The Thread That Binds the Bones (32 page)

He smiled a shadow smile and touched her cheek.

The church was surrounded by clumps of talking people. Barney, Annis, and Jaimie, with Rupert, stood by the gate, captured by someone. As Trixie led Carroll up, Barney turned, along with everyone else.

“Oh. Carroll,” Barney said. “Thank you for coming.”

Carroll stared at Barney a moment, then smiled. “You’re welcome. Have more kids. Or am I not supposed to say that?”

Barney took off his glasses and studied Carroll. His naked eyes were intense brown. “Will you be Rupert’s godfather?”

“What does it mean?”

Annis said, “
Miksash
,
Uncle.”

“Do you want that, Niece?” he asked, after a moment’s pause.

“Are you—different?” she asked.

“I’m working at it.”

“I would claim you. Rupert could hope for no one stronger.”

“What about Tom?”

“No one knows him—not to my satisfaction. If you smiled on our baby, the others would have to pay attention; they all know you.”

“I accept.”

Jaimie held out the baby to him.

Carroll let go of Trixie and took Rupert, who calmed in his hands. He studied the baby’s face as if he had not been memorizing it all during the wedding. Finally he kissed Rupert’s forehead, leaving his own trace there. He hugged Rupert, thinking he had another reason to learn new ways now, so that he could give the child clean care, not polluted with darkness. He surrendered the baby to Jaimie again. “Thank you. Thank you for asking me. Annis, this is my—
troosh
,
“he said, touching Trixie’s shoulder. “She is teaching me how to care about children.”

“We met. Yesterday? I thank you, Miss Trixie.”

“Any time,” said Trixie. “I suppose we’ll be seeing you? You folks moving into town or staying out in the wilds?”

“We haven’t decided yet,” said Barney. “For now, we feel safer out there. But I guess we don’t have to be so scared and careful ...”

“Right. We’ll see you.” She took Carroll’s hand and led him out through the gate. They walked down the street together, leaving the church and all the people behind. After a block, Trixie said, “What
did
happen, sweetie?”

“Maggie hates me again.”

“New reasons or same old?”

“Same old. I want to be little, Aunt. Tom said I could choose. Would you still take care of me?”

“If you’ll help around the house like you said. It’s a big house for one person. Could you help without magic?”

“Yes. I would like that. I liked that sponge.”

“But it won’t stay new very long.”

He looked at her and smiled. “That’s all right. I want to—know what it’s like to be a fetch. Otherwise Maggie ...”

“Carroll,” said Trixie, when the sentence went unfinished, “whatever happened to Polly Martin?”

“Mostly she does laundry, but she’s training with Cousin Nerissa in the mysteries of weaving lately. She has a gift.”

“She’s not dead?”

“I haven’t killed anyone. I’m usually not nice to them either. I want you to know this.”

“I hear you.”

They came to Pops’s garage. “Wait a minute,” said Carroll. He detoured toward the building. There were NO GAS signs hanging on the gas pumps.

Pops came along the sidewalk from church behind them. He whistled. His whistle stopped when he saw Carroll, then resumed.

Carroll waited until Pops arrived. “I made a mistake before,” he said.

Pops peered at him through his glasses. “What?”

“Eddie said—” He pointed to the pumps. “Did I turn the gas underground into water too?”

“Yes, but that’s fine, Mr. Carroll. The tanks were pretty low anyway; we were expecting a delivery. I think we can get the water on out of there without too much trouble, and we’ll get some new gas soon.”

“I’ll turn it back. I need some real gas to sample, though.”

Pops looked at him a long moment. “Follow me,” he said at last, and led Carroll around the side of the building to his old Frazer Vagabond. He opened the gas tank. “Can you tell from here? This is premium. I don’t have any samples of unleaded or regular.”

Carroll ran a finger around the opening of the tank, then smelled the gas. “All right,” he said. “I’m ready. Where do you want this one?”

Pops opened one of the caps on an underground tank, and Carroll knelt and directed energy down into the hole. After a moment he got up again. “You want this in the other tanks?” he asked.

Pops hesitated. “It would be okay for the regular. Not the unleaded. Can’t put it in unleaded engines, it clogs the converter. No, let’s just leave it like this. Thanks, Mr. Carroll.”

“You’re welcome.” He went to Trixie.

“What is this all about?” she asked.

