Bone Dance

Mick frowned, but lowered Frances gently back to the floor. Her black hair had swung forward when he’d picked her up; strands were caught in her eyelashes and over her lips. Mick smoothed them back, his long brown hands light and careful, as if he were afraid of marking her skin. “She’s not… It sounds stupid, but she’s not so bad. For one of us. She was crazy, but she wasn’t vicious.”

The taste of bile was still in my mouth, and I was shivering steadily. “Which were you?” I asked. “Crazy, or vicious?”

He settled back on his heels and shook his head. “We were all crazy. God, how long d’you think you could stay well adjusted after you found out you could possess people?”

“I’m the possessee. You tell me.” I got up slowly — I felt as if I’d lost blood, I was so weak — and turned off the fire under the kettle. It hadn’t boiled dry, which was my only proof that it had not been hours since I filled it. I rummaged for tea on the shelves and found chamomile in a jam jar. Fine with me; my nerves could use soothing. I caught myself reaching for the teapot, and took down a mug instead. While the flowers steeped, I cleaned up after myself.

“If I leave for half an hour, will you be here when I get back?” Mick Ski

“Where are you going?”

“Thought I ought to fetch some food, before things shut down at dawn.”

He was relatively new to the City, but he knew the Night Fair’s schedule. “Did you steal that out of my head?”

“What — oh. Yeah. I needed it this morning, when I… ” When he’d ridden me last. “Do you have all my memories now?”

“No. Don’t get so damned excited. I get at a hor — a person’s memories just like they do. I have to fish for ’em. Sometimes what I’m concerned with brings one up, but it’s usually not that easy.”

I settled carefully into the wing chair, cradling my mug in both hands. I felt as brittle as one of my fragile old tapes, yanked into motion between pinch rollers, around capstans. If one reel balked: snap. I angled my head at Frances, limp on the floor. “Is that why it felt like she was killing me, when she made her little trip in?”

He rubbed his forehead and finished the gesture by smoothing his hair. The copper fish chimed lightly. “She was in a state. Instead of opening a window, she broke the glass with a hammer, I guess.”

“In other words, she didn’t have to do that. Heck, I feel lots better.”

Mick’s front teeth met, sharply. “Look. There’s a limit to how much apologizing I’m going to do for Frances, but I’m not going to trash her for you, either. We went through hell together — and if that sounds like a cliche, it’s not. We were friends. If she’s nuts, I know why. And there’s nothing she’s done that I haven’t done, too.” He stood up, a series of precise movements. “I’m going for food. If you’re not here when I get back, I promise not to give a goddamn.” And he left.

The tea had cleared the foul taste out of my mouth, and had stopped my shaking. I could probably make my way out of the building now, and lose myself in the Night Fair. I remembered, suddenly, the thong from my hair that Frances had held outside the Underbridge. She’d found me then. But maybe she was done with me now that she’d gouged out knowledge and found I wasn’t what she wanted.

Oh, snakes and scorpions. Of course I couldn’t go. The archives were all the hostage anyone needed to hold me. Without them, what did I have to Deal, except fast talk and falsehood?

“Excuse me,” the pale thread of a voice came from the figure on the floor. “Can I borrow two pe

She hadn’t moved, except to open her eyes. Those were fixed on me, large and black and smudged underneath with the driven weariness that, I now realized, had been there all night.

“You’re not going to die,” I said. It would be harder than that to squeeze sympathy out of me.

“Ah. That explains it. Though I can’t imagine why I’m not.”

“Because there’s a cure for overwork. More’s the pity.”

She closed her eyes at that. “Do you know, I think I agree?”

I stood up with a lurch and went to pour more water into my mug.

“For what it’s worth — which I suspect is not a lot — I’m sorry,” she added. “When I have a little more energy, I’ll endeavor to grovel, if you want.”

“Don’t put yourself out on my account.” I thought about going into another room. But it would have looked, and felt, like retreat. And there was the possibility, small but non-zero, that if I stayed I might be able to make her uncomfortable. I sat down again. “So, did you have a nice time? Did you get everything you wanted?”

“Out of you? No, since what I wanted was to find out you were Tom Worecski. Does it make you feel better, or worse, to know that you went through that for nothing?”

“Only from your point of view. It makes me feel better that I’m still alive.”

“Ah, yes. Everyone’s first desire. To stay alive.”

I suppose what happened was that we were both made uncomfortable. At any rate, the conversation faltered there.

It was she who broke the silence. “You were in Louisiana?”

At the word, I remembered: waking disoriented and empty of thought, chilly and stiff-limbed, to a steady sound I didn’t recognize. I’d struggled up on one elbow, discomfort in my eyes until I’d realized I could rub them with my fingers and the feeling would go away. Ru

“I am sorry,” Frances said. “Whatever that was, it was probably my fault. Memory is like silt, sometimes. It may be a while before it settles.”

“No. I just — I didn’t know I remembered it.”

“What was it?”

“The first thing I ever… Coming up, the first time.”

She looked amused. “The first time for what?”

“No, the first time for anything. When I woke up.”

“It can’t have been the first time, you know,” she said. “You must be one of us, riding a cheval. You’ve mislaid your identity, but it may turn up.”

“You’re the one who went through my head with a crowbar. Didn’t you find it?”

She frowned. “No. Nothing older than a bunker down south.”

“How much of that did you sample?”

She winced; at my tone, I suppose; so I added in the same one, bright and pointy, “Not that I object. I just don’t want to bore you with things you already know.”

I must have reached the limits of her apologetic mood, because she said, “If you bore me, you’ll know. I’m going to get off the floor and sit in this chair. Unless you plan to shoot me if I do.”

And that, I swear, was the first time I remembered the rifle abandoned on the desk. In her hands it had been a malevolent, ticking presence. Out of them, it was a paperweight. Something had happened in the room, something I couldn’t fathom, that had made it unlikely that any of the three of us would shoot the others.

She settled into the slingshot chair like an old woman, and the leather creaked. “What happened to Mick, by the way?”

Had that last been too casual? Was she worried? If so, what about? “He’s gone to get supplies to restore your depleted self.”

Frances looked up at that. “Has he?” she said mildly. “If he has a yen to play Saint Theresa, he can lavish his talents on a more appreciative audience.”

“Since you’ve proven you can take care of yourself.”

“Given the state you were in when I made your acquaintance,” Frances said, “you should talk.”

I shrugged. “I couldn’t help it. Your pal Mick left me lying in the sun.”

“And you warped. I understand. Tell me about Louisiana.”

“It’s very wet.”

“No, I mean waking up in Louisiana.” I stood up again. I was begi