Four Roads Cross (Craft Sequence #5)(60)

Sandy visited his stall next. “You well?” Capistano’d come by too and asked the same question, but when Matt answered yes, the other man did one of those nods you could do only if you had a neck as long as his, where the whole head moved independent of the body like a spring-spined toy doll, and left. Sandy stayed. “And the girls?”

“Them, too.”

“I came over here to tell you off for letting Claire come to work,” she said. “But I won’t.”

“Wouldn’t stay behind. Strong kid.”

She gave him a sideways expression he couldn’t read.

“You should get your shocks fixed, on your truck. Ray’s cousin knows a guy.”

“You said that last night.”

“I did.” Though he didn’t remember. “Thanks, Sandy.”

He took Claire to Cadfael’s that afternoon. They ate in a silence that seemed deeper than the silence of the morning mist and country roads. She ate little, and though she looked at his beer when the waitress brought him one, she ordered tea.

“I’ll go see Father tonight,” she said. “Sandy says they took him to Branch Staffords. He’s still asleep.”

“Good of her to look into that,” he said. “I’ll go with you, if you want company.”

She chewed each bite of chicken breast ten times before she swallowed. “I do. Thank you.”

They took the cart back to the garage near Matt’s apartment and walked home. A light sea breeze cleared the air of smoke and damp. Hannah and Ellen and Donna weren’t home. Donna had left a note: she’d taken the girls with her to work.

“They won’t be home ’til late,” he said. “We could pick them up before we head over.”

“No,” Claire said. “They don’t need to come with us.”

So as the sun fell faster, they rode the trolley southeast to Branch Staffords Hospital, three blocks of red brick cubes with tall curtained windows. As they descended to the curb Matt saw a ripple in the top-floor curtains and looked up into a face staring down: dark eyes and an open mouth. Claire led him across the street. An orderly in the first building directed them to a second, who directed them to a building back behind the parking lot. Crossing the parking lot, Matt watched his feet. He did not want to see the dark eyes and the open mouth again.

“Are you okay?” Claire said.

Fine is what he meant to say, but what he did was, “My mother passed here, three years ago. That was her room.” Third floor from the top, second from the left, north wing. “We expected it, but she didn’t go clean.”

“I’m sorry.” She held her hands in front of her skirt.

The east wing orderlies consulted a book heavier than most scriptures Matt had seen.

“Relation?”

“I’m his daughter,” Claire said. “Matt is a friend of the family.”

They rode up three floors in a white lift that smelled of alcohol. Matt leaned against the rail to the rear of the lift. Claire touched nothing.

Rafferty lay in a bed. He did not move. “He had a rough night,” the nurse said. “He’s unconscious, but you can watch him if you want.”

“Thank you,” Claire replied. “This is all we need.”

The man left them in the room together. There were no bags and drips, no tangled wires, and fewer of the foul smells Matt remembered from his last visit.

“I don’t need you,” Claire said. “Go, if you want. I know the bus route back to your place.”

Matt’s mother had not known where or who she was when she died. There had been love in the room, but bile and blood, too. It was a bad echo of birth, her eyes dark as the inside of her mouth. She did not understand what was happening. For Matt, the memory was one more weight to carry, and there was no place in him where it could rest easy, this ungainly thing that clunked and rattled but would not break.

“I’ll wait,” he said.





30

Raz opened the captain’s cabin door on Cat’s third knock. He paused when he saw her and shook his head as if she’d slapped him. “Who let you on board?”

“Davis,” she said.

“Davis.”

“Don’t blame her. I’m on official business.” She raised the scroll Tara gave her. “Salvage agreement for the Dream. We need to sign it there.”

“Let Davis sign it. She’s co-captain.”

“She wasn’t in command when the salvage took place. We don’t want any loopholes.”

“Give me a minute to square this lot away,” he said, and turned to his crew. Even angry, Raz moved beautifully—perhaps a particular grace emerged from his anger. The crew scattered before him like goats before a lion. Bounty’s early evening business took less time to settle than she expected, probably due to the fact that Raz was three, four times faster than most humans. He blurred around the edges.

“Let’s go,” he said when he was done.

She passed him the scroll, which he skimmed as they walked over. “I don’t understand this.”

“Tara says if we took the Dream under Coulumbite authority, we can’t wake up the people in her hold. If we claimed her under a different authority”—with a meaningful nod toward the new-risen moon—“we can wake them, just like that. But since you were involved, you need to sign.”