Carroll looked at Pops.

“Well,” said Pops. “Well, we spilled a lot of gas. It was a fire hazard. Tommy asked the boy to clean up the mess, and he did; he made the gas into water. He just did it too good is all.”

“This is where Tom disappeared to?”

“I don’t know,” said Carroll. “He was here when I walked home.”

“Miss Gwen came and tried to get Eddie back,” said Pops. “She knocked me on the head. When I woke up, she was gone, but Tommy, Mr. Carroll, and Miss Laura were here.”

“That was Gwen Tom was dealing with?” Carroll said, fascinated. Then he said, “Oh, no. Oh, no, Aunt, I can’t get small then. What if she comes back?”

“Tommy said she promised she wouldn’t,” said Pops.

“She’s just like I am. If there’s a way to get around a promise, she’ll find it.”

“That’s what you’re like, eh?” Trixie said.

Carroll looked at her. “Was like. Was like, all right?”

“Okay. Come on, let’s go home.” She took his hand again. “Bye, Pops.”

“Bye. Thanks.”

They hadn’t gone very far when Maggie showed up. She laced her left arm through Carroll’s right and frowned ferociously. “Don’t say anything. Not one word. I’m not in the mood,” she said, her frown almost a snarl.

He walked down the road with his face tilted toward the sky, Trixie on his left and Maggie on his right. He felt very happy.

Chapter 20

“Is there a reception, or do we all just mill around talking?” Tom asked.

“No reception,” said Father Wolfe. “We hadn’t planned on this being a big wedding. I had no idea anyone other than the principals would show up.”

“Bert invited us,” said Laura.

“I’m very glad, Miss Laura. I’m glad to see you at all. The town has missed you.”

“Why—thank you,” she said.

“Already I see your influence at work. Your uncle and your brother sitting quietly through a whole church service—forgive me, but I never expected to see the day.”

“Oh, that wasn’t my influence; that was my husband’s.”

“Tom?” Father Wolfe turned to him.

“No,” said Tom. “I think you’re missing the point. They came because they wanted to. Annis is a relative. And people in Chapel Hollow take weddings very seriously; that’s almost the first thing Laura told me about them.”

“I suppose Mr. Carroll and Mr. Michael are older than they were the last time I had anything to do with them ...” His eyes reflected inward. He frowned.

“And Michael got married,” Laura said. “Settled him right down. Have you met his wife? We’ll go find her.” She linked arms with Tom and led him off.

“What?” Tom asked her when they were out of earshot.

“It just fries me. He thinks the Hollow is full of Satan worshippers and demons, and everybody in town thinks I’m a saint because I was never strong enough to pester them. I’m like King Kong’s girlfriend or something, the pure fainting maiden among the beasts. I’m really tired of it. I don’t know Alyssa very well, but I bet she’d make a better saint than I ever did. I think I’ll nominate her.”

Before they could find Michael and Alyssa, Laura’s high school English teacher stopped her, wanting to know about her college career if any, and what had come of it. “I’ve been seeing a face that looks a lot like yours on the covers of fashion magazines, but that seemed so unlikely,” said Miss Finch.

“It was mine.”

“What happened to you? Use your mind, girl. Quick, before you lose your face. Or is that one of those things you Boltes don’t do? Age, I mean. I loaned you
The Picture of Dorian Gray
once, didn’t I?”

“That was one of the meaner things you did. Yuck! Miss Finch, this is my husband, Tom Renfield.”

“Do you find yourself in an analogous situation?” asked Miss Finch.

“Analogous to what?”

“I mean your literary precedent—your name, Renfield—Dracula’s insect-eating sidekick. Any truth in names, or would you smell as sweet with another?”

“Are you casting me as Dracula?” Laura asked.

“It would be an interesting choice, wouldn’t it? If you applied yourself, you could be quite good. Hmm. I see now I should have loaned you some different books. Your problem was never the proper use of power, was it?”

“What do you think it was?”

“Claiming power. Look what you’ve done with yourself! Turned yourself into a flat unspeaking image, incapable of movement. Isn’t that what your pestiferous brother was always trying to train you to do? Now you do it for a living!”

“I’m good at what I do, and I make a lot of money. Are you telling me that’s wrong?”

