Page 26 of The Salt-Black Tree
I’m sorry. You must want it back really badly.His littlezaikaapologized too much; Dmitri tried once more to imagine growing up with Maria in that tiny yellow house, thinking yourself a rube and probably battered daily with a foreign divinity’s harsh, furious hunger.
I don’t need your fuckin’ pity,he had snarled, and it was stilltrue. He had promised to vent his wrath upon the one who stole what belonged to him even if Baba held the bauble again, and that promise demanded keeping.
So did a few others.
“No,” the beldame said finally. “Thank you, Sydney. You’re a good girl.”
The waitress blinked and straightened. A faint flush crept into her wan cheeks. Dima could almost taste the now-shrinking tumor hiding in her body’s secret hollows.
Baba took, yes. But she could also give, when she had a mind to.
“Th-thank you.” The rube waitress fled through the swinging door to a hall lying alongside the kitchen, probably completely unaware of why she was so unsettled. Being a rube, of course, she’d find some mental hook to hang the morning’s strangeness on, and forget any breath of the uncanny as soon as possible. She probably didn’t even know she was ill, yet.
And never would know she had been, or that a miracle had freed her.
Baba gave him a sidelong glance before unwrapping her silverware. “Not a word, little boy. Let’s have a pleasant breakfast for once.”
He shrugged, reaching for his own implements. The nephew in the kitchen knew his trade, at least—the bacon was crispy and the eggs perfectly over easy, the hash browns fried to a lovely golden crust. It was almost enough to make up for Nell’s burger turning lukewarm, and the soggy fries.
He even used more than the bare minimum of manners. The little brass bell on the door jangled merrily as rubes filtered in for feeding, Sydney returning to her work with renewed vigor and only one troubled glance at the pair of strange customers.
By the time he finished with the last scrap of bacon and sliver of egg, Baba was contemplating her own empty plate. She finished her diluted coffee in three long swallows, her scrawny throat working, and tapped twice on the countertop, a crispfifty-dollar bill springing into existence underneath her claw-nail the second time.
The beldame was generous today, but Dima didn’t remark on the event. He cradled his own coffee, waving aside Sydney’s inquiry—more, sir?The cook was too busy to look at his racing form again.
“Think about it,” Baba said, slithering off her stool. “She won’t last long.”
The brass bell jingled sharply as she left. Dmitri made a face at the sugar-slurry remaining in his cup, the very dregs of boiled American coffee. It wasn’t like the old country’s heady, heavy, perfect black sludge.
But it was his now. He had paid for it, after all.
Promises had sharp edges, even for divinities. They were, after all, a form of honesty—and even a thief had to know what truth was in order to effectively lie.
Baba left the money there, tucked under her empty plate. It would be easy, almost reflexive, to slip it into his own pocket. On another day he might have.
His suit was no longer torn and dusty. His boot-toes glittered bright silver, and his sharp friends were safe in their dark homes. So was the gun, nestled under his left armpit. Everything in his proper place, but something was missing—something other than the steady pulse in his chest, the heart he was, after all, better off without.
It was no great trick to slip sideways, like one of Spring’s own allied felines. The thiefways lay under every inch of the physical; all it took was the will to step through. No bell marked his departure, no mortal took any notice.
Sydney, clearing dirty plates, silverware, and two coffee mugs, gave the door one more uneasy glance before sweeping up the fifty-dollar bill. It was a huge tip, almost obscene, but every food service worker knew strange things happened where people gathered to satisfy their bellies and pay for the pleasure.You took what you were given, with only a token shake of a weary head.
Waitresses have their own protective divinity too, though perhaps she was not watching that morning.
But not even Baba Yaga could be sure of that.
NO SURRENDER
Yesterday she was riding a black horse across a desert and running away from hungry shadows. Today, Nat had sesame waffles and fresh-squeezed orange juice with a woman who vaguely resembled her mother, but without Maria Drozdova’s terrifying, ozone-smelling temper or brisk chill efficiency. The supermodern kitchen wasn’t cold or soulless, especially since they could watch the Pacific rolling in and out while they sipped espresso from a shiny, very expensive silver machine, which ground the coffee beans, measured them, dispensed the dark fluid and its honey-colored crema, and finished the whole process with a pleasant beep.
It was nicer than the Elysium, even.
Afterward, the dishes merrily clattered into a sleek silver dishwasher on their own, cradled by invisible hands, and Nat’s amazement was met with Marisol’s deep, velvety laugh.Dishes are boring,the divinity said.Let’s take Baby for a spin.
Getting behind the wheel of the blue Mustang was nerve-wracking—what if there was an accident, what if she’d forgotten how to drive? She could just about coax the Léon-Bollée into working, but to her vast relief, Baby was a lot easier. For one thing, she was an automatic, and for another, the deep thrum of her engine was like a favorite, mostly remembered childhood song.
Marisol settled in the passenger seat, her tanned arm lyingalong the open window, and she glanced at Nat as if asking permission before flicking the radio’s knob. The speakers crackled, there was a brief burst of static, and Bruce Springsteen began singing about dancing in the dark as Nat brought the car to a halt at the stop sign at the end of the cul-de-sac.
“Which way?”
