A Tree of Bones

by Gemma Files

“That is because she cannot,” Grandma said, shaking her ponderous head and levering herself up as well, every part of her creaking, as though that reliquary she’d made for herself was ’bout to bust apart. “Or me either, much as we may risk ourselves to protect you on these fishing trips. Dead-speaking is not the white one’s gift, while I — a ghost myself — am just one more shade to those Below, indistinguishable. Thus it falls to you . . . and you do not deliver.”

  Songbird nodded. “Yet you claim to be his friend; that was supposed to help, was it not? Perhaps you do not mean so very much to him, after all.”

  All at once, for some reason, this seemed to be the proverbial back-breaking straw — Yancey found herself rounding on her, using whatever inch-and-a-half of height difference there was between them to try making the younger girl feel small. “Me or any other woman, is that what you mean? Well, you can stop talking like you know him, Little Miss Hex-no-more, just ’cause the two of you were shat out on different sides of the same sewer!” As Songbird hissed like a scorpion, a fizzing pyramid of sparks rising from her left palm: “Yeah, and now you’ve got juice enough to slap at me, don’t you? Better go on ahead, then, ’fore it all goes trickling out the other end!”

  “Ai-yaaah, daughter of dogs! I will lay you out and fill your mouth with corpse-vomit for such insolence, see if I do not — ”

  “Quiet!” Grandma roared, her shadow suddenly large enough to chill them both. “You disappoint equally, and for far too long! Are we fools, to waste time on such trifles?” At her shout, Yiska came running, only to halt in dismay near the dead fire, uncertain how best to interfere. “Truly, if my dreams had not told me we must bring the red boy back up in order to have even a hope at victory over the Lady of Traps and Snares, I would gladly knock your heads together myself ’til they cracked!”

  For one half-instant only, Yancey felt like snarling back: If you’re dead, and I’m the dead-speaker, seems I don’t have to let you do nothing I don’t like! But the words rang in her head like something Chess Pargeter would’ve never hesitated to throw out, and that alone pulled her up, a sharp jerk of the rein. Face still burning, she clenched her teeth, breathed deep and forced the words of an apology into order, but never got them out.

  Screeching something in Chinee, so fast and guttural even Yancey’s talents couldn’t translate it, Songbird flung the gush of pink-green sparks in her hand straight at the two shadowed pits serving Grandma for eyes; they struck and sizzled, throwing off steam. For the first time since Bewelcome’s resurrection, her feet left the earth and she floated up into the air with her white braids stiff as snakes until she was on a level with the giant stony corpus’s head — a pale and monstrous spectre, lit only by her own power.

  In response, Grandma just shook her huge head like a dog throwing off water, reached up with one massive hand and seized the current mid-stream, roping it taut. Then lunged out, defter than Yancey could’ve ever believed, and smacked the other palm-first into Songbird’s body. The spread fingers (only three of them plus a thumb, Yancey saw in numb bemusement) spanned the girl’s whole midsection. Then Grandma yanked on the stream, hauling hard.

  Songbird threw her head back, jaws straining wide in silent agony, as something tore free from her in a single wrenching yank: a naked ghost image in rose and viridian of the girl herself, hex-power spun from its navel like an umbilical cord. It held its shape in mid-air for a moment before dissolving, disappearing into Grandma like spilled ink being absorbed.

  “Yes, little ghost,” Grandma told her, viciously — either unaware or uncaring how Songbird used that term only as insult, applied to every white person who got in her way. “The hunger is still there, even now. Always. And you too will try to feed it if you can, given opportunity, after your death . . . to chew its brief warmth down and revel in the taste, no matter how briefly. No matter what the cost.”

  Songbird collapsed, dropping limp. Her slant hazel eyes bulged wildly, rolling in terror, as her remaining breath huffed out while the stone giant’s grip tightened on her waist, flint and granite knuckles swelling. Rock grated in Grandma’s throat — a snarl, bestial, rabid.

  “Such children you are,” she said, as to herself. “Headstrong, stupid. You know nothing. You are nothing.”

  “Loose me, damn you,” Songbird barely managed, though Grandma didn’t seem to hear. “Uh, aaah . . . aaah, it hurts! For all gods’ sake, please . . . let me go!”

