Page 46 of The Salt-Black Tree
Great.“As long as it doesn’t end like Jay’s party, I think I’ll manage.” Nat followed Martin into a familiar suite—green carpet, white birch, the gas insert fireplace burning softly, a star in the gray daytime. The young man in the red uniform settled the leather suitcases on a long padded bench at the foot of the bed, and hurriedly retreated without waiting for a tip as if he didn’t quite trust her temper—or he suspected Dmitri might be up to no good in the hall.
Either way, Nat had to admit, it was a reasonable precaution.
Two of the suitcases were stuffed with clothes, fitting Nat as if they were tailored. Jeans, T-shirts, sundresses in deep jewel-tones, two drape-y evening numbers—one black, one white—two pairs of canvas shoes, cork-soled wedges just like Marisol’s, a big floppy straw sun hat, casual slacks and blouses, two pairs of green flip-flops, a set of raw silk pyjamas, two pairs of kitten heels to match the evening gowns. It was amazing how so muchcould fit in confined spaces, and she wasn’t sure she’d be able to repack it all.
The third case held a travel bag full of high-end skincare as well as shampoo, conditioner, an old-fashioned boar-bristle hairbrush, plus two wide-tooth sandalwood combs. There was also a long linen cover-up for the poolside, a brief black bikini Nat couldn’t see herself wearing, brightly patterned sarongs for beach lounging, a freezable eyemask, and other odds and ends along with two plain wooden boxes. The smaller held jewelry—studs that looked like actual diamonds, gold hoops too restrained to be anything but real, a slim velvet case holding a string of baroque pearls, and a teardrop of bright green surrounded by colorless gems, the silver setting ornate but resting high against Nat’s breastbone light as a feather. Thin silver bangles matching Marisol’s gold ones chimed on Nat’s left wrist, and she stared at bright cloth scattered across the plump, pristine hotel bed, the sun hat smoothing out its crumples as it expanded, shoes tangled in material and the evening dresses very aware of their exalted status, laid carefully across velvet pillows.
The bigger wooden box, smelling faintly of cedar, was almost empty except for velvet padding around nonexistent shapes. After a moment, she realized what it was meant to hold—a Knife with a flint blade, a Cup with a unicorn handle, and a heavy iron Key.
Nat closed her eyes.
It was beautiful, luxurious, perfect—but she wanted to be driving. No, that wasn’t quite right.
Nat Drozdova wanted to behome. The little yellow house on South Aurora was almost always full of suffocating tension, but without that weight she was depressurized, a fish gasping on a stony shore. She wanted her small bedroom, her closet that had never held as much as the suitcases now open and spilling their bounty across satin, damask, and fat, self-satisfied pillows. She wanted the kitchen with the ancient white Frigidaire and the oldBakelite radio; she wanted the parlor’s stillness and the houseplants in every room, even the postage-stamp foyer. She wanted to go out the back door, down the porch steps, and take the hard right turn to the tiny garage, where the Léon-Bollée crouched and Leo’s woodworking tools were hung neatly on pegs, sawdust and gasoline-grease smells mixing together to spellsafety. She wanted the flagstone path in the front yard, the white picket fence, and the hum of the most insomniac city on earth audible the instant one stepped outside any refuge.
Most of all, she wanted to stand in the middle of the master bedroom, breathing in Maria’s perfume. Sometimes when she was in a good mood Mom held Nat close, stroking her hair and humming.
My little dumpling, you will do something nice for Mama now, hm?
She still loved her mother. Even now, even knowing… what she knew. The painful, unwilling child’s affection was a dry weight in her throat, jostled by the rattling of Georgia’s “gift” lurking somewhere far deeper.
If you didn’t accept a present, what the hell did you do with it? Who did it belong to?
“I want to live,” she heard herself whisper, in the deep hush of an Elysium suite.
Did that make her just as selfish as Maria? The sisters at school talked about sacrifice and service, and so did Georgia in her spare, serene desert. But if there were fifty different Christs nailed to fifty different crosses, what was all the agony for?
What was thepoint?
The big window in the suite’s bedroom was a French door; a small balcony with curlicued wrought-iron railings looked over a curiously empty, fogbound street. As soon as Nat stepped outside the humidity wrapped around her velvety-thick, almost impossible to breathe through—the Elysium’s air-conditioning was tip-top, at least.
The mist smelled of salt, silt, fish, frying oil, and red mud; streetlights like old gaslamps sputtered, uncertain in the fitful daylight. Some had multicolored Christmas lights wrapped around them.
How many days had Nat lost? Dmitri hadn’t said the exact date, justpast Christmas. The subtle inner sense Nat was beginning to rely on more than unconsciously told her Mom was still alive, but…
Here she was in the Big Easy, and she wasn’t dipping beignets in chicory coffee, listening to jazz, or ambling among crowds of tourists. She was stuck in a plush, gilded prison cell, waiting for dark to fall and another agonizing, horrifying test.
A sound pierced the fog—long mellow notes, observing a stately pace. Nat cocked her head, listening intently.
Music. Shadows moved at street level; she recognized what the musicians were playing and winced just as the soupy white vapor began to thin.
It was a funeral march, familiar from childhood cartoons on the bulky old rabbit-eared television in the parlor.Pray for the dead… and the dead will pray for thee…The shadows moved in stately lines, but they were small, and definitely not human.
Nat’s heart pounded. Her hands curled around the iron banister, refusing to let go. The funny crawling sensation on her scalp was each hair attempting to stand straight up, and it prickled down her back, down her arms, spilled riverine down her legs, and made her breathing short and silent.
I cannot fucking believe this.But there it was, right in front of her.
Cats. Tabbies, tuxedos, Siamese, Persians, calicos, shorthairs, longhairs, even hairless sphynxes, every shade and every size, Maine coons to ragdolls to teacup kittens marching several abreast down cracked pavement parting in scabrous patches to show old bricks and the occasional cobble.
People rarely tore up a road and replaced it; they just laidanother coat of paving down and called it good. Children, even divinities, were a fresh layer over the older path, Nat thought, and watched the cortege move, slink-stepping with regal patience.
A small gloss-polished open hearse was preceded by thirteen black cats, not in harness but simply walking in unison, their tails high as ostrich feathers. An invisible force drew the carriage along, its wheels making a slight grinding sound, and it was that tiny noise that convinced Nat she wasn’t having some sort of psychotic divinity-breakdown.
Shewas sane, dammit. The madness was in the world itself.
The glossy black coffin bore a tiny gilt crown, winking slyly as the fog thinned still more. It passed her balcony, none of the cats deigning to look up, and in its wake came even more felines, padfoot-quiet, their shoulders moving with the supple swimming grace of predators.
By the time the procession began to straggle, sunshine was peeling off even more fog, and it was tepid-warm for the end of December. New York was probably still snowed under, though without a fresh application of white all the ice would be dingy now.
