The Thread that Binds the Bones

by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

  “In the kitchen wall.”

  “And you didn’t call us?”

  “I’ve never been good at summoning, any more than I was good at other disciplines. I called Tom.” She looked at her ring. “He came and let me out, and he turned the twins into toads for me.”

  After a moment’s silence, Hal said to Tom, “This was why the Presence was laughing last night? You have as much potential as the others in our immediate family?”

  —Peregrine?

  —One of the reasons, yes.

  “Yep,” said Tom.

  “So we don’t have to worry about you anymore, Laura,” said May.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Well. Welcome to our family, Tom. Thrice welcome.” May nodded to him. “Laura is the best of her generation.”

  “I know.”

  May smiled. “Of course. Laura, where have you been the past six years? Couldn’t you drop us a note?”

  “Make Luke come all the way out here to deliver a letter, knowing the way Sarah’s been watching him since we were in high school? No, thanks. I didn’t think you cared.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  Laura stared at her mother.

  May sat quiet, meeting her daughter’s eyes. At last, May said, “I do care, and so does your father. If you had made an effort to keep in touch, we would have told you what was going on. But you—disappeared. You didn’t send us an address or any way of getting in touch with you. A lot of things have been happening here, Laura.”

  “I noticed Annis and Jaimie were missing. Where are they?”

  Silence.

  “Annis’s fetch got her with child,” said Hal.

  “She asked for Purification and a sanctioned marriage, but Christopher refused to even consider it.” May sat a moment staring at the rug nearest the couch, then looked up. “Annis is his favorite daughter. Annis and Jaimie thought Chris was just being ornery, but I think he was dreadfully afraid Annis and the fetch would fail the tests of the Presences and Powers.”

  “Who’s the fetch?” Laura asked.

  May rubbed her forehead. “It’s a terrible name. Bernie?”

  “Barney Vernell,” Hal said.

  “A wavering, ghostly little man with glasses.”

  “I know Barney,” said Laura. “I remember: he wrote her poems in seventh grade. I thought that was so sad, because they could never—but they have…”

  “I don’t understand the attraction,” May said in a meditative voice. “He has straw hair, pale skin, invisibility—who could notice him? I didn’t, until this thing with Annis.”

  “What happened?”

  “They ran away—the three of them—and took a lot of the good spirit out of the house.”

  “Jaimie went with them?”

  May frowned at the rug. “Yes. She claimed she’d rather die single than marry anybody in the Family.”

  “Where are they now? Did they have the baby?”

  “We don’t know. Agatha had Zenobia and Meredith krift in search of them, but they could find no trace. I don’t think any of us realized how well Jaimie learned the disciplines. She has them shielded completely, or perhaps they’re on another continent.”

  “I think they’re near,” said Hal. “I thought I sensed their traces during the ceremony today.”

  “When did they leave?”

  “Almost three months ago. We could have told you all this if we had known where you were,” May said.

  “You could have figured it out if you were really interested.”

  “I tried,” said Hal. “You blend right in. You’re invisible in a city—you were in a city, weren’t you?”

  “Good guess.” She didn’t sound very friendly. “Michael found me.”

  May sighed. “Michael’s more powerful than we are; you must have realized that by now. Do you think we would have let him pester you the way he did while you were growing up if we could have stopped him?”

  “Oh,” said Laura, her eyes widening.

  “Your mother could probably have passed the breeding tests, but I wouldn’t have,” Hal said. “Scylla dropped them just in time for our wedding. Presences blessed us with five children…Thank the Powers Michael survived Purification. He has the most promise, but the warping on him—so dangerous, but we couldn’t seem to counter it, I don’t know where he got it. I don’t think we’re responsible, any more than Chris and Hazel are responsible for how Gwen and Sarah are. Your mother and I have talked this over and we don’t know what to think. I’m sorry, Laura.”

  “There’s something about this generation,” said May in a troubled voice. “Either the blood is weak or the character’s warped. I thank the Powers that brought you and Tom together, Laura. I confess I have often wished I could turn the twins into toads myself.”

