“I won’t ask how you know, but fair enough. What they request, however, requires the living, and the requests are surrogates for life itself—bits and parts of it. That is what the dead want. It is their single goal.”
“To come back?”
“What else? Their temptation is what they can’t have: life, or the appurtenances of it. The dead may do things, may show things—they may even speak—but what they desire, in the end, is to live again.”
“I don’t see how we have justified the murder of a buccaneer’s last descendant. I wanted to crunch that child’s head.”
“You were tempted by life, Maren. You are alive, but you can see its end. You are thus partially dead, though no doctor would tell you that so bluntly. This is not an idle thought: I speak in law. Think of your years as a fraction that you’d rounded to zero. You couldn’t avoid the temptation any more than the dead do.”
“I should have known that I was being led.”
“We can’t blame Mary Hallett or faulty stones for pulling the wool over willing eyes, but you demonstrated the necessary force of will to examine the temptation. You did. Had you not, the child would be dead. If not by you, then by Mary’s deeds—and let’s not forget you saved the infant’s life.”
“You want something,” Maren said, speaking before she could scout the trail her thoughts had traveled.
“Of course I do,” Tocaya replied simply.
Maren moved a spoon. “Well?”
“Uriah said it a moment ago. The gift is failing, and by all forms. Not just that of your sisters. Some have storehouses against lean times, and some are indebted and suffering. It will get worse. The source needs to be found and inspected.”
“Fine,” Maren said. “But why a team of anything? You could get to the bottom of this in a trice.”
“There are reasons I prefer to use you for the legwork,” Tocaya replied. “What can I say, except what others say of me? She moves in mysterious ways.”
Maren’s brows knitted. “That’s not… that’s from a pop song.”
“You told me you made that album into attercops,” Uriah said.
“I did—but when William Cowper is referenced, it sticks in the mind. I browsed the written lyrics while you danced to what, for me, was silence. Frankly, I believe melting that album was a lesser sacrifice than people say.”
“What, you too? I love that whole… you’re a masochist.”
“You’d know.”
“Be silent a moment,” Tocaya said. “I have also been impacted. Many you know—Sarquito through Feri—have seen a lessening of their strength. It’s causing them to feed more often, which is… Or, like Mudmush, they can become confused. Clumsy. Angry. He’s not alone in lashing out, and there will be more.”
“So it’s a disaster,” Uriah summarized.
“It is… chaotic. It was suggested that I ought to like chaos, and I do—unless it reaches me. By all reports, the gift is intrinsically unchanged. That means it’s being manipulated. Hoarded, if you want my guess.”
“Someone’s after power,” Uriah mused.
“Yes, that,” Tocaya’s avatar said. “And when it’s power I’ve reserved for myself, I get snippy. You’re team captain, by the way.”
“What? She’s the persistent one. Why me?”
“A fair question. Maren, weren’t you seeing to the child?” Tocaya indicated the tabby’s former residence. “Of the mortals on this block, she alone is wakeful.”
“I’ll pay a visit,” Maren said. She shared a look with Uriah, who nodded almost imperceptibly. “Don’t suppose you have a basket of chocolates I can use to break the—”
“—Be off,” Tocaya said, not turning.
“Right. I was just leaving. Well, until then,” Maren said, and slung her purse. She left it an open secret that any child at a window was inconsequential.
All the same, Maren would have liked another candy.
23
Maren had the good fortune to find a heart-shaped box of half-eaten chocolates discarded on the sidewalk. They were becoming hard without their lid; the print of a shoe explained a crushed one filled with cherry nougat—she’d have eaten that piece last, whatever its condition. Maren left it in the middle of the walkway as a consolatory offering to the owner, should they return.
Three treats remained intact and without much dirt on them, and Maren popped what she hoped was coconut into her mouth (it was not), kicked the front door down, and walked to the girl’s room.
The teen sat in her bed, hugging a small pillow to her throat. Maren would have chosen different armor, but the room was not stocked for fighting.
