by eden Hudson
I pulled my fingers out of my shirt and dug the little red wedges of built-up tissue from underneath my nails.
“You know, I always thought the offspring of a child-butchering religious fanatic would be a real asshole,” I said. “But you’re not half bad.”
Carina didn’t say anything. Her hammock didn’t creak.
When I looked over, she was either asleep or pretending to be asleep. I decided to save that one for tomorrow.
TEN
After availing ourselves of the hole in the ground the next morning, Carina and I dressed and went downstairs for breakfast.
Because we were in the middle of the Soam jungle—and worse, at one of those ecotourism holes—breakfast was more of a prank on unsuspecting foreigners than a meal. It consisted of some citroni milk and a bowlful of fruit which, unpeeled, looked like a prickly nutsack, and peeled, tasted like imitation bread plus nutsack.
To call what the hostess claimed was “a coffee-flavored drink” insulting to fake coffee would be an insult to insults everywhere. Carina drank hers without gagging, and pretended to be grateful for it. I mentioned the lack of imported Emdoni water and suggested the hostess try upgrading to actual nutsacks next time for flavor’s sake.
As we left the hotel afterward, Carina said, “You’re probably the reason she wouldn’t tell us anything about the witch.”
“Oh, come on. You know she only makes that crap for foreigners to message home about. She’s hiding a stockpile of pastries made with real flour in her room.”
“That’s what I like about you, Van Zandt.” Carina smirked. “You’re always looking for the good in people.”
“You’ve got your iron stomach, I’ve got my honest nature and beautiful face. That hostess has a nutsack surplus. We’ve all got something.”
Our first stop was a junk shop full of ancient artifacts that the owner claimed to have rescued from the local drowned city. While the owner hovered over us under the guise of helping us find anything, I picked up an old phonograph, punched a couple of the number buttons, and picked at the dried algae in the mic holes.
“It’s a decent knockoff,” I told the owner.
I heard Carina snicker, but by the time the junk shop owner and I looked her way, she’d put on a straight face.
“Excuse me.” The junk shop owner shook a nonexistent wrinkle out of her bustled skirts. “But everythang in my shop was recovered by myself or my brother from the—”
“I’m not saying they’re poorly made,” I said. “You did a good job adding water-damage patina, and the wear almost looks authentic, but this doesn’t have anywhere near the level of brittleness a First Earth plastic would.” I flicked the supple faux-plastic of the casing to emphasize my point. It made a thud instead of a tock. “No one who actually knows what they’re looking at is going to be fooled.”
The owner’s mercilessly plucked eyebrows gathered like storm clouds. “That’s how First Earth—”
“We’re not here to buy,” Carina interjected before the owner could finish whatever outlandish lie she was about to tell. “We’re looking for a witch. Re Suli. She lives around here.”
“No, cain’t say’s I’ve heard of such a woman,” the junk shop owner said, smoothing her skirts again. “And if y’all don’t mind my honesty—”
“Ha!”
She chose to ignore me, which is always a bad decision. “—if I had, I wouldn’t be caught dead associatin’. Good folk just ain’t seen with those craft types.”
“I bet not,” I said, my eyes raking across her carefully manicured form for weakness. They caught on her belly button, clearly visible through the sheer gauze of her dress. I blinked a couple of times, attempting to get Carina’s attention so she would look at it, too, but Carina didn’t notice. I focused on the junk shop owner. “So, how many kids do you have?”
The junk shop owner’s eyebrows collided again. “Excuse me?”
She really got a lot of mileage and different meanings out of that phrase.
“Children. Rugrats. Tiny people,” I said. “Got any?”
Carina shot me a very obvious What the hell? look.
More insulted skirt-smoothing. “Why, no…no, I ain’t ‘got any,’ as you put it. I’m waitin’ for the right man, thank you very much.”
“Um, thanks for your time,” Carina said to the junk shop owner. “We’ll get out of your hair now.”
“Mmhm.” The owner smiled a sweetly insincere goodbye. “Y’all come back, now.”
Outside on the boardwalk, I turned to Carina, ready to explain what she’d missed in there, but she opened her mouth first.
“You think she used the fix-it witch to abort an unwanted pregnancy because you saw her half-moon-shaped navel,” Carina said.
I grinned. “And here I thought you weren’t paying attention.”
“But what you’re missing is that an undelivered pregnancy doesn’t turn a woman’s navel down like that, only a delivered one.”
“Ooh, juicy!” I leaned toward Carina. “So, what do you think happened? Child sacrifice?”
“It’s not outside the realm of possibility, but not very common in incorporated jungle villages. You’ve heard about first-born contracts?”
“You think she got hers out of the way early. Made the contract, got her wish, then got knocked up by a random stranger, popped the kid out, gave it away, and went on living without the contract hanging over her head. You’ve been reading too many Soam gothics, sister.”
“Maybe so.” The good side of Carina’s mouth lifted in a tickled smile. “You thought I didn’t know why you were asking.”
I shrugged. “Your outraged-slash-confused face is very convincing. Anyway, you could’ve been jealous that I was interested in her.”
That made Carina laugh.
