Page 47 of The Salt-Black Tree
The final, flicking tail of the cat-crowd disappeared into lifting mist. The funeral march vanished with a long last mournful note, and Nat realized, with a painful internal thump, what she’d just seen. It was an old short story, one always sending a chill through her.
“Le roi est mort,” she murmured.
Then I,one of the dinner guests—or Puss, sleeping by the fire—would shout,am king of the cats!He’d vanish up the chimney with a bang, never to be seen again. It didn’t have to be an omen if it was just literature, right? After Jay’s party, she shouldn’t have been surprised.
But she was. All the unreality of the last few days crowded her, poking and prodding.
She managed to peel her fingers from the balustrade, tooka few staggering steps inside followed by the returning hum of mortal traffic, and closed the glass door. Nat stood for a few moments, scrubbing at her face, her palms solid as Georgia’s, the rest of her brimming with deep, ineffable warmth.
Why a cat funeral straight from folklore should be the straw breaking the camel’s back, she had no idea. But it was a long while before she could drop her hands and return to the bed and its cargo of bright gifts. She closed the arcana-box, nestling it back in its home, and set about replacing everything else.
Marisol expected Nat to survive, no matter what else happened. It was, at least and at last, a real vote of confidence. That was how she was going to take it, anyway. Still, she spent the afternoon refolding and repacking, closing each suitcase with a slight, definite thump.
It would be nice to dress up, to play the part, to pretend. But if Nat Drozdova was going to be roped into a country-crossing scavenger hunt, shoved from one square to the next on a rigged chessboard and terrified out of her mind by mouthless cheesecloth-veiled shadows, gangster gods, rattlers, coyotes, and old folklore, she was going to do it on her own terms.
And in her own damn clothes.
COTILLION GIFT
It was almost dusk, and Dima’s suit was freshly brushed. His boot-toes glittered, and he had even cleaned his gun, humming with anticipation. Settled at the Elysium’s bar nursing his third tall, skinny glass of almost slush-frozen vodka, he didn’t move when the smoky-opaque swinging door to the lobby opened and a warm draft tinged with sweet jasmine announced the arrival of Spring.
It was pleasant to anticipate, to draw out the moment when he would turn, slowly, and see what Marisol had given hisdevotchka.
He didn’t get a chance. Nat settled gracefully on the stool next to him as the mechanically silent bartender glided forward to provide service. “Coffee, please,” the Drozdova said. “I think I might need it.”
The ’tender gave soft assent before wheeling away, and Dmitri shook his head. “I said,wear nice dress.”
“Didn’t feel like it.” Under a soft cloud of wildly curling buckwheat-honey hair alive with gold, Nat’s dark gaze was direct as prey’s would never be. A black T-shirt, a worn red-and-gray flannel button-down, jeans, and the same boots she’d worn since New York—neat and clean, certainly, and full of reflected glow from the fire of a young divinity, but hardly party attire. Her backpack, heavy with humming numinous force, hung on one slim shoulder.
Oh, Spring didn’t need one of Coco’s dresses or Marisol’sgifts; the lily did not require gilding. But it would have been nice to see her like that again. Or to think that maybe, in some small way, she wanted to please someone other than her voracious mother.
The tinge of brass in his mouth wasn’t quite anger, so Dima shrugged and took another hit of vodka, letting the cold fill him before the alcoholic fire spread. “Don’t need it, anyway.”
For some reason that made hiszaikasmile, soft lips curving and the dimple peeking coyly at him again. “Thank you.”
Her coffee arrived; they sat almost shoulder to shoulder. The bar was deserted, but the lobby hummed—news of her arrival had spread, and there was a line of carriages before the Elysium’s door. Even divinities, powers, and principalities hungered to chew a juicy bit of gossip.
“Here.” Dima dug in his suit’s breast pocket, his fingertips finding what they wanted and drawing it out of a nothingness deep as hunger itself. “For you.”
Tortoiseshell sunglasses, the frame just big enough to make her look like a movie star, the arms sturdy and the earpieces not too tight. Nestled in the pocket since their first convenience-store stop on this voyage, they were burnished by proximity to a divinity, and not a single scratch marred the dark lenses. He set them on the bar, gently.
Of course, she’d turn them down. A careful little girl, taking nothing from Dima Konets. He wouldn’t even be surprised, would he? Not shocked, and not insulted, either. Just the way the world worked, with her place in the vast pantheon so different than his.
Nat studied the sunglasses, then examined his face. Dima’s gaze wandered away; he finished his vodka with long angry swallows. Next she’d askwhere did these come from, or simply sayno thanks, I’m good.
“They’re pretty.” Hiszaikapicked them up, probably looking for the tag. She flicked them open, tried them on, those big darkeyes vanishing. Her dimple remained, deepening slightly; she pushed the glasses up until they nested in her hair. Maybe she’d learned that little trick from Marisol, but then again, rube girls wore them that way too, like a headband. “Thank you again, Dima.”
It don’t make us friends.He swallowed the words, set his empty glass down. “Finish your coffee. We go to party.”
“I’ve never liked parties,” she muttered. “And the last one was awful.”
What could he say? “Cheer up. This one likely worse.”
“Thanks for the warning.” She pushed her mug away with a fingertip, unwilling after all. “Who’s driving, you or me?”
“Neither.” He slithered off his seat, landed with a jolt, and was glad he’d polished his boots. Strolling in with her on his arm would be a finger in the eye of Friendly’s local face, and even Marie might enjoy the show. “We go for little ride with pretty horses, instead. Don’t worry, Dima will be right next to you.”
“You make it sound like a threat.” Yet she followed him, obediently, from the bar.
