The Thread that Binds the Bones

by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

  Laura led Tom to the table and tugged him down beside her on the end of a bench, then released his hand. He glanced at people around the table. Some were dark, some light. Many had traces of the strange slant-eyed good looks Laura had; in one or two the effect was even stronger, verging on the unearthly. Others had a stocky solidness that squared their faces and gave them gravity. Something about them, though, made it clear that they were all related, maybe just the angle they held their heads, alert and curious as birds.

  The cauldron’s steam scented the air with mulled cider. The women and the man brought their burdens to the table. Someone else went to get a ladle, returned, and filled cups with fragrant honey-colored liquid.

  Michael and the woman he had stood beside during the ritual sat at the head of the table, and the old man who had led the chants sat with them. Cider cups traveled around the table until everyone had one. Tom warmed his hands on his cup. He realized he had not eaten in a long time.

  The old man said, “The auguries were good.” He broke into a smile.

  “Praise be,” said one of the cauldron bearers, the blonde woman. Her short hair was streaked with varied shades of blonde, like Laura’s and Michael’s. Her face was square and solid, but her nose was the same shape as Laura’s. She looked at Michael. “You took an awful chance, son,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell us you weren’t ready for this? We could have waited a month for you to prepare.”

  “Preparation wouldn’t help,” he said. He glanced at a small white-haired woman down the table from him. Her dark eyes glittered as she stared back, her mouth thin and grim, Michael lowered his gaze and traced a pattern on the table with an index finger. “I’m surprised I got off as easy as I did.”

  “Mischief saved you. She wants progeny,” said the blonde woman. “Alyssa, you have bride’s right of refusal, having seen how short Michael falls. Do you wish to exercise that right?”

  The woman beside Michael put her hand over his and smiled down at her cup of cider. “No,” she said. “I would aid Mischief; there’s been little enough of that in my life.”

  “Then let us toast a wedding,” said a man with a thick red mustache, holding his cup aloft.

  “A wedding,” everyone echoed, raising their cups, then taking swallows of cider.

  Tom choked on a clove. Laura patted his back as he coughed.

  “Oh, yeah. Now that that’s settled, what about him?” Michael asked, pointing at Tom.

  Tom stopped coughing, held his hand in front of his mouth, and looked up to see everyone staring at him. Few of the faces looked friendly.

  He felt a thrill of apprehension. Laura had warned him. Time to face whatever came next. He sat up straight.

  “Daughter, who is this?” asked the blonde woman.

  “Tom,” said Laura. “I gave him salt privilege.”

  “Let’s be accurate,” said the mustached man. “You’ve given him rites and robes. Where did you get him?”

  “In town,” said Laura. “He’s a cab driver. He drove me out here.”

  The tiny white-haired woman leaned forward, her small hands crabbed into claws, but before she could say or do anything, the slender blond man beside her said to Laura, “You miserable excuse for a Bolte. You never applied yourself to the disciplines, and now you’re polluting an important occasion! Why didn’t you just stay gone?”

  “Hey, wait a minute!” Michael yelled, and—

  “Carroll!” cried the blonde woman, and—

  Tom blinked. The room tingled with strange forces. Othersight returned: he saw hazes of colored lights everywhere. Small bright-hued presences lurked in the shadowed reaches of the ceiling, and each of the people at the table wore a halo of force. Carroll’s was strong and fiery; the tiny old woman beside him wore a vivid shawl of green, red, and blue-black lace touched with flickers of ice blue. Setting down his cup, Tom leaned across the table, grasped a handful of Carroll’s red aura, and tugged on it, startling a gasp out of the other man.

  “What happened?” asked someone.

  “Listen, Uncle Carroll, I invited Laura here. Leave her alone,” said Michael.

  “Anyone watching the Powers would realize Laura was guided,” said the blonde woman, Laura’s mother. “She and this boy were matched. Didn’t you see it? Who are you?”

  “Tom Renfield,” said Tom.

  “What did you do to Carroll?”

  “I don’t know, but I can do it again.” He stared at Carroll, whose opalescent green eyes stared back, watchful, not afraid.