  “Tom turned Carroll into a crow this morning,” said Laura.

  “What?” said Hal.

  “Carroll turned Tom into a jackass first, but he undid that and turned Carroll into a crow.”

  “We should have stayed for cake,” said May.

  “We wanted to celebrate alone with each other,” Hal said. “Two children successfully linked—a lovely feeling. We left right after the ceremony.”

  “What did Carroll think of all this?” May asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Tom. “I released him later. He shook hands with me. I’ve been puzzled about that.”

  “Acknowledgment of equality,” May said. “How unlike Carroll.”

  “Peregrine wasn’t sure if it was a trick or not.”

  “Peregrine? The Presence? Is it still around? Normally they only manifest during special rituals, when we summon them,” said May.

  “That’s what you think.”

  “Oh? You have other information?”

  “This place is hip-deep in—in Presences. They just don’t use visible light very much.” Tom glanced around the room, wondering if there were any spirits there. He didn’t see any. Suddenly he remembered being eleven and living with one of his relatives. He saw the phantom of his aunt’s first husband. It came to breakfast and read a phantom newspaper. Her second husband made orange juice, then sat in the same place as the phantom. The first time Tom saw it happen, he waited for some outcry, which never came; after that he accepted it as normal, until the phantom started telling him how it had died. His nightmares after that, his sleepwalking and sleeptalking had frightened his aunt so much she asked that he be moved somewhere else. Counseling had quieted the dreams, buried the memories until now. “Peregrine…” He held out his hands, palms up, fingers outspread. “Peregrine came inside me. He’s training me.”

  Hal and May looked at each other. “Have you heard of something like that?” he asked her.

  “In 1792. Rupert Locke,” she said, “honored by the Presence of Lucian Bolte, who died in 1615.” She looked down at her hands, which rested on her thighs, then glanced sideways at Tom. “Rupert set a lot of precedents, overturned traditions, disturbed everybody, and generally did the Family a world of good.”

  “Am I being set up as a piece of history? I’m not sure I like that.”

  —It won’t happen against your will, Peregrine assured him.

  “You probably don’t have to like it,” said May. “It will just happen. But enough of that. I still have no idea what my daughter’s done since she left us, or what your future plans may be. I don’t even know what my new son-in-law does—unless you really drive a taxi, which strikes me as highly improbable.”

  “I’m really a janitor,” said Tom. In his late teens, he had been overpowered by a desire to be woodwork, totally anonymous, to disappear, and being a janitor had seemed the perfect way to realize this desire. He had apprenticed himself, learned the trade, and practiced it without looking back for almost twelve years, until he ran away from Portland. “There wasn’t any steady work open for that in Arcadia, so I became a cab driver instead. Laura’s a model.”

  “What?” Hal looked surprised.

  “I�
��m going to be modeling maternity clothes soon,” she said.

  May opened her mouth, closed it. Slowly her right hand rose, nested in her left. “We didn’t do any of the fertility rituals,” she said.

  “Oh, well,” said Laura, her voice rising on the first word, cresting on the second without coming down very far. She shrugged. She smiled.

  “You’ll stay here until after the baby’s born, won’t you? So we can krift, gift, seal, welcome it?”

  “No way,” said Laura, as Tom said, “Not a chance.”

  “Why not?” asked Hal.

  Tom looked at Laura, waited for her to speak. “The air here is cold and poisoned,” she said.

  “Think what shapechangers could do to an embryo,” said Tom.

  “Babies are sacred,” May said, her voice indicating, “This is law.”

  “Alex and Arthur locked Laura in a wall. What if they had decided to do the render-you-barren thing? What if it had worked? I don’t trust you people any more than I would a nest of rattlers,” said Tom.

  “But—oh. Well, I guess you have reason,” said Hal. He frowned. “The twins wouldn’t have done it if they had known, though.”

  “I think we’ll be better off elsewhere. I want to get training, too,” Tom said.

  “In what?” asked Laura.

