Page 53 of The Salt-Black Tree
It grew warmer.
Round blue lights bobbed amid the trees, ghostly reflections hanging on flat black water. Salt-smell mixed with mud and vegetable rot; a few times another, much fouler odor made her entire midriff cramp before the reek blew away on a short, faint breeze that never managed to move her hair or cool the pinpricks of sweat blooming on her forehead.
Warmer yet, and the darkness was no longer winter-chilly but moist-warm. The heat was like the inside of a giant mouth, perpetual bacteria-laden exhalation from a huge digestive tract.
The bluish lights weren’t fireflies. They were much bigger, and a few approached curiously before turning away, distracted, small skull-faces with rolling, searching dark eye-holes and small scream-hinged mouths. A scientist might call them swamp gas, but Nat heard tiny forlorn cries when they drifted close enough, and it seemed quite likely they had pissed Marie off in some fashion, or disrespected the ride.
Who knew what other dangers lurked out here? A body rotting in all this muck might never be found, and a soul could wander forever this maze of tree-corridors, glassy water choked with moss or algae, and hanging shifting moss-curtains.
Time is a river, too. As the snake-head slipped easily for another shore, gray light filtered through mist rising from the water. It wasn’t daylight; Nat looked up. Another short soft sigh of wonder escaped her parted lips.
A pendulous cheese-rotten moon now hung above the bayou, peeping through the imperfect cover of moss-hung branches. The trees pulled back, taking fluttering veils with them, and it was just the mist, the snake’s head, and ripples in dark, unseen water.
And on the far bank, a massive twisted trunk gleamed as wet as the serpent’s sides.
SALT-BLACK TREE
It was impossible to tell what kind of tree it had been. No leaf, needle, or blossom clung to its spreading, begging branches. None of the lush, teeming growth dared approach this silent sentinel; it stood upon a dark, blasted rise empty as its arms. A salt-mineral tang reached Nat’s nose—this bayou was brackish, the sea creeping stealthily inward.
Like a thief.
The snake’s steady motion slowed. Its tongue flicked unceasingly now, and its head curved from side to side, testing. Finally, it chose an angle of approach, and eased closer.
Apparently the giant creature didn’t like this place, and Nat didn’t blame him. The cloying warmth had intensified, and under a flood of overripe yellowish moonlight the trunk and painfully contorted limbs were crusted with leprous damp. Salt, Nat realized—the dead wood was caked with it. More wet, grinding crystals oozed from the bark’s channels, collected in clefts, and fell with tiny plops when it became too heavy to cling.
Oh. So that’s what Mom meant.Nat shivered. The Well under its perpetually blooming cherry tree felt uncanny and the big cedar in Coyote’s clearing was simply uninterested, but this tree was somehowaware. It watched Nat draw closer on the head of a giant viridian snake.
And she could swear it recognized her.
Tiny shudders raced down her back. The cloying heat intensified, and that slight breeze just made it worse. Sweat gathered every place it could—her neck, her temples, behind her ears, her armpits, the small of her back, the fold where her thighs met her hips, under the curve of her buttocks, behind her knees. Even her ankles, safely in her boots, were damp. Her toes were about to wrinkle. How did people evenbreathein this part of the country?
The snake’s head reached the shore. It edged gingerly forward, flattened itself, and now was the moment of truth. Nat had to dismount.
“Thank you,” she whispered, faintly. All the divinities seemed to find her manners hilarious, useless, or some combination of the above, but what the hell else could you do in a situation like this?
Sliding from the noggin of a giant mountain-carrying water snake couldn’t really be accomplished gracefully. Nat bent her knees, slipped, and let out a miserable little cry cut in half as she jolt-landed on powder-dry beach, tiny talcum-puffs rising around her faithful boots. A distant splash broke the hush, and a soft coughing sound as something feathered burst into flight followed before stillness folded over the world again. The moonlight, pitiless now that it had a clear avenue, poured over the shoreline, black water giving up curls of white fogbreath. The moon limned moss and foliage cringing from the tree’s environs, and edged every snake-scale with silver.
The snake eyed her sidelong, its tongue flickering madly. It clearly didn’t like this spot. Nat didn’t like it either, but she could see why Mom would hide the Heart here.
Nobody would just drop by this particular vacation destination.
Knock, and you will be answered.Well, that was pretty simple, even if none of the rest of this was. Maybe she should even be glad Dmitri wasn’t here with his nasty comments and murderous grin.
Still… it might be nice to just hand someone,anyonethe damn gem and close her eyes, waiting for whatever would happen afterward. The heat was enervating, and she’d just crisscrossed all of America in varying states of terror and despair, not to mention aching grief.
She was, Nat Drozdova realized, so fucking tired of all this bullshit.
“Thanks for the ride,” she repeated. Cotton-muffling silence ate the words. “I suppose I’d better get it over with, right?”
The snake withdrew, a long resigned sine-wave of muscle, scales, and fluid motion. It lingered offshore, though, a slithering silver-dappled shadow in tepid brackish water.
Nat turned her back on the shore, trudging slowly up the rise. The sand was full of cinders; they crunched disconcertingly, like tiny bones. More bitter gray puffs rose. No wonder nothing grew here. Had some malignant divinity blasted this place, or did certain locations just end up like this, poisoned with power? The sense of vibrating force, ofthere-ness, was undeniable; maybe a location could be a divinity as well.
Were all the myths true, or did the truth make the myth?
The hush was as cloying as the heat. The moon’s face turned a deeper sickly yellow, and its crater-shadows formed a leering, decayed grin.
I don’t like this.But there was no choice.