  “What do you mean, May, matched?” the mustached man asked Laura’s mother.

  “They got the wedding test, and neither of them flinched. And they got glows, Hal.”

  Everyone talked at once.

  “What’s a glow?” Tom murmured to Laura.

  “Those fireballs,” she said, “the ones that came in our eyes.” She seemed upset.

  “What does that mean? What does any of this mean?”

  “Don’t you know?” she asked.

  “No. I don’t know about any of this.”

  “But you were singing,” she said, “you knew.” Her gold-blue halo was stained with sickly yellow.

  “A ghost helped me with that. I didn’t understand any of the words.”

  “A ghost?”

  He blew a breath up, ruffling his bangs. “There were a lot of ghosts, I thought—didn’t you see them?”

  “I saw light,” she said.

  “There was light, and there were all these ghosts. Some were people, and some were animals and monsters. One came inside me. He knew all the words.”

  “What?” The sickly yellow in her halo was changing to pink.

  “Laura!” said Laura’s mother.

  Laura turned.

  “Laura,” said her mother, softer this time, smiling. “Do it.”

  “But Tom doesn’t understand.”

  “That doesn’t matter. The Powers and Presences understand. Do it.”

  Laura turned to Tom. “Will you marry me?”

  Startled, he sat back. “I think we should talk about this in private.”

  “That’s not how we do things around here, Tom.”

  “You can refuse her,” said Laura’s mother. “You run the risk of offending the Presences and Powers, though. They have linked you during Purification, and they can be capricious if you ignore them.”

  “This is all new to me. I don’t even understand what we just did.”

  “Don’t pollute our blood, fetch,” said Carroll. The tiny white-haired woman beside him gripped his arm, grinning, revealing small pointed teeth. The red in her halo darkened.

  “Carroll, you court dismissal from this council,” May said.

  “You don’t have that authority.”

  Tom felt the plucked-string tingle warm his throat. “No,” said someone else’s voice coming from his mouth (that had happened with Hannah and felt strangely familiar), “but I do. Get thee gone, descendant, ere I unleash the deep fire on thee.”

  Carroll’s eyes widened. He stood up, stared at Tom a moment, and walked out of the room.

  The tingle spread through him. Tom felt very strange, as though he were a passenger in his own body. This expansive a possession had never happened with Hannah. It wasn’t uncomfortable; he just didn’t know what he was going to do next. Mentally he sat back to await developments.

  The ghost studied everyone sitting around the table. They all looked shocked. The ghost smiled at them.

  The mustached man cleared his throat. “Uh—Honored Presence?”

  “Yes, descendant?”

  “Is this…tanganar a worthy candidate for my daughter’s hand?”

  Tom felt a deep laugh sweep through him; he couldn’t stop chuckling. At last, still gasping, the other used his mouth to say, “Descendant, this too is Mischief’s province. Pronounce a binding while I hold sway here; it would be thy worst night’s work to let this…tanganar escape.”

  Laura paled. Her eyes kindled. “I won’t! I w
on’t get bound by deceit! I refuse.”

  “Thou wilt,” said the ghost. “Ancient?”

  The old man who had led the chants smiled, his eyes sparkling like aquamarines set in silver.

  “In brief, for a favor,” said the ghost.

  “Do you, Thomas Renfield, take Laura Bolte as your wife?” said the old man.

  The ghost opened his mouth.

  —Wait a second, Tom thought.

  —What? said the ghost.

  —Let me.

  —Will you say yes?

  His Aunt Rosemary, favorite and kindest of all his relatives, had told him, “Never rush into anything—unless into is the direction you want to go.” He studied Laura, who believed in ghosts, who made light from nothing, who had the biggest family he had ever seen, and who eclipsed everyone he had ever dreamed about.

  —Yes. Oh, yes, he thought.

  —Very well. The ghost let him own his throat and mouth.

  “Yes. I do,” he said.

  “Do you, Laura Bolte, take Thomas Renfield as your husband?”

  “I—” She looked at Tom, who nodded. “I do,” she said.

