The Thread That Binds the Bones (6 page)

Tom touched Laura’s hand again, and she gripped his. In the night the back of the house looked like a mountain riddled with tunnel openings, some spilling golden light, many dark, some covered with cloth (light leaking through the weave) or glass. People scattered and disappeared into the house.

Laura waited until everyone else had gone in. Her hand was hot in his. He looked into her face, saw uncertainty. Her hand tightened on his and she led him into a central opening toward light that strengthened as they walked.

Chapter 5

The air tasted of roasted meat and woodsmoke. Yellow light came from a side opening ahead of them. Voices murmured.

Though he had not consciously closed his othersight eyes, everything looked normal to Tom, no ghosts, no purple layers in the air, no threads or lights out of place. He glanced around. Stone walls, stone floor, flickering light ahead, and Laura, beside him, her hand in his. The white robe covered her. Her face looked young and worried.

“What is it?” he murmured.

Her gaze flicked to his face, then away. “Come, please,” she said. They turned through the opening and stepped into an enormous cavern. Candles and oil lamps flickered in many niches. To their right, a fire crackled in a fireplace the size of a small garage. Nearby lurked counters, a giant butcher-block table, two huge copper sinks, and woodstoves big enough for a person to sleep in. Herbs, garlic braids, chile ristras, and other drying plants hung from the ceiling in braids and bunches. Pots and pans dangled from pegs in the rock walls, and freestanding cupboards stood against other walls.

To the left was a wide open space; most of the light concentrated there. In the center stood a rectangular stone table with stone benches around it. White-robed people were sitting down at the table. Two robed women, an older one with gray hair and glasses and a middle-aged blonde one, were taking a cauldron off a hook above the fire, and a stocky dark man was filling a tray with crystal cups from one of the cupboards.

Laura led Tom to the table and tugged him down beside her on the end of a bench, then released his hand. He glanced at people around the table. Some were dark, some light. Many had traces of the strange slant-eyed good looks Laura had; in one or two the effect was even stronger, verging on the unearthly. Others had a stocky solidness that squared their faces and gave them gravity. Something about them, though, made it clear that they were all related, maybe just the angle they held their heads, alert and curious as birds.

The cauldron’s steam scented the air with mulled cider. The women and the man brought their burdens to the table. Someone else went to get a ladle, returned, and filled cups with fragrant honey-colored liquid.

Michael and the woman he had stood beside during the ritual sat at the head of the table, and the old man who had led the chants sat with them. Cider cups traveled around the table until everyone had one. Tom warmed his hands on his cup. He realized he had not eaten in a long time.

The old man said, “The auguries were good.” He broke into a smile.

“Praise be,” said one of the cauldron bearers, the blonde woman. Her short hair was streaked with varied shades of blonde, like Laura’s and Michael’s. Her face was square and solid, but her nose was the same shape as Laura’s. She looked at Michael. “You took an awful chance, son,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell us you weren’t ready for this? We could have waited a month for you to prepare.”

“Preparation wouldn’t help,” he said. He glanced at a small white-haired woman down the table from him. Her dark eyes glittered as she stared back, her mouth thin and grim, Michael lowered his gaze and traced a pattern on the table with an index finger. “I’m surprised I got off as easy as I did.”

“Mischief saved you. She wants progeny,” said the blonde woman. “Alyssa, you have bride’s right of refusal, having seen how short Michael falls. Do you wish to exercise that right?”

The woman beside Michael put her hand over his and smiled down at her cup of cider. “No,” she said. “I would aid Mischief; there’s been little enough of that in my life.”

“Then let us toast a wedding,” said a man with a thick red mustache, holding his cup aloft.

“A wedding,” everyone echoed, raising their cups, then taking swallows of cider.

Tom choked on a clove. Laura patted his back as he coughed.

“Oh, yeah. Now that that’s settled, what about him?” Michael asked, pointing at Tom.

Tom stopped coughing, held his hand in front of his mouth, and looked up to see everyone staring at him. Few of the faces looked friendly.

He felt a thrill of apprehension. Laura had warned him. Time to face whatever came next. He sat up straight.

“Daughter, who is this?” asked the blonde woman.

“Tom,” said Laura. “I gave him salt privilege.”

