Page 55 of The Salt-Black Tree
“I have it,” Maria croaked. A momentary flush crept into her gaunt, wrinkled cheeks. “Baba, I have it.” A croupy, rheumy cough spattered bright crimson, yellow sludge, and traces of golden ichor onto her sharp chin, a sore at its bottom point glaring angrily. “I will give it to you. She’sin the Tree, you can… you can do what…”
“A merry chase, gathering old arcana.” Baba shook her head, her wild cloud of iron-hued hair fringing into white at the tips. The heavy wrapped lace of her black dress whispered as she straightened. “Very smart, Maschenka. A good plan.”
The sky didn’t change color, but the sunlight thinned. The fluorescents overhead buzzed, their song thickening as shadows acquired greater weight. Every shade-edge became sharp, and where the light was blocked by a solid body a faint boiling stirred, like oily ink dropped into fresh water.
“Only thing I can’t figure out is why you didn’t send her with a car, Mascha.” Dmitri laid the crackling brown bouquet at the foot of the bed. Maria’s feet were indistinct hillocks; she was skeleton-thin by now, held to existence only by the beldame’s gracious refusal to descend. “Still be chasing her if you did, I think.”
Maria’s gaze flew to Leo again, and the old man rocked back on his heels. Her vengefulness lacked its former strength, however, so he recovered almost instantly, and rummaged in a pocket. “Sigareta?” he said, with only a token quaver at the end of the word.
“Nyet, dyad’da, spasibo.” Dima studied him closely now—mere politeness, since he already knew or guessed this man’s relation to hisdevotchka. “Not yet. Let me guess. Papa?”
“Uncle,” Maria rasped, but Leo nodded.
“Da,” he said. “My beautiful girl.”
“Does you proud.” Dima patted his chest with a flat hand, twice. “Dmitri Alexevich Konets,dos’vedanya.”
“Lev Nikoleyevich Myshkin.” Perhaps this old man was where Nat gained her politeness from. “Once I was a prince, too. But that was the old country.”
“Shut up,” Maria husked. Leo dropped his gaze, and returned to smoking in silence.
“I’d shake hands, but…” Dima shook his dark head, turned back to gaze at the woman on the bed. “I made a promise, my hungry Maschenka. You must know.”
“Baba.” Maria stirred, her sticklike arms raising, her wasted legs puffing the coverlet. “Baba, I have it,you can have it back!”
The window gave a burst of freezing wind, and the shadows thickened. The beldame and the thief burned with vitality, bright in the face of that consuming, and the old man by the fluttering pinkish curtains was by no means as real, asthere. But he was more solid than the furniture, and not nearly as washed-out as his great love, whose face was a skull and whose hair, once rich gold, was now only thin whitish hanks clinging to a yellowing, drawn-tight scalp.
“Did you thinkIcoveted the damn thing?” The beldame clicked her tongue, a harsh wooden sound. “Dear me, Mascha. You imagine everyone’s like you; that’s the downfall of greed.” She straightened, stepping away from the bed. One of the machines gave a slight squeal, cringing as her rough silken skirt brushed its plastic casing. Its display, tracking Maria Drozdova’s slow, stuttering heartbeat, disappeared under a burst of static. “Whatever you’re going to do, Konets, the time is now.”
Dima bore down on the bed. Maria let out a whispery cricketscream; she was too weak to struggle much. Leo studied the floor.
The thief’s fingertips brushed Maria’s bed jacket. A slight tingle raced up his arms—a dark-eyed girl had touched its buttons, her aching unanswered love brimming free and slopping over black silken stuff embroidered with cheerful red roses. One of the blossoms lingered over a skinny shoulder; Dima bent closer, closer, grinning as the old Drozdova tried desperately to fend him off. The backpack slid, arrested by his hand secure around the strap, barring it—and everything inside—from any reunion, however temporary.
He bit, teeth shearing effortlessly through fabric and flesh, even sinking into the ball of the humerus underneath. There wasn’t much blood, but he drew like a mosquito until he had a mouthful of bitter, brackish fluid. In her former strength, itwould be rich golden ichor; fading into mortality as her daughter waxed, it degraded into scarlet blood. Now it was practically dust, but there was enough for a mouthful.
And that, indeed, was all he needed. Dima Konets straightened, making a soft humming sound of satisfaction and stepping away; his dark head turned and he spat the sludge.
He had promised to fill his mouth with the thief’s blood, and the oath was fulfilled. His tongue flickered, cleaning sharp white. Working the jacket’s threads free was another job, and he set about it, like a cat surprised by a lemon peel.
Maria’s screaming was barely audible. Baba glanced at Leo. “Anything to say?” The beldame was rigid, her hands knotted bone-white fists under a mass of fraying black threads. Her skirt moved again, as if something other than legs writhed under the material.
Leo took a long last drag from his cigarette. “My little one…” he whispered. “What will you tell her?”
“Don’t got to tell her shit,” Dima said. He picked at his teeth with a thumbnail, his mouth a sour, distorted smile.
“She knows,” Baba said, and perhaps it was kindness in her dry, businesslike voice.
Perhaps.
Leo closed his eyes. His shoulders slumped wearily. Maria stiffened, her back arching. The wound on her shoulder blackened; there would be bruise-deep finger-marks spreading from it—the brand of a divinity whose time was done, Baba’s prerogative to grant or withhold.
Winter’s scythe had descended, and the cut was irrevocable.
The shadows swarmed, their clawed hands begging; their mouthless faces pressed against prey. It could be painless, true. The Cold Lady often granted narcotic ease at the very end, when she judged it warranted or necessary; Baba and her other faces could do as much.
But sometimes, they did not.
Regardless, it didn’t take long. The shadows crawledinside,consuming. The whistling cricketscreams were mercifully short. Leo’s breathing grew labored; the divinity who had brought him across an ocean was gone. His fate was notthose who eat;simple transparency thinned him until there was nothing but a faint scent of harsh black burningmakhorkawhere he had stood.
