Page 13 of The Salt-Black Tree
The same triple chime. “I’m sorry. You have reached a number that has been disconnected or—”
She tried again, third time the charm and everything, but all she got was the same bland message.
“No,” someone in the pink restroom whispered, a broken, heartsick little syllable. “No, no no. No.”
It was one thing to know there was nothing to say, to suspect Leo didn’t really want to hear from her anyway because loving Mom left no room for anyone else. It was another thing to think that maybe he was relieved she was gone and the number was changed because…
The little yellow house sat behind a rotting picket fence, slumping with exhaustion. The garden, once a golden-haired Drozdova’s pride and joy, was now a wilderness of dead snow-covered sticks; the brick chimney was busy quietly crumbling in increments. The big picture window in the parlor was broken, a sawtooth leer of jagged shards; the front door squeaked quietly as a cold wind pushed at its chipped, peeling paint.
The sudden mental image, clear and overwhelming, hit her like a punch to the gut. The phone dropped from her nerveless fingers, skittering across well-mopped tile, its display face still glowing green as a brief blare of tinny static burst from its innards. Nat sagged, trembling, against the wooden door, its bar lock giving a slight groan.
She wanted to say something, maybeoh Godorpleaseorwhy are you doing this to me?But her mouth was dry, and tasted of crumbling loam.
Dirt in my mouth.Except she hadn’t eaten anything since Ranger’s cornbread that morning—and wasn’t it weird how the entire universe could change in a day, everything true suddenly gone and the entire collection of whirling bullshit constituting so-called “normality” staggering away like a singing drunk down a city sidewalk?
She pawed at the lock and spilled out of the stall, her black backpack’s unzipped top flapping as she tacked unevenly for the sink. The mirror, nice and clean when she walked in, was now fogged. The entire bathroom groaned and pinged, sudden warmth forcing expansion upon drywall, lumber, metal, ceramic tile.
What the hell is going on?This wasn’t a lake of fire stuffed with dead, screaming sinners like the nuns lingered over describing or rotating priests thundered about in mandatory chapel, but maybe Nat rated a personally tailored afterlife since she had, after all, committed the mortal, inescapable sin of being born and ruining her mother’s life.
The faucet still worked. She rinsed her hands mechanically with cold water, splashed her face, and ignored the handy silver container of paper towels bolted to the wall. Dripping onto her peacoat and shivering despite the heat, she stared at the mirror’s clouded eye.
If she wiped away heavy condensation, what would she see?
She couldn’t get the image out of her head. Her house—no.
Hermother’shouse. Was Mama still alive? She could call the hospice to check, Nat supposed, and looked for the phone.
The floor was empty. Even when Nat folded carefully down, her hair held conscientiously aside as she peered in every conceivable corner, there was nothing but squeaky-clean tile, even behind the toilet’s white porcelain column. The damn thing flushed while she was peering around its base, too, startling her so badly she straightened and almost reeled into the wall.
Oh, for fuck’s sake.Nat lunged for her backpack, snatching the straps before it could disappear too. Her own voice startled her.
“I need to get out of here.” Husky and slow, she sounded like a woman waking after a bad nightmare.That’s not entirely inaccurate.“And away from him,” she added.
A muffled, silvery chiming broke the thick, muggy silence. It sounded like someone had rung a bell in the hall outside—not just any bell, but the one clamped to the handlebars of the pink bicycle Leo had found as a rusted wreck and lovingly restored to apple-pie order for little Nat Drozdova.
He wouldn’t just change the landline number, would he? Not unless Mom told him to, for some incomprehensible reason or another. When Nat was young, her mother’s swiftly veering moods were terrifying; later, they were just like the weather. You simply hunched your shoulders and scuttled for your next destination, letting the squall split the sky overhead, hoping the lightning wouldn’t strike you down this time.
Dmitri was probably waiting impatiently for her return. Maybe the bell was someone else needing to use the restroom.Nell’s place had been deserted, but someone caught in bad weather would see the big golden window, the neonOPENsign, and wander in. Customers always descended in waves, wheeling and dipping like flocks of pigeons or starlings.
Nat pushed her hair back with damp fingers, zipping her trusty backpack and hitching it onto her shoulder. A clear droplet traced down the mirror, gathering strength from the heavy coat of mist, and even the bathroom’s corners were looking a little damp.
Was that me?It wasn’t out of the question, weird shit had collected around her ever since she could remember and the trend was only accelerating.
Everyone acted like they knew her, and knew what the hell was really going on. It was too much to hope that they’d let her in on the joke. It was like being in school again, the other kids laughing behind cupped hands, pointing at Nat the weirdo, Natty the freak, Nat the witch-girl.
I wish I was.Nat pushed violently at the door, bursting through. The same strange internalthumpthat meant entering a divinity’s space thumped her solar plexus and she halted in confusion, a soft warm breeze caressing her wet cheeks, tickling her chin.
The door swung shut, a heavy moaning creak from overstressed hinges. She whirled, but it had already closed with a heavy, finalsnapand was nowhere to be seen.
Nat Drozdova found herself next to a massive white fountain at the juncture of concrete walkways cutting through well-watered lawn. Past a long expanse of clipped green grass a massive white building soared, its domes—two smaller ones flanking a larger central curve—glowing with floodlights.
No snow. No prairie, no scrub-clad or timbered hills. No mountains, but high hills in the distance veined with bright traces of streetlamps. A smog-tinged city night enfolded her, sirens rising in the distance over a rumblemutter of traffic. Hereyes stung briefly, adjusting to bright floodlights. It was night, but the big white building was lit with a pitiless glow.
Nausea hit, hard and fast. Nat bent over, and retched so hard she almost turned inside out.
She couldn’t even produce bile. When the stomach-clenching faded, she straightened, wiping at her sour mouth.
“What…” All the breath left her, because she recognized the massive white building from movies. It was an observatory, and it was all the way across the continent from New York. “Oh, hell.”
