Split Feather

by Deborah A. Wolf

  I hadn’t answered. I hadn’t needed to.

  “Go.” His voice had been gentle, but firm. “Do us both a favor and go away for a while. Take the summer off, meet these kin of yours, ask your questions. Perhaps you will learn something you can use, something that will change your fate.”

  “And if I don’t?” I’d asked, staring into my empty cup and wondering what the fuck my “fate” might be. “If I don’t leave Bearpaw, will you come looking for me?”

  Bane was silent for a long time after that. When I looked up, he was gone, and so were the demons. The MEatery was empty of them.

  * * *

  “If you were to disappear, would anybody come looking for you?”

  The tears caught in my throat. I burned them out with mead. As I turned the photograph over in my hands, a desire grew in my breast to know who my mother was—who she really was—who had taken this picture, and who had sent it on to me. And why. Why reach out to me now, after these long years of silence? A wish so fierce it stole my breath away; the secret wish of an orphaned heart.

  Then something old and dark woke from its long slumber, and I resolved to go to the wild north, to see mountains and rivers and bears, and walk across the tundra, and meet this man who claimed to be my grandfather.

  Giving in to a sudden urge, I lifted the picture to my face and sniffed it, searching for some lingering scent of perfume, of baby powder, of love. I pressed it to my lips, and then my heart.

  I will find you, I promised, and you will answer a lifetime of questions.

  Trenchcoat Dude’s ghost manifested again, rising from the blooded earth like mist. He swayed back and forth in a wind I couldn’t feel, and drifted toward me.

  But I wasn’t there.

  I was already gone.

  7

  How bad could that be, right? Hang out in Alaska for a summer, meet the people who may or may not be my blood, do some serious fishing. Wish upon a northern star and wake up with my troubles far behind me, right?

  Right. Try it, and let me know how it works.

  I followed the guy with the mustache. He was wearing a Sam’s Flying Service jacket. As we went down the escalator I tried not to wrinkle my nose at the smell of oil and dirt and man-sweat. He’d offered to carry my bag, but just shrugged when I slung it over my own shoulder like it was no big deal, which was kinda nice. Maybe guys in Alaska didn’t assume that female meant weakling. Or maybe he figured my old duffel bag was as heavy as it looked. Whatever, yo, it was just nice not to be treated like a wilted leaf of lettuce for a change.

  Then the airport doors whooshed open, and the air grabbed me by the throat and dragged me outside.

  I didn’t remember ever smelling anything like the air in Alaska, but maybe some part of me did. It felt like every cell in my body was screaming more, more, more. We were on the tarmac, and the day was rank with fuel fumes and burnt rubber and industrial stink, but in between that the air was so frickin’ good I had to blink back tears. It was like drinking Honey’s mead. With my nose.

  So I’m standing there with my eyes wide and my mouth open, sucking in the airplane fumes like a damn junkie, when I see this bundle of rags all huddled up against a chain-like fence. Just some homeless guy, I thought, and then I felt shitty because I’ve been there. I’ve been the bundle of stinking rags nobody wanted to see or touch or talk to.

  Dude was singing the song of my people, you know?

  So I looked at him, really looked, let him know that “Hey, I see you there and yeah, been there, done that” and solidarity and shit. It was like he could feel me staring, and he gave a start—when you’re on the streets, as much as it sucks to be invisible, it’s dangerous to be noticed. He thrust his chin out from the collar of his coat and pushed his hat back and met me stare for stare. He smiled at me, a wicked, sly smile, and wheezed out a single word.

  “Khaaaliii…”

  Yep, I’d flown away all right, up over the cuckoo’s nest and wayyy above the frickin’ rainbow. Something moved behind his eyes. It pulled his lips back in a dead man’s grin, writhed beneath his skin like an eager puppy. Like it wanted to come out and play with me.

  I backed away without thinking and must have made a sound, because the guy in the Sam’s jacket turned halfway around with a puzzled look on his face. He glanced at me, followed my stare to the homeless guy, and shrugged.

