The Thread that Binds the Bones

by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

  “I don’t dissolve my net? Fayella always said to clean up after our spells.”

  “Well…I never dissolve my nets.”

  “You just leave them there? Oh! ‘Things seen and unseen.’ Carroll. And he doesn’t even hate you for it. But if I leave this on Michael…”

  “Your choice.”

  “Take it off, please,” said Alyssa.

  “All right.” Laura whispered “Michael” to her net until the toad changed back to himself, then pulled the net inside her. Tom watched it happen, not understanding: the net slid off Michael, flowed across the floor, enveloped Laura and sank into her.

  “Weird,” Tom said.

  Michael touched his arms and face. “Oog. You did that good, Laura. How? How could a wingless learn to do that? What kind of powers do you have, Tom?”

  Tom shook his head.

  Laura said, “I was never really sick.” She grinned.

  A car pulled up outside. The teakettle whistled. “How many cups of cocoa?” Tom asked, and Bert walked in.

  “I want one. Cocoa, Bert?” said Laura.

  “Yep. Where’d everybody run off to? I saw you two rascals fly away, but when did Mr. Michael and Miss Alyssa leave, let alone Trixie and Maggie and Mr. Carroll?”

  Tom stirred cocoa in three mugs and gave one each, still with spoons in them, to Bert and Laura. He kept the third for himself.

  “That place made me edgy,” Michael said.

  “He dragged us off before I even had a chance to meet the bride and groom and admire the baby,” said Alyssa.

  “It’s time for us to go home and report back to the elders,” Michael said. “I mean, normally Alyssa and I would be on our Together Quest by now, but…I don’t know if anyone at the Hollow has any idea of what’s going on here, and I think it’s important—maybe even as important as World War Two.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Bert.

  “All this mixing. The marriage—a landmark! We were sort of prepared because at first we all thought Tom and Laura were a mixed—but that’s not it. Tom overpowers us, and that’s not new. But Barney and Annis and the baby—”

  He broke off as Trixie, Carroll, and Maggie came in, all with rosy cheeks, though Maggie’s half-bare arms were smooth, un-goosebumped. Laura narrowed her eyes, studying the three people just in from the chill afternoon. Then she glanced at Tom. “Leftover nets?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “Fetching,” she muttered. He looked at her with wide eyes.

  “—and if Carroll’s going to stay in town, they should know that,” Michael said. “They’ll need to get Alex and Arthur to step into the hunting shoes. And we need to tell them we have friends in town so they’ll leave you alone.”

  “Tell who what?” asked Trixie.

  “The elders at the Hollow. Alyssa and I should go back home. We have all this news.”

  “And you don’t understand half of it,” said Carroll.

  “What do you mean, Uncle?”

  “You let the wedding proceed without questioning.”

  “So did you!”

  “I questioned it; I knew it was sanctioned. I have a lot more background on these developments than you do, but Tom and Laura have the most information of all. Honored, would you agree to come back to the Hollow and offer news?”

  “You talking to me, Carroll?” asked Tom.

  Carroll nodded. He wore not a trace of a smile.

  Tom looked at Laura. She nodded too. “Ask Peregrine,” she said. “I think he plans to change things out there. He’s been talking like he has plans. I don’t know if we can leave on our own Together Quest without clearing this up, or at least making some attempt.”

  —Peregrine?

  —For the sake of the Family, she is right. But I leave the decision up to you, Tommy. My most important work is your training; I will not force you to do anything.

  “I thought you wanted me to take you away from all this,” Tom said to Laura.

  “I do, but I can wait. Maybe one more day. For—for Family.”

  “I don’t want them doing to my miksashi what was done to us,” said Carroll. “I don’t know what it was; I just know it hurt, until I came here.”

  “Your miksashi, Uncle?” Michael asked.

  “The boy Rupert,” said Carroll. He grinned. “Barney asked me.”

  —Miksashi. Special guide and guardian. There is wisdom in that, Peregrine told Tom.—The better for our blood.

  “All right,” Tom said. “I’ll go back and talk to them again. I don’t promise anything. But this Fayella business…”

  “Fayella?” Carroll looked at Maggie, who still had her arm through his.

