The Tangled Bridge (55 page)

Severin was sitting there by the owl. She looked angry. Vengeful. Probably didn't like that Madeleine had escaped by finding her way to where Daddy and Marc were—somewhere beyond the shadow river of the briar.

Madeleine turned back to Ethan and said, “I can't pigeon them. They're already being pigeoned by someone else.”

Ethan turned his gaze away for a moment, then said through clenched teeth, “Can't we catch a break for one single day?”

Unbidden, the thorns arose from the cracks in the floorboards, lengthening, curling, black and musty. She didn't try to resist them. Wasn't going to invite thornflies.

“Ethan, I've got to disappear inside for a while.”

“No!” He reached out and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her into him.

“I don't think we have a choice.”

His arms were strong around her, and she clung to him with all she had. But even as she held his physical body she felt her other self falling away.

He said, “Every time you do this I'm afraid you won't come back.”

“I'm sorry,” was all she could say.

Because she felt the same fear. A shudder in her throat.

Severin leaped from her perch by the owl, took up next to Madeleine. “We go now.”

A sinking feeling, like Madeleine was receding toward the center of the earth. Her gaze was fixed on Severin though she still clung to Ethan.

She turned back to look at Ethan, but he was no longer there. Taking his place, his arms around her just like Ethan's had been, was Zenon.

 

seventy-one

LOUISIANA, NOW

MADELEINE JERKED AWAY FROM
Zenon.

“You done made a miraculous recovery there, sis. Last time I saw you ya looked like you's drunk.”

She saw his devil, Josh, standing there behind him. And beyond that, others. Dozens of them, silvery gray, some of them humanlike, others malformed. Some quite beautiful. Armand was there. And some, like Severin, looked like children. They spoke among themselves in cackles and whispers.

Madeleine had to raise her voice in order to be heard. “What are all those creatures for, Zenon?”

“What, you mean them?” He gestured at the river devils.

“Or them?” He pointed above, as if Terrefleurs lay somewhere up above the briar world.

“Both.”

He shrugged. “Had to get your attention, didn't I? You been lyin to me. S'posta have killed that lumen kid, but the whole time, he been alive. All along. It changes everything.”

“He's no threat to you. Just leave us all alone.”

“Them critters up there ain't done nothin to y'all yet so why you whinin?”

“Yet.”

“Well, they ain't all assembled. I turned'm loose now they'd just annoy you stupid.”

Madeleine lifted her hands. “What is it you want from me?”

Zenon sat down heavily on a black log, as though all this effort was taxing him. “Well, for starters, some loyalty.”

“Loyalty? What does that even mean?”

“Oh, come on. You know ole Chloe and I got a little bet going. She thinks she can find a way to lord over the briar, and I bet I can beat her to the punch.”

“That's ridiculous. Chloe's as good as dead.”

“No, dawlin, ‘good as dead' don't mean dead.”

“She's on life support. Her condition isn't the same as yours. She's sick and she's degenerating and all the machinery in the world can't keep her brain firing if it wants to quit. So go ahead and bask. You've already won.”

“That's where you wrong. She ain't lived to a hunnert twenty by acceptin fate. She a perspicacious ole crow. An long as she's still breathin she's still schemin.”

He waved toward the cacophony of river devils as he spoke to her. “As you can see, I got my friendlies, but she got hers, too. You gotta choose which side you on.”

“I'd just as soon see you both fail.”

“Don't work that way,
chère.
You can only pick one loser.”

He laughed at his own irony. “An that's sort of like picking who you want to succeed. You are either for me or against me, if you are lukewarm I will spit you out.”

“Playing God now.”

“I
am
God, long as we're here. That's the way it's gonna be.”

“Briar isn't the real world! You have your way in here, then so what?”

He smiled, slow and easy like they were discussing the ideal proportion of Bermuda grass and rye for a perfect green turf. That smile filled her with dread. The river devils continued to mill around, all hisses and whispers and snake laughter.