  “That’s just Old Charlie,” he said, in a soothe-the-stupid-city-girl voice that had my hackles all up despite my fear. “He’s harmless.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “sure.” But I didn’t take my eyes off Old Charlie as we walked to the shuttle that would take us to the seaplane base. Hell, I didn’t even blink.

  Old Charlie’s grin widened and his nostrils flared. I must have smelled of fear. He puckered his lips in a grotesque kiss, and then he mouthed a message to me, exaggerating the words so I’d be sure to understand.

  Welcome home, Siggy.

  * * *

  I’ve always kind of liked flying, not that I’d ever been able to afford much of it. Takeoffs and landings are always a bit iffy and turbulence feels gross, but it’s an amazing thing to be able to fly through the air like an eagle, looking at the people crawling around like bugs, so small and self-important.

  My commercial flight into Anchorage had been uneventful. I kept waiting to feel like I was coming home, some bone-deep connection or mystical shit like that, and though I was disappointed when that didn’t happen I couldn’t deny that the land itself was spectacular. Alaska wasn’t the frozen wasteland I was expecting. The only snow was on the mountains, big, bold, fantastic mountains like teeth, or the jagged ends of bone, and I was a little disappointed not to see polar bears hanging around. I hoped that my flight to the interior would be more of the same breathtaking wonder and serene beauty.

  But this wasn’t flying. This was hurtling through space in a fucking sardine can. The plane shook, my bones shook, my teeth rattled back and forth in my head, and worst of all I could feel the numb pins-and-needles of a clusterfuck headache starting just under my right eye socket. If there’s anything worse than flying in a bush plane, it’s flying in a bush plane with the beginnings of a mind-ripping headache.

  If there’s anything worse than flying with a headache, it’s flying with a headache and demons on the wings.

  These demons were of a type I’d never hallucinated before. They had nasty black bodies, like stretched-out monkeys, and big round heads covered in wiry pale fur, with slits for eyes and mouth and no noses. Big flat ears, too. They clung to the plane’s wings—yeah, like that wasn’t scary or anything—and to the float thingies, and as we flew they lolled their long red tongues into the wind like demented dogs.

  One of them, a little bugger with a fat Buddha-belly and incredibly hairy armpits, pulled itself all the way to the front of the plane, got sucked into the propeller, and was flung away, screaming. The other demons hooted and bobbed as if they thought it was hilarious, and another one started creeping forward. I put my face into my hands and closed my eyes, wishing they’d just kill me and get it over with.

  “You okay, there?” the pilot yelled at me over the noise.

  “Yeah,” I lied, and had to clamp my teeth shut against a swell of nausea.

  “You’re doing awesome!” He gave me a thumbs-up for good measure. “Hardly green at all! We’ll be in Tsone in about an hour.”

  Next time I saw Bane, I was gonna kill him. Unless I died first. Which was sounding more and more like the better option as another demon made it to the front of the plane and got bitch-slapped into oblivion by the propeller, while the rest of them cheered.

  * * *

  “Pain’s almost over, darlin’!” the pilot yelled, and he poked my arm. I didn’t move, so he poked it again, and laughed when I snarled at him. “See, there’s Tsone right below us. This your first bush landing?”

  I nodded and struggled upright, then wished I hadn’t. My head felt like it had been impaled on an iron spike, and my mouth tasted like
I’d been dead for a week.

  Looking out the window, I saw… trees. Skinny, moth-eaten looking evergreens, lots of birch trees, and clumps of willow everywhere. Two flat boats pulled up on the river bank, a shack built out of corrugated tin and misplaced optimism, a trail leading into the woods, and something that might have been the peak of a roof off in the distance, but no people. No buildings.

  “Where’s the town?”

  “There!” he answered, pointing, but I couldn’t see a damned thing. I had a really bad feeling about… well, pretty much everything at that point.

  “Where’s the lake? Where’s the runway? Where do they land the goddamn planes?”

  He laughed. That was the day I learned there’s crazy, and then there’s bush pilot crazy. The river looked like a shiny ribbon, a bit of pretty for the hem of a little girl’s dress, or a silver snake without head or tail. It seemed hardly wide enough to launch a boat in, much less land a plane.

  “You have got to be fucking kidding me!” I hollered.