  “We talked about it after you left to get groceries this morning,” said Michael. “The Presence thinks she may be—what was it you said?” he asked Tom.

  “She rewards the dark disciplines and bypasses the light ones,” said Laura.

  “She unbalances everything. The faults at the Hollow may lie not with the blood, but with the teaching,” Peregrine said. “The more I observe, the more I believe this. So many of your generation are cripples.”

  “But this stuff is not all new,” said Trixie. “There’s strange stories about the Hollow going back to the founding days. Some of them not so nice.”

  “Good mixed with bad,” Peregrine said. “You speak of Mr. Israel and Mr. Jacob setting things to rights as best they could, and of aid during disasters.”

  “And Mr. Hal and Miss Laura are good souls, even if Mr. Hal got into mischief,” said Bert.

  “No,” said Peregrine. “Designated cripples. They made friends in town because they had few friends at home.”

  Laura punched his arm. “Ow!” said Tom. “He’s not just talking about power cripples, he’s talking about emotional cripples too, understand? Carroll and Gwen didn’t come out of this any better off than you, my love.”

  “Sorry. I forgot that if I punched him I’d hurt you.”

  “Okay, for now. We’re going to have to work at this, I guess. Anyway, sure, I’ll go out to the Hollow and talk to them. Anyone join me?”

  “I will,” said Carroll. “Maybe with a proper farewell, I can come back and change in peace.”

  “I will,” said Michael. Alyssa nodded.

  “I’ll go, and do my own toads this time,” Laura said.

  “I’ll go if you need me,” said Maggie.

  “No. Oh, no,” said Carroll. “Somebody might hurt you.”

  She opened her hand to show him the silver seal in her palm.

  “Oh,” he said, taking her hand and touching the brand. “I forgot. Would we need you?”

  “Who can tell?” said Tom.

  “Hell, we’ll all go, and scandalize ’em,” said Trixie. “I’m game if Bert is.”

  “I’d like a chance to see the inside of that place, and this expedition sounds like it might get in and back out again,” said Bert. “I’ve been puzzling over what it must be like out there for years. Those who visited to talk to the Arkhos never did come back with a very clear description.”

  “Now?” asked Tom, looking around the room. Everyone was still dressed up from the wedding.

  “Now,” Maggie said.

  “Just coming up on suppertime,” said Laura. “The important people will be in the kitchen great hall, where we met just after Purification, Tom.”

  “All right,” Tom said. He already had loose nets around Carroll, Bert, Maggie, and Trixie. He flexed his hands and sent out sheets of silver net to envelop Michael, Alyssa, Laura, and himself. With Othersight he delighted in the vision of the beautiful silvery net as it settled around all of them, linking them to him. He sent a thought thread ahead to the kitchen, finding enough empty space for them to land, and pulled his whole family there.

  “Hi,” he said to a startled group of people eating soup. “We’ve come to talk.” Behind him he felt the others gather closer, linking hands.

  Chapter 21

  With Othersight Tom could see
the bright hazes that enveloped each of the people sitting at the kitchen table. More than twenty people sat there, each centered in his or her own net of colored light. The ceiling, too, was full of varied glows, some almost blindingly bright pinpoints of colored light, others diffuse trails of light beads or knots. Below, dimmer lightshadows moved among the seated ones; Tom blinked and saw the Henderson sisters, Chester, and a few other people dishing food onto plates, or clearing dishes. The kitchen cavern was full of the scent of spicy stir-fried meat and vegetables, with an underlay of woodsmoke from the open fireplace. Tom tried to remember his last meal and couldn’t. He ignored his hunger and started sorting people out by appearance, remembering some of them only from the festivals.

  “Hello,” said Aunt Agatha. Candlelight made flickering reflections on her glasses. “Been fetchcasting?”

  “Not exactly,” said Tom.

  “We brought news,” Michael said.

  Hal stood up, setting aside his napkin and knife and fork. “Beatrice,” he said, studying Trixie. “No, I can’t allow this. Not Beatrice or Bert as fetches. Who dared? May, stop them.”

  “Stop what?” asked Bert. Trixie stared at Fayella, who sat hunched in her dark green cape, her deep-set eyes shining. Fayella grinned, showing pointed teeth, and held up her fork with what looked like a child’s hand pierced on its tines. Trixie gasped.

