Page 34 of The Salt-Black Tree
“Is it polite?” Nat cupped her elbows in her palms, hugging harder. She’d never been camping, but sitting in front of a fire like this would be enjoyable—if she was alone. No divinities, no mothers, no normal people, just the night and the soft sound of dry wood turning into heat and light. “I don’t want to offend.”
“Miss Manners.” Raven’s croak-caw laugh lifted again, bouncing against the trees and echoing. “Oh, my. Girl, you are fucked for sure.”
“He said that too.” Nat tipped her chin in Coyote’s direction. Her own calm was almost frightening, but then again, screaming and running wouldn’t get her anywhere. She was stuck in this lunacy, and the only thing more frightening than the dreamlike terror throbbing in time to her pulse was howinevitableit all seemed. “Pretty sure you’re both right.”
“Least you admit it. Might be hope yet.” Raven tossed the pack back to Coyote, lifting his selected coffin-nail to just under his nose, sniffing deeply twice. “I don’t think you want to smoke just now, though. Give you bad dreams.”
“And you’re too young, anyway,” Coyote weighed in. He stuck the cigarette—it looked like one of Leo’s hand-rolled—between his lips, and tucked the pack out of sight. A short inhale, the tip suddenly glowing orange as the fire, and he held his breath for a moment before smoke slipped from his nose in two jets. “Not like us.”
“Showoff,” Raven said, but not very loudly, and he lit his own with a flicking fingertip. The feathers framing his face fluttered gently; a ripple went across the meadow’s grass, making the lifting sparks dance and bob.
Nat didn’t point out she’d seen the without-a-lighter trick before. Maybe she was wrong and Dmitri would get along with these guys. All the same, those shadowy things were following her, and her mother was dying. She wished they’d hurry the fuck up.
The two men smoked, exchanging conspiratorial glances. They were visibly waiting for her to say something, daring her to protest, to be a pushy bitch. Or maybe they just operated on a different timescale than…
Than mortals.
There. She was finally thinking like Dima, his mouth pursing before he spatthe rubes,like it was something shameful to be born human. Like anyone had any control over what they were plonked on earth with.
Did that make her mother innocent, too?
Finally, Raven made a short, annoyed sound. “You gonna just sit there all night, then?”
“I don’t want to be rude,” Nat reiterated. “I’m a visitor. Even though I didn’t ask to be born here.”
Coyote’s mouth gaped wide; he made a short chuffing sound and a perfect smoke ring drifted lazily free. Raven’s head turned; he regarded Nat sideways again, contorting his lips. A jet of smoke from the corner of his mouth shaped itself into a broad-fletched arrow, flickering across a drench of firelight to whoosh through the ring, both shapes dissolving in hot spark-laced updraft.
“I wouldn’t worry.” All the mockery left Raven’s easy baritone. One crimson-ringed eye fixed her with a steady glare; the shadow of his head briefly blurred like clay under running water. “When the white mothers have choked swallowing what they gave birth to, when the white fathers have beaten and raped until they can murder and rape no more, we will still be here. We are the makers, and we are eternal. Them? They’re scavengers.”
Coyote nodded, his cheeks caving in as he sucked on thecigarette. “Still, even scavengers have a place.” The words rode a scree of smoke, almost indistinguishable from the fire’s breath.
“I don’t want to be like them.” It bolted free of Nat’s mouth, and she hunched even more. It wasn’t quite the truth, and she was almost compelled to spit the rest of it out. “I don’t want to be likeher.”
Oh, Mom, I’m sorry. But I don’t. I can’t.Following the realization came the inevitable next step.And I won’t.
The nuns said it was a mortal sin to disobey, to rebel against God’s plan. Maria Drozdova would no doubt agree, with only a small proviso:Shewas the goddess of the little yellow house, and her word was law. Any defiance Nat attempted ended in abject failure, sobbing in the stifling darkness of her closet while Mom raged and Leo did his best to ameliorate.
But Nat was no longer a child. Everything was a sin, which meant nothing was—if the game was rigged from the start, why bother following any rules at all?
“I’d say that’s your problem.” Coyote sighed. It smelled half like unburned pipe tobacco and half like skunky weed, and the tiny lights rising from the meadow drifted ever higher.
Guilt settled even deeper on Nat’s shoulders, another inevitability. What had she expected? “What if I want to live?”
“Now there’s a question,” Raven said, softly. He shifted again, with a faint clacking sound, and took a long drag off his own smoke. “What if you do?”
“Then my mother dies.” The sentence stung Nat’s tongue, hurt her lips. Of course she could lie, even to herself, and say she wanted thembothto live. But that didn’t seem to be a possibility.
No, Nat realized. It really wasn’t an option, and somehow she’d known as much all along, the knowledge buried like most unexamined childhood truths.
But still, it was her mother. And she loved Maria, didn’t she?
I love her. But I’m afraid of her, too. And I don’t want to be eaten.
“I’ve died before,” Coyote said. He trailed his fingers througha raft of exhaled smoke. The vapor clung to his skin, granted temporary solidity. “Ain’t that bad.”
“Not pleasant, either.” Raven’s shape blurred again, and Nat was suddenly glad it was nighttime and the fire’s playful shadows hid whatever he was doing. “If we’re being honest. Might as well.”
“Yes.” His cousin nodded. Orange light flashed against silver conchas. “Might as well. Guess we’ve wasted enough time.”