  He shook his head. He wasn’t kidding me.

  The demons that were still on the plane’s wings looked at that river, and then they looked at one another, and poof. Gone. As the water’s surface slammed up to meet us, I wished with every cell in my body that I could join them in Hell.

  Then the bottom dropped out of my stomach, and we slapped the river’s silver skin one… two… three, and touched down light as a feather. I was still gripping the side of my seat and the oh-shit strap over my head, wishing I had an extra hand clamped over my mouth because I had that pre-puke drool going on, when we taxied gently across the surface and came to a slow, rocking rest against the low river bank. My pilot hopped out and secured the plane, and I wasn’t too proud to take his hand and let him help me to shore.

  “So how’d you like your first time?” he asked, mustache quivering with amusement. My ears were ringing, my head was pounding, and my stomach felt like I’d entered a glass-eating contest and won. My face was probably three shades of green as I clenched my jaw and forced a sick-feeling grin.

  “It was awesome,” I lied. “Let’s do it again.”

  He laughed a big, honest laugh and clapped me on the shoulder.

  “You’ll do just fine, girl!” His words, unexpected and kind, made my throat clench up.

  You’ll do just fine. I wished I could believe that.

  I sat on an upturned boat like a helpless city girl and let the pilot pull my bag out of the storage compartment. Not my usual style, but you know what? I was off my game at the moment. I felt like absolute crap, like I had the last time I’d been locked up and tied down and drugged into a coma, and then dumped back onto the streets. But…

  …but…

  Alaska.

  The air was… holy shit it was so good, I couldn’t suck it in fast enough through my nose, so like an idiot I let my mouth hang open, wishing my lungs were bigger, feeling that air all the way to my toes and my fingertips. It was life to a misfit girl like me, it was wine, and whiskey, and song. Up close, the river looked a lot bigger; it shone like silver in the thin sunlight, slow and wise and strong, and the riverbank was cool pale silty stuff that sucked at my shoes and made me want to walk barefoot.

  Home, I thought, like the first bite of fish if you’re not sure fish is your thing. Home.

  I wished I could believe it.

  “First time to Tsone?” There was a gentle thump as the pilot dropped my bag down beside me on the boat, giving me a look and a smile that weren’t quite fatherly, but not quite flirty either.

  “First time to Alaska.”

  That seemed to surprise him. “I thought you were Native.”

  “I dunno. Maybe. I might have family here.”

  “Oooh, a mystery girl, huh?” he said with a grin. “I’ve never hauled a mystery girl before. Mostly I just bring powdered milk and pilot bread. Sometimes ammo.”

  Powdered milk? Ugh. But he was still talking.

  “So who you looking for? I’ve met everyone in Tsone, far’s I know, but nobody as pretty as you.”

  “I’m looking for someone who thinks he might be my grandpa.” Yeah, that wasn’t awkward at all. “Maybe called John?”

  “John Aleksov?” The grin disappeared, and he went still all over, like a deer that thinks it might have been spotted. “You’re John Aleksov’s granddaughter?”

  “Maybe, yeah. You know him?”

  The pilot’s mustache worked for a bit, like he was trying to work himself up to saying something, but in the end he just shrugged and kept it to himself.

  “Never met him, myself,” he said, something strange in his voice. “Listen, I’ve gotta get going, okay? You have a nice visit, okay?” And he turned and walked away. I gaped after him.

  “How do I arrange my flight back? Do I just call when I’m ready to be picked up?”

  He ducked around the plane like he hadn’t heard me.

  “Hello?” I tried again. “Do I just call you, or what?”

  The plane rocked a little. I could see his legs and a paddle as he pushed off from the riverbank and the plane began to drift into the river.

  Oooookay then. Rude. I guessed I’d just figure it out when I got to town. The pilot had said he brought supplies and stuff, right? That must mean there really was a town around here somewhere. I watched as the plane pulled farther away, and heard the pilot’s door open and slam shut.