  “No, Aunt,” said Michael. He flicked fingers at Fayella, but she blocked his spell with ease. Alyssa snapped her fingers and the hand vanished, replaced by a carrot. Fayella laughed.

  “We don’t eat people,” Carroll told Trixie. “It was illusion, Aunt.”

  “I don’t know what to believe about the Nightwalker,” said Trixie.

  “Oh, best of my students, my precious one, whom are you calling Aunt?” Fayella asked Carroll, her voice low and musical.

  Carroll’s eyes widened. He went toward her, sleepwalking.

  “What have they done to my boy?” Fayella asked. “Have they twisted you in the head? Come, let me heal and restore you.” She rose, holding out her arms to Carroll.

  “Stop it,” said Maggie. “Shut up!” She ran and grabbed Carroll’s arm. He turned on her, his eyes smoky and green. “Wake up, Carroll.” She snapped her fingers in his face. He blinked. His brows drew together.

  “So it speaks?” Fayella said. “We can remedy that.” She twitched her hands, casting a quick, perfect spell at Maggie. Tom saw it, yellow and glistening, as it shot through the air. He used his still-present silver net to deflect it, but it struck and smoked and sputtered against his shield, eating at it; he felt pain in his hands, as if acid ate his palms.

  —Peregrine!

  —Change your casting to glass.

  Tom imagined his net crystalline and smooth, like the bubble he had encased Carroll in not so long ago. The slime of Fayella’s spell slid down it and ate a hole in the rock floor.

  “Is this a test of power?” Hal asked in an angry voice. “No one has declared!”

  “Cease this strife,” said Aunt Agatha. She said it with a doubled edge to her voice that froze them all, reminding Tom of the voice Laura had used on him during the drive out to the Hollow. “Boy, explain the purpose of this visit,” Agatha said to Tom.

  “We came to offer information,” Tom said.

  “You brought strangers among us. Now we must own them.”

  “No,” said Michael. “No, Aunt. That’s part of our news. Annis married Barney today, a ceremony sanctioned. Sanctioned, Uncle?” He turned to Carroll.

  Carroll nodded. “Sanctioned by Presences, and their child sealed to Locke. I am its miksash. It is named Rupert Locke, sign fire.”

  Conversation broke out among people at the table, their words climbing one another and striking echoes out of the stone around them.

  “How could she wed filth?” Fayella demanded, her voice a knife that cut through all the others. “How could she pollute her womb with filth?” She spat on the floor, leaving a smoking splatter.

  “The child is whole and perfect. I have seen it,” said Carroll.

  “You are all eroded, eaten from within,” Fayella said. “Family, we must slice these limbs from the tree, cut the thread that binds the bones. These are diseased and threaten to infect us.” Her voice was beautiful, with a golden undertone that carried absolute conviction. Tom felt sick.

  —She uses the gift of mindshift, Peregrine said.—Can you make a shield against it? I have heard of such a shield, but never crafted one. It is called a truth strainer, a power of air. None of those alive in my day had such a strong voice as hers, so I never needed to learn the craft.

  Tom put his hands near his ears, imagined he could craft nets that fit just over his ears and sifted out the lies, letting only the truth get through. He felt and sensed something happening. Whether it would work was another question.

  Bert gripped Tom’s shoulder. Tom glanced at him, saw him staring around the room and up at the ceiling. Tom looked at the Powers and Presences on the ceiling, saw that their numbers had grown, with more arriving every second. The pale Presences of ghosts were silently arriving, too, coming in through walls or emerging like breaths from the floor.

  “Thus you pass judgment?” asked Aunt Agatha, her voice still hard-edged and formal.

  “I declare it by all that is in me,” Fayella said.

  “Any seconds?” asked Agatha.

  “Hear us, first hear us,” said Michael.

  Tom touched Laura’s hand. “Do ‘Seen and Unseen,’” he whispered.

  Gwen stood, her chair scraping the floor behind her as she pushed it back. Her gaze met Tom’s, and a smile flickered across her face. She opened her mouth.

