Rootless - Howard Chris - Страница 19

I didn’t know what to say, and I didn’t say anything.

“Can you finish it?” Alpha asked.

I nodded.

I could finish it. Or at least I would try. Because there, in the middle of the forest, rising up a hundred feet high, was something prettier than any tree I’d ever seen. A statue of a woman with arms spread wide and one leg lifted like she was dancing. And not just any woman, either. I knew it even though the head was unfinished and the hair was missing. I knew it deep down in my bones.

The statue was the tattoo woman. Zee’s mother.

Frost’s wife.

Whoever had built the statue had got the proportions perfect, not selling her short by making the boobs too big or the legs more curvy. They’d been true to the slope of her shoulders, the delicate way she held up her neck. But what really got me, what blew me away, was how they’d captured the tree.

They’d built a separate installation for it, then woven one statue with the other, bending the steel branches so they gripped the woman’s waist, the leaves hanging loose so they’d turn in the breeze, shimmering where all else was rust. I studied their texture.

Brass. Of course.

Thin and shiny and perfect. And I knew I’d have never thought of brass. Not in a million years.

“Used to light up,” Alpha said. “Switch different colors, till the wiring got messed.”

“Where’d it come from?” I pushed myself forward.

“Came from right here,” said Jawbone. “We had a craftsman. An artist. This was before I was born. Back when the pirates were still united. When we fought as the Army of the Fallen Sun.”

“And this army had a tree builder?”

“He built the forest here, some others we lost in the lowlands. Swamps, people would have called them. Once upon a time.”

“But what about the woman?”

“She was found not far from here, down near the South Wall. Our women say she came from the Other Side.”

“You ever seen the Wall?” Alpha said, and I nodded, picturing the memory screen. “Then you know that’s impossible.”

“Myth. Legend.” Jawbone waved her hand in the air. “The story goes that she was beautiful and the tattoo she wore was more beautiful, still. Our tree builder fell in love with her, began building this to honor her. And I like to think, to honor all women. Just as he’d honored life through his building of trees.”

“But he didn’t finish?”

“No. He and his muse vanished. Just before the city was destroyed by the Purple Hand.”

“GenTech?”

“It was the end of our resistance. And that’s where the story ends. Until you. Finish the statue, and you’re free to leave the city.”

I stared up at the curves of the woman and the steel limbs of the tree. “What else do you know about the tattoo she wore?”

“There were numbers on it,” Alpha said, and Jawbone rolled her eyes. “They say if you could play those numbers in Vega, you’d strike it rich.”

I watched the tarnished brass leaves turning. I’d never heard about pirates fighting GenTech. Never thought anyone but the Soljahs had tried to make a stand. It made me wonder what else might be buried out here beneath the plains. What battles had raged on the mud? What cities had sunk under the sand?

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll work at night. Right through till the sun gets hot. I’ll need a scaffold, though. And my tools. Every bit of scrap you got. You got spare hands, I can use them. Wire can clean the rust right off that metal, and you should keep at it long after I’m gone.” People think you just build up some trees and you got yourself a forest. But you got to tend it. Just like everything else.

“Alpha will help you any way you need. I’ll send others as necessary.” Jawbone extended her little hand and I shook it.

“Your lucky day,” Alpha said, nudging my ribs as Jawbone slipped away. Then Alpha handed me the nail gun, fixed me with a grin. “Best be careful, though,” she said. “Don’t want that luck running out.”

“What was the name of the woman?” I said, still staring up at the statue. “The woman from the South Wall?”

“Hina,” Alpha said. “That’s what we call her, anyway.”

“Hina,” I said to myself, like I was trying to see if it fit. And now she wasn’t just someone’s mother or somebody’s wife, a map or a statue.

Now she was someone with a name.

I left the face blank. Only not. I figured if I was building something for all women, then I should somehow try to reflect each one of them. And that’s what I did. I broke glass and mirrors into pieces the size of my hand, then glued those chunks all across the metal sheets I’d beaten to the shape of her cheekbones and the fullness of her lips. I put the shiniest blocks in diamond patterns where her eyes should’ve been and I cast her gaze downward as I soldered the face to the frame my predecessor had left behind.

I worked through till sunrise and left the head coated in a plastic tarp, exhausted as I slipped down the side of the scaffold that Alpha and me had set the evening before.

At the bottom of the final ladder, Alpha was stretched on her back, staring up at the statue. She spread her arms and moved her legs, mimicking Hina’s pose as I dropped from the scaffold. I ran my fingers at the wound on my arm. Seemed like this pirate girl could act more like a girl or more like a pirate. And I reckoned the girl was a whole lot more to my liking.

“How’s it coming up there?” she said, eyeing me.

“What do you think?”

“I think we got ourselves a real tree builder, that’s what I think.”

I stared at her as she stared at the statue. And for a moment, I wondered what she’d do if I was to try running right then. I’d not get far, I reckoned. Even if I could make it to the city walls, there was no way I’d get over.

“You born in this city?” I said, collapsing onto the dirt beside her. She rolled over so she was looking at me, and I studied her eyes for the first time. Before I’d been sort of blinded by the mohawk or the way that she moved, but her eyes were golden and brown and real pretty, too. Like sunlight on a muddy river.

“What’s it to you, bud?” Alpha said, and I’d nearly forgot I’d asked her a question. Hell, I was still gazing into her eyes like a damn fool.

“Just wondered if you’re a local girl.”

“Why? Where are you from?”

“Nowhere,” I told her. “Nowhere at all.”

That day I hardly slept worth a damn. I kept waking to the strange sounds of the city, wanting to head back to the forest but then drowsing off again. Slipping in and out of dreams like I was waiting for something. And I reckon I was waiting on Alpha to come get me. But Alpha never showed.

At sunset, I made my way outside, figuring a route that put me right above the mud pit. With the ramp raised up, you could hardly see the bodies twisted below, but I squatted on the walkway, checked to make sure I was alone, and then stared down at the squirming rags.

“Sal,” I hissed, peering under the railing. “It’s Banyan.”

A face glanced up from the shadows. The scrawny dude I’d spoken with before. “Got better, did you?” he called.

“You seen my buddy? The fat kid?”

I heard Sal calling, scrabbling into view. “Banyan,” he yelled. “Banyan.”

“Right here, kid.”

“What are you doing?”

“Getting free.”

His face turned red and tight and he clenched his fist at me. “What about me?” he screamed, and I stood to make sure no one was paying attention to his ruckus.

“Keep your voice down,” I hissed. “Someone’ll come.”

“Don’t you forget about me,” he yelled as I sauntered away, and I could hear him calling after me. “Don’t you forget, tree boy. I got the number. The number you need.”