“Let’s be accurate,” said the mustached man. “You’ve given him rites and robes. Where did you get him?”

“In town,” said Laura. “He’s a cab driver. He drove me out here.”

The tiny white-haired woman leaned forward, her small hands crabbed into claws, but before she could say or do anything, the slender blond man beside her said to Laura, “You miserable excuse for a Bolte. You never applied yourself to the disciplines, and now you’re polluting an important occasion! Why didn’t you just stay gone?”

“Hey, wait a minute!” Michael yelled, and—

“Carroll!” cried the blonde woman, and—

Tom blinked. The room tingled with strange forces.

Othersight returned: he saw hazes of colored lights everywhere. Small bright-hued presences lurked in the shadowed reaches of the ceiling, and each of the people at the table wore a halo of force. Carroll’s was strong and fiery; the tiny old woman beside him wore a vivid shawl of green, red, and blue-black lace touched with flickers of ice blue. Setting down his cup, Tom leaned across the table, grasped a handful of Carroll’s red aura, and tugged on it, startling a gasp out of the other man.

“What happened?” asked someone.

“Listen, Uncle Carroll, I invited Laura here. Leave her alone,” said Michael.

“Anyone watching the Powers would realize Laura was guided,” said the blonde woman, Laura’s mother. “She and this boy were matched. Didn’t you see it? Who are you?”

“Tom Renfield,” said Tom.

“What did you do to Carroll?”

“I don’t know, but I can do it again.” He stared at Carroll, whose opalescent green eyes stared back, watchful, not afraid.

“What do you mean, May, matched?” the mustached man asked Laura’s mother.

“They got the wedding test, and neither of them flinched. And they got glows, Hal.”

Everyone talked at once.

“What’s a glow?” Tom murmured to Laura.

“Those fireballs,” she said, “the ones that came in our eyes.” She seemed upset.

“What does that mean? What does any of this mean?”

“Don’t you know?” she asked.

“No. I don’t know about any of this.”

“But you were singing,” she said, “
you knew
.”
Her gold-blue halo was stained with sickly yellow.

“A ghost helped me with that. I didn’t understand any of the words.”

“A ghost?”

He blew a breath up, ruffling his bangs. “There were a lot of ghosts, I thought—didn’t you see them?”

“I saw light,” she said.

“There was light, and there were all these ghosts. Some were people, and some were animals and monsters. One came inside me. He knew all the words.”

“What?” The sickly yellow in her halo was changing to pink.

“Laura!” said Laura’s mother.

Laura turned.

“Laura,” said her mother, softer this time, smiling. “Do it.”

“But Tom doesn’t understand.”

“That doesn’t matter. The Powers and Presences understand. Do it.”

Laura turned to Tom. “Will you marry me?”

Startled, he sat back. “I think we should talk about this in private.”

“That’s not how we do things around here, Tom.”

“You can refuse her,” said Laura’s mother. “You run the risk of offending the Presences and Powers, though. They have linked you during Purification, and they can be capricious if you ignore them.”

“This is all new to me. I don’t even understand what we just did.”

“Don’t pollute our blood, fetch,” said Carroll. The tiny white-haired woman beside him gripped his arm, grinning, revealing small pointed teeth. The red in her halo darkened.

“Carroll, you court dismissal from this council,” May said.

“You don’t have that authority.”

Tom felt the plucked-string tingle warm his throat. “No,” said someone else’s voice coming from his mouth (that had happened with Hannah and felt strangely familiar), “but I do. Get thee gone, descendant, ere I unleash the deep fire on thee.”

Carroll’s eyes widened. He stood up, stared at Tom a moment, and walked out of the room.

The tingle spread through him. Tom felt very strange, as though he were a passenger in his own body. This expansive a possession had never happened with Hannah. It wasn’t uncomfortable; he just didn’t know what he was going to do next. Mentally he sat back to await developments.

The ghost studied everyone sitting around the table. They all looked shocked. The ghost smiled at them.

The mustached man cleared his throat. “Uh—Honored Presence?”

“Yes, descendant?”

“Is this ...
tanganar
a worthy candidate for my daughter’s hand?”

Tom felt a deep laugh sweep through him; he couldn’t stop chuckling. At last, still gasping, the other used his mouth to say, “Descendant, this too is Mischief’s province. Pronounce a binding while I hold sway here; it would be thy worst night’s work to let this ...
tanganar
escape.”

