Split Feather

by Deborah A. Wolf

  I hit the ground running in a half-crouch, one foot in front of the other. Indian style, according to what one of the foster brothers had told me—quiet as feathers in the wind, as mist on the river.

  But I wasn’t quiet enough.

  * * *

  “Hello, Siggy,” Slit-Throat Dude said. He was talking around a cigarette, which I had always found pretentious as fuck. “Wondered when you’d show up.” Then he blew smoke out the hole in his throat.

  “That’s a nasty habit,” I told him. “It’s going to get you killed one of these days.”

  “Smoking?” He laughed. Smoke rose from the collar of his coat again and wreathed his face.

  “Nah, smoking is just gonna make you stink.” I slapped the forestock of the shotgun against the palm of my hand and smiled, aiming from the hip as one of the fathers had taught me. “But underestimating me is a mistake.”

  “You think you’re so clever, girl,” Slit-Throat Dude said, and he laughed again. That could get irritating real fast. He dropped the cigarette and ground it out with the heel of his boot. “You don’t have any idea who you’re messing with.”

  He didn’t know what I knew. He didn’t feel what I felt.

  “Could you be any more cliché?” I smiled the smile that had earned me too many ass-whippings to count. “What next, you gonna monologue about your insidious scheme, and how you’re gonna kill me?”

  Not far from us, a great spirit paused in its hunting to listen to my song.

  “Nah,” Slit-Throat Dude replied, oblivious to everything that mattered. He drew a long and wicked-looking blade from a sheath at his hip and smiled at me, an ugly smile that mirrored his scar. “I’m just going to gut you like a damn fish. Then I’m going to kill you for this.” He tapped the point of his knife against his throat.

  “Isn’t that, like, bringing a knife to a gunfight?”

  I touched the great spirit, heart-to-heart. Brother.

  I come.

  “Your kind never learns, do they?” He laughed. Yeah, it was pissing me off. “Go ahead, see what happens. Shoot me.”

  “Okay,” I said, and shot him. He flew back about three feet and dropped like a sack of potatoes—a very messy sack of bloody potatoes. Close-range shotgun blasts will do that to a guy. The smell of gunpowder mingled with the scent of man blood, not so very different from a deer’s or a bear’s, and my stomach growled.

  What the fuck? Yeah, that wasn’t alarming at all.

  I may be crazy, but I’m not stupid. I’d watched the guy die once, so I wasn’t all that surprised when Slit-Throat Dude moaned and twisted and pushed himself up from the ground. I was spooked as hell and thoroughly grossed out—he had a raggedy hole in his belly and some of his guts were hanging loose—but not particularly surprised.

  Lub-dub, lub-dub. My heart, my lovely beating heart, drummed a dance-beat in my chest. Let’s see what you’ve got, Siggy. This is moment-of-truth shit, right here.

  Slit-Throat Dude grinned and pointed his knife at me, slick with his own blood.

  “That all you got, bitch?”

  A low growl rose all around us, and this time it wasn’t my stomach. He lost the grin. I smiled.

  “As a matter of fact…”

  I didn’t get to finish my monologue, either. A great brown bear, my kinsman, my brother, rose from the bushes, stretching to his full height at Slit-Throat Dude’s side. He curled his black lips back, exposing a truly impressive set of weapons, and then he smacked Slit-Throat Dude so hard the head tore clean off his shoulders and went bouncing into the woods. Slit-Throat Dude—now Headless Gutshot Dude, I supposed—jerked his arms out to his sides and did a little surprised dance before slumping to the ground, dead.

  This time he stayed down.

  The bear stood still for a moment with a surprised look on his face, as if he couldn’t believe how easy we were to kill.

  Brother, I told him, cautiously, respectfully, because he was feeling full of himself and I was, after all, just a human…

  …well, mostly human, anyway…

  Kin, he acknowledged finally, and more reluctantly than I would have liked. He dropped to all fours and regarded me solemnly. It has been a long time.

  I am sorry, I told him, because it felt right. I will not forget again.

  He gave the bear’s equivalent of a shrug, and then nudged Slit-Throat Dude’s limp form.

  Old meat. Dead meat. Still good, though. It wasn’t a question—he was just being polite. Manners are very important to a bear. I knew that now.

