“Wouldn’t say no. I’m powerful dry.”
I nodded, and withdrew a half-bottle of rye whiskey I’d found in Tad’s inner pocket. Harlan slugged it down, what was left of his throat working queasily, then handed it back, peering.
“Don’t know you, do I?” he asked. “‘Cause...you got some of the Queen’s aspect to you, if I ain’t mistaken.”
“Don’t know me, no, I wouldn’t suppose. But I do know Her, and you—through that sister of yours, over there.”
Another creaky turn, slick in its socket, sickness-greased. “Doll...that you, gal? Told you not to go messin’ with my business, didn’t I?”
Doll snorted. “You’s the one went ‘n got yourself killed, Harlan—left me an’ the younger kids in a lurch so bad, had to turn ‘em over to the State ‘til I can produce you in court. Was stickin’ your thumb in Orpah Cleves’ eye worth all that?”
“She come at me crossways, when I wasn’t lookin’. That ain’t my fault.”
“Her comin’ at you any ways at all, that is your damn fault! Now I need you to go on to the nearest station and say your piece ‘fore witnesses, then come back and lie yourself down again. Court or no, once you’re on record, won’t matter a piss in a windstorm if they never see you again—hell, it’ll only prove you right, and Orpah that much more ready to kill to pay you back for whatever you said.”
“Look at me, sissy. I ain’t exactly fit to set under no hot lights.”
Since Doll’d already done the heavy lifting, I thought I might as well throw in. “Might be I could lay a glamour would get you lookin’ human-shaped once more, without even the stink to put a lie to it. How’d that be?”
They looked to each other, then back to me, and nodded just the once, in unison.
By the time Harlan set off to do what he’d pledged, he looked
thin and mangy still, but more like a meth-head than the walking dead. Turned out those eyes of his were a slightly darker shade of blue than Doll’s, his beard so fair it only showed at an angle. Doll and I huddled up in them swamp-side trees and dug deep, using the leaves and muck for cover, to dream the next half-day away. Letting my eyes drift shut, I chewed a few nightshade berries and slipped my body’s bonds, hovering above the tree-line ‘til I thought I glimpsed where Orpah might be laid in recovery—not her Momma’s old trailer, but one awful similar. Saw her inner circle knitting hands all ‘round her, greasing her wounds with a soothing slather of dogwood, club moss spores and Englishman’s Foot rendered up in unbaptized baby-fat, while they roasted what was left of Harlan’s familiar on the hot-plate; I guessed they probably meant to feed it to her later, maybe in a stew. For that’d get her back on her feet for sure, and smartish...but not quite fast enough.
I opened my eyes again to find Doll already upright, braced like a human pointer-dog, as Harlan shouldered his clumsy way back through the bushes, duty done and glamour long-dropped. Looking like nothing so much as a rag-doll stitched together from green meat whose joints were already giving way under pressure, and grateful-glad indeed to do so.
“Ma’am...sis,” he managed. “That’s an awful long way, ain’t it? Here, and back.”
Doll blinked, fiercely. “Ain’t done both, just yet,” was all she said.
“Well, take it from me. I do crave a rest.”
“Lie down, then,” I suggested.
“Can’t. You know why.”
We all did: He’d vowed himself to the Queen, to do Her worship and spread ill in Her name. Wouldn’t get to quit ‘til She Herself called halt, if She ever did. But then again...She had offered an alternative arrangement, too. As Miss Doll well knew.
I watched her a while, wondering if she’d share that knowledge, or what she’d do with it, after. For moral dilemmas do amuse me, when there’s no other entertainment to be had.
“I’ll take it on, then,” she said, at last, so soft it was like she was talking straight into her own neck. And then…
…it was after, their pact sealed with a kiss, Harlan’s barely skinwrapped bones tumbled once more half-nude and sticky on the ground at Doll’s boots. She had a trace of him still left on her mouth, black as axle-grease, and a look on her face like she didn’t know whether to spit vitriol or bust out crying. A spasm shook her from the solar plexus out, a spectral upper-cut, but she didn’t let it defeat her; just gasped, laid one palm on the place where I could only assume her long-deferred Mark was finally coming in, then straightened up once more, tall and proud. And licked her lips.
I clapped my hands, grinning. “Gal,” I said, “here’s proof the Queen misspoke, not that She’d ever admit it, ‘cause you got grit truer than most I’ve seen. For just like Harlan stood up for you, you stood up for him, like I somehow knew you would—and now, your brother’s debt is yours.”
“That ain’t what I wanted.”
“No, but it’s what you got. Listen, though: It’s better this way, truly. Better you be what you are, ‘cause the other don’t work out—never, not really. No matter how much you might like it to.” Saw her squint around a bit while I was talking, and knew her full Sight must be coming in; this was only confirmed when her gaze wandered back my way, shock of what she saw making her gasp once more, and louder. Gently: “Yeah, that’s right. So how do I look now, in my full ornament?”
“Like...somethin’ I can’t stand to see, hardly.”
“Hmmm. Then you really do been holdin’ out, pretty girl; what-all you got’s far more’n just a smidge, and always was. Go on and enjoy it, while you can.”
She gave a bitter, hitching little laugh of her own at that. “Think Orpah and hers’ll stay content to let me roam, now they know I been workin’ against ‘em in your company?”
“Aw, well, now...I wouldn’t worry yourself too much about her.”