Zenon said, “You're right. So what? You might as well join my camp.”

Madeleine tried a shrug. But her ire was rising. Thornflies couldn't be far off. She took notice, identifying the feeling of breath and life in her physical body somewhere in that cabin. She took in the sight of bramble and smell of must, the look of the river devils. With the intense observation, her fury drained. But no, not so much drained as continued its flow—coursing through her but immediately continuing out again. And she observed Zenon. Bitter, curled Zenon. He seemed sunken somehow; wild. Clearly unsteady even though he was no longer on his feet.

“Something's wrong with you, Zenon. Where's your body?”

“Wouldn't you like to know, yeah?”

“You were in a hospital for a reason. You can't just pigeon somebody to hide you and expect to stay alive forever.”

“Can't I? Ain't it just a matter of shakin the right tree in the briar? Like our fine Uncle Gaston.”

Madeleine caught the retort in her throat before it could escape: that Gaston couldn't live forever. He'd found a skill of longevity that stopped him from
ageing
—it didn't necessarily keep him
alive.
He could get sick and die. The healing skill, that was Madeleine's.

Zenon said, “So you show your loyalty to me, Madeleine. You tell me how you healed yourself.”

“It's not something I can just show you.”

He shook his head. “Liar, liar.”

She looked at Severin, whose lips were wet and eyes bright. The little beast had practically purred in Chloe's lap, and now she was all too willing to side with Zenon.

Madeleine turned back to him. “If you're looking for loyalty from a bunch of river devils you're just asking for madness. They're chaos. You'll never control them for long.”

“Ain't so hard. ‘Idle hands are the devil's playthings,' and to them I've become the bigger devil. I give them playthings. You made me that way,
chère,
when you ruined my body and damned me to the briar. Most of these river devils are simple creatures, bored to distraction. Each gets one single human being, and each knows its human's weaknesses. But some of them are actually smart and can move beyond the one person.”

He looked over his shoulder at Armand and Josh. “You work with the more evolved of the devils, and gather the rest together in a little harmonic unity.”

Madeleine looked at them, and her gaze settled on Armand. The strange, sparse teeth. Dark skin and deep-voiced French patois as he argued with Josh. It took a moment before Madeleine realized the significance of Armand's presence. He was Gaston's river devil. If Armand was here with them now, that meant …

“Gaston…?”

“Yeah, honey.”

She looked. He was sitting with elbows over his knees, hidden in plain sight among all the river devils.

“I tried to get him to lay offa you, did all I could,” Gaston said.

Madeleine asked, “Gaston, did you…?”

Zenon cut in. “Pick sides? Yeah, he did. Picked the losing side, the stupid fuck. Chloe ain't even briar.”

Madeleine shook her head. She wasn't sure what to make of it.

Zenon said, “Ain't nothin I can do about it because this here uncle of ours is already the walking dead and been that way for years. But you,
chère.
You got lots to lose. You might just listen to reason.”

And his voice rose:

“For once. In your
wasted life!”

The river devils' chatter fell to a murmur of
s
's and
t
's.

Madeleine felt her heart hammering even though she was disconnected from her body. This was how a person conjured that lunatic way. Other people couldn't see what was happening in the briar. Back in her body, Madeleine was probably sweating and pacing, maybe even trying to wander, with all those creatures waiting if she took a single step off the porch. Ethan was grappling with it all.

Zenon said, “Alla them here, they help me with the pigeoning. One man handling one pigeon is a piss-poor effort. But together, with all of us working in tandem, in rhythm,
in perfect fucking syncopation
! Now that, that is
something
.”

He lifted a hand and pointed at her. “But you?”

She watched him, saying nothing.

He held the gesture as though it could hold her in check. “You outta sync, girl.”

She understood what he was getting at. And she knew she was already trapped.

