—
Nearest motel was in Step-Stair itself, though Doll left me long before that, trudging down-road with what-all I could find of my Momma hugged in both arms like a makeshift pouch-cum-bundle wrought from the skirt of Tad’s hellacious-long jacket. Orpah and hers had rendered her skeleton like animals, cracked half the bones and cut the rest all to rounds for small magicks. But I’d found one gone hollow yet otherwise intact, maybe part of her femur, a one-note flute. I let ‘em dry a while on the radiator while I had myself a nice, long ho
t shower, first in my clothes, then out of ‘em. And then, once my jumpsuit, undershirt, bra, panties and socks were hung up on the show-rod to reassume their natural colours, I sat down naked and cross-legged to breath a few long, low breaths through that last piece of the woman I’d come from, waiting to see just how long it’d take before her voice came moaning out the other end.
...Whaaaat is’t yooouuuu...waaaant fr’m meeee, Allfair...?
A bare whisper, marrow-caught: “You know, Momma.”
A sigh came back, then a long silence. Followed, like night follows day, by this:
...Lisssstennn...
I put my ear to the bone’s mouth and did, hard. And when I was done I said, “Thank you, ma’am,” like any dutiful daughter, before crushing the fragile little tube of calcium and rot to dust with my bare hands, letting the last of it fall free onto the towel I sat on.
—
For this is what she’d told me, at least in part: Every coven does have its devil, just like Orpah said. But whoever it is ain’t never the Adversary Himself, any more than every corner-shop drug dealer’s the Man. Hell’s a franchise that way, like any given Piggly-Wiggly. And back in Chatouye, France, where my kin come from, that devil was one of them who chose wrongside-wise during the Schism—a mighty creature, silver-tongued and armed to the back teeth, well-versed in every sort of chaos. When I’d last seen him, he’d looked like a man, dark-bearded and sad-eyed as any given Homeland Security wanted poster sketch, but back when my Momma first saw him, he might’ve looked somewhat different. Still, I didn’t much care so I didn’t ask, and she certainly didn’t volunteer.
He knew my name, of course—that’d been the basic point of my meeting him at all. And now, thanks to Gley Chatwin’s new-laid ghost, I finally knew his.
“Come to my call, first of my blood; come quiet, come sweet, in a form most pleasing to my eyes, meaning me no harm. O Raum Goetim, teacher of warcraft and morality, I invoke thee: Venez, venez, diable des belledames Chatouyennes. Venez, o antrecessor. Venez, venez, prince et pere. Venez, dieu. ”
I shut my eyes and waited, expecting—hell, I don’t know. A bad smell. A scratch at the door, like claws. A pounding of hooves along the roof and a clatter down where the motel should’ve had a chimney. But when I opened them, all I saw was Samaire Cornish sitting ‘cross from me, with eyes the colour of cancer and pupils set slant as a goat’s.
All at once, I recalled my rude state, and blushed. Felt my nipples come up so hard under the double ropes of my hair that they fair turned sideways, too.
“Gley’s gal, is it?” this vision asked, soft enough, though it ran all through me like a hot shiver. “Haven’t seen you in...hmmm. Never at all, I think, as an adult. Should I be insulted that you only seem to require my presence now, when you so obviously want something…or someone?”
“Hadn’t thought you’d kept that firm a track on me, frankly.”
“Seeing how many other seeds I’ve sown, over the years? But perhaps I’m sentimental that way, little Alleycat.” “She” leaned closer, voice dropping further yet. “Still, I notice you don’t answer.”
“There is a gal I’m lookin’ to find, yes. We got unfinished business, her and me.”
“A woman such as you, I’m sure, could find more than your share of girls.”
“No doubt, but none like this one. I think you might recall her Momma too, somewhat—Moriam Cornish?”
“Aaaah, yes. Sweet little Morah, reduced to salt and slime; her man fought monsters, so she made herself even more of one, to help him. But blood told in the end, as it always does. For hunted to truck with hunter is an invariably foolish choice.”
“S’pose so,” I agreed. “And yet...”
“And yet?”
Yet I was willing to test that theory nonetheless, loath though I might suddenly find myself to say so. But then again, it wasn’t like I had to; “she” laughed out loud at the very thought, mocking Samaire’s natural gravity. And I shivered again, want run all up and down and through me like a skewer, at the idea I might one day be able to make this illusion’s sombre prototype chuckle the same way—if only a little bit, for a very little while.
Still wearing my sister’s shape, my Daddy laid his hot hand on my forehead, invisible claws denting my skin, heavy with the thrown-star weight of frustrated millennia. And he told me what to do.
Family. Like I’ve said before, no matter where the various and disparate elements of yours may come from, once seen in action...it really is something.
—
Piece by piece, throughout the coming night, I pulverized the rest of Gley Chatwin’s bones, making ‘em into a sort of marrow-laced, grey-brown porridge. That handful on the towel I mixed my own blood with, fashioning it into a drab little wren-sized bird. The rest, meanwhile, I ate with a spoon rooked from the motel’s restaurant, mouthful by gritty mouthful. And wished them into Orpah Cleves as I did—her stomach, her bowels, her bloodstream—for if she wanted my Momma’s power so damnable much, I reckoned, she could just go on and choke on it, like them gals at Salem vomiting up their irons nails and rag-dollies and soaking hanks of hair.
Let her be filled so full it made a cage ‘round her heart, a bonemeal box locked so tight that weary muscle couldn’t even beat, let alone bust itself free; let her worshippers find her in the evening still and stiff, red lips gone blue, a discreet touch of vomit in her stormy hair.
For power has its price, after all.