Page 14 of The Salt-Black Tree
She was in Los Angeles.
THAT EASY
The Laurelgrove still bore traces of Art Deco; remnants of former glory lingered in its pressed-tin ceiling and balky radiators. Hospice rooms with windows were more expensive but naturally a loving daughter wanted her mother to have the best, so pale snowlight fell through thin glass, touching the graying head of a man sitting, stolid and patient, on a pink-cushioned bench. Work-gnarled hands rested easily on jean-clad knees, and his chin was tucked almost to his chest.
Machines beeped and exhaled. Tubes carried liquids and oxygen to an ailing body; Maria Drozdova lay under a sheet and two thin hospital blankets.
Once beautiful enough to stop a prince’s heart across a crowded ballroom, she was now a scarecrow with tarnished gray straw for hair. Her nose had risen, her cheekbones standing out sharply; lines radiated from the corners of her bloodshot blue eyes and thin, bitter-drawn mouth. Her black silk bed jacket embroidered with red roses was still neatly buttoned, the ruin of her hair covered by a pink kerchief tied by Leo’s careful fingers as she stared at him, a faint spark struggling to light in her pupils.
The tube in her throat meant she couldn’t speak, though a man who had lived with her as long as Leo had could certainly decipher a glance.
If he wanted to.
The nurses largely ignored him, and any doctor who glancedin Leo’s direction quickly looked away, even outside visiting hours. The elderly man’s chest expanded and collapsed in time with Maria’s labored breaths, and he seemed content to sit and watch.
A slate-colored afternoon settled over the city, ice congealing on every surface. The sky was too hard for snow; a frigid wind came from the north, whipping both sea and river into high white peaks. Plowed drifts froze into granite-hard hillscapes, and skyscrapers shivered under a dual assault of knife-edged air and accumulating ice.
There had not been a winter like this for more than twenty years, the newscasters all agreed. But it was warm in Maria Drozdova’s hospice room, and the machines kept steady time.
A weary afternoon came to an early dusk. Pedestrians shivered and vehicles slid on slick, though salt-sanded, roads. A moving shadow dropped from the clouds, winging hard on the edge of a burst of wind more frigid than its fellows; the bird’s eyes gleamed with bleak good humor.
Leo appeared to doze, a gleam showing under his eyelashes at intervals. When a hard-feathered burst rattled against the window he did not open his eyes, nor did he twitch.
He had been expecting this.
The machine monitoring Maria Drozdova’s pulse quickened its rhythm. The room was silent, except for the new arrival—a glossy black bird, somewhere between a raven and a vulture, mantling as it perched on the bed’s metal foot rail. It turned its head, its beak opened slightly, but it did not caw or shriek. Instead, it simply regarded Maria, whose skinny knob-knuckled hands twitched.
Two nurses passed the slightly open door to the hall. Maria’s hands moved again, but she lacked the strength to reach for the button that would summon aid.
In any case, there was nothing mere mortals could do.
When the hall was silent again, another, softer feather-burstof sound filled the room. A chill touched every surface, rattling the IV pole and sending a burst of static through the electronics.
When it passed, Baba de Winter unfolded from the shadows at Maria’s bedside. The beldame was just as thin as old Drozdova, but sheer cold vitality filled Grandmother’s dark eyes; the iron chopsticks thrust through her vigorous gray mane bore tinges of wet red at their tips. A black layer-lace dress clasped her wasted form, fraying threads at hem and wrists hanging in trailing jellyfish fingers, waving gently. Some even lifted questing heads, blindly scenting prey.
“Oh, my dearest daughter,” Baba said, quietly. “Look at you now.”
Maria’s bloodshot blue eyes widened, rolling like a terrified horse’s. They darted a glance at Leo, whose lids had lifted; he regarded the beldame with bright interest and very little fear.
What mortal did not feel trepidation, facing her? But Leo Mishkin was not entirely what Dima Konets would call a “rube.” He was no divinity either, though every artist laboring over a creation would have been proud of this one’s endurance.
Still, he was a tired old man, and those know relief when they behold it.
The old Drozdova’s pulse quickened, but her breathing—held to the steady pace of a respirator—could not. Her thinning, chapped lips writhed against the insectile thing clamped to her face, and as she shifted her bed jacket made dead cricket whispers against solicitously plumped pillows.
Baba bent close, and Mascha’s weak movements intensified. A faint flare of red pinpricked her pupils. Her gaze kept flickering to Leo’s, perhaps entreating him to speak.
But Grandmother Winter simply touched the edge of a pillow, smoothing harsh, much-bleached cotton. Her fingernails, resined deep heartsblood with exquisite care, scratched lightly, a cat’s pinprick caress.
“Shhhh.” Baba smiled, her lips now matching her nails. “Youdidn’t think it would be that easy, did you? After all, you stole from me too.”
Maria’s blocked throat vibrated with a small, despairing sound; her gaze fastened pleadingly upon her paramour. She could not speak anymore, let alone explain, bargain, or bully. He knew what she would want him to say, how she would want him to phrase it. Oh, yes, Leo knew the old Drozdova’s overall plan, though perhaps not all its byways and hidden contingencies, and she counted on him to argue for her, or to pull the thing in her throat free so she could plead before this judge.
The beldame laughed. There was another soft feathery sound, a pop of collapsing air, and she was gone. Leo’s breath puffed in the lingering cold, and he settled himself more firmly on the bench. Maria could keep a man from speaking, yes. She could keep him from warning a honey-haired little girl, keep him from using the vibration of voice on quivering air to express affection—but she could not force him to open his lips.
And a quasi-mortal man was beneath Baba’s notice. The beldame would not question him.
At least, for now.
