Page 11 of The Salt-Black Tree
Nell’s steady motion halted. She darted a venomous glance at Dmitri, who was still eyeing the kitchen-glare like he expected it to spit a cascade of dollar bills.
Maybe it would. Nat was suddenly, overwhelmingly tired of divinities, powers, arcana, and everything else. Going back to the little yellow house on South Aurora, heading upstairs, and curling up in the forgiving darkness of her bedroom closet seemed like the best idea in theworld.
Unfortunately, that small dark place, stale with the smell of clothes waiting to be worn and shoes a growing girl could squeeze maybe a few more toe-sore days out of, wasn’t the best refuge. Even in its very back corner the voices penetrated—Mom and Uncle Leo fighting, always over something Nat had done,or failed to do, or one of Maria’s punishments. He was always attempting some kind of intercession, and more often than not wrung one free.
Uncle.Wasn’t that a laugh. The prepaid cell in the bag she was clutching could call him, but what was there to say?
Nat Drozdova was utterly, irrevocably alone.
“What have you done to her?” Nell’s fists rested on her hips, and she glared at the gangster. At least her eyes were a few shades darker than Maria Drozdova’s, otherwise Nat might have flinched. “Konets, I swear, if you’ve—”
“Iprotecther,” he retorted, hotly. “Little doll just sawthose who eatfor first time. I thought she might like burger, fries. Maybe even milkshake.”
“Those who…” Nell examined Nat again, top to toe. “Oh, hell. No wonder you’re pale. Chocolate, I think. Fixes everything. Have a little coffee, sweetheart. It’ll help.”
Nothing will help this.Nat kept trying to smile, but her mouth wobbled. “I’m sorry,” she managed, through the lump in her throat. “Is… is there a restroom? Please?”
She didn’t need to pee, but if she sat here much longer she might burst into inglorious, messy, childish sobs.
“Over there, under the moose.” Nell pointed; there was indeed a giant stuffed moose head over a pair of swinging saloon doors. “Here.” Her hand flashed again, producing—hey, presto, neatest trick of the week—a crisp white handkerchief. “Go on, take that with you. On the house.”
“Eh,devotchka.” Dmitri spun on his barstool, eyeing her suspiciously. Tiny moisture-jewels dotted his dark hair, and his boot-toes glittered sharply. “No back door that way. Remember what—”
“Leave me alone.” It was a wonder the words didn’t choke her. Nat couldn’t make an arm unfold enough to take the hankie, even though it was probably a huge honor or something, considering the other woman was a divinity. “Just leave me thefuckalone,Konets.” She blundered off the stool, landed with a jolt, and headed for the restroom, the entire bright, cheery place distorting around her. Or maybe it was just the welling tears which made the environs seem wavering and indistinct.
She made it down a short hall lined with framed photos—black and white or sepia-toned, people in frontier dress staring straight-faced into cameras, a tiny breeze fingering her damp forehead. It was uncomfortably warm, her coat no longer a blessing, and she prickled all over. Between the freezing and the heat, contraction and expansion, she was about to shatter like overstressed glass.
It would almost be a relief.
TASTY FARE
“I’ve half a mind to throw you into the kitchen,” Nell hissed, tucking the white cotton square back in one of her capacious skirt-pockets. “Just what are you playing at, Konets?”
His own irritation was a bright sharp blade. No wonder his uncles and nephews stole what they could; trying to be a nice fellow got you nowhere. “I thought she would like a burger, Miz Bonney.” He made every word nice and precise, and kept his hands in plain view.
It didn’t do to get the Homemaker excited. The calico was sweet and old-fashioned, but it hid an entire arsenal.
“She’ll get what she needs. That’s what this House is for.” Nell’s hat lengthened its brim, shadowing her face; only the tip of her nose showed. “You’re hoping to sweet-talk Maria Drozdova’s daughter into—”
“I do nothing to that girl.” Dmitri’s fingers tensed, marble cold and slick against his palms. It would be unpleasant to tear this place apart brick by plank, but if this snide bonneted bitch pushed much further, he would show both her and the Drozdova a thing or two. “In any case, it’s none of your business,Nelly. Her mother stole from me, and will steal from little doll too. If I let her.”
The kitchen’s clatter paused for a moment, the air turning crystalline. Once, women of Nell’s kind had bumped across prairie in covered wagons or arrived on steam-belching trains,determined to bring respectability to a “wild” frontier. Before that, her kind wore dangling chatelaines at their belt and ran households large and small, swishing skirts printed with fingermarks from tiny grasping hands. Back when the rubes were new she’d worn yet another face—the gatherers with pointed digging sticks who brought in most of the tribe’s calories and began laboriously babbling to rube children during mealtimes, language and food molding both offspring and males.Play nice, take turns, share,afterward it turned intoplant, reap, build, store, conserve, protect, maintain.
As the rubes evolved so did she, and the dictum became simple:Use your manners.Or, boiled down to its essence,obey.
Her elder forms still lingered among the indigenous, guttering candles caught in a cold draft of genocide. The tribes had venerated those who kept the fire built, the baskets well woven, and the clothing tidy; survival left them no choice.
When the Europeans arrived on this far shore they brought a Puritan woman with blue eyes and a set, firm mouth, her hands hard with work and her linens always neatly folded while she looked askance at any woman suspected of witchery.
Sometimes she even had benevolent phases, the Bonney. But the other side lurked just underneath, in cold, murderous reservation schools where her elder form’s power was relentlessly worn away, replaced by Nell’s own peculiar ideas of what constituted “civilized.” Sooner or later, a new form of Shamhat would always come along, modernizing and organizing, cleaning and cooking, teaching and training.
It was inevitable.
“Maria’s still alive?” The blue gleams under the bonnet now held a distinct resemblance to gasflame. “But I thought…”
“Still alive.” Dima’s lips pulled back; it wasn’t quite a smile, just a baring of teeth. “But probably not so pretty, now. Perhaps I can get milkshake?”
“Men. Dragged around by their bellies, when it’s not their…”Nell turned away, her lips pursed and calico skirt swirling. On summer days rubes would pack this place, spending tourist dollars on tchotchkes and eating down-home cooking; their pleasure would feed her in turn. The entire town, once a sinkhole of filth and murder, had been dragged relentlessly into a prim, profitable future.
