Emma Bull: Bone Dance

The phone was on the wall of a room behind the shop, where the extra stock was stored. The thing on the front of the rack was made of paper-thin black leather and lined with rose-colored silk. The material was so light that it hung shapeless, unidentifiable. A garment, probably. But thin leather cords hung from it at intervals, and a strand of wire coiled down from one side. I tried not to look at it as I listened to the ringing of the phone on the top floor of Sherrea’s building. Eight rings. If no one answered—well, I could try again later. But that’s not how I felt. My pass with Beano seemed to have used up all my insouciance; suddenly it was desperately important to hear Sherrea’s voice, even if it was telling me to go to hell.

And at last, the life-giving click. “Eyeah?” Not one of her neighbors, but Sher herself. She sounded gritty beyond what the noisy connection would account for. Of course, I’d woken her; it was barely past noon.

“Sher? It’s Sparrow,” I half shouted into the tube.

“Mmh? Whaisit?”

“I need a reading.”

“Ah, shit. Whattaya think, I took a Hippocratic oath?” There was a moment’s pause before she said, “Call me when the moon’s out.”

“Sher—” My mouth opened to dicker, to offer her all the inducements, mythical and real, I could call to mind. In that moment, they seemed frail and faded. I shut my mouth and tried again, and found myself saying, “Sher… please?”

There was another crackling pause. “What’s wrong?” Alarm and suspicion mixed in the words, with suspicion leading.

“I just woke up on the river flats. Between now and nine-ish last night, I have a big gap where my life used to be.”

Silence on the other end. She bargained hard, but not as fast from straight out of bed. I could hear her trying to figure out how much my desperation was worth. “Uh-huh. And I can help.”

“Maybe,” I answered as the dickering impulse reasserted itself at last.

“ Chica, this is gonna cost you.”

“I’m good for it, Sher.”

“What do you mean,” she said ominously, “you’re good for it?”

“One of the things that happened while I was down is that my money went away.”

“Get some more.”

“It’s, ah, in my other pants. Which are locked up in the Night Fair.”

“Where are you calling from?”

“Del Corazón.”

“What’d you give Beano? ”

“Threats and promises,” I answered.

Sherrea said some things in a language I didn’t recognize. Then she said, “It’s a long walk, and you deserve it. Or are you planning to scam a lift out of some poor bastard?”

Twelve blocks and four flights. Well, after that nice restful ride… “I’m walking.”

“You’re gonna owe me, Sparrow. Got that?”

“Yes, I’ll owe you.” I felt suddenly, grovelingly, indecently grateful. Another debit for the ledger—but to Sherrea. I’d never known Sherrea to deal in flesh and blood.

“Get here in less than twenty minutes and I’ll cook your flat ass for breakfast.”

It took me thirty. I followed the route around the east flank of the Night Fair, where spindly locust trees cast a little shade. Sometimes I had to cling to the fence, when the curve of the world became too much to climb. Sometimes I just sat on the curb and panted and clutched my head. Two little black kids with the copper earrings of the Leopard Society threw fragments of paving at me. I scooped a handful of dust out of the boulevard plantings, spit into it, and closed my fingers over it, chanting at random, bastard Spanish, Creole, Lao. Then I stared at the kids. They made a great show of nonchalance, but they left. Which was nice; what was I going to do when I blew my handful of dust at them, and they didn’t turn into lumps of clay, or get leprosy, or whatever they expected?

Away from the Fair, the traffic was heavier. I dodged bicycles and the occasional motorbike, as well as pedestrians more determined than I was, which was all of them. A silver sedan with smoked windows and the insignia of a northside greenkraal nearly put an end to my problems out in the middle of LaSalle. I jumped for the center island as the tires squealed. All’s well that isn’t over.

And all the while I watched for a filthy tri-wheeler, listening for its clotted growling. I had no idea what I’d do if I saw it.

Sherrea’s building was smooth dirty yellow tile and rows of too-small windows, with a door that used to be glass and was now rather more practical armor-gray steel. It was built in the last century, when prosperity must have excused ugliness. The halls had once been blank and identical, the stairwells featureless tubes of concrete block and iron stair rail. Now living ivy worked its way toward the sky at the top of the stairs, where someone had turned a trapdoor into an open skylight; wisteria cascaded down to meet it from the roof. Things peered from the leaves: grotesque carved wooden faces, old photographs of people who all seemed to be smiling, faded postcards. A painted snake twined up the stair rail: red, black, and yellow on the first floor; blue, gray, and green on the second; purple, green, and orange on the third; blue, red, and yellow on the fourth. Fat candles stood in former floor lamps on every landing.

The stairwell doors were numbered, as if the residents wouldn’t be able to keep track when they came home. The “4” was an elongated green man in a loincloth, one arm held out and bent. By the time I climbed that far, I was glad to see him. The hall behind him was painted with frescoes of vacant Roman courtyards. Sher’s door was the middle of a fountain; I knocked on a painted nymph’s tummy.

Sherrea had her face on, and layers and layers of black and purple clothing. The astral colors of sorcerers, she’d told me once. Her black hair was wet and had been combed flat to her head, but that wouldn’t last long. There was a cigarette between her white-painted lips, smoked nearly down to the filter.

Her big dark eyes got bigger when she saw me, and it made her look almost as young as she was. “Sparrow. Blessed goddamn Virgin,” she said around the cigarette. “Get in here and lie down.”

“I’ve been lying down,” I said, thinking of the river flats.

“Not in any way that was good for you. You’ve got some kinda shit in you, chica. What is it?”

Either she really is psychic, or I wasn’t looking my usual sleek self. “I don’t know. I wasn’t there when it happened. I’ve probably got some sunstroke as well.”

“ Oya. Well, you’re not gonna sit in my living room like that.”

She drew me a bath. She was prepared to drop me in it herself, but I declined firmly. She insisted that I leave my clothes outside the bathroom door, so she could wash them (an unexpectedly practical gesture from Sherrea). I did, and locked the door.

Her bathroom was the place in the apartment that looked most like hers. Dark—probably where she put her makeup on. Paisley shawls, ferns shaped like visitors from outer space, incense, brass bowls. Mismatched glass jars (from jelly and peanut butter and salsa, elevated beyond their stations) full of dried leaves and flowers and powders, with a combined scent that called to mind medicines and hot metal. The mirror was like a pool half seen through vegetation; it was swagged with velvet draperies dimly printed with flowers that all looked carnivorous.

I was in the bath for a long time. I might have even fallen asleep; I know that when Sherrea pounded on the door and shouted, “Did you kill yourself in my goddamn bathroom?” I sat up with a jerk, my heart slamming in my chest like a moth against a window. Water lapped over the side and splatted on the floor. It wasn’t warm water anymore, I noticed.