  “Career training. I’m not sure what field. I think I should make more money now. Also midwifery, parenting—I’m not sure this is the best place for that. And—I told Maggie she could come with us, Laura, if it was all right with you.”

  She stared at him for the space of four heartbeats, then her eyelids lowered halfway. She focused on the floor.

  “What do you think?”

  “I guess…I guess I feel a little upset. I thought we’d share decisions like that.”

  “I think we should. I didn’t tell her it was absolutely for sure. She’s helped with kids before. She doesn’t have to live with us; we could get her a place nearby. She’s so scared to be alone…she lived here three years, and Carroll used her. I told her she was my daughter.”

  Laura put her hand to her temple like someone in a headache commercial. Then she said, “Oh, well.” She gave Tom half a smile.

  “I think we better stick together,” he said.

  “Right!”

  “If this doesn’t work, we can change it.”

  “Right.”

  “We don’t even know each other.”

  “You are so right.” She looked up and touched his face, then glanced at her parents. “We only met a day ago, and here we are—you, me, Maggie, and baby—a family.”

  There was an unaccustomed resonance to the word “family” whenever the Hollow people used it that puzzled and pleased Tom. He thought of his cousin Rafe, a ruthless businessman somewhere in Seattle, a family tie Tom had been pleased to sever.

  “Are you ready to go home?” he asked Laura.

  “Yes.” She stood, went to her parents and hugged them. “I expect Tom could do air mail, if I explain it to him properly; we could save Luke the trip. I’ll give you my agent’s phone number. She always knows where to find me. You could phone from town. You do get into town once in a while, don’t you?”

  “We can if we want to,” said Hal.

  “All right.” She went to the table the samovar stood on, opened a drawer, and got out a pencil and paper. She scribbled a number and her name and handed the paper to her mother. She waited a moment, regarding her parents. A smile surfaced. “I love you,” she said. “Sometimes I really hate this place and our family, but I love you.”

  “We love you too,” said May.

  “Best of our children,” Hal finished.

  Laura sniffled and returned to Tom, who put his arms around her. He sent out his silver thread, snagged Laura’s suitcase and coat from her room, and carried her and luggage and himself back across the darkness, following the thread he had left during his earlier voyage.

  They arrived, blinking, in Trixie’s warm, lighted kitchen, where Maggie, Bert, and Trixie were playing cards and drinking coffee. Dasher lifted his nose from his paws, blinked his yellow eyes, moaned, and went back to sleep.

  Chapter 14

  “Hi,” said Tom. The kitchen smelted of coffee. A drip pot sat, half full, over a low flame on the stove.

  “Welcome back,” Bert said. “Does a straight beat a flush?”

  “I’d have to look it up. Laura, this is Bert and Trixie—Maggie you met this morning. Trixie offered us a guest room, since my place isn’t big enough.”

  Laura smiled. “Hi,” she said, then lost her smile in confusion. “Did she—did you—?” She eased out of Tom’s arms and walked to the kitchen table. “Bert? I know I’ve seen you before, and”—she turned to Trixie—“aren’t you the lady from Tyke’s Pharmacy? Mrs. Delarue?”

  “Call me Trixie, dear. I sold the pharmacy when my husband died, five years ago. I work part time at Bert’s Taxis now. May I call you Laura?”

  “Oh, yes, please. Mrs.—Trixie? Is it really all right for us to stay here?”

  “Sure.”

  After a brief hesitation, Laura asked in a very small voice, “Did Tom put a binding on you?”

  “What’d I tell you, Tommy? Nothing’s normal for these people,” Trixie said.

  “Oh, be fair,” said Tom. “She knows what normal is; she just doesn’t expect to find it this close to home. Laura, these are our friends.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Is that possible? How do you do it?”

  “Why don’t you sit down, dear?” Trixie asked. “Are you hungry? Would you like milk or coffee?”

  “I—no, I—” Laura took a chair and sat down.

  “Tommy, potato chips are in the cupboard over the fridge. There are bowls in the cupboard below and to the right of the sink.”