Maren extended the box of dry chocolates, which the girl refused, if only by refusing to move. She acted as though she were petrified.
“Have it your way,” Maren said. “I don’t care for anyone on a diet. It makes them a grouch, and it makes me feel guilty.” She poked a nail into a remaining piece to test the filling. Vanilla… coconut?
Maren thought to save it for later, but the gift was one thing, and chocolate was another. Sturdy thighs and a bit of plump in the right places drove boys wild, girls wilder, and made carrying a bowling bag less of an ordeal.
“Can’t tell if this is dirt or cocoa powder,” she noted. “It’s dirt,” she updated, having chewed for a while.
Maren sat on a small desk—she also sat on a pen—and, as she hopped back down with an oath, she noticed a piece of paper with two lines of writing and an angry hole that had taken half of the sheet with it after scratching the desk.
“Thought I’d seen the last of calligraphy. I prefer a qalam and a… What’s this?” Maren asked, shaking the ragged paper. “Diary?”
“It’s nothing,” the girl said. If the pillow had ever been alive, she’d smothered it. Maren smeared chocolate on the bedding, admiring the teen’s strong arms—the girl carried extra weight, but not the sedentary sort.
“Nothing is nothing,” Maren said, dabbing her mouth on her mink (she came away less clean than she’d begun). “Good penmanship. Let’s see what it… My first kiss was my father’s fist. Is that so?”
“No. It’s a stupid poem.”
“You making this for your school?”
“There’s a poetry unit, but that’s just reading. Writing is next year.”
“Then it’s for yourself. People will tell themselves just about anything, but in a script like this… I say it’s true.”
“It’s not.”
“You can lie to me, but these words of yours—” Maren replied, wincing at a burst of pain in her back. She stepped to lean against the desk, reading the lines again to divert her focus from a plenum of nerves in her lumbar region.
“Are you okay?” the girl ventured.
“I am. Just a random… never met an old person before? Now, where… that this is a poem doesn’t make it false. More often it’s the opposite—and the more revisions a given work has seen, the more its meaning hides. Poems are skunks in sunlight.”
“It’s not true about… he’s never hit me. Ever.”
“Who’s to say it’s about your father? You went for a symbol. It will be true about something—paper doesn’t tear itself. Not this milled kind.”
“I messed-up the last letters. Pissed me off.”
“That, or you tried to add to a cup already full.”
“You don’t understand anyth… whatever.”
Maren frowned. “I have always found it odd that young people suspect the elderly skipped their youth. Let’s see if I can understand, hmm?”
“Can’t you just leave?”
“Not without… it says here that you haven’t kissed the one you desire. You tried to gain their favor—you think you tried—but you were too modest. Passive.”
“I—”
“—Let the work speak for itself, child! You played the wallflower, yet you hold anyone else to account for the lack of initiative on your part.” Maren slapped the page with the back of her hand. “What you desire is a boy
. Well, there’s your first mistake.”
“How’s that a—?”
“—You’ll blame society if you revise this again. You’re at that age. Next it would be you against the patriarchy. You’d end unpublished and disillusioned, nursing a wonky spleen and acquiring far too many cats.”
The girl’s eyes were wide behind clear glasses. “I didn’t write any of that. Half of what you said hasn’t even… it’s only two freaking lines.”
“Young lady, I stand here because you watched a giant wolf pull people apart like steamed dumplings. You’re shocked when an old woman can read between the lines?”
“No, but I didn’t write anything you… I saw that, though. The monster. It—”
“—She,” Maren corrected.
“Whatever. Anyone could see her. That was private,” the girl said, pointing to the poem. “That was mine.”
“Yes, well… you forfeited any presumption to privacy when you spied out of your window.”
“That’s not true.”
“Then I’m not standing in your bedroom, am I?” Maren shook the torn paper. “Had you not written this from a place of truth, I would see aught but words.”
“You’re not… you can have it. Are you going to hurt me?”
“Why? I’m no sadist: I’d planned to kill you kindly. You shouldn’t have seen what you saw, and I left my memory hammer—huh. I don’t have any idea where I left it. On a high shelf, no doubt. Watch me put myself back a grade when it bonks my noggin.”
