Page 62 of The Salt-Black Tree
The engine behind her revved slightly, a silvered boot-toe feathering the gas pedal.I like this game,the sound said,but hurry up.
She paused just long enough to make it clear she wasn’t going to be rushed, then set off again. Brownstones on either side held echoes—the slap of a snowball against her back, running feet, children’s voices.
Crazy Natty! Witch-girl! Freak!
And Leo’s hand, huge and warm, holding hers.Little shits,he often muttered, balefully.Pay no attention, Natchenka.
Nat tasted garden dirt, mineral water from the ancient green hoses that didn’t dare to leak when Maria handled them. She watched the sidewalk’s familiar veins through a slop of melt and scattered rock salt, deicer pellets mixing in at intervals.
Finally, she halted. Exhaled sharply, and looked up.
The white picket fence was no longer white but rotting cream. Uprights listed crazily, gaps like punched-out teeth along its brokenback length. The gate hung listless on rusted hinges; they gave a scream as she pushed, stepping over the invisible boundary into a cold bath of yet more memory.
Don’t lie, Natchenka. None of your temper. Go clean your room.You call that finished? Don’t spoil her, Leo. Don’t look at me like that, little girl. Cats don’t speak here.
The yellow house was indeed a ruin. The roof had caved, its sides bulged shapeless, and the garage—normally hidden around the side along with the small gate leading to the back alley lined with garbage cans—squatted like a tumor, paint scab-peeling on its sides. The fallen stone chimney was a snow-covered cairn; the front door sagged inward. She didn’t even want to think about what had happened to the houseplants, and nothing in the cupboards would be usable or edible now. The frozen borscht in its margarine tubs would be safe until spring, but digging to get to it was a chancy proposition at best.
Mom’s jewelry was probably in the wreckage of the upstairs, gold rings and gold hoops, but Nat felt no urge to go inside and look for it. Nor did she want to find her teddy bear, or even her ancient duct-taped laptop.
The mortal Nat Drozdova was gone. She was home, at last.
“Fuck,” Nat said, softly. “I hate this place.”
A sharp lighter-click, a harsh inhale. “Eh,zaika.”
Nat turned.
Dmitri Konets stood on the other side of the ramshackle, quivering gate. His hair was freshly combed, his suit just a few shades away from the truest possible black, and his boot-toes gleamed. He pinched a cigarette filter between his right first finger and thumb, taking a short drag; his left hand held her old school backpack.
“Welcome back,” he said.
ALL PAID UP
“You’re late.” The ground here remembered her; Nat was fairly sure that if he stepped over the gate’s threshold she’d have an advantage.
Exactly what good it would do was up for debate, though.
Dima shrugged. Behind him, South Aurora went about its quiet residential midday business, taking no notice of a glossy black muscle car parked in front of what had been a little yellow house standing in proud defiance of stodgy fudge-brown neighbors. Technically, the car was across the sidewalk and a hedge of packed snow, but no mortal would notice or complain.
“Thieves, men,” the gangster said. “Both unreliable. You a big girl, should know that.”
Oh, she did. “Everything’s unreliable.”
“Some things, not so much.” Of course he was contrary. It was in his nature. He stuck the cigarette into the side of his mouth and continued, squinting through rising, heavy smoke. “You could fix it, you know. Easiest thing in the world. Your ground, your power. Nice and safe.”
I suppose I could.Nat shrugged. Her dress-hem moved on a warm breeze, and the fence rippled, creaking like dead dry branches under a heavy wind.
Dima lifted his left hand. He extended his arm over the gate, wincing only slightly. His suit-sleeve rippled against invisible resistance, and Nat tensed. Her backpack hung, a large ripe fruit,and when he opened his hand it landed with more of a thump than a squelch on cracked, slush-drenched flagstones.
The gangster almost-flinched once more, but he slowly pulled his hand back, his dark gaze locked with hers. The faint crimson pinpricks in his pupils swelled once, dangerously, and when he had finished the motion and shook his left arm, flicking his fingers, snow hissed into melt, a long branching lightning-line up the sidewalk.
“There,” he said. “Insurance. All paid up.”
Nat took a step. Another. The espadrille soles clung like they had spikes; she was in no danger of slipping. “Not quite.”
“Well, you could visit Baba.” He nodded, blinking against the smoke. It probably stung.
No doubt he liked it that way.