  “By my lively antiquity, by Powers and Presences above and below, by ancestors and descendants, by sun and sky, by earth and ocean, by all auguries, which read exceeding well tonight, I pronounce you husband and wife,” said the old man. He smiled.

  “Honored,” said the mustached man, “are you still present?”

  “Yes,” said the ghost.

  “Will you tell us the joke now?”

  “No.” He laughed again, then fled out the soles of Tom’s feet, leaving him in mid-ha, so that he blinked and closed his mouth and stared around at all these strangers.

  Laura looked at him. “Tom, is that you? We’re married,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “We can unbind it. There are some old forms of unbinding—”

  “Laura!” cried her mother. The tiny white-haired woman across the table leaned forward, cocking her head and studying Laura. Her black eyes glittered.

  “—in the memory books in the library,” Laura said. Her voice was tight. “One has a list of all the unbindings, from cotton thread up to the Great Unbinding. I know there’s a special unbinding for marriages. I can find it if you want.”

  “I don’t want. That was my voice saying ‘I do.’ Do you want to undo it? I know he didn’t give you much choice.”

  Laura shook her head. “No. No. You’re my Outsider.” She grinned up at him. Then she sobered. “We have a lot of things to work out, though.”

  “You said it. For starters, who are all these people?” Something tapped him on the head, then rang on the stone floor. He looked up, surprised, and saw something else falling, glinting. He reached out and caught it. “Wait a minute. May I have your hand?”

  She held out her left hand and he slid a ring onto her third finger. The jewelry was a delicate gold band set with a small lapis lazuli scarab. She stared at her hand, then at the ceiling, and finally at the floor. After a moment’s study she reached out, and the ring that had fallen first leapt up onto her palm. She took Tom’s left hand and slid the ring onto his third finger. He looked at his ring. It was braided gold and silver, set with a black onyx seal depicting a Roman soldier’s head. Laura kissed Tom.

  He kissed her back, then looked up at the ceiling. Hazy glows moved about. “Thanks,” he said.

  “Do things like this happen to you often?” Laura’s mother asked.

  “No,” he said. “This is my first marriage.”

  She laughed and leaned forward, holding out her hand. “I’m May Bolte, young man, Laura’s mother. Welcome to the Family. I didn’t mean the marriage part,” she continued as he shook her hand. “I meant the lights, the possession by a ghost, rings falling from nowhere.”

  “No,” he said. “No, that doesn’t happen every day either.”

  “Let me see those rings,” said a stocky blond man. Laura held out her hand, and he tugged at the ring, which didn’t budge.

  “Cut it out, Jess!” she said, jerking her hand back.

  “All right, all right, just let me look at it, then.” He grasped her hand and held it closer, leaning over to scrutinize it, snapping his fingers and producing a small light ball. “Old, very old. I think I read about this in one of the seventeenth-century ship manifests.” He grabbed Tom’s hand and studied his ring. “Yes,” he said. “These have been missing almost three hundred years.”

  “This is my oldest brother Jess, the family historian,” Laura said to Tom.

  “Right,” said Tom.

  “My father, Hal.” She pointed to the mustached man.

  “What’s a tanganar?” Tom asked Hal.

  Hal licked his lower lip. “Which Presence did you host, do you know?”

  “What?” Tom sat back. “I—I hosted Peregrine.” He touched his forehead. “Weird. I didn’t know till you asked me, but he left traces. Peregrine Bolte.”

  “Did he tell you the joke?”

  “No, and I notice you’re avoiding my question.”

  “Tanganar are the mind-deaf, the ungifted, the powerblind.” Hal shifted in his chair. “I take it you are not tanganar.”

  “Probably not,” said Tom.

