Split Feather

by Deborah A. Wolf

  “Time for you to die, asshole!”

  Bear Sister leapt from my heart into the world. She covered the distance between me and Monday with a bound, and she ate that demon up in three bites, snap-snap-snap gone.

  It was done.

  One ghost, an old man wearing a leather vest and a crown of floofy white hair, threw back his head in a silent laugh and danced a jig.

  The stench of death filled the air. I hoped it was coming from Monday, and not from me, but as I sank to the floor, I could feel my life draining away with what was left of my blood. Surely I couldn’t have much left in my body, I thought; what a mess. What a fucking mess I’d made of things.

  A small face peered from the darkened doorway across the room, pale as a moon, eyes wide, mouth a perfect “o”.

  “Aunt Siggy!” Emily cried. “Aunt Siggy!” She staggered forward, slipping in the blood, and my heart hurt at the look on her face.

  “It’s okay, sweetheart,” I lied. I slid sideways, and Emily tried to catch me as I fell. “It’s okay now.”

  “Aunt Siggy, you said a bad word. A really bad word.”

  I bit down hard on my lips to keep the hysterical laughter inside where it belonged. When I could, I turned my head a little and looked deep into her solemn brown eyes.

  “I did,” I told her, “and I’m sorry. Tell you what—if you’ll promise to teach me how to make porcupine earrings, I promise I’ll try not to cuss so much.” Emily paused, then nodded.

  “You’re bleeding,” she said, in a shaky little voice.

  A cold shadow fell across my face. A man stood in the doorway, a beautiful man with long hair and stern eyes bright as stars. He held up one hand in a forbidding gesture.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I assured him. “I just got here.”

  Qa’hoq, he agreed.

  I slipped away for a while.

  * * *

  When I slipped back, I was lying in a puddle of my own warm, stinking blood. Emily was trying to shake me, and the pain was keeping me awake.

  “Don’t cry, sweetheart,” I said. I’d wipe her tears away… in a minute. In a minute. Just let me rest first. “I’ve come to rescue you.”

  Just let me sleep first.

  Sleep.

  Sleep…

  40

  If rest is as healing as everyone says, sick people should stay the fuck away from hospitals.

  Excuse me. Sick people should stay the heck away from hospitals. A promise is a promise, after all.

  “How are we feeling today, Miss Aleksov?” Dr. Singh, a lean Indian man with hands like a poet’s, smiled at me. He had pretty eyes, pale brown and full of laughter instead of demons. I might have liked him if he wasn’t a sadist.

  “We are ready to get the fu… the heck out of here. This place is full of sick people and your coffee tastes like tar.”

  His grin widened. “It’s supposed to taste like tar. That’s why it’s called coffee, and not tea. I’ll make a convert of you yet.”

  “When Hell thaws out.”

  “You mean when Hell freezes over?”

  “Nah.” I plucked at the stiff blankets. “I’ve been there. Place is colder’n a witch’s tit.”

  “And what were you doing there? Besides getting shot.”

  “Spending time with my grandmother.”

  He blinked at that, and then burst out laughing. “Ah, Miss Siggy, I would say you are on the mend! Does this mean you are feeling up to entertaining a few visitors today?”

  “Visitors? I have visitors?”

  Dr. Singh’s face went suspiciously blank. “You do.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “How many?”

  “Oh…” He laughed again as the door behind him swung open, and the entire village of Tsone poured into my room. “I’d have to say… all of them.”

  * * *

  They brought me flowers.

  * * *

  My bed was piled high with stuffed animals, babies, and contraband. Jars of salmon, foil packages of moose jerky. A margarine tub filled with akutaq. The cousins joked about my hospital gown, and Garvin hovered over me like an avenging angel, scowling if anybody jostled me or spoke too loudly.

  Uncle Mike was there, and Aunt Trudy as well. The bruises on her face were still livid, and anger washed through me at the sight of them, but she clung to her daughter, and Emily clung to me, and in the face of all that love the anger never quite found purchase. It drained away like a bad cup of coffee dumped down the sink.