  Your meat, I agreed. My thanks.

  He bear-shrugged again, but I could feel his pleasure and the anticipation of a fine, bloody meal as he got a good grip on the headless corpse and dragged it into the woods.

  Good riddance, I thought, meaning Slit-Throat Dude. And good luck rising from the dead this time. Knives and guns may not be enough to end the guy, but getting back up from a pile of bear dung—now, that would be a neat trick.

  Raven landed in a nearby spruce tree and tipped his head at me.

  “One down,” I told him as I reloaded. “One to go.”

  Qa’hoq, he said, only it sounded like demon.

  “I know,” I told him. “And I’m fresh out of bears.”

  38

  The ghosts of Oldtown drifted about as I walked down what might have been the main street, once upon a time when the world was young and the people of Tsone danced with their bear-kin. The cabins gaped at me in empty-eyed disbelief, roused from their rotting log dreams by my presence. I stepped quietly, doling my breath out in careful little sips as I’d learned to do when I was a sneaky little kid stealing food in the dead of the night.

  It probably was silly—if that shotgun blast had warned Monday of my presence, my footsteps were unlikely to make much of a difference—but it seemed to me that there might be worse things than Monday in this place, and that maybe I didn’t want them to know I was here.

  I didn’t need the ravenstone to tell me which way they’d gone. The ghosts told me, the clouds told me, a little mouse crouched in an empty doorway told me. Besides, there were footprints. Sweet, clever Emily, scared as she must have been, had nevertheless dragged and stomped her little feet, knowing that her family would come looking for her.

  Because that’s what families do… they come looking for you.

  If Monday had hurt her… The low growl that rose, scattering the ghosts and frightening the mouse away, was all me.

  Past the empty eyes of the ghost-village, past the high bush cranberries and a pair of ancient spruce that had grown twined together as lovers, crouched an old church. It was different from the other buildings, newer yet no less decrepit. The logs had been hewn square and chinked with some white putty, and the remnants of whitewash still clung to the wood. Twice as big as any of the other buildings, it would have overlooked the village as a king among peasants in its day. As a wolf among sheep.

  I hated it on sight.

  The growl in my heart grew to a snarl as I stared at the church. Murder had been done here, I could feel it, murder and worse. Even the rodents shied away from this place, even the birds. But not me.

  Not Siggy. I might be crazy, but I’ve never been a coward, and at that moment I felt as if my anger was big enough, hot enough to burn that place to the ground.

  First, though, I’d save my Emily.

  Then we’d find out just what Siggy was made of.

  * * *

  The windows had been boarded over with branches and tar paper, so I couldn’t see in. Though I knew they were in there, and strained every sense to the limit, I couldn’t hear anything, smell anything, feel anything. I’d be going in blind. It was stupid and I knew it.

  So I took a deep breath, kissed my shotgun for luck, and kicked the door open. Like a boss.

  Okay, I meant to kick the door open like a boss, but the wood was rotted and the hinges little more than iron dust and memory, and I pretty much had pure adrenaline fizzing in my veins at that point. I kicked the
door down. It collapsed with a whump and a cloud of rot and dust rose all about, and sent me into a rage of sneezing.

  When the dust cleared and my face stopped exploding, I wiped my nose on my sleeve and looked up, through the grime and the rot and the miserable ghosts, straight into the washed-out blue pits of Hell.

  “Hey, Monday,” I said, and I sneezed again. “How’s it hanging, bitch?”

  “Hello, Sigurd.” Monday smiled.

  “Where’s Emily?”

  “Oh, she’s resting comfortably. Poor thing had quite a… vigorous… morning with Geoff. Where is he, anyway? I do hope you haven’t further damaged my poor knight. He never really recovered from the last time you…”

  “What did he do to her?” I bellowed. Bear Sister in my heart roared. The ghosts blew away from me like dandelion poofs in the wind.

  “Rude.” Monday curled her lips in a malicious smile. “How did you end up with such terrible manners? And after we took such pains to make sure you grew up in the very best of homes.”

  “What… did… he… do to her?” I asked again. I snugged my shotgun tight against my waist, finger trembling against the trigger. I wanted to shoot her so bad I could taste it, wanted to blow a hole through her big enough to stick my head through. It would be so easy, just a twitch, and then plop into the river with what was left. Or let the bears have it. Either way, nobody but me would ever know.