“Are you for real? About killing me?”
“It’s not the kind of thing to tease with, is it? You may think the street a public place, but it’s not. Not tonight.”
“What about my parents?”
“Sleeping, or so Tocaya said.”
“I mean… will you hurt them, too?”
“Go quietly and they may be spared. I didn’t see them with their faces mashed to a window.”
“Okay. I’ll be quiet.”
“Good,” Maren said cheerfully. “Works-out well for everyone.”
“It doesn’t work so hot for—”
Maren gasped loudly. “Kiplingcotes colts! I’m having a fight in my bones. Makes me cranky. Why do you care about your parents?”
“That’s stupid. Everyone does.”
“I don’t ask a question when everyone would answer in the same way,” Maren snapped. “Here I am, ready to throttle the life from you, and your last request concerns your parents. It would be nice if anyone would act like that, but I assure you: not everyone does.”
“Do you… so you do this a lot?” The girl’s voice held a constant thrum of adrenaline, but she didn’t move suddenly, nor did she yell.
“I do what I must.”
“Why talk to me? It makes it harder. I’m Shandra, I’m an only child, I’m on the honor roll, and I like—”
Maren chuckled, though the action shot numbness down her right arm, ending at the bracelet of scars. She took in the cheap shelving, the hundreds of dog-eared books along two walls.
“Makes it harder, does it? Knowing a person? The more I talk to someone, the more I’m inclined to want them dead. Harder! Is that what you learn from those?” Maren indicated the books and began skimming the spines. She pulled at a slim novel, scowled at the cover, and dropped it on the floor. “Swamp Monster Massacre?”
“I liked it.”
“See? Killing you is easier with each word you utter.”
“No it isn’t. You would’ve done it already. Dad services surveillance drones for the military. He says it’s easier when they aren’t there. When the warfighters don’t have to see what a button does.”
“Your father is right. Then again, I have watched naked bands of men hack at each other with dull blades and blunt stones. They got the job done. Those who still could returned to their families and watched the fire crackle. Just because a thing is difficult doesn’t mean it won’t be done.”
“Are you… you’re that old?”
“I must be. Old. I have been called that a dozen times today. Leaves a bad taste in the mouth, that word—that and this last chocolate. Raspberry crème? I can’t tell. The dirt’s an additive, but it’s an improvement… There is nothing wrong with being old. It’s no worse than being young.”
“I can’t wait to be eighteen.”
“So you could leave?”
“I want a car. I have the permit, but Dad… they think I’ll wreck or kill myself or something.”
“It happens. You saw the pickup.” Maren paused. “That was your cat.”
Shandra wiped her nose on the pillow. “Yeah. I was just a baby when we got Mister Tibb. He belongs to… he’s ours. Part of the family.”
“A community cat. That’s the right way to do it. Such animals come and go, and are loyal until a stranger smells of kibble.”
“I don’t feed Mister Tibb—we split the chores. I do the litterbox three times a week. He always sleeps on my feet. Mom’s the one who feeds him. Her name’s Mora.”
“Selfish animals, nonetheless. Cats, I mean. Mothers are somewhat better. Can be.”
“But if you don’t like… why’d you bring him back?”
Maren spat the raspberry filling back into the empty heart. “Saved the worst for last. Why? Because I could, and because we are all selfish. Cats will prowl, and cats will die in the road. I didn’t see a reason to leave him there. I know what you are doing with this talk of Mora, by the way.”
“Mom?”
“You’re doing it right there. Dad, Mom—names and jobs and idle details. I’m not here to hold you hostage, child. If I can catch my breath against this cramp, I’ll strangle you and think no more about it.”
“Why?”
“Why indeed! What have you seen?”
“I saw you bring Mister… I saw… I saw the monster. Was that a werewolf?”
“Oh, for the… Mother Shipton! I’ll tell you this, child: you’d best not say werewolf within her range. What you saw was no more than a girl. She’s hardly older than you.”
