Page 28 of The Salt-Black Tree
“Yeah.” Nat stared at where the altar had been, her hand dropping back into her lap. There was a heavy scorch of long-ago disaster there, the same as the half-blasted cross. She couldn’t imagine Mom willingly getting older, allowing wrinkles to crease her beautiful cheeks.
No, Maria fought. She fought everything—weeds, dirt, spending any money at all. You could even respect the flinty strength it took, the depth of dedication necessary to go to war with the inevitable. There was no surrender in Maria Drozdova.
Ever.
How much was there in her daughter? It felt like Nat had been surrendering all her goddamn life.
“I love my mother.” Her own voice startled her in the ancient hush; she whispered as if it were a shameful secret. “I could let her do it.” Would it hurt? A brief stinging and no more pain, ever? Or would it be agonizing—chewed up and drained like a wad of tough steak?
Marisol was silent for a long moment. “That’s up to you,” she said, finally. “It always has been, even if it doesn’t feel like it. But it takes age to understand as much. Even young divinities have to learn.”
Maybe that was the price for having a mortal shape. Dmitriwould probably snort and say something cruel, or just wave a dismissive hand, probably decorated with a trapped cigarette spewing perfumed smoke.
How far behind was he? Of course a god of gangsters would have ways of tracking someone down.
If all else failed, he could probably just follow the scavengers.
A shadow drifted over the golden sunlight. Marisol sighed, wiping at her cheeks again. “You should probably get going. Do you know where…”
Nat did, as a matter of fact. “North.” She even had a suspicion who she’d meet, and if it turned out to be right… what then?
Trusting your own instincts was a real bitch. You couldn’t blame anyone else if it all went horribly wrong.
“I’d love to have you here longer. But it wouldn’t help.” The older woman’s sigh was like leaf-heavy branches rustling before a short summer storm, a thick green scent of petrichor rising through dust. “Take 101, not the interstate. It’s a lot nicer.”
“I can take you back to your house,” Nat offered, awkwardly. Was Marisol really giving her the car? It beggared belief.
It’s pleasant, and necessary for some of us.She tried to imagine growing up knowing about all this, tried to imagine her mother teaching young Nat how to do the dishes with invisible hands or make traffic clear in front of the Léon-Bollée.
Her mental inventiveness, usually so vivid, couldn’t managethattrick.
“Oh, I’ll just whistle and my own ride will show up. That’s never a problem.” Marisol turned slightly, and her smile wasn’t quite as bright. It was just as warm, though, and the tinge of sadness only made it deeper. The smell of rain thickened; the sound of the sea had changed, too. “Come back and visit once you’re done, if you like. I’d love to show you around. There are good things about this kind of life too, you know.”
Maybe there were, but so far even the luxurious bits wereterrifying. “I’d like that,” Nat said, and found out she meant it. “If I survive.”
“I think you’re going to be just fine.” Marisol stretched, a picture of languid grace. “You’re my little sister, after all.”
Nat rose, slowly. “You sure I can’t give you a ride?”
“I’m going to stay here for a bit. Think about things.” Summer shifted her attention to the scorched altar-dais, her profile sweet but achingly sharp, her expression with an edge of piercing nostalgia almost approaching bitterness. “It’s a thoughtful kind of place. Oh, by the way, I put some things in Baby’s trunk. I know you probably like to travel light, but a girl needssomeluggage. Consider it catching up on a few birthdays.”
It might have been nicer if you showed up before now.But there was no need to be nasty; Nat hunched her shoulders. “Thank you. I don’t know… I mean, just, thank you.”
“You’re going to do just fine,” the divinity repeated, and for a moment Nat almost believed her.
She left the chapel before Marisol could change her mind about any gifts, blinking against the sunlight. It was much cooler without Summer’s steady radiant heat, but Baby’s engine roused as Nat approached. The chuckling purr even sounded happy to see her.
At least someone was.
Nat closed the driver’s door, settling on the bench seat that had just the right amount of give. Her fingers curled around the sky-blue steering wheel, the horn’s raised circle in the middle bearing a carving of a complex, almost-Celtic knot, and she took a deep breath. The radio was off—maybe Baby knew she wanted a little quiet.
“Looks like we’re going north,” she said, and the engine gave a happy giggle, for all the world like she was sayingokay, let’s go, give the word.
The gearshift moved easily. Baby’s transmission dropped into drive and the car banked like a plane in the wide, weed-starredgravel expanse. The mission church sat in the rearview, full of a secretive inner glow. Behind it, dark clouds boiled far away over the ocean’s salt plain, diamond lightning stabbing almost playfully.
Nat pressed gently on the accelerator, and small rocks scattered as Baby leapt to obey.
THE KEY