  Do it, my demon crooned, faint and weak now but still there. Do it.

  “Are you going to kill me, Siggy?” Monday looked more amused than afraid. “After all these years, are you finally going to grow a pair?” The demon stared out at me from behind her eyes, waiting. Waiting. Even the ghosts stilled, staring at me, waiting. I thought, then, of one of the foster brothers explaining how to set snares for rabbits.

  They always take the same path, he’d said. Though they must know it will kill them. I wasn’t a rabbit. I was a bear. I eased off the trigger…

  …a little bit. I might not be a rabbit, but I was still me, and I still really, really wanted to shoot this bitch.

  “You want me to shoot you,” I said. Slowly, so that the words would have time to sink into my own thick skull. “Why would you want me to shoot you?” And why wasn’t she dead already? The trigger pressed against my finger like a lover’s kiss, and I’d always been easily seduced to violence.

  “Your kind knows only murder,” she replied with a sneer. “Murder, and blood, and wickedness. I am a being of light, and you can never kill me. Not really. When you release my soul, I—”

  “My kind?” Her words struck me as ridiculous, and she frowned so much at the interruption that I let a grin spread across my face. She wanted me to shoot, she expected it… time for this rabbit to forge a new path. “What do you mean? Are you talking about my Native kin, or my… other… kin? Foster kids? Coffee addicts? What kind am I, exactly?”

  “You are darkness and filth. An unnatural creature.” Disgust dripped from her words. “A waste of time, a waste of air. You should have been drowned at birth.”

  I’d been hearing the same shit since I was four years old, and it still hurt. A waste of time. A waste of money. Worthless, weak…

  I felt my grandmother’s bony old hand on my shoulder, exactly as if she stood behind me. Not worthless, she told me, a ghost’s whisper in my heart. You are my Siggy. Priceless. Precious.

  More precious than rubies, Pretty agreed. My precious. My baby.

  Not weak, she growled. Not prey. Bear Sister roused from her slumber, raised her head and looked through my eyes.

  Not me, I agreed. Not anymore.

  Monday was still talking, her pale eyes wide and her mouth twisted in an ugly knot as she flapped her lips about how awful I was, how inhuman, and evil, and on and on. I eased my finger off the trigger and tucked my shotgun under my right arm, so I could reach for the sheath on my belt.

  A weapon powerful enough to destroy your worst enemy, the Giyeg had said. At the time I’d thought she had been talking about my demon, but this bitch was at least as nasty. The two of them would have had a field day, sitting over lattes. And omigod would she ever shut up?

  “Jesus, lady,” I deadpanned as my fingers curled around the hilt of the stone knife. “You come to the middle of Alaska wearing lipstick and heels and call me unnatural? Get over yourself already. Your dude is dead again, and this time I’m pretty sure he’s gonna stay dead. I’m the one with a gun, and that means I win. It’s time for you to tell me where my family is and get the fuck out of here before…”

  I saw the glint of light on steel, too late. The bitch had pulled a handgun out of… her purse? Her ass? Thin air? Fuck, I hadn’t been paying attention.

  Stupid, Siggy.

  “If you shoot me,” she purred, “I will be martyred. I will transform into a vessel of light, and I will destroy you.” The demon leered at me from behind her eyes. “Walk away, Sigurd, just turn and walk away. Turn around, get back on that plane, and go home. This isn’t your concern, and these aren’t your people. They’re not even related to you.”

  Her ugliness reminded me of my old self, my old life. I took one step back, gripping the hilt of the Giyeg’s knife… and then I stopped, and tipped my head to one side like Raven, and smiled.

  Bear Sister rumbled her approval.

  “Fuck you,” I told her. “I am home. This is my place, and these are my people… and you are not welcome here.” I drew the knife from the sheath. And that’s me in a nutshell… Siggy John Aleksov, the girl who brought a knife to a gunfight.

  I still had no idea what the thing was or what use it might be against a nine millimeter, but since a Giyeg had made it and a demon had taken up residence in Monday’s head, I figured I’d get some kind of reaction.

  I wasn’t disappointed.