  It was more panic-edged courtesy than Yancey’d ever heard her use previously, to anyone. And Yiska just stood there throughout, staring up at the tableau with fingers clawed, face rictused — probably racking her brains for some way out that didn’t involve her throwing down with the strongest hex of her tribe, and getting either of them killed, in the process.

  She does love that old monster, Yancey thought, amazed. And that young one, too. Strangely, it was this last that spurred Yancey’s next shout, surprising herself with its force, not just for volume but also for the eerie weight of the cry, as if the words had tangible physical mass shooting from her lips. “She said put her the hell down, Goddamnit!”

  Grandma’s hand jerked open, on purest reflex; Songbird fell hard to earth, whooping out one great sob. Yiska rushed to her side and gathered her up, cradling her like an infant, and Songbird clung to her in much the same way.

  Again, Grandma did not appear to notice. She had switched her glare to Yancey, a sickly yellowish-blue light dancing about her. What little heat there was left in the desert night air dropped out of it; ice touched Yancey’s bare face and hands, freezing the sweat in her clothes. The menace trembled above her, a weight so massive it would crush her if it fell upon her yet so perfectly balanced a mere finger’s jab would send it the other way — if she could jab quick enough, precisely enough.

  Don’t test me, lady, Yancey willed at her, silently, not looking away. Said yourself how you need my skills, even if they’re not up to your idea of snuff; meddle with me, whoever wins, we all lose.

  But it was Yiska who broke the silence, this time. “Nothing more can be done tonight,” she said, Songbird still pressed face-first to her vest. “We need rest, all of us. I will take her down.” Then paused, to point out: “Consider this, though — if either of you hurt the other, tomorrow night’s work will be made the harder. And our task seems hard enough to me, as it is.”

  Yancey’s head dropped, shamed; she was about to finally voice that apology, and mean it. But before she could, Grandma replied — so little heat in her “voice” she might’ve been chatting about the weather, for all the coiled menace in every inch of her hulking stance gave that the lie, “She could not hurt me, even if she tried. But she should not try, either.” Or you, granddaughter.

  Yiska nodded, then walked away — quickly, without glancing back. And when Yancey finally had the heart to look Grandma’s way one more, she found her gone, as well.

  Somehow, Yancey let herself sit down, and if it was faster and weaker-kneed than she wanted, at least it wasn’t a fall. She covered her face with her hands, making herself breathe slow, forcing back a thick-throated wave of wanting, badly, to weep.

  Goddamn, these women could be difficult. Songbird with her ridiculous airs, Grandma, held together with spit and will; Yiska, that proud oddity, monster-slaying when circumstances demanded and hounding after what had to be the worst possible option every other hour of the day. Hell, she’d be better off going sweet on Yancey herself, but for the fact it wasn’t as though that version of the story’d end up anyplace more joyful.

  Rage and fear at last subsiding back to manageable levels. It only now occurred to Yancey that in her whole life thus far, the only people she’d never lied to about herself — who she was, what she was capable of — were Chess Pargeter, Ed Morrow . . . and them, her kidnappers turned companions, fellow prisoners of the Crack. Those who stood beside her now at the very edge of the Underneath, squashing whatever came welling up while trying to suture it shut. That alone had to count for something, surely.r />
  Didn’t it?

  The next night, roasting corn and squash ’round the fire with Yiska’s braves while Songbird pouted up in their mutual “sleeping chamber,” Yancey caught the war-squaw sidling off and rose as well, claiming she had to go do her business. Instead, she followed after — tracing that supposedly fatal track back up through the butte’s coils, to where Grandma kept sleepless vigil on top of the Old Drying Woman’s own seat.

  “I need speech with you, Spinner,” Yiska told the hex-ghost’s broad back, sitting down cross-legged with palms on knees, eyes calmly trained on the mismatched exposed bones of her spine.

  “Huh,” Grandma huffed. “Because I spoke harshly to that girl of yours?”

  “She is difficult, though not ‘mine.’ But no. This is something else, more important.”

  “Tread carefully, then, granddaughter.”