  Whatever, yo. I stood up, stretching my neck this way and that, testing my headache out. It just felt like a regular old headache now—maybe I’d dodged a bullet this time. Maybe the Alaskan air was good for my head. I took a good look around. There were a couple of river boats, a battered tin shed with a big rusty padlock hanging open, and the shell of a cool old car, maybe from the fifties, a rusted hunk of junk with no wheels or doors or engine, but still cool-looking.

  Shouldn’t someone have been here to meet me, at least? They’d known when my flight was going to arrive. After all, someone bought the ticket. Then it occurred to me that I might have just been stranded in the middle of Alaska. Maybe my pilot was really a serial killer, and this was how he got rid of his victims?

  Maybe he knew Bane.

  But I decided that would be a pretty lame way to kill people. He’d reacted strangely to the name John Aleksov, but I’d heard that Alaskans were weird. Contrary to first impressions, maybe he just wasn’t a people person.

  Well, I had to get my ass off the riverbank before a bear showed up and decided to have me for lunch. Even if I hadn’t been stranded, I couldn’t go back to Bearpaw, not yet anyway—Bane had made that much clear—and I couldn’t just sit here by the river, feeling sorry for myself. So I picked up my bag and walked up the path, hoping it led somewhere good.

  Or at least, you know, somewhere.

  8

  Omifuckinggod, mosquitoes. The path to Hell might be paved with good intentions, but I’m pretty sure the air down there is thick with Alaskan mosquitoes.

  My boots squished soft and silent into the loamy, needl-y path, and I flailed ineffectively at the frickin’ bloodthirsty bugs that hummed around my head like a cloud of miniature vampires. After I’d inhaled three or four of them, I remembered not to gape like an idiot. I’d always thought of myself as a country girl, living the rough life out in my trailer in the middle of nowhere, but these woods, yo, this land made my woods look like Central Fuckin’ Park or something.

  The bits of sky I could see through the trees were so damn blue it made my heart ache, and the trees were quiet, like they were listening, waiting for something. They had been here forever, and I was nothing, just a little ant crawling through on the way to the end of my little life, far below the notice of giants.

  It was heaven.

  Or would have been, except for the omifuckinggod mosquitoes.

  And my demon.

  Sometimes I could all but hear her walking up behind me. I’d feel her gaze like cold stones on the back of my neck, catch a bit of movement out of the corner of my eye,
feel her hand grip my shoulder as she leaned close to say something vile. But sometimes, like now, she’d come all quiet and soft and sneaky. Like the fog in that poem, on little cat feet. My vision would get darker around the edges, all narrow like when I was a kid looking through a paper towel roll and pretending it was a telescope.

  The sunlight and prettiness would leach out of the world till nothing was sparkly, nothing was shiny, everything was flat and dull and ugly. She’d come at me a little at a time, creeping into my head and then down my throat into my lungs, making it hard to think, hard to breathe, hard to live.

  By the time I realized what was going on, it was hard to care. I mean, I was just a fuckup anyway, right? I was nobody from nowhere—no family, no job, no future. Hell, the only reason I even had a high school diploma is that the teachers were sick of seeing my sorry ass sitting at the back of the room. Once I wasn’t bringing in a monthly stipend all the fosters had dropped out of my life like fleas jumping off a dead dog.

  How long have you been friends with a wendigo?

  It was like Bane’s voice was right in my ear.

  I jerked my head up, heart pounding, but there was no one there. Great, now I was seeing things and hearing things.

  How long have you been eating human flesh?

  Why the hell would anybody ask me that, anyway? Did I look like a cannibal? Yuck. I poked at the idea like it was a sore tooth. I was crazy, sure, but could I be crazy enough to eat people? Could I be the next Dahmer? I tried to imagine what human flesh would taste like. Probably like overly fat pork, I decided. With faint notes of Axe and Cheetos.

  Ew. Nope. Noooooope. I was quite relieved to find out that I did not, in fact, have the slightest urge to eat human flesh.

  Are you so sure? My demon laughed, and I jerked to a stop. She wasn’t breathing into my ear now… her voice was inside my head. I thought of that homeless dude—Charlie—and the look in his eyes, and I knew like a stab to the heart that’s where my path was taking me.

  Almost there, laughed the demon in my head. Almost home. Just one more step…