rolled on relentlessly.
He remembered the shock when the guards came for him. Suddenly the cast was broken from his hips; he was shoved to his feet and forced to walk on legs that didn’t remember how. He was in a bare room facing a bright light that stabbed his eyes, and there were men facing him whose malevolence was palpable as his own rotting flesh.
“You ready to talk, boy?” they asked.
He wasn’t ready to talk to them.
“What’s your name?”
It occurred to him that being Bird of Lavender and Black Dragon, good Witch of the North, was maybe not the safest identity around here. “Paco,” he said. It was an old nickname, short for
pájaro
, bird in Spanish. “Paco Negro.”
A fist slammed into his jaw.
“Speak English, slime. None of that Devil’s tongue around here. What’s your name?”
“Uh … Charlie. Charlie Parker.”
“Charlie, we’d like to know how you got into that power plant. Who let you in?”
He was silent. Who could he still betray? Who was alive? Who was dead? Spirit wings fanned the room. No, he wouldn’t tell them anything.
Claro
. And there would be more pain, and then an end.
“Boy, you cooperate with us, we’ll cooperate with you. You can make it easy on yourself. You want to stonewall, that’s all right. We can deal with that too.”
He stood, silent.
“Give me your hand, boy.” One of the cops took his left hand, held it almost tenderly in his own. His face was round, and he had a gray stubble over his cheeks. His eyes were bright blue, and he smiled a lot. The good cop, Bird thought. There’s always a friendly one.
“That’s a nice hand,” the cop said. “Delicate. Refined.” He touched the calluses still there, though soft now, on the tips of Bird’s fingers. The touch made his skin feel slimy, polluted. “Almost a girl’s hand. Musician? Play guitar?”
Control. Bird willed himself not to respond, not through a breath or an eye blink or a gesture. He knew how the game was played. If they could read a “yes” from him on what they knew was true, they could read his “yes” or “no” to anything they asked, whether he answered or not.
“You a Witch, boy?” asked the second cop, who had black hair and wore mirrored sunglasses that concealed his eyes. “Answer me!” he barked.
Bird was silent. He was seeing Madrone’s face, asleep on her pillow, and the needlepoint over her bed that Johanna had done long ago.
Who sees all beings in their own self, and their own self in all beings, loses all fear
.
In his own self, he saw the executioner. He remembered a gun in his own hand, a face coming toward him, snarling, raging, then falling, blood spewing from the nostrils. Like his father’s face, dying by some other hand. Death moved on, and hands like these, like his, passed it along.
The men Bird faced were not alien to him, and so ultimately they could not defeat him. All they could do was kill him, and he wondered why they didn’t get on with it.
The first cop held Bird’s hand down on the table in a steely grip. The second cop pulled out his long nightstick, observed it almost philosophically, then suddenly smashed it down on Bird’s outstretched hand.
He could feel the knuckles crunch and the bones break. Pain was like a chord, or grating dissonances. He could let it be sound, and not feel it, and stay where the fear couldn’t get at him. As long as he stayed sheltered from the fear, nothing could get at him. Or so he told himself. In some other life, he would cry for his lost guitar and the lost possibilities of music.
They broke both his hands and then sent him back to his private underworld.
Maybe this was their modern version of the old test for Witches, the one where they threw you in the water. If you sank and died, you were innocent. If you floated, you were guilty and they burned you.
If he survived this, he had to be a Witch, he thought, as he went into the starsong for healing. He couldn’t make the bones go back quite
He remembered the shock when the guards came for him. Suddenly the cast was broken from his hips; he was shoved to his feet and forced to walk on legs that didn’t remember how. He was in a bare room facing a bright light that stabbed his eyes, and there were men facing him whose malevolence was palpable as his own rotting flesh.
“You ready to talk, boy?” they asked.
He wasn’t ready to talk to them.
“What’s your name?”
It occurred to him that being Bird of Lavender and Black Dragon, good Witch of the North, was maybe not the safest identity around here. “Paco,” he said. It was an old nickname, short for
pájaro
, bird in Spanish. “Paco Negro.”
A fist slammed into his jaw.
“Speak English, slime. None of that Devil’s tongue around here. What’s your name?”
“Uh … Charlie. Charlie Parker.”
“Charlie, we’d like to know how you got into that power plant. Who let you in?”
He was silent. Who could he still betray? Who was alive? Who was dead? Spirit wings fanned the room. No, he wouldn’t tell them anything.
Claro
. And there would be more pain, and then an end.
“Boy, you cooperate with us, we’ll cooperate with you. You can make it easy on yourself. You want to stonewall, that’s all right. We can deal with that too.”
He stood, silent.
“Give me your hand, boy.” One of the cops took his left hand, held it almost tenderly in his own. His face was round, and he had a gray stubble over his cheeks. His eyes were bright blue, and he smiled a lot. The good cop, Bird thought. There’s always a friendly one.
“That’s a nice hand,” the cop said. “Delicate. Refined.” He touched the calluses still there, though soft now, on the tips of Bird’s fingers. The touch made his skin feel slimy, polluted. “Almost a girl’s hand. Musician? Play guitar?”
Control. Bird willed himself not to respond, not through a breath or an eye blink or a gesture. He knew how the game was played. If they could read a “yes” from him on what they knew was true, they could read his “yes” or “no” to anything they asked, whether he answered or not.
“You a Witch, boy?” asked the second cop, who had black hair and wore mirrored sunglasses that concealed his eyes. “Answer me!” he barked.
Bird was silent. He was seeing Madrone’s face, asleep on her pillow, and the needlepoint over her bed that Johanna had done long ago.
Who sees all beings in their own self, and their own self in all beings, loses all fear
.
In his own self, he saw the executioner. He remembered a gun in his own hand, a face coming toward him, snarling, raging, then falling, blood spewing from the nostrils. Like his father’s face, dying by some other hand. Death moved on, and hands like these, like his, passed it along.
The men Bird faced were not alien to him, and so ultimately they could not defeat him. All they could do was kill him, and he wondered why they didn’t get on with it.
The first cop held Bird’s hand down on the table in a steely grip. The second cop pulled out his long nightstick, observed it almost philosophically, then suddenly smashed it down on Bird’s outstretched hand.
He could feel the knuckles crunch and the bones break. Pain was like a chord, or grating dissonances. He could let it be sound, and not feel it, and stay where the fear couldn’t get at him. As long as he stayed sheltered from the fear, nothing could get at him. Or so he told himself. In some other life, he would cry for his lost guitar and the lost possibilities of music.
They broke both his hands and then sent him back to his private underworld.
Maybe this was their modern version of the old test for Witches, the one where they threw you in the water. If you sank and died, you were innocent. If you floated, you were guilty and they burned you.
If he survived this, he had to be a Witch, he thought, as he went into the starsong for healing. He couldn’t make the bones go back quite
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