Heaven's Bones (16 page)

Instinctively he placed his hands on the girl's shoulders, and the coolness flowed through him into her, emptying out of him and filling her. As it passed he could see, in the darkness of his mind behind closed eyes, hints of its nature.

He saw an enormous book, made of a queer thick paper, open on a table that seemed to bear the marks of weapons. There were dull crimson stains across the pages of that book, and the markings in it resembled no alphabet he had ever seen, in or out of his uncle's library.

His vision was obscured by a mist, and through the haziness he saw the strange glyphs and letters lift off the pages of that book, and float through the foggy air, thickening into a stream that flowed through him—through his hands—into the body of the girl before him.

He was drained. He opened his eyes, blinking in confusion. His examining room seemed to be filled with a light smoke—but it felt damp, like a winter's fog. He watched while it gathered itself over Nellie, becoming more solid as it did, and poured into her, entering her nostrils, her mouth, and the corners of her eyes.

It was gone, and she lay still. He would have thought she was
dead, but after a while her chest rose, very slowly, and just as slowly, she exhaled.

As she did, he thought he could see the merest trace of a mist above her mouth.

There
. The voice sounded satisfied.
She won't wake until you desire it. You may do as you will
.

Concerned about sufficient air reaching her lungs, Robarts had threaded the tubing down her throat, but that was all—she remained immobile, quiescent. When the other—Eliza, was it? Liz?—was lured inside with promises of gin and a night's worth of coin, he'd drugged her easily—although she'd fought more than little Nellie—and again the voice called him to let it fill him, and he had, letting the coldness pass into his patient, casting her into a sleep past all waking.

He was able to carve them as an artisan might carve wood, or a sculptor shape stone. Their blood, while it still flowed, was sluggish and easy to contain, and their flesh healed quickly, scarring into the shapes he desired them to take.

But
wings
. He recalled the dead pigeon, a bird as common as a rat, and as well regarded. Yet with beautiful wings, stretched forth as the angels' were.

Wings?
The voice sounded curious.

“Yes,” he replied aloud, as he often did now in the privacy of his town house. “Everything fallen from heaven has wings, or should have.”

Heaven
, said the voice, seeming to taste the word like honey. And Robarts instinctively opened his mind to the voice, showing it the vaults of the cathedrals and the tops of the mountains, the depths of the ocean where Leviathan crawled, the thrones, dominions, Saint Margaret with the Wyrm, Saint Theresa in a frozen tower, and the great burning wheel that Elijah saw.

Ah
, said the voice.
Yet another world. It must be a great thing to storm heaven
.

There was a longing in the voice, and a gloating satisfaction—but Robarts was bent to his work and didn't notice.

Riverbend, after the Fire

Weldon heaved his burden onto the bed in the nearest guestroom, and stood contemplating his patient. The man was muttering now, under his breath, and although Weldon listened closely he couldn't understand a word.

There was a great slit on the man's garments, as if they'd been cut away. Curious, he flipped the torn edge of the shirt back.

Even Weldon was startled at what he saw.

It was clear the man had been knifed, and deeply. What was more, the weapon had been drawn up through his abdomen, slicing it open neatly. Too neatly, for there should have been all manner of internal organs visible—not to mention a great deal of blood.

But this wound was as bloodless as that of a cadaver—indeed, Weldon glanced up at the stranger's face to see if he was still, impossibly, alive. He was still mumbling fretfully. But there was a gray look to him, even now, even out of the insistent river fog, which gave him the look of a dead man.

Weldon examined the wound again. Where there should have been the remnants of a stomach and the severed coils of the small intestine there was a blank grayness, which appeared semisolid. It was as if the stranger's insides were composed of solidified fog.

Weldon felt his interest pique. His hand had been idle too long.

“Fetch my kit,” he ordered, without looking around to see who, or what, would obey. And presently his worn, black leather case was placed on the coverlet, beside his right hand, just the way he liked it.
Almost imperceptible footsteps withdrew to the door, and seemed to wait for whatever orders came next. Weldon didn't bother to turn and look. He knew he wouldn't see anything.

When Fanny opened her eyes she was still sitting on the steps of Riverbend Plantation, and the birds were still singing. Now the house was whole and clean again, with no sign of the Fire.