  “As you say.” Yiska straightened her own spine, and said, “Spinner, when you anger yourself thus you risk losing control, knowing that to do so is to set your foot upon the Witchery Way. You risk Becoming what you fight — Anaye. And who will it fall to, then, to deal with you, as you hope to deal with the bilagaana blackrobe Rook?”

  “Is it The Night Has Passed, scalper of Pinkertons and burner of ranches, who warns me against risks?” Grandma sounded half amused, half annoyed. “There is no safe choice for us, granddaughter. We face too many monsters. Like all of us, I do only what I must to fight them.”

  “Anaye-power used against Anaye.” Yiska shook her head. “How is this different from the Reverend and his bride?”

  “You dare ask me that, who lost my body at Rook’s own hands? Since I have shed no undeserving blood to return here, I have earned the right to restore that Balance myself — ”

  “ — a Balance that cannot be restored so long as you stay here,” Yiska rejoined, unflinching. “‘The dead are dead, and must move on.’ You told me that yourself, Spinner. What would you have done with Yu Ming-ch’in, had Yancey not stopped you? Tell me plainly she was never in any danger — that you sought only to frighten her, if you could.” The fact that Yiska knew Songbird’s true name was only slightly less startling than the honest pain in her voice. “Truly, Grandmother, I would hear that from you. Please.”

  Grandma’s golem-body neither breathed nor stirred of itself, when not wilfully moved by its rider, and though it didn’t slump, the long silence that followed made it seem empty as a dropped puppet. Yancey held her breath.

  “I cannot slacken,” said Grandma, at last. “This city is Rook’s dream, and I will see it fall.”

  “Her dream,” Yiska pointed out. “How often have you said that Hataalii should find a way to band together? Now look — here are Hataalii, a whole city of them! It is their dream, too. What better revenge than to help them take it from Rook and the Lady, to make it ours . . . and theirs?”

  My God, Yancey thought, forgetting entirely to mask herself, so stunned was she by the very idea, which had frankly never hitherto occurred to her. Could that work?

  “I see no reason not, dead-speaker,” Yiska replied, without moving, as Grandma’s “head” slid ’round, grating in its socket. “It seems to work well enough for them now, even under Rook and Lady Suicide’s reign.”

  Hex City as destination rather than obstacle, then: a refuge for all hexes, if events saw Rook and Ixchel removed. As already proven, it could certainly sustain itself; once Oathed to each other instead of the Lady, its inhabitants wouldn’t feel the need to parasite on newcomers, or even on the non-hexacious. In fact, so long as that Balance Yiska and Grandma were always chawing over stayed preserved, it might go even further than accepting “just” hexes — considering how well-defended and powerful such a place would be, Hex City could provide a refuge for all peoples who felt themselves not part of “the Union.” Natives, for example, starting with these two’s own tribes. Freed slaves, Chinee ’scaping ’Frisco’s immigration quota; Jews, like Yancey’s Pa; gypsies, like her Ma. The two-spirited, even . . . hard women and frilly men, like Yiska, or Chess. Any-damn-one.

  No one would feel they had to hide themselves anymore, to take a false name or put on a false face. No one would feel they had no place of refuge, no Promised Land to flee to.

  “They do not know what we know, most of them,” Yiska told Grandma, “that Hataalii are everywhere, always — part of the Land’s plans, and thus to be neither feared nor avoided, any more than one may avoid weather. But we can teach them a better way, you, I and the dead-speaker here . . . and Yu Ming-ch’in as well, if she is amenable.”

  Grandma seemed to look down, contemplating her nailless, mitt-like hands.

  “You want me to solve the whole world’s problems,” she said, “when this thing I call my flesh, containing neither flesh nor blood, is coming apart like a seedpod.”

  Again, Yancey heard her own voice reply, without knowing it was going to: “All the more important, then, for things to be done quickly . . . and right.”

  This time Yiska did glance back, long enough to give her a single firm nod of approval. To which Yancey could only think back, a trifle flustered: Thank you kindly, sir — ma’am, I mean; oh, that doesn’t sound right at all. No offence meant, Yiska. I’m a bilagaana fool.

