A Tree of Bones (Hexslinger 3)

A breath, through ragged teeth. His mother’s ghost slumped to rest her forehead ’gainst his shirt, where her cold mouth made a small, wet imprint, about the size of a broke half-dollar.

“It workin’?” she asked, eventually, without much hope.

“Not as such.”

She lay still there a moment, dead weight, like she was gathering her strength. And when she spoke again, a note rung in her voice he never remembered being there before — almost . . . maternal, he had to put a name to it.

“You gotta give me up, Chess. To move on.”

“I don’t ‘gotta’ do any damn thing I don’t want to — you of all people should know that, by now.”

“Then make yourself want to, you great git. ’Cause it’s ’ow it’s gotta be.”

Chess hissed. “Says who?”

“Your Missus Kloves, is ’oo. Been sayin’ it these last hours, or ’owever long, for all I knew you couldn’t make it out. And all I didn’t want to.”

“Aw, that’s horseshit. We bulled our way past enough of this crap together before — just have to push harder, is all. Don’t let it divide and conquer. Ain’t come all this Goddamn way dragging your dead ass behind me just to give up now, Goddamnit — ”

“It ain’t givin’ up. It ain’t. You just . . . Jesus! Why you always gotta be so bloody difficult?”

“Look who’s talkin’.”

Wanted to turn, so they could at least play at being able to see each other, but the rock wouldn’t let him; all these tonnes of earth, these stones and dead things, these endless years of debris and garbage, pressing down unflinching ’til he felt his not-skin bruise, his not-bones bend and start to crack.

It’ll squash me flat, is what it’ll do, like a wheel-popped roadside toad. Christ, will there ever be an end to this, to us? Or is where we’ve gotten ourselves to yet more of Hell again, over and over, writ meaner and smaller every time?

Seemed like Oona felt it too, for she could barely draw a full breath before managing, her words thin: “That girl in New York, Mina Whittaker’s ’er name . . . ’eard ’e give ’er a son too, before she did for ’im. Mose Whittaker, the Widowmaker’s get. ’E’d be your brother, I s’pose, by ’alf measures at least.”

“Why’d you tell me that?”

“Fought you might want to know. For after.” Another strangled gasp. “Why . . . bloody . . . not?”

Sure. So now’s when you let it slip, right when it won’t net you anything to hold it back.

The scar along his jawline crawled as though it was on fire, tracing the path of her yen hock; he could almost remember the look in her eyes when she’d done it, lashing out like a one-clawed cat, trapped into one more move to make him change or run or both, anything but stay and die in that sty she knew would be her tomb. The tears he’d thought drug-addled rheum shone on her cheeks, colour feverish-high already: the germ ripening in her every cough, long before blood began to flow.

Best I could do for you, so I done it — I ain’t proud. And don’t tell me you wasn’t glad enough to ’ave good reason to ’ate me, in the end.

“Guess I did ruin your life, in a way,” he said, slowly, into a mouthful of dirt. “Though I still don’t think you had t’let me.”

“Fanks, ever so. What sort of apology d’you call that, then?”

“Better’n you rate, taken all in all. ’Less you disagree.”

“No point to it. Is there?”

Not really, no.

Chess reached back, pinched arm straining ’til he thought it might crack its socket, and felt for what he hoped were her fingers. Nothing seemed where he’d left it; the tunnel might’ve been a hand’s-width or a straw’s span, some sort of hexacious illusion snaring them like tar while the walls stretched stars-high on either side. Was there even a floor?

Nail touched nail, the barest scratch of horn. Followed by something soft on the pad of his index . . . lips?

Don’t do this to me, old woman.

Still, it rallied him, at least. With his last shred of effort, he ground out, before heaviness forced his mouth shut: “Ain’t all that much forgiveness in me — you made sure of that. But what there is, you got. Now . . .”

. . . time to get off my damn back, for good and all. Go where you’re goin’. Stay there.