  Tom grinned and fetched potato chips and a bowl. “Once you’ve told me, I can know this stuff for next time, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why don’t we just pretend you’ve told me the whole kitchen?”

  She sighed. “All right. But you don’t know where the linens are yet.”

  “I don’t even know which room we’ve got yet.” He wrestled the bag of potato chips open, dumped chips into the salad bowl, got a glass of milk, and came to sit next to Laura.

  “I find that reassuring.” Trixie reached out her hand, and Tom slid the bowl across the table to her.

  “Who’s winning?” he asked.

  “Maggie,” said Bert.

  “Making my own money,” Maggie said.

  “Starting with what?”

  “You didn’t pick up your change at the thrift store.” She beamed at him. “You can have it back now.” She pushed a stack of poker chips toward him.

  “Okay. Laura, you ever play poker?”

  “Mm. I watched once. A shoot got rained out and we holed up in a coffee shop. I sat at the table with wardrobe and makeup. They lost a lot of money to each other.”

  He gave her half his stack of chips. “Can we play?”

  Trixie put her cards face down on the table. “Wait just a minute, Tommy. Let Miss—let Laura breathe.”

  Laura drew a deep breath, let it out, and smiled. “Oh, thank you. I do have questions. Maybe stupid questions.”

  “Go ahead,” said Trixie.

  “Tom and I”—she glanced over her shoulder at her suitcase and coat, sitting on the floor by the wall—“and my suitcase just came out of the air.”

  “Same way he left,” Bert said.

  “You were in trouble, Miss Laura,” said Maggie.

  “But that—that seems natural to you?”

  “You’re in Arcadia, M—Laura,” said Trixie. “We’ve seen Hollow people do all kinds of things not common to normal humanity.”

  “Yes,” said Laura. “But I’ve never seen Arcadians act like you.”

  “Tommy isn’t a proper Bolte, nor, pardon me, are you, Miss Laura,” said Bert.

  “You’re right. You’re right!” She leaned back and hugged
herself, smiling. “So, if I were to get myself a glass of milk, you wouldn’t be upset?”

  “Try us,” said Trixie.

  Laura frowned toward the kitchen. A cupboard door opened, and a glass sailed down to land on the counter; the fridge door popped wide; the gallon jug of milk floated out, poured a portion of its contents into the glass, then righted and capped itself, returning to its place in the cold. The full glass flew to Laura’s outstretched hand. She looked at the others, eyebrows lifted.

  “Can you snap lights?” asked Maggie.

  Laura sipped milk, set the glass down, and snapped her fingers. Bright beachball-sized globes of yellow light materialized in the air above her hands.

  “Could you do that before you left?” Maggie asked.

  “A little.” Laura flexed her hands and the lights winked out. “Why?”

  “Heard Mr. Michael talking about you some. He called you wingless. Mr. Perry said the same thing.”

  Laura nodded. “I am wingless.”

  “Thought wingless had to do with snapping lights.”

  Laura’s eyes narrowed. “Isn’t that funny! You’re right, it’s one of the earliest tests. I completely forgot.”

  “What kind of trouble were you in when Tom went to you?”

  “Wall test,” said Laura.

  “Never heard of it,” said Maggie.

  “I was locked in a wall, supposed to figure my way out. But I never trained my spark to do work like that, or mastered the disciplines. I just longed for Tom to come, and he came.”

  “Is a wall test a talent test?” Maggie asked.

  “N-no; maybe. It’s for something else, but maybe it boils down to the same thing.”

  Maggie hunched forward a little. “What makes you think you’re wingless, Miss Laura?”

  “It’s just something I know, like my eyes are brown, my hair is blonde.”

  “Think it’s just something they told you.” Maggie leaned forward, her blue eyes wide and intense. “Bet you could learn.”

  Laura shook her head. “I don’t want to.”

  “Why not?”

  Laura gripped the edge of the table. “Because look where it leads you. Look what those—winged people do. You know that better than anyone, Miss Galloway.”