  “How are you, Siggy girl?” She brushed the hair from my forehead, and leaned in to kiss my cheek…

  * * *

  Other people get flowers. Other people have aunties who visit them in the hospital, and bring them teddy bears, and kiss them on the cheek. But not Siggy. Never me.

  I would have died a thousand times more for that kiss.

  They brought me flowers.

  * * *

  …“I’m doing okay,” I replied, and this time it wasn’t a lie. “I’ll need PT for a while, but the bullet punched clean through my bone and didn’t screw around in there too much. I got lucky.”

  Actually, miracle was the word I’d heard thrown around, and more than once. If that bitch Monday had been smart enough to use hollow-points, I’d’ve been dead-dead, not just mostly dead. Even a guardian angel cousin with her own plane wouldn’t have been able to save me. And speaking of demon-ridden bitches… “Did they ever find Monday?”

  “Nope. Don’t think they ever will. It looks like a bear got hold of that asshole she hung out with, too. I hope it gets her. I hope it gets hold of her and…” She glanced at Emily, and her mouth worked as if she had more to say.

  “I don’t,” Emily said.

  Garvin’s eyebrows shot up at that. “You don’t?”

  “No.” She smiled. It was just a shadow-smile, a ghost-smile beneath haunted eyes, but it was a start. “If a bear ate her, it might get sick. Poor bear.”

  It hurt to laugh. It hurt so good.

  * * *

  “Grandpa!” Emily launched herself from the narrow bed, and I winced at the flare of pain in my shoulder. It was worth a little pain, though, to see the old man’s face. To see the love in his eyes, and the pride.

  He’d brought flowers.

  They were all for me.

  * * *

  When everyone left to get burgers, Grandpa stayed behind. My next visitors came in. They were troopers, they weren’t nearly as much fun, and they didn’t bring flowers. Worse, they brought in cups of real coffee and proceeded to drink them in front of me without offering to share.

  “Akutaq?” I offered. I was delighted when they both shook their heads. The short dude grimaced—apparently fish ice cream wasn’t his thing. I hadn’t wanted to share, either, but I was trying to be a better person and not go to Hell. Again.

  “Sigurd Aleksov?”

  “That’s what it says,” I agreed, flashing my hospital bracelet at them. I wasn’t too far gone to be a smartass.

  “We have a few questions to ask you.” The taller guy nodded to me, and then to Grandpa, who started up out of his chair.

  “Now see here, young fellas…”

  “Relax, Gramps. We’re just doing our jobs.” The short dude smirked a little. At my Grandpa. Oh hells, no.

  “Brad…” the other trooper warned. He was kind of cute. Way too clean-cut and serious for my taste, but at least if I was gonna be interrogated they’d sent me some passable eye candy.

  “You can go,” I said, scowling at the assho… the jerk. “I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

  He opened his mouth to protest, but the other guy jerked his head at him and he turned and left. Slowly, like it was his idea, but the back of his neck was flushed red.

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “Under arrest?” The trooper blinked at me. He had pretty green eyes. “No. We’d just… I’d just like to clear up a few things about some recent events.”

  “Well,” I said, “if you want to catch up
on recent events, I suggest you go get a hotel room and watch CNN. We don’t have television in Tsone.”

  “Miss Aleksov, please.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.

  I leaned back into my pillows, chuckling. A year ago, I’d have been scared shitless of a strong white guy in uniform, but that was before I’d met Puyuk. That was before I’d made a deal with the Giyeg and killed a demon with a knife made in Hell. Now, the blue uniform and the gun didn’t scare me at all. Mostly I just lusted after his coffee.

  “All right,” I agreed. “What do you want to know?”

  “Keep it short.” Grandpa scowled.

  “Yes, sir, I will. Sir.” The trooper nodded to Grandpa, and then tried to pin me with his green stare, as if he had a chance. “Miss Aleksov, how did you receive your injuries?”

  “You mean the bullet wound?” I raised my eyebrows at him. “I got shot.”

  “Miss Aleksov. Please.”

  I shrugged, and then wished I hadn’t. Ow. Fuckin’ ow. “Some people came to our village and tried to abduct my little cousin. I stopped ’em, and one of them shot me.” Our village. It sounded weird in my own ears, but it sure felt good.