  But Yiska simply shrugged a bit, one hand making a dismissive flutter. As Grandma allowed, slowly, “Something is happening in that city of Rook’s . . . his city, and Hers. I did not see it coming, while in my body; it was as yet hidden in time’s creases, even when looked at through the weave of Changing Woman’s own loom. But now I am bodiless I see far more clearly, knowing in my soul my vengeance is less important than the seed these two have sown, without even knowing they did so. There is something growing, alive and unforeseen, and though it galls me to say so, it must be preserved.”

  A high laugh cut the air behind them. Yancey didn’t have to turn to know that Songbird had slunk out of her hole once more and climbed to listen as well, standing there with her blanket-shawl wrapped tight against the night wind, her hair — unbound for sleep — blowing like snow.

  “Fools,” she said, though less scornfully than usual. “Even if I had my full power once more, these are gods we trifle with — they cannot be killed, and guard what they consider theirs jealously. As Pinkerton will discover soon enough, should he overstep himself. And how I shall laugh to see it, when he does!”

  Yiska shook her head and tsked, as if disappointed.

  “No,” Grandma told her, equitably enough. “Whatever they are now, Suicide Moon and her Enemy were once only as you and I . . . as this ghost-speaker here, even. He proves it, that red boy we seek after so desperately. Gods sleep within us all, waiting to be prayed alive, or bought and paid for with blood. And gods can kill other gods.”

  They all took a moment after that, sitting and standing, in the moon’s bright light. ’Til suddenly, a fresh new thought struck Yancey full force ’tween the eyes, and she gasped out loud. “I really am a fool,” she said, to no one in particular.

  Yiska’s eyes sharpened. “How so?”

  “Because — we’ve been trawling down through Hell-that-ain’t for how long, wasting our time trying to get Chess Pargeter to hear me, and all ’cause I’m a dead-speaker, right? But see, thing is . . . he’s not dead.”

  Now it was the three other women’s turn to look her way in unison, with the same sort of stare you’d give some idiot.

  “We know this already,” Yiska reminded her. “But what can we ever do to remedy it except try again, and harder?”

  “Well, I don’t know. Talk to his Ma, maybe, who is damn well dead? ’Cause considering I see her sitting right beside him most of the time, I’m thinking that might be helpful!”

  And if not, given all she’d heard about Oona Pargeter, from Chess himself . . . well, there were dead people everywhere in Mictlan-Xibalba. And now she’d remembered it was so, Yancey could just as easily speak to any one of them.

  Might be I’m getting better at this, she reckoned, giddily.<
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  Grandma nodded, satisfied — looked first to Yiska, then Songbird. “See, granddaughter?” she asked the warrior. “I told you there was merit to bringing them both.”

  “Hmp,” was all Songbird gave back, by way of a reply.

  But when the bleached girl saw how Yiska was smiling again, Yancey almost thought she might have seemed pleased.

  SEVEN DIALS: TWO

  All worlds begin, and end. All worlds begin again.

  Here is a flower, watered from a skull. Here is a seed of blood. Here is the tree that grows from it — yaxche, tree of heaven, with leaves like hair and roots like veins, anchored deep between this world and all others. A tree of bones.

  Here is where we tossed the husks and silk of eaten lives, that new lives might grow once more, rendered up in joy to feed the ever-turning Blood Engine. And always, new lives came, new hearts blazed in fire, new blood washed the stone. As it had been, ever would be, world without end . . .

  until it ended.

  In Mictlan-Seven Dials, Oona Pargeter’s revivified spectre showed her teeth once more and laughed, shortly, a sulphurous rasp to its undertone, creepily reminiscent of the Rev in his sin. “Wish you could see yer own face, sonny, truly,” she replied. “First real tin bath I’ve ’ad in months.”

  “First what?”

  “Laugh, you prat; can’t ’elp it if you don’t know your proper flash jabber, can I?” But here she tossed her hair back, dismissively. “Well, s’pose I could’ve, ’ad I been so inclined. But what good it’d’ve done you in San Fran, the Devil only knows.”

  Chess shook his head and took a sodden half-step back, running his eyes up and down this slim spectacle before him, clad only in her witch’s mane: this flirtatious, sharp-witted creature whose words rang simultaneously too familiar, and not at all. But as he did, she stepped lightly to him, advancing while he retreated, fighting the urge to back away further — bold as polished brass, her movements lithe and easy, as if she’d never ruined her joints with cold, or her guts with gin.