  The demon’s eyes in Monday’s face fastened upon the knife, and she let out such a screech…

  Then the bitch shot me.

  39

  Was I hit? Was I hit? I was still standing, and nothing hurt.

  She’d missed me. She’d missed me! My ears rang like a bitch, but…

  Holyfuckingmotheroffuck, my back was on fire. My arm wasn’t working—it fell to my side, dead meat, and I dropped my shotgun. It roared…

  Bear Sister roared…

  There was a small hole in my chest, but judging from the pain, my back had to be a fucking mess. My heart roared as the blood poured down my back, and I went to one knee.

  The demon pressed against Monday’s flesh as she rushed at me, claws extended. Her mouth was a bloody gash full of bloody teeth as she screamed at me.

  “I can’t hear you,” I said. Maybe. I couldn’t hear me, either. I slumped to one side like a sack of potatoes. Bloody potatoes.

  Raven battered himself against the covered windows. He was going to break all his pretty feathers. Qa’hoq! he shouted, not laughing for once. Bear Child, wake up!

  Wake up, child, whispered the girl they called Pretty. Oh, please wake up. She sat alone in the snow outside Puyuk’s hut, fastened to a tree by a length of golden chain. Her eyes were swollen shut and blood had dried around her nose and ears.

  Monday’s hand closed on my fucked-up shoulder, and the pain rose in a red whirlpool.

  Bye, Baby Bunting, my grandmother sang, knitting a new hound by the fire. Time to go a-hunting, Siggy. But where’s your gun?

  I dropped my gun, I confessed, ashamed and confused. Didn’t I?

  Well, then, do you have your knife?

  Did I? I think…

  Mister Fuzzykins burst through the door, howling like a winter storm.

  Raven burst through the window, showering me with feathers and blood.

  Sam burst in and stood there wreathed in flame, as the church crumbled to dust around us. I can fly, Cuz! she shouted, and spread wings as wide and bright as the midnight sun. I can fly you away from here!

  Monday pulled me close, the skin of her face splitting down the middle with a long, wet ripping sound. She gnashed her
tusks and opened her fanged mouth wide, wide, wiiiide…

  …the better to eat you with, my dear.

  Bear Sister grabbed me by the back of the neck, she pulled me free from the dreams of dying and spat me back into the sweet, wet agony of life. There was no Mister Fuzzykins, no Raven, no Sam. If I wanted to be rescued, I’d have to do it myself.

  It’s only a flesh wound, she snarled at me. Are you a weakling, or are you a bear?

  “I’m a bear,” I croaked.

  “What did you ssssay?” Monday stopped, still holding onto my wounded shoulder. The demon’s face inside hers spasmed with fear. The ghosts all froze where they were, transfixed by what was happening.

  “I’m a bear,” I repeated, and I staggered to my feet. “You’ve fucked with the wrong family, Goldilocks.” I brought my good arm up and over in a wide arc. The demon blade sang with wicked glee as it flashed down, down, down. I imagined it was Excalibur, imagined it was a lightsaber, a weapon of good against evil, bright and sharp as the heart of a star. A weapon fit for a hero.

  As I brought it down, slicing the air between us, I knew that nobody else could see its pure and shining light. If anyone was watching, they would see me waving my hands in the air like a madwoman, nothing more. But just because they couldn’t see it, didn’t mean it wasn’t there.

  My blade struck true, it cut deep and sharp and wicked, sundering the link between Monday and the demon who clung to her soul. She screamed, it screamed, and Monday fell to the ground clawing at her eyes as her life flashed before them.

  I hoped it was nasty as fuck.

  Monday-demon fell back away from me, legs and arms splayed wide, mouth wide, eyes staring. She jerked like a puppet on a string—once, twice—and boom, she went down in a heap like someone had cut her strings. I saw the demon pour from Monday’s mouth like oily black smoke. It hissed at me, thin and impotent as mist, grabbing and pawing at the air as it tried to find purchase, but what I said was true.

  This was my home, dammit, these were my people, and I could hear the bear within my soul roar her love and fury, filling the sky with it, filling the world with it, filling my skin with it till my bones glowed white-hot and my skin burned. Eyes blazing, I pointed my bloodied knife toward Monday’s demon, and I cried out in a voice as harsh as Raven’s,