  “Some people.” He pretended to look at his little notepad, but he was still watching me from the corner of his eye. “One of them was a… an Angela Monday, do I have this right?” He blinked at me, and showed a fine pair of dimples. I gave him my best you’re not fooling me stare.

  “That’s what she said, but she also said she was OCS, and you guys already said she wasn’t. So for all I know she was Miss Fu… Miss Congeniality.”

  “And do you know the current whereabouts of Miss Monday?”

  “Nope.” I crossed my arms over my chest, scowling as the IV line tugged at my skin.

  “No idea at all?”

  “Nope.” Though I rather hoped she was in Hell.

  “And her companion, a Mister…” he consulted his notes again. “Geoff Knight?”

  “Knight? Seriously?” I huffed a small laugh. That hurt, too. “No idea. I’ve been busy not dying from getting shot. You know, if they’re lost, you should probably go look for them.”

  “Oh, we looked,” he said. You’re a pain in my ass, his eyes said. “We didn’t find much besides a lot of blood and some bear tracks. I don’t suppose you know anything about that?”

  “What, you think I sicced my pet grizzly on them?” I blinked at him, and then burst out laughing. “With my magical Indian voodoo? You’ve watched too much TV, dude.”

  One of the machines started beeping, and a nurse hurried in before the trooper could respond. She took one look at me, and then pulled herself up to her full height of five-foot-nothing and scowled fit to summon a storm.

  “Don’t you be bothering my patient now, Trooper Black.”

  “I was just asking a few…”

  “Out.”

  “Miss Aleksov, I will be contacting you… ow!” He stumbled back as the tiny woman smacked him with her metal notebook-thingie. “Shortly! Ow! I’m going, I’m going!”

  “That’s for bugging my patient!” my nurse hollered, smacking him in the backside as he hurried away. “And that’s for the short joke!”

  THWACK!

  She turned back to us and laughed at the expressions on both our faces.

  “Damned if she doesn’t remind me of your grandma,” Grandpa whispered, none too quietly.

  I had to agree. “You just assaulted a state trooper,” I said. “Couldn’t he arrest you for that?”

  “Who, Danny?” She laughed. “Ex-boyfriend. He’d better not arrest me, or I’ll tell his boss what he does with those handcuffs on his days off.”

  It hurt to laugh.

  It hurt so good.

  41

  I eyed the pile of suitcases with some trepidation. My shabby old duffel bag had a new family, too. Brand new luggage, a whole set of it, dark blue with bears marching across the middle. A gift from my Aunt Trudy and Uncle Mike.

  It was full of contraband. The nice lady at the airline counter raised her eyebrows at me as she weighed my bag.

  “What do you have in there, a moose?”

  “Most of one,” I agreed. It wasn’t much of an exaggeration. The family had loaded me up with enough jerky, dried salmon, canned salmon, and other goodies to last me through a zombie apocalypse. “I couldn’t get him into a pet carrier.”

  She chuckled as she weighed the rest of my bags and handed my ticket back. “Hey, wait a minute, I know you. You’re that hero from the bush, the one who saved a kid from being kidnapped! You go, girl! Tess, it’s that girl on the news I was telling you about…”

  A gaggle of people surrounded me, shaking my hand, taking selfies, exclaiming over my white hair and telling me how awesome I was. I shot a panicked look at Sam and mouthed rescue me, but she just stood there grinning from ear to ear.

  Cousins, right?

  Then one of the Alaska Airlines ladies pressed a gift certificate for Starbucks into my hand and told me to go get myself some coffee.

  Me, a hero?

  Huh.

  I could get used to that.

  * * *

  Sam and I ran down the up escalator, laughing the whole way like a pair of kids. What might my life have been, if I’d grown up with my family? Surrounded by a horde of cousins, having sleepovers, getting ready for prom together, maybe getting grounded for sneaking out back and trying Uncle Mike’s cigarettes…

  I’d never know, would I? What might have been. But today I could hold onto what might yet be. We hit the bottom of the escalator and stumbled like a pair of drunks, nearly trampling a little old man with dark skin, a shock of white hair, and twinkling blue eyes. He sidestepped our antics with a grace that belied his age, tipped an imaginary hat at us, and walked away, chuckling.

