Emma Bull - Bone Dance

“That’s odd,” I said.

“You just haven’t noticed before. The neighbors stop by to swap favors or pass news along. That sounds like Skip Olsen’s truck.”

“Maybe the wind was up last night,” I said. “It was a great night for dreaming.”

“You had one last night?” Sher asked intently.

“A whole raft of them. Terrible ones. There was a lot of hurrying in mine, too.”

Across the circle, two people were walking toward us. One of them was Josh; the other was a white-haired man ten years older, in a straw cowboy hat. He carried something in one hand. “Sparrow!” Josh called when he was in hollering distance. “Meet Skip Olsen!”

By this time they were at the porch rail. Olsen stuck out a veiny brown hand; I extended mine, took his, and shook it. It still required an effort. Olsen was smiling. “I’d never heard of you,” he said, “but this was sent sort of in care of the town, so I figured if I drove by and asked, they’d all know you. Damnedest bunch for knowing everybody else’s business.” Olsen laughed, and Josh laughed. I reached out and took the package Olsen held out to me.

It was a scuffed white cardboard box, like a gift box, not quite as long as my forearm and a little less than half as thick. It was tied closed with brown twine. Printed on it in ballpoint pen was:

Sparrow

c/o the zoo

Apple Valley

There was, of course, no return address.

Josh took Olsen into the house for tea. I stared at the box. It didn’t weigh much.

“Don’t open it,” Frances said roughly.

“Why not?”

“Sparrow, don’t be an idiot. Don’t open it.”

But I’d already pulled the twine off. I lifted the lid.

Like all gift boxes, it had a piece of tissue paper in it. I folded that back. Inside was a thick tail of hair, silver-blond, tied off with a thin black velvet ribbon. One end of the tail was uneven; the other was straight and freshly cut. That end had been dipped about three inches deep in something that there was no use believing was anything but blood.

I didn’t drop the box, because it weighed hardly anything. I moved very carefully to the top step and sat down, still with the box between my hands, still staring at the contents.

Because neither Theo nor Sher would know, and because Frances might not remember, I said, “Dana’s.” My voice seemed to come from the other side of town.

Frances reached down and almost, but not quite, touched the darkened end of the tail of hair. “And whose is that?”

“I’ll never know, will I?” I said, looking up at her. “Unless I go and see?”

Her hand drew back sharply. “No. He can sit like a spider in the middle of his web and starve, or thrive, or whatever he wants to do. You aren’t going, I’m not going, nobody’s going.”

I picked up the box lid and held it out to her. “Then he’ll come here, won’t he? Would that be better?”

“How did he know?” Theo asked.

“We weren’t a secret,” I said, my voice cracking. “Somebody takes the cucumbers to market, exchanges a little community news, it gets overheard or passed on—he’s probably known for weeks.”

“I’ll go,” said Frances, her mouth tight.

I turned my face up to her again. “But you weren’t invited.”

I watched her eyes change as she realized I was right. The box bearing my name, the threat to my friend. “You can’t,” she said, as she’d said at Del Corazón. “You can’t. She might not even be alive by now, for Christ’s sake.”

“Again, there’s only one way to find out.” I put the lid carefully on the box. I had dreamed of Dana. Of the Ten of Swords, meant for me. Maybe this was the meaning of all that hurrying.

“We need another damned plan,” said Sherrea.

“I wish you wouldn’t say ‘we.’ I don’t need one to get in; this time I know he’s expecting me. He’ll probably leave a light on.”

“Wait, wait.” Frances dropped cross-legged on the floor and jammed her fingers into her hair. “What do you want to accomplish?”

I thought about it, and for a wonder, they kept quiet and let me do it. “I want to get Dana out. If you’re asking what I’d like for my birthday, hell, I’d like to make it possible for Theo to go back. And I’d like to keep Tom Worecski from ever doing this again.”

“Then you’ll have to kill him,” said Frances.

“Will I? You’re the expert.” I felt bad when I saw the color go out of her face. I hadn’t meant it to hurt.

“Sparrow,” Sher said suddenly in a terrible voice. “What did you dream?”

I tried to recite it as fairly, as clearly as she had hers, but she’d had a more coherent original to work from. She closed her eyes partway through, and drew her knees up and rested her forehead on them when I was done. “Oh,” she said, muffled. “Oh, no. I’ve blown it. We’ve run out of time. I’m sorry,” she said, and raised her head. She was red-eyed. “You don’t know anything, because I started too late, and now it has to be done whether you’re ready or not. It’ll kill you. Oh, what’s the fucking date ?”

The rest of us sat awed by the whole terrible-sounding, unintelligible speech. But Josh’s voice, from the front door, said, “June twenty-third. Saint John’s Eve.”

“Well, I’ll be plucked and basted,” I said. “It really is my birthday. What a coincidence.”

“Don’t you understand?” Sher cried. “There are no coincidences here. You were made by the loa for this. Everybody else has a soul that’s part of the continuity. Yours is brand-new. You’re a custom-made item for breaking up a jam in the energy flow, and this is the jam, and the time. Tomorrow is Midsummer. The celebration of the sun, the energy source. Of course it’s supposed to be done then. And you’re not ready!” She buried her face in her knees again.

Josh stepped out onto the porch and laid his hands on her shoulders. “Don’t take it all on yourself.”

“Who’m I supposed to share it with?” she groaned, but she raised her head and wiped her eyes. “You’re right. That won’t accomplish shit.”

It had accomplished something, actually. “This is what that reading was about, wasn’t it, Sher?” I said. “The one you did for me back in the City. There’s gonna be blood and fire, and the dead gonna dance in the streets. Right?”

She nodded, slowly, probably because she didn’t like the sound of my voice. I wouldn’t have, either.

“I’m a quick study. Let’s see if I have this right. You’re saying that the loa animated a cheval to use, eventually, to bust up something…” Even as I said it, the answer occurred to me. “Albrecht’s monopoly, right? And they turned me loose to grow up and get ready for this. Now here they are. And the message is: We made you. You owe us .”

Sher shook her head.

“Sure it is. This may kill me, you said. But they have a right to do that, because I belong to them. I was right, Sher, and you lied. I don’t own anything. And nothing is free.”

Frances and Theo were watching us. I don’t know how much of it made sense to them. But I wasn’t talking to them.

Sher found her voice at last. “We’re reading the same book, but your translation sucks. Okay. If that’s true, you don’t have a choice. But you’re going to find out that nobody is forcing you to do this. I’m trying to make you want to do it, because if you knew as much as you ought to know by now, you would. Santos , the only person who’s leaning on you is Worecski. But your damned stupid life was a gift. And I meant it last night when I said that the only reasons to do a thing were out of love, or because you knew it needed doing.” She stood up, her shoulders very straight. “If you decide to go to Ego, because of Dana or Worecski or whatever, let me know. I’ll help. Out of love, and because it needs doing .”