“Whatever. It tore open a—”
“She, not it. Put a pronoun and a name to your monster—see if she’s not harder to hate. Your own words. That girl was delivered as Ferina Guadalupe Ochoa de Manaro. Feri, to her friends.”
“Friends,” the girl said, chewing her lip. “Bet she doesn’t have too many followers on Instagram. Man, I do not want to go out like that.”
“Like your cat, or like that pickup filled with… you’ll need to specify.”
“Neither, but especially not to a werewolf—whatever you call it.”
“Feri. That is her name. Call her that. She can kill nearly anything, but she is placid as a rule. Don’t kick at her cabin and all is right with the world, hmm? As to the street—well, it’s a holiday for a reason. Feri was due a bit of relaxation. A change of scenery.”
“Can I… are you a witch?”
“There’s no such thing as a witch,” Maren said. “Not as we are portrayed. Understand that witches are not born, they are made—and not by bites, or sorcery, or spells.”
“I know girls at school who act like… how do you make—?”
“—The way to infection is to open your mind. Were you a witch, I could teach you to entertain a confidence of the self. I’d infect you with information. You’d gain access to a network of affirmation and endless complaints. That, child, is no more than any good church or library freely supplies.”
“But Mister Tibb was dead. He got hit by… I saw him today. Up close.”
“This is the cat?”
“Yes.”
“Why the waterworks? Mister Tibb is alive, is he not? If you were watching, you saw him run like a frightened hare. A tad unsteady out of the gate, but… I don’t deny what I am, but I will not be drawn by the wrong nib. Do I have green skin? Warts?”
“No.”
“Quite right. Warts are a minor virus, you know. Easy to eradicate—even the mortals have finally learned. As to… this bulging pu
rse came from a goodwill center complete with a ball of clear resin. A witch in the stories might keep it. Not me.”
“Why not?”
“I couldn’t see anything in it but my own reflection—it wasn’t complimentary. I tossed that ball into an empty dumpster. Woke half the world. I do have a broom, but I’m old-fashioned that way. Can’t stand the idea of a robot zooming underfoot, and they’re a disaster on a dirt floor.”
“If you aren’t… so what are you?”
Maren gathered her hair, having caught a glimpse of it in a small, smoky mirror. It was a fright, and she yanked until she had four strands to work with, beginning a hasty plait as she considered what to say.
In the end, simplicity won. “I’m a witch, just as Feri must be a werewolf. We sisters are… different, but different does not make a monster. If we didn’t have our differences where would we be? Only a government would want that. Naturally, some are… evil, to keep it easy. Most are not.”
“Can I be a witch? I’m different.”
“Thank your stars for it. You have a sturdy frame, spare meat, and untamed hair—it’s a fine start. Celebrate that and you may become eccentric. Learn with abandon. Grow when you can. In the end, however, a witch must generate her own ideas. She must do this despite what others might think, or say, or kill to suppress. When you give birth to an idea, you may decide to share it, keep it, or bury it—that is your right.”
“But… that’s a witch? It sounds like anyone.”
Maren’s hands throbbed as she wove her hair. “Anyone is where witches originate. But say you skimp on your woodcraft, and your Japanese history—and a thousand other things, too.”
“I’m taking all the classes that—”
“—Skip them, and you may yet emerge as your own woman. Trusting your own mind is a higher freedom than you enjoy today. Few reach that, witch or otherwise. For all but one in a million, it is sufficiently rewarding.”
“I’d be all up in that. Can I be one in a million?”
“You already are; everyone is. Which million is the issue. First you must choose yourself. Not many do.” A warning finger poked from the wad of hair at the back of Maren’s head.
“Don’t mistake my words as encouraging selfishness. Quite the opposite. To choose yourself—to be one in a select million—requires constancy, honesty, loyalty, and more work than any but that one in a million would perform. Hence the odds. Should you someday become like me, you’ll find you spoke your first prophecy before you began, for it is a self-fulfilling one.”
All Hallows Page 30