“What happened to your acting? You had talent. I’ve never had another student who could change so completely under the influence of a role; it led me to speculate about what you must have endured at home, to be able to see other viewpoints with such conviction. That’s a gift, Laura, not a liability. Why don’t you exploit it? Why didn’t you at least try to pursue it?”

“I did. That’s how I got into modeling. I was in a play at the college theater, some ingenue dewy-eyed part, and an agent saw me and told me to put together a portfolio. She got me a job right away. Most of the actors I know don’t work at acting—no eating money in it. How dare you berate me for choosing survival?”

“I just hate to see you betray your muse. Hey, you, Renfield. Why don’t you support her until she gets a break acting?”

“Okay,” said Tom.

“See? That’s the only reason to marry—latch onto someone who’ll help you survive until you get a chance to follow your dream.”

“No,” said Laura. “I’m happy now.”

“Wearing things thought up by men with Spanish Inquisition minds to convince women they want to undergo torture to look like you, knowing they’ll never succeed in looking like you, only in suffering? I’m sorry!”

“Are you trying to provoke me?”

“Provoke you to do what?” asked Miss Finch.

Laura looked at Tom. Her tawny eyes had gold sparks in them. He grinned. “Provoke me into claiming my power and turning you into a toad,” said Laura.

“Is that possible? I had no idea,” said Miss Finch.

“It’s possible.”

“But is it a mature response?”

“Who cares? I’m tired of being grown up all the time. And I’m tired of being the family saint, and I’m tired of taking care of other people’s business when I ought to be on my honeymoon. Tom, take me away from all this.”

“How? Up through the roof? Just disappear? Or would you rather walk out the front door?”

She gave him an irritated glance, then said, “Let’s go through the roof. I’m mad at Father Wolfe.”

Tom shook Miss Finch’s hand. “A pleasure meeting you,” he said. “I’d like to talk with you again sometime.”

“I look forward to it.”

Tom put an arm around Laura’s waist. A lifter pulsed up out of the floor, and he communed with it so that it supported them on up into the air; when they reached the ceiling, he spun a net so quickly they did not even pause but slid through boards, beams, insulation, space, rafters, tarpaper, and shingles.

They stood on the roof. “How did you do that?” Laura asked.

“I don’t know.” He had an idea that they had stepped sideways into the travel dimension and back out on the roof. But he wasn’t sure.

“So ghostly! So perfect. Thank you, my love.” She kissed him.

“Where do we go from here? Chuck it all? I’ve got a new suit. I’m happy. We could fly off to Mexico.”

“What about Maggie?”

“Have you looked lately? She can take care of herself.”

“What about Carroll?”

“I’m getting the feeling that you don’t want to leave town yet.”

“Maybe not,” she said. They looked down at the people in the churchyard and parking lot; few had driven away. Most of the businesses in town had closed for the wedding. Tom saw a car come down the ramp from the interstate. He wondered what the driver wanted. Probably something that wouldn’t be available until talk about the wedding had ran out.

Father Wolfe came out of the church and peered up at them, an action that proved contagious. Jaimie waved from the front gate.

“What do you think? Notorious enough for you?” Tom asked.

Laura laughed. “I don’t think I’ve destroyed my good girl image completely, but I don’t know if I want to take the next step and grow horns and a tail. Let’s go up.”

He caught another lifter and they rose until the town dwindled to a dark triangle of cross-hatching nestled in the golden land beside the gray snake of highway and the much wider silver snake of river.

The day was cool and hazy, birdless except for some transient gulls come up the river from the sea, haunting the rest stop to the east and living off tourists’ garbage. Tom and Laura stood on air. Far south he saw the trees around Chapel Hollow, a bulge of dark green and black and gold that erupted from the twisty meander of trees along the creek. Peregrine woke inside him and looked at the view, savoring it, telling Tom he had never been a very good flyer, though he was an air power. They watched waves rise from the ground.—This vision of yours opens worlds, said Peregrine.—I wish I knew where you got it. I pray your child has it.

They waited as a cold wind blew past them, fingering their hair and clothes without chilling them.

“This is what Maggie wants?” Laura said at last. “A kite’s eye view?”

“I can give it to her now. Peregrine says there’s a way. I just have to be more careful, and plan better. I must admit there’s real pleasure in making everything tiny and looking down on it.”

“Mmm.” Another moment. “You think Trixie has any more cocoa?”