The Thread That Binds the Bones (18 page)

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.”

“But they don’t
have
to act that way. Tom doesn’t. Some of them are much worse than others. Miss Jaimie was nice, and Miss Annis, and then look at Miss Sarah and Miss Gwen, their own sisters, worst of the lot. Miss Alyssa, she came up a week before the wedding, she’s terrific.”

“Who’s Alyssa?” asked Bert. “Came up from where?”

“Some kind of Locke cousin,” Maggie said.

“She didn’t come through school like other Hollow people,” said Bert.

Maggie said, “Different branch. She came from the Southwater Clan.”

“Klamath Falls,” Laura agreed.

“How many batches of you are there?” Trixie asked.

“Not very many,” said Laura. “Some few people scattered in Europe, not living in separate enclaves as we do—”

—That was the way of it in my time, Peregrine muttered to Tom.—We
Ilmonish
lived among others, having our secret grounds for ritual, but otherwise taking on the seeming of those around us. Never have I seen such a separation, a separate nation, as the one here. I came as a Presence to this country with the family’s snow-crystal, and was earthed in the old way when settlement was certain; ever since, I have awakened only for ritual observances and updwellings. I have never had the opportunity to study this new system until now, and it puzzles me.

“—whom we know about because of Cyrus Locke, a traveler and a krifter, who found us once in living memory, and left us hints of others elsewhere, but no solid information; and there is Southwater Clan, a holding like Chapel Hollow, only their customs are a little different,” Laura went on. “My brother Jess talks about lost tribes. He has old charts of family trees, and lists. He wants to search out the missing ones. But he’s not very gifted either, and he hasn’t been able to interest anybody powerful in helping him krift.”

“This Southwater Clan,” Trixie said, “I never heard of it before.”

“Stands to reason, though,” said Bert. “They need other people to marry. Never did meet Ferdie’s wife, but I know he’s got one.”

“Aunt Gemma,” said Laura, nodding.

Maggie said, “And now there’s the new batch Miss Jaimie and Miss Annis are starting since they ran off.”

“Ran off?” said Trixie. “What’d they do with Barney?”

“They took him with,” Maggie said. “Miss him! Played dumb the whole time I was there, but Barney was nice to me anyway. He talked to me. He was the one who explained who everybody in the family was, how they were related to each other. He drew me a family tree. He told me who to watch out for. But that came too late. Mr. Carroll got me first.”

“I can’t understand how they came to fetchcast for Barney,” said Laura. “He was always so careful not to offend any of us.”

“He went too far the other way,” Maggie said. “He and Miss Annis—he came out to the Hollow willingly. When he found out what was happening out there, he didn’t like it a bit, but too late.”

“Anybody heard from them since they ran away?” Tom asked.

“Nary a word,” said Trixie. “I didn’t even know for sure Barney went to the Hollow until now. Everybody suspected it, but nobody had solid evidence.”

Bert shifted in his chair. “I gave Barney and Jalmie a fifty-pound sack of rice yesterday,” he said after a moment.

“Bert!” cried Trixie.

“They didn’t want anybody to know they were still around.”

“Some of the family swore horrible swears when those women left,” said Maggie. “They were like brood mares. Family wanted ’em breeding.”

“They’ve still got Gwen and Sarah,” Laura said.

“I dread the day one of those Locke sirenes goes broody,” said Trixie. “They’ll hatch out your true vipers.”

Laura glanced down at her stomach, then at Tom. He smiled at her, slid his hand close to hers under the table. She took it. Their fingers tangled. After a moment, Laura looked at Bert. “Any chance you can tell me where Barney and my cousins are? I’d like to see them before Tom and I leave.”

“I’ll tell ’em you’re looking for ’em,” he said. “How soon you planning to leave? I talked to Tom about sticking around for a little while, and I wanted to talk to you about that too—hoping you would.”

“You want us here?” Laura said, surprised.

“Way I see it, Tom’s the stick that stirred the hornet’s nest. I’d rather have the hornets focus on him than the rest of us, though I’ll help out any way I can. Will you stay on for a little while?”

“Tom?” Laura said.

“It’s all right with me.”

“Miss Galloway?” said Laura.

“You got to stop calling me that, Miss Laura.”

“I will if you will.”

“Will what?”

“Stop with the misses.”

“What?” Maggie stared at her, then blinked. “Oh,” she said. “Didn’t talk in the Hollow, but I heard it every day for three years, Miss Laura. Not safe to leave a Miss or Mister off—saw people get cuffed a couple times for talking disrespectful about people, and the people weren’t even there, just listening in somehow. Mr. Michael made some of ’em bite their tongues every time they forgot a title.”

“That’s awful!” Laura’s eyes darkened. “Tom says he’s adopted you. So I guess I have too. You have to learn to call me something ...”

“Ma?” suggested Maggie, her eyes bright.

“Sis?” Laura said.

“Laura,” said Trixie. “Laura. Laura. I have to practice that. Seems unnatural.”

“Laura,” Bert said. “Please pass the potato chips, Laura.”

The potato chips were in front of Trixie, nowhere near Laura. She hesitated. Then the bowl slid across the table, detouring around cards and poker chips, and stopped in front of Bert. He grinned. “Thanks,” he said, munching. Then he sobered. “Will you stay in
town for a little while, Laura?”

“Yes,” she said.

Maggie said, “Tom? You never answered my question. Could you fly a bowl of potato chips? Could you fly me?”

“I don’t know.”

“Could we try? Always wanted to fly.”

Tom glanced toward the window. Outside, night had fallen hours earlier. “Tomorrow,” he said, “if I don’t have to work. Tonight let’s play poker, okay?”