  And what might have been blew away like seeds in the wind, less substantial than the ghost of a lonely man who was unloved in life and soon forgotten. Might have been doesn’t pay the bills, it doesn’t fill your belly, and it sure as hell doesn’t help get rid of demons. All we get, all we have to work with, is what might be.

  I just hoped that was enough.

  * * *

  “You should stay. You belong here.”

  I sighed. “Don’t you start, too.”

  “Well, it’s true.” Sam had her hands stuffed in the pockets of her flight jacket, and her scowl was like looking in the mirror. I’d miss this so much—just being around people who looked like me. Such a little thing. Such a powerful little thing.

  I scowled back. “I already got it from Garvin. I’ve got a lot of unfinished business in Bearpaw. Stuff. Friends.”

  “But not family.” Finally she relented. “Oh, fiiiine, you stubborn damn Aleksov. I’ll let you go for now. But I don’t have to like it.”

  “Well, I don’t like it either, but I got stuff to take care of back home.”

  She snorted, and got the last word in. “Home, hah. This is your home. You lived there, is all.”

  She had a point. That was the point.

  This land was too loud, too close, too big for my heart to take in… yet. My heart wasn’t used to being so full all the time. Setting foot on this soil, breathing this air, seeing my face reflected in the faces all around me, was too much. It was like sitting down to a feast when you’d been starving, it was a gallon of water when you’d been dying of thirst. Too much. I needed to take little bites, little sips, or I’d be swept away again. Baby steps, or I’d be lost again.

  And then there were the demons.

  My own demon, my special friend, had grown meek and insubstantial. She followed me around like the ghost of a starved puppy, disappearing for days on end, and I didn’t miss her. But other people’s demons screamed at me from behind the masks of their faces, stared at me through their eyes, slipped through doorways behind me and disappeared when I whirled round for a look, so all I’d catch was a hint of claw or tail or leering fangs. Snarky little fuckers.

  Worse, much worse, were
the hollowed-out people, those who had been scooped out like pumpkins, and then left empty and ready for the knife. Those people smiled like everyone else, they walked and talked and ate, they took our money and gave us tacos and wished us a good day, but they were wrong. They were all gone inside.

  …and that reminded me.

  “You go on ahead,” I told Sam. “I’ll catch up with you.” Her pilots had wanted an update on the little girl they’d searched for, and the hero chick who’d saved her. And, if you listened to her, there was a ton of paperwork she had to fill out every time she took a sh… um, took a client anywhere.

  “The guys wanted to buy you lunch.” She gave me her best puppy-dog eyes.

  “I’ve got lunch already,” I brandished my bag of tacos. “I’m going to have lunch with a friend. I’ll catch up in a bit.”

  “You have a friend?” She punched my arm, gently. It still hurt. “I’m jealous.”

  “You have your own guys,” I reminded her, “and a fleet of planes for them to fly around in. I’m jealouser… that’s so fu… reaking cool.”

  “Well, you’re a shaman,” she pointed out, “so I’m jealousest. And you’re still trying not to cuss? Good luck with that.”

  Every demon in the lobby stopped dead, and turned to stare at me, fanged mouths gaping. Oh, this could not be good.

  “Wait, what? I am not.” Thud-thud-THUD-thud went my heart.

  “Not trying not to cuss? Sure sounded like it to me.”

  “Not that. You said I’m a…”

  “Shaman. It’s not a big word, and you are.”

  “Nope. Nope. No way.”

  “If you say so.” Sam reached over and tugged gently at my hair. I kept it braided back, now, so the bone-white sight of it wouldn’t freak me out. “Have a good lunch with your friend.” And she sauntered through the automatic doors, cool as a cucumber, deaf to the thundering of my telltale heart.

  * * *

  “Hey, Charlie,” I crooned. I approached the raggedy man cautiously, crinkling the taco bag, as if he were a rabid dog that might bite at my approach. He’s a man, Siggy, I rebuked myself. Nothing more. Nothing less.