“I don’t see what’s funny about that,” I said. “I’m a clearly desirable male, she was young and beautiful. It’s only natural that you would feel threatened.”
Carina snorted. “The day I feel threatened by a prissy lady of leisure is the day I eat my knuckgun.”
The breeze blew a strand of hair into her eyes. She tucked it back behind her ear, re-exposing her screaming pink acid scars to the world.
“So, what you’re saying is you do find me desirable.”
“Sure, Jubal, that’s exactly what I was saying.”
My stomach jumped and my body tried to freeze up mid-step, but I kept pace beside Carina. Her comment had been sarcastic, but she’d called me by my first name. Up to this point, she’d only called me Van Zandt.
It had to have been intentional. Liars and manipulators don’t make slips like that. We’re too careful, especially around our own kind.
“You think I’m hot,” I teased, studying the corner of her eye for a betraying movement. “You like me.”
There was too much scar tissue on this side of her face for her lips to do more than twitch, but her voice gave the smile away. “You like yourself more than enough for everybody.”
“And yet I’m not hearing a denial.”
“I think you may have a bad case of selective hearing.” She pointed down a muddy road toward an open market. “Let’s go ask around there.”
***
Courten’s market was in full swing. Farmers, artisans, apothecaries, hunter-gatherers, and fishers from the surrounding jungle displayed their wares on brightly colored tarps. One thing I could respect about these people was their refusal to hawk their products like common carnie barkers. They knew that the residents coming to the market needed what they were selling, and they knew that their particular brand of whatever was on their tarp was the best, so they just sat back and waited for an interested party to come to them.
Normally, I like to startle information out of targets by being rude, asking them personal questions, and then making smart remarks about their stupid answers. In the car the night before, Carina had admitted to favoring the I’m like you and we are in agreement approach, gaining the target’s trust by act
ing in accordance with their beliefs about themselves and the world. That had worked out well enough for us with our Nytundian contact, and I was a big enough man to admit that it had almost worked on me. But the name-calling instance outside the junk shop had left a weird feeling in my stomach, so I decided to see what Carina would do if I didn’t give her anything to play the opposite of.
I went up to an elderly fisherman’s tarp, cast a glance over his catches of the day, and said exactly nothing.
“Mornin’,” Carina said to the fisherman.
My ears perked up at the shift in her inflection. It wasn’t overwhelming enough to be misinterpreted as mocking. The change in her accent was subtle, just like her change in body language in Nytundi.
The old fisher nodded to her, chewed on his dentures, then replied, “A mighty nice’n.”
“Yes, sir.” Carina crouched down by the pile of fish. She was keeping the scarred side of her face averted just enough that he wouldn’t get an eyeful of the mess that was her left cheek. “Looks like they were bitin’ good.”
“Plumb clamorin’ to get on the hook,” the old fisher agreed. “I was turnin’ em away by the twos and threes.”
Carina smiled ruefully. “Sure wish I had that problem when I fished. What do you use?”
“Crawdaddies, mostly.”
“You don’t have a problem with the billy gars gettin’ after your bait?” she asked.
“Now’n then with a bluegill on the hook,” the old man conceded. “That’s why I tend toward the crawdads. Gars ain’t so fond of ’em.” He grinned. “Girl, ya gonna run me outta secrets. You’ll be sellin’ catfish here come tomorrow if I keep a-yakkin’.”
Carina laughed and slapped his spindly old arm—not a real slap, just a brush of the backs of her fingers across his leathery bicep, but it got the old coot laughing with her at his own clever joke.
When the laughter died down, Carina shook her head. “The hectic market life ain’t for me. I’m actually in town lookin’ to visit somebody. Any chance you might know where we could find Re Suli?”
The old fisherman pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped a thin brown line of chew from the corner of his wrinkled lips before he answered. “Naw, don’t reckon I know where that gal might be of a day like today.” He inspected the handkerchief, then tucked it back into his pocket. “She don’t keep regular office hours, as you can ’magine.”
“I s’pose that’s right,” Carina said. She stooped and indicated a catfish. “Got a pretty decent stock of hardheads. You set bank poles or trotline?”
“Now, there ya go again, girl.” The old fisher shook a gnarled finger at her. “Tryin’ to steal all my secrets. Next you’ll be askin’ where my secret spot is!”
“Well, I would’ve if you hadn’t caught onto me so quick.” She made another good-natured brush-slap at his arm. Then she turned serious. “You don’t ever sun bleach any of these hardhead skulls, do you? I’d sure like to have one, if you got any.”
The old man nodded. “Figured you for one of them Yeshua lovers when I saw y’all comin’. I keep a couple about, just in case your sort turns up of a day.”
He groaned to his bare feet and bent over a five-gallon bucket, popping the lid off and digging around inside. He came up holding a clean white catfish skull.
“Here we go.” With one gnarled finger, he traced the bony outline of the top, showing off the shield of the First Earth Romans, then flipped it over and traced the crucifix in its belly plates. “Believe that’s what you’re looking for?”
Carina’s eyes lit up. If she was faking that delight, she was damn good. Just looking at her, I felt like I was seeing a five-year-old version of Carina opening presents on her birthday. She’d probably been a really pretty kid.