Laura paled. Her eyes kindled. “I won’t! I won’t get bound by deceit! I refuse.”

“Thou wilt,” said the ghost. “Ancient?”

The old man who had led the chants smiled, his eyes sparkling like aquamarines set in silver.

“In brief, for a favor,” said the ghost.

“Do you, Thomas Renfield, take Laura Bolte as your wife?” said the old man.

The ghost opened his mouth.

—Wait a second, Tom thought.

—What? said the ghost.

—Let me.

—Will you say yes?

His Aunt Rosemary, favorite and kindest of all his relatives, had told him, “Never rush into anything—unless into is the direction you want to go.” He studied Laura, who believed in ghosts, who made light from nothing, who had the biggest family he had ever seen, and who eclipsed everyone he had ever dreamed about.

—Yes. Oh, yes, he thought.

—Very well. The ghost let him own his throat and mouth.

“Yes. I do,” he said.

“Do you, Laura Bolte, take Thomas Renfield as your husband?”

“I—” She looked at Tom, who nodded. “I do,” she said.

“By my lively antiquity, by Powers and Presences above and below, by ancestors and descendants, by sun and sky, by earth and ocean, by all auguries, which read exceeding well tonight, I pronounce you husband and wife,” said the old man. He smiled.

“Honored,” said the mustached man, “are you still present?”

“Yes,” said the ghost.

“Will you tell us the joke now?”

“No.” He laughed again, then fled out the soles of Tom’s feet, leaving him in mid-ha, so that he blinked and closed his mouth and stared around at all these strangers.

Laura looked at him. “Tom, is that you? We’re married,” she said.

“I know.”

“We can unbind it. There are some old forms of unbinding—”

“Laura!” cried her mother. The tiny white-haired woman across the table leaned forward, cocking her head and studying Laura. Her black eyes glittered.

“—in the memory books in the library,” Laura said. Her voice was tight. “One has a list of all the unbindings, from cotton thread up to the Great Unbinding. I know there’s a special unbinding for marriages. I can find it if you want.”

“I don’t want. That was my voice saying ‘I do.’ Do
you
want to undo it? I know he didn’t give you much choice.”

Laura shook her head. “No. No. You’re my Outsider.” She grinned up at him. Then she sobered. “We have a lot of things to work out, though.”

“You said it. For starters, who are all these people?” Something tapped him on the head, then rang on the stone floor. He looked up, surprised, and saw something else falling, glinting. He reached out and caught it. “Wait a minute. May I have your hand?”

She held out her left hand and he slid a ring onto her third finger. The jeweliy was a delicate gold band set with a small lapis lazuli scarab. She stared at her hand, then at the ceiling, and finally at the floor. After a moment’s study she reached out, and the ring that had fallen first leapt up onto her palm. She took Tom’s left hand and slid the ring onto his third finger. He looked at his ring. It was braided gold and silver, set with a black onyx seal depicting a Roman soldier’s head. Laura kissed Tom.

He kissed her back, then looked up at the ceiling. Hazy glows moved about. “Thanks,” he said.

“Do things like this happen to you often?” Laura’s mother asked.

“No,” he said. “This is my first marriage.”

She laughed and leaned forward, holding out her hand. “I’m May Bolte, young man, Laura’s mother. Welcome to the Family. I didn’t mean the marriage part,” she continued as he shook her hand. “I meant the lights, the possession by a ghost, rings falling from nowhere.”

“No,” he said. “No, that doesn’t happen every day either.”

“Let me see those rings,” said a stocky blond man. Laura held out her hand, and he tugged at the ring, which didn’t budge.

“Cut it out, Jess!” she said, jerking her hand back.

“All right, all right, just let me look at it, then.” He grasped her hand and held it closer, leaning over to scrutinize it, snapping his fingers and producing a small light ball. “Old, very old. I think I read about this in one of the seventeenth-century ship manifests.” He grabbed Tom’s hand and studied his ring. “Yes,” he said. “These have been missing almost three hundred years.”

“This is my oldest brother Jess, the family historian,” Laura said to Tom.

“Right,” said Tom.

“My father, Hal.” She pointed to the mustached man.