Aunt Pete pulled the pictures from her hand and slapped one on top of the stack. “Never mind all that. This one, look at this one!”
The photograph showed the close up of the hothouse, taken through a clear glass pane. A two-foot tall stump of a tree jutted sadly through dirt. The tree’s stem was blue and translucent, as if made of glass. Borrower’s Tree, one of the Weird’s magical plants.
Cerise glanced up.
Aunt Pete huffed. “You know what this tree is used for. Think, Cerise.”
Cerise frowned. In small quantities, Borrower’s tree was harvested to produce catalysts that bound human and plant. William had said the Hand was full of freaks; some of them probably had grafted plant parts and needed the catalysts. It did look like a fairly sizable tree, and it was cut down to a nub, so they must’ve needed a hell of a lot of catalyst.
The only reason to have that much catalyst would be to actually transform someone through the use of magic. But who would Spider transform? All his guys were already as transformed as they were going to get. It had to be the captives. But it wouldn’t make sense to graft anything on them; no, he had to be doing very specific things to achieve mental control over them, in which case it would be . . .
The pictures fluttered from her hand. Cerise rocked back. “He’s fusing my mother!”
The world went white in a moment of rage and panic. Her head turned hot, her fingers ice-cold. She froze, like a child trapped in a moment of getting caught. Memories streamed past her: mother, with her blue eyes and halo of soft hair, standing by the stove, a spoon in hand, saying something, so tall . . . Going outside to the porch hand in hand; fixing her hair; reading together in a big chair, her head nestled against her mother’s shoulder; her mother’s smell, her voice, her . . .
Oh, my Gods. All gone. All gone forever. Mother was gone. Mother, who could fix anything, couldn’t fix this. Fusion was irreversible. She was gone, gone.
No. No, no, no.
A crushing heaviness swelled in Cerise’s chest and tried to drag her down to the floor. She clenched against the pain, her throat caught in a tight ring, and forced herself to walk away, half-blind from the tears. “I have to go now. So nobody will see.”
Hands swept her off her feet. William carried her off, away from Aunt Pete, away from the noises from the kitchen, to the door, and up the stairs, and then into her little room. Her face was wet and she stuck it into his shoulder. He gripped her, his warm arms cradling her, and sank to the floor.
“They’re fusing my mother.” Her voice came out strangled. “They’re turning her into a monster and she would know. She would know what they were doing. The whole time.”
“Easy,” he murmured. “Easy. I have you.”
Mother’s beautiful smile. Her warm hands, her eyes full of laughter. Her “I have the silliest children.” Her “sweet-heart, I love you.” “You look beautiful, darling.” All gone forever. There would be no good-bye and no rescue. All the deaths, all the scrambling, it was all for nothing. Mother wasn’t coming back to her and Lark.
Cerise buried her face in William’s neck and wept soundlessly, pain leaking out through her tears.
CERISE opened her eyes. She was warm and comfortable, resting against something. She stirred, raised her head, and saw two hazel eyes looking at her.
William.
She must’ve fallen asleep, all tangled up in him. They sat on the floor, where he first landed. He hadn’t moved.
“How long have you sat here?” she asked.
“About two hours.”
“You should’ve put me down.”
She wiggled a little, but he kept his hands where they were. “I don’t mind. I like holding you.”
Cerise leaned back against him and put her head on his shoulder. He stiffened and then hugged her tighter to him.
“Do I look like a mess?” she asked.
“Yes.”
That was William for you. No lies.
The soft light of the lamp fell gently, illuminating her hiding room. It looked so pitiful now. Pictures of dead people on the walls. Threadbare chairs. This had been her spot since she was a child and now she saw it, as if for the first time. It would’ve made her sad, but there was no sad left in her. She’d cried it all out.
“I’ll have to explain it to Lark.” Her heart cringed at the thought. “And I don’t even know if my father is dead or alive.”
Her voice trembled. William hugged her tighter.
“You’ve seen Lark’s tree?” he asked quietly.
She nodded. “The monster tree.”
“What happened to her?”
Cerise closed her eyes and swallowed. “Slavers. I don’t even know where they came from. We never could figure it out. Someone had to have let them in across the border. Celeste, my second cousin, and Lark, she was called Sophie back then, were taking wine down to Sicktree by river. Lark wanted to buy Mom a birthday present ...”
She choked a little on the words.
“So Celeste took Sophie on a boat to trade a case of wine for some trinket. They shot Celeste in the head. Dropped her with one bullet. She fell overboard and Lark went after her. The slavers hit her with an oar when she came up for air, knocked her right out. They took her down into the Mire to their camp and put her in a hole in the ground. The hole would flood in the evening, and she had to sleep sitting up, up to her knees in water, so she wouldn’t drown. We turned everything upside down looking for her. We searched with dogs everywhere.”
His arm braced her, pulling her closer.
“She says the second day one of the men got into the hole with her. Probably wanted to molest her. He might have done it, at least partway. Lark can flash a little. She isn’t quite there yet with aiming, but it’s a strong white flash. She flashed him through the eyes.”