I shuddered, then took a couple steps and fought the need to shake my arms out to use up the sudden influx of energy.
“We’re not here so you can get a bunch of junk.” I let irritation creep into my voice and checked my wristpiece. “This doesn’t have anything to do with finding that witch. It’s just wasted time.”
“Honey girl, that boy a yours is gettin’ downright impatient,” the old man said.
“Well, he better get back to patient right quick,” Carina said. “Or he might find himself sleepin’ out on the porch tonight.”
The old man wheezed with laughter at the thought of her cutting me off.
When he calmed down, Carina gestured with both hands like she was getting ready to throw dice. “If you shake it, does—”
The old man rattled the skull. “Yup, this one got his dice intact.”
“How much do you want?”
“Aw, hell.” He stretched out the word as if he was thinking about it. “Gimme four and we’ll call it even.”
Carina transferred the money over to his account, then took her rattling fish skull. “Thank you kindly, sir.”
The old man nodded. “Y’all take care, now.”
“You, too,” Carina said. “And if you do come across Re Suli, could you let her know we’re over’t the hotel? It’s mighty important.”
The old fisher whipped out his handkerchief again. “Will do, honey. Will do.”
As we headed down the rest of the market aisle, I told Carina, “That wasn’t half bad, Bloodslinger. Y’all handled that old man purt near good, I figure.”
But instead of laughing with me, Carina traced the crucifix on the underside of the skull. “My dad brought one of these home from Soam. He gave it to my mom when they got married.”
“What are the odds a guy nicknamed the Child Butcher got something like that on a fishing charter?” I said.
Carina didn’t take the bait. “It’s the whole story of the crucifixion, written in the bones of a catfish. The shield, Christ on the cross, the sound of the soldiers casting lots for his clothes…”
“Yeah, I know the crucifix fish lore, but you’re saying that like I should be surprised he only charged you four bucks. I hate to break this to you, Carina, but that slippery old mud puppy ripped you off. Hardhead is worthless. Nobody even eats them. They’re disgusting.”
“Exactly.” She rubbed her thumb over the shield-side. “Nobody does unless they’re starving, and if they’re starving, then they probably can’t afford fish at the market.” She looked up at me, a smile breaking through that intense look. “There’s no market for what he’s selling, but he brought in at least twenty of them this morning.”
“Maybe they use them as cut bait.”
“Or maybe he uses them to spread the story of Christ.”
I laughed once, hard. “You really see the world the way you want to see it, huh?”
A Carina-pause while she considered my rhetorical question. “I guess I do sometimes.” She thought about it for a few more seconds, then nodded. “But sometimes I like my version better.”
What do you say to someone who’s delusional and knows it? There was no sore point there, nothing to poke a stick at.
I just led the way to the next tarp and asked whether they knew where we could find Courten’s fix-it witch.
***
The rest of the market followed a similar pattern to that first old fisher. People knew of Re Suli, but couldn’t or wouldn’t say where one might find her of a day like today. Whenever I asked what they meant by that, they gave vague shrugs or gestured at what I guessed to be the general blanket of heat and humidity clinging to the air. It wasn’t a complete and utter waste of time, however. I did manage to buy a replacement pin for my wristpiece band dirt cheap.
Courten was small enough that we’d made the rounds by early afternoon, so we stopped in for lunch at a bar that claimed to have authentic foreign food.
Carina stared down at the fish skull on the table. At some point in the past couple of hours, her mood had become a pensive fugue loud enough that not even the waitress asking what we wanted could penetrate it.
I looked over the menu card, then at the waitress. “What do you have that’s import
ed from Emden and touched as little as possible by your cook?”
“You’re wantin’ the Emden rolls,” the waitress said.
“That’s what we’re wanting,” I agreed, handing her the menus back.
“How ’bout some of our special house-brewed coffee while you’re waitin’?” she asked, leaning in as if she were tempting me. “Grown right down the valley and roasted in this very kitchen.”
“God no. Give us a couple bottled waters. Emdoni, if you’ve got it.”
She frowned. “We don’t.”
“Then I guess we’ll suffer through some Soami orphan tears. What doesn’t kill us, amiright?”
The waitress left without answering.
I kicked Carina under the table. She bolted up straight and glared at me.
“In case you were wondering, that was the waitress buzzing around your little noise-cancellation zone,” I said. “I ordered you a gallon of mead and a plate of deep-fried lard sticks. Couldn’t hurt to work on a body to match that mood.”
“What’s the matter, Van Zandt, not getting enough attention to be sure you still exist?”
“Who took the pin out of your vocal cords?”
“Look, I realize this is just another job to you,” Carina said, “But the restoration of my father’s honor depends on whether or not we find those brujahs. Forgive me if I’ve got things besides your cleverness weighing on my mind right now.”
“You’re forgiven,” I said. “After all, you are here to get revenge on behalf of a horny asshole who wanted some foreign tail badly enough to betray you and everything you believe in. A little anger is to be expected.”
Her green glare darkened. “That’s not what happened. You didn’t know him.”