Had someone been there? Wasn't someone speaking to her, just a moment before? Someone with a kind voice, who looked at her sadly. Someone who told her about the fire, and her father, and …

… and Sadie.

This time she would not forget Sadie, clinging hard to her memory, and the words of the man with the amber eyes. Where had she been? Some other Riverbend, charred and collapsed, and the smell of smoke …

Fanny concentrated on the smell of smoke.

She'd met him before, in the ruins of Riverbend, many times, perhaps. He told her a story about her father, about the slaves, trying to make her remember. A story about bones.

This she remembered: her mother had given Sadie to the monster that was her father.

She rose and walked into the house, and invisible hands opened the doors for her.

There was nothing to clean, and no blood or discharge to be wiped away. Weldon concluded that his only course would be to stitch up the wound as best he could.

He enjoyed it, he found. His fingers were big but deft, and he felt their old delicacy and skill return as he threaded his needles and proceeded, tiny suture next to tiny suture, so that the wound
wouldn't scar much as it healed. He had no means to anesthetize him, but the stranger didn't seem to feel the prick of the needle or the pull of the catgut, and although he continued to turn his head and whisper to himself he stayed motionless enough for the work to proceed.

As he put the last stitch in, some door seemed to close in the man's troubled mind; he ceased the fitful turning of his head and incessant muttering and lay still. In the end the slash was closed up neatly as the seam of a dress in the hands of a talented tailor. Weldon admired his handiwork as he wiped his instruments—not that there was any blood to clean up, but old habits die hard—and put them away neatly.

He wondered what had attacked his patient so viciously, and what had happened to him to make the composition of his body so very alien. But Weldon had learned to be patient, and he knew that whether he liked it or not, he had all the time in the world. He could afford to wait for the answers.

He snapped the leather case shut and turned to the door, starting when he saw the small figure standing there. Fanny was watching the stranger's face with a grave frown on her face. She didn't look at Weldon.

He wondered, suddenly, how long they had lived here, in this strange Riverbend where the Fire never seemed to have happened, where he was trapped on all sides by the Mist and the river, where the Perfect Day always tantalized and never reappeared. Months? Years?

Long enough, at the least, for Fanny to have grown. Yet she hadn't aged a day, her small features still plumped with baby fat, her dress still fitting perfectly—neither too tight nor too short. He rarely spoke to her—she kept her haunts separate from his, and presumably the invisible hands that served him took care of her needs as well.

He was suddenly very curious about what Fanny did with her day.

Still not looking at him, she moved to the stranger's bedside, staring at his face. It occurred to Weldon that she might have seen him somewhere in her wanderings.

“Do you know who he is?” he asked, his voice loud in the small room. It had been a long time since he had spoken directly to his daughter.

“No,” she replied, not looking at him.

Weldon found that irritating, and his fingers twitched.

“Well, be careful,” he said, annoyed. “He might be dangerous.”

“I don't think he's allowed to hurt me,” she said.

Then she did turn, and looked at him with gray eyes too old for her little-girl's face, with its chubby cheeks and artless pink coloring.

“I don't think you are, either,” she said.

He stood as if struck, while an inarticulate rage mounted inside him.

The little bitch. How dare she?

Fanny spoke again. “What did you do with Sadie?”

Weldon's hand fisted. Without reply, without even thinking about it, he stepped toward her and struck at her face, his teeth bared in a snarl.

She didn't even flinch. With his fist a foot from her temple, some strong, invisible hand wrapped around his wrist, his arm, his shoulder and held him immobile.

He grunted and strained against it, but the force only grew stronger to match his efforts. He felt his face flush hot and red.

With an effort, he wrenched himself backward, out of the irresistible grip, which released him so that he half-fell on the bed. He regained his balance and clutched the medical bag to his chest, panting with frustrated rage.

Fanny watched him dispassionately.

“Aren't you going to tell me?” she said, her voice still childish but an adult contempt in her too-old eyes.

When he didn't answer she turned back to her contemplation of the stranger's face.

Still clasping the leather bag, Weldon ran from the room.

The man's face was lean and dark, more relaxed now he was still. Although there was no physical sign of it, save for the large cut her father had stitched up, there was a worn look to him, as if he'd suffered some bodily torment for a long time.