Zenon lowered his hand. “So let's think on this a minute. Four people in a old slave cabin at Terrefleurs. A crazy woman—that's you,
chère
—and a mooncalf man, and two cripple kids. And all of God's creatures are gathered for devils' work. A balance that is downright poetic. We start with little critters. Mice. They come on in a hundred at a time. They bite some and they scratch, but more'n anything else they just give ya the willies with all their …
swarmin
and
scratchin,
and the
squirmin.

“But the rats'll come next after mice, and they can actually do some damage. They a lot of rats in them woods, yeah. They bite harder. You wanna know what works to my advantage best?”

Madeleine just stared.

“Them boys. The cripples. Y'all can't get enough of that lumen stain. That deaf boy can't move his legs? He'll have a hell of a time once the rats come. You know how long it'll take for a pack of … no, let's call it a
plague
of rats? How long it'll take'm to dismantle a wheelchair-bound deaf boy?”

He paused for a moment, looking at her as though he actually expected an answer, then went on. “And after that, whatchoo think next, snakes or spiders? And after them come the birds. Irony is the blind boy can't get his eyes pecked out by birds. He ain't got no eyes. But the rest of y'all can. 'Specially you. Blue eyes in black skin. Oughtta be easy for the birds to find, and your mind is stuck in here with me, yeah. Won't be much use fendin
nothin
off.”

“Stop it!”

He paused, a dangerous smile in his eyes. He clearly enjoyed the game, maybe even as much as his intended prize. She looked at Gaston. He looked so small, defeated; wouldn't meet her gaze.

She said, “I'll pass it to you. Just stop, please.”

He raised his brows. “Comin to your senses?”

She licked her lips, breathed hard.

He stepped forward and reached for her. “That didn't take long. I didn't think it would.”

But in her heart she knew she could not hand him this ability. Doing so would have a far greater impact than the four human lives trapped in that cabin at Terrefleurs. If she gave him this healing way, he would become unstoppable.

He said, “Hold my hand,
chère.
Pass it on to me. Go on now.”

She grasped his hand, all of it briar illusion conjured by her brain as a way for her conscious mind to represent things that were occurring. Like watching a blip on a satellite map and knowing it represented an airplane's progression. But what if she saw what she wanted to see? If the act of holding Zenon's hand was an illusion, what if she could conjure her own illusion?

It occurred to her that the loveliest thing she could imagine right now was to see Zenon become empty of that cold void. The vacuum might be filled with warm easy strength instead. Was that even possible?

“Go on, now!” His voice was harsher.

She gripped his hands. She thought of Bo and that gentle, mesmerizing golden light that filled him. That was a different kind of healing. She closed her eyes, let the feeling of light relax from her and emanate toward Zenon.

His hands twitched in hers, and she knew he could sense what was happening. She opened her eyes and saw his expression had changed to surprised calm.

A river devil growled.

She looked and saw them staring at her. Gaston, too, was looking at her with tension in his eyes.

“What is this?” Zenon said, and his grip on her hands hardened.

The river devils were growling and arguing, and they started moving. Some came closer but Zenon raised a hand to stop them. They froze. Madeleine watched and tried to maintain calm. He managed them so easily.

Still gripping her with one hand, he looked at her. “That was plumb stupid.”

He wrenched her hand. The effect was so immediate and so overwhelming that she gasped and sank to her knees. And in the same moment she felt the lumen glow vanish from her. In its place came a cold and angry hatred. Bitter and fearful; she felt defensive and at the same time aggressive. She lurched her body away from him but he held her so strongly. Thornflies swarmed. Stinging, stinging. The river devils erupted and attacked one another while at the same time they swiped and bit at her. Madeleine flailed but could not free herself from Zenon. She'd been so stupid to believe she could retrieve him with a single taste of lumen stillness.

But as she fought against him and the river devils in the briar, it occurred to her, if only distantly, that her body was acting out similarly. Somewhere in Terrefleurs.

She made herself stop. Treated the cold void the same as anger or despair or anything else, let it course through and out of her. The thornflies abated. Something was wrong, though. She felt pain and difficulty breathing. Her physical body had taken some kind of hit.