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“Even if I knew how, I don’t think I have any hoodoo left in me.”
“You’re still here,” says someone from across the lobby. “I thought you’d all be gone by now. Or dead.”
It’s Hattie. Her tattered robes are in even worse shape than they were before. Her hair is wild and dirty. Her face is scratched.
She says, “Are there any Shoggots left?”
“A few, but not enough for you to worry about. Sorry about your kids.”
She nods.
“So am I. You’re trying to get up the tree. Why?”
“The thing we came here for is at the top.”
She smiles at us like the fools we are.
“You come all this way to end up back where you started. Ain’t that a kick in the backside.”
“It’s a kick, but I was thinking somewhere else.”
She looks Vidocq and me over.
“You’re too big to climb it. It’s rickety. You’ll bring the damned thing down on top of us.”
“I won’t,” says Candy.
She looks up the length of the tree like she’s climbed it a million times.
I say, “That’s fifty feet. You sure about this?”
She zips up her jacket. Pushes back her hair.
“Can any of you grow claws?”
“Take this,” says Vidocq. He hands her a white filter mask. “I thought these might come in useful. You don’t want to breathe any of that foulness into your lungs.”
“Thanks.”
Candy flips up her jacket collar and heads for the tree. On the way, curled claws extend from her hands as she goes Jade.
“Brave girl,” says Hattie.
“Yes. She is.”
“Foolish.”
“You live in a garbage dump, lady. You don’t get to pick and choose who’s a fool.”
The tree creaks as Candy climbs. Shaggy branches shake, sending down a storm of pine needles, dust, and fungus. I cover my eyes and mouth but still get a mouthful of the gritty, dirt-flavored mess. The others choke and go into racking coughs around me.
I look up through the bad air. Candy is climbing along the trunk, so I can’t see her, but the moving branches show me where she is. Jades are fast and strong. She’s already more than halfway up. The top of the tree sways as she gets higher. Wood snaps and pops in ways that inspire anything but confidence. Branches and glass ornaments crash to the floor.
“Are you all right?” yells Brigitte.
“Don’t bother,” I say. “She doesn’t talk when she’s Jaded out.”
The tree stops shaking. A branch at the top moves. There’s something silver on the end. The branch bends back toward the tree trunk.
