all the help Summer or others disposed to do Spring a service could be moved to give. And even if Konets did not close his teeth in her tender jasmine-salt flesh, he could still perform a trick or two, taking back what was his and having the power to decide.
He couldwin. A hollow victory, but still his.
Did little Drozdova fully understand what her mother intended? If she was stupid enough to bare her throat to the flint knife…
He did not think hisdevotchkawas so cowardly, or so unintelligent. But could he, of all divinities, take that chance?
A thief’s dilemma. Either way, he was fucked. But one kind of fucking was more enjoyable than the other, maybe. Sometimes the only freedom a man had was choosing which way to take it.
His fingertips drummed, velvety-soft and sensitive, nails clipped short and blunt, his hands able to sense the slightest vibration as a safe’s dial was spun and tumblers clicked into place. Quick enough to subtract a single dollar from a closed wallet in a deep pocket, skilled enough to flick a straight razor through a throat without a single drop of blood remaining on the bright, hungry blade.
He could have stolen the heart from that cabinet, but he’d disdained. A bargain was a bargain, and an agreement which benefited him was one he could elect to hold himself to.Ifhe chose, and that choice was his alone.
Mascha had the sheereffronteryto do what he had not, and to plan a nauseating theft nearly two mortal decades in the making,too. Not only had she taken the Dead God’s Heart, but she was infringing on his rights, damn her eyes and all the rest of her.
It simply could not be borne.
He could not decide which was the bigger insult—Maria’s robbery, or her daughter’s refusal to take even a small gift.
“Idiot,” he hissed in the language of the old country, and all the thiefways cringed. “Make up your fucking mind.”
The trouble was, he already had. Resentment burned jaundice-bitter on his tongue, like an unnecessary, imperfect lie. The black car’s engine revved, dust-smoke spurted; diamond headlights cut yellowbrown gloom.
The road not taken shrank to nothing behind him, and Dmitri Konets did not look back.
TIME TO THINK
She veered onto 880 while passing San Jose; San Francisco passed too in a wraithlike blur across the water from Oakland, lost in billows of salty fog tinged with a nose-scouring whiff of dead fish. Nat was certain there was an Elysium in that fair city as well, but it was far too early to stop. Besides, traffic was awful, and it took all of Nat’s concentration to flicker through stop-and-go, jumping from one clear spot to another. It was like learning to ride a bike all over again, or to drive the balky old Léon-Bollée; having to think about each tiny movement was exhausting.
After a while your body figured it out, and all you had to do was know where you wanted to go. But in the meantime, her eyes were grainy and her neck ached.
Apparently there were limits to even a divinity’s sense of deep, inalienable well-being. Or maybe the past few days were catching up with her. 880 turned into 580; Baby veered across the John Knox, a thin strip of concrete over cold, unseen ocean. Just as she thought it would probably be a good idea to find the Elysium in Frisco after all, land returned, the crowd of cars drew away, Baby found 101 again and climbed a series of bluffs. The day was darkening under veils of white vapor.
I’ll come back,she promised the City by the Bay; she hadn’t even seen the Golden Gate. It would be something to go homeand tell Leo she’d driven across that span as well as the Brooklyn Bridge.
That was a good memory, a warm sunny day and horns blaring as the old black car trundled along on a bed of its own exhaust, Leo grinning proudly in the passenger seat and teenage Nat biting her lip.Ignore them,devotchka, Leo kept saying.You’re doing great.
The happiness was tinged with brassy-tasting fear, though, like nearly all her memories. Frisco’s fog turned to drizzle as Baby reached a comfortable hum, not needing to flicker through clotted traffic anymore. The sensation of staying still while the world whirled away underneath a sleek metal ship was overpowering, and she wondered what Dmitri was up to at that moment.
Probably something terrible. And cursing while he did it, or smoking.
Getting home after that particular jaunt across the bridge had been awful, even though they’d stopped for ice cream on the way back. Mom had been furious, white-faced, her golden hair lifting in an angry cobra-hood halo.I told you never to touch my things,she’d hissed at her daughter, and that set off another fight with Leo while Nat hid in her closet upstairs, hugging her knees. All the good feeling had drained out of the achievement like water from a broken cup, and that night a violent late-spring storm stripped the leaves from most of the trees in the neighborhood, not to mention Princo Park.
If the little yellow house was indeed crumbling, what was happening to Nat’s room? Her ancient laptop held together with silver duct tape, her discount-store clothes, the bed Leo had made, her tiny cheap desk for doing schoolwork with the green-shaded lamp he’d found somewhere? Her ancient teddy bear, clutched each night even though she was an adult and hidden safely each morning becauseyou’ve outgrown your toys, Natchenka, give me that and stop your sniveling…
The thing about driving alone was how it gave you so much time to brood. The entire lens of her life had shifted, and things that used to be just-how-it-is were now distorted monsters, looming over her with long clutching claws and slavering jaws.
Or maybe the nightmare-creatures had always been there, and she’d just been oblivious. Now she saw them clearly for the first time, in all their misshapen, hateful glory.
Where was Leo? Was her mother still in a hospice bed? Nat could call the Laurelgrove; the number for the front desk was burned into her fingers. Her prepaid cell was gone, but a divinity could get a brand-new smartphone, couldn’t she?
The crick in her neck and dusty irritation in her eyes eased as she left Oakland far behind. The windshield wipers started, waiting until just the right moment to sweep the glass clean of fog-dots and trickling. Nat found herself brushing at her cheeks. There was salt water inside the car too, apparently.
Green glimmered through the fog, stutter-flashing like an old-fashioned movie projector with a slipped cog or two. The road dipped, rose, threaded through city-clusters and small towns. Though it was winter, the breeze through Nat’s half-open window was warm, and smelled of fresh-cut grass.
Was Marisol helping? Or was something else happening?