  Laura lifted her hand and made the first four signs with her thumb, the gestures expansive but controlled. The cavern flared with ghost fire, tall beings kindling into sight, glows and suns and lightsnakes scattered across the ceiling like stars and comets fallen too close to earth.

  Maggie saw a ghost woman beside her, a compact silver-blue person in the garments of a long-gone age. “Sister, thy permission?” said the ghost. Maggie released Carroll’s elbow and held her arms out, and Ianthe walked into her.

  “I am Ianthe Bolte,” said Ianthe, through Maggie, “of the fourteenth generation. I counsel you, descendants: let none of you act in haste, for you know not who or what stands trial tonight.” She smoked free of Maggie and all the Presences began to wink out as Laura’s spell wore off.

  “Laura, when did you learn to cast like that?” May asked, her voice warm and laughing.

  “May,” said Aunt Agatha, “that’s hardly the issue.”

  “It’s the heart of the issue,” Tom said.

  “Stop his mouth,” cried Fayella, “block his words. He is cancer.”

  “Whatever hurt you so badly?” Tom asked her.

  “I was blind! I did not see it soon enough. I should have killed or confused you when I had the chance. You are destruction. You are corrosion. You are death to order. Family, cast him out before he infects the rest of us as he has these.”

  “You may speak in your own defense, Tom,” said Aunt Agatha.

  “She’s right, though; I embody those things.” He held out his hands, open. “I bring you change.”

  Hal hit the table with his open hand, making a slapping sound. “I charge that these proceedings have not been formalized.”

  “Skaloosh plakna,” said Michael. “I call the Powers and Presences to witness that I grant salt privilege to Bert Noone and Trixie Delarue.”

  “Thank the Powers that somebody in this family has sense,” said May. “Never suspected it would be you, Michael!”

  “It’s a start,” said Hal.

  “We haven’t finished supper yet,” Perry said.

  “Do not eat, do not drink,” said Fayella. “Not while they are still here, unstratified. Do nothing to bind them to us when they are in this state of betrayal.”

  Jess stood. He looked at Fayella, then picked up his cup and plate and walked to
ward Laura. “I extend welcome, sister,” he said, offering his dishes, which still held food and drink. Laura smiled at him and reached for the proffered plate and cup, but Fayella cast, and this time Tom wasn’t prepared. Acid dropped down in a shower from the air, devoured plate, cup, and contents, then started on Jess’s fingers. He cried out. Laura bridged the gap between them, taking his hands in hers and summoning healing energy.

  When Jess’s raw flesh had been repaired and glowed with new pink skin, Laura released Jess and stepped past him. Her eyes blazed. She said, “Aunt, you have no right to interdict me! I have not been cast out.” She gestured toward the laden table and a bowl of stew flew to her outstretched hand. She dipped fingers in it and licked them. Then she walked to Maggie. “Take, eat: this is the life of our household and a covenant between us as equals and friends.”

  Maggie glanced at Carroll, who looked remote and sad. She turned to Laura. She dipped two fingers into the bowl and licked them. “Salt between us. Salt for peace. Salt for memory,” she said.

  “No!” Fayella screamed. “Ash and earth, no!” She gestured with both hands, her fingers performing an eerie and intricate dance, smooth as the cadence of a grandmother knitting. Tom saw streamers of yellow-green slime emerge from her fingertips; he stepped forward, glassing his shield, but in case that didn’t work, he stepped in front of Laura and Maggie.

  “Stop,” said Agatha, her voice focused and tangible. Fayella’s casting retracted into her hands, which she plunged into her cider mug. Steam rose. “Order,” said Agatha. “Wait for recognition hereafter. This chaos cannot continue.”

  Carroll lifted a hand to shoulder height, index and middle fingers extended, the other two bent. Agatha nodded to him. “Status, Aunt. All are now shielded, by word and custom if not by casting. We come to tell you that things have changed in town. Annis married her fetch, the union sanctioned by Peregrine Bolte of the thirteenth generation, the issue Ilmonish. If salt is not enough, I declare these three people, Bert, Trixie, and Maggie, mine by right of combat. No one of you touches them or harms anything belonging to them unless you challenge and defeat me first. Furthermore, Maggie is sealed to Tom, and he is the only one here who could defeat me. Let there be no more breaking of bindings.”