  “There are tests—”

  “Stop it, Dad,” said Laura. “Tom, this is my Great-aunt Agatha Keye, Arkhos, and Uncle Christopher and Aunt Hazel Keye, my younger brother Perry and my little sister Astra, and Great-aunt Fayella, who teaches us all the special disciplines—” She pointed to the tiny white-haired woman across the table, whose eyes were bright as fresh-spilled blood, whose mouth had returned to its grim line. “My brother Michael you met; Alyssa Locke, from Southwater Clan, is his fiancée; Great-uncle Jezra Bolte, who married us; Uncle Ferdinand and Aunt Sarah Keye; Cousin Hilary Locke, Cousin Lucian Seale, Cousin Keziah Bolte, Cousin Meredith Seale—of the other people at Purification, about half came up from Southwater Clan, and a bunch of the others have already put in a hard day and have gone to bed. This isn’t a full formal council meeting. You going to remember everybody?”

  Laura’s parents, Hal and May, were distinct to him already. Hilary was the stocky dark man who had fetched the glasses. Great-aunt Agatha had thick glasses and gray hair, and she had helped May carry the cider cauldron to the table. There was no way he could forget Fayella; she gave him the creeps. Jezra, still beaming, looked older than everyone else. Laura’s brothers and sister sorted themselves out in his mind. The others blurred. “Hello,” he said.

  “Enough chitchat,” Great-aunt Agatha said. Her glasses glinted in the candlelight. “You’ve had the wedding. Now we need the consummation.”

  “Is that something we have to do in public too?” Tom asked.

  “No. The house will let us know when it’s happened. Go away, youngsters.”

  “But—” Perry said.

  “You had better not say what I think you’re about to say, young man,” said May. “I repeat, the Presences matched them, and no one with wisdom would come between them. I don’t know if that applies to you, Perry. I don’t like to get too optimistic about you children when you’ve given me so little evidence.”

  Tom rose, Laura’s hand in his. “Good night,” he said as Laura stepped over the bench. She led him away, leaving sounds and scent and very breath of the family behind in the lighted kitchen. They held hands as Laura navigated twisted ways to take them back to her room.

  Chapter 6

  “Whew,” said Tom as Laura closed and locked her bedroom door with them safely inside.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “Actually,” he said, and stopped. He looked at the glass horses on the shelf. “Better than all right,” he said. “If this is a dream, I don’t want to wake up yet. How are you?”

  “Scared.” She went to the bed and sat down. “Everything’s happening so quickly. This is so much like my family, and so far from what I thought was real life. I feel trapped on track again. I don’t even know y
ou, Tom.”

  “Except for a few essentials,” said Tom, “like, the Presences and Powers matched us. What does that mean, anyway? I mean, I get it that you call ghosts Presences.”

  “Ghosts, and other spirits; bodiless beings.”

  “You people let ghosts boss you around?” He sat down beside her on the bed, held out his hand. She slid hers into it. She smelled of evergreens, and he knew her mouth must still hold the spiced tang of cider; his did.

  Her brow furrowed. She stared down at their nested hands. “There are lots of different ways to die. Some go on to some other place, and they don’t come back. Those who have worked long and hard for the Family, though, those who care very deeply about our survival, they root in our home ground, and we consult them on major decisions. Except we haven’t had a spirit-speaker born for several generations now, not since Scylla the Krifter, and she died about twelve years ago, so now we have to rely on auguries and omens.” She frowned at the floor, then looked up. “We can tell what the Powers and Presences want from the way the light treats people, like Michael, tonight—it looked so bad—”

  “I didn’t understand that.”

  She stared into his eyes. “He’s flawed.”

  “People have to be perfect?”

  “They used to have to be, if they wanted to have children. But…our numbers are so few, the fewest they’ve been in centuries. And the babies…they die. Sometimes when they’re born. Sometimes they just get sick while they’re still young, and nothing we do saves them. We can all heal a little, but we haven’t had a strong healer in a long time. Scylla foresaw the weakening of the blood. She consulted with the Powers and Presences in 1936, and the council decided to relax some of the breeding restrictions. They did another loosening of those threads in the fifties. People don’t have to be as perfect as they used to. But Michael—” A tear streaked her cheek.

  “He almost failed,” Tom said. “What would have happened to him if he failed?”

  “He would lose his power of generation,” she whispered.

  After puzzling over this, Tom said, “Sterilization?”

  She flicked the fingers of her free hand as if warding off evil.