Practical Boots (The Torn Book 1)

by C. E. Murphy

  "Oh, no," Grace said. "It's all clinical. Literally. In the end I decided I wanted someone from my ethnic group, somebody with a college degree, physically fit, who liked dogs." She laughed. "That sounds silly, doesn't it."

  "There are much worse things to go by than whether somebody likes dogs," Cat said. She didn't, particularly. There were no dogs in the Torn, or much in the way of cuddly pets at all. Pets there tended to be…capricious, and coming to the World hadn't entirely erased her suspicion of them. She wouldn't go so far as to say she was afraid of them, but only because she had her pride. Still, she recognized that was about her, not about dogs. "I don't know, I guess I'd be afraid…I mean, I'm sure it doesn't happen, but I guess I'm afraid that the numbers would get messed up or something and I'd end up with some random dude's kid."

  "It does happen," Grace said with a kind of fascinated horror. "A few years back there was a doctor who turned out to be the biological father of a bunch of IVF kids whose mothers had been his patients. But I guess it's a risk you have to take. People are never who we expect them to be anyway, are they?" she said more softly. "We always have an idea of who our kids—or parents, or friends—are going to be, and I don't think anybody ever turns out to be what our idea of them is, not really. I think maybe part of being a good parent is being willing to find out who they actually are, instead."

  "Wow. I wish you were my parent." Cat bit her tongue on the honesty behind that, then smiled again. "Thanks for letting me take up so much of your time. I'll let you get back to your book."

  Grace put her hand over Cat's, smiling. "Good luck with whatever you decide, Ms. Sharp."

  Embarrassed pleasure shot through Cat. "Thanks. Good luck to you, too." She rose and went to the door, then hesitated there, looking back. "Ms. Law?"

  "Mmhmm?" The woman looked up from the book she was picking up.

  Cat passed her hand over her wrist, covering the clunky, sports-style black watch she wore. A twist of power reshaped it to something sturdy but pretty, with knobbly bits and rattling things inside. She took it off, then returned to Grace, nerves making her hands tremble as she offered her the newly-shaped baby rattle. She had told her father an Artifact couldn't be changed, once made, and that was true. But the former watch's purpose hadn't changed, only its appearance; magic appreciated a finely-split hair. "I know this must seem like a really strange thing to say, but I'd like you to take this. As a gift for the baby. And…if you're ever in trouble, if you press the studs counter-clockwise from the top left, and then all four of them together…I'll come right away. I'll be there to help you."

  Confused amusement touched Grace Law's smile, although she took the rattle to admire it. "This is beautiful, but I don't see how I could possibly accept it. It's obviously expensive, and I'm a total stranger to you."

  "It's not exactly expensive. I made it out of parts I had available," Cat said honestly. "I have more at home, and I'd really like you to have this one. For the baby," she repeated.

  Grace hesitated, brushing her thumb over the rattle curve. "I shouldn't take it. But…it's the first baby gift anybody's ever thought—or known—to give me." She looked up, her eyes bright. "Thank you, Ms. Sharp. I'll treasure it."

  A chime rang in Cat's ears, pure tone that she was certain only she could hear, and relief loosened a tightness around her heart. "You're welcome. Take care, Ms. Law."

  She left the waiting room, the office, and the building, then stepped back to New York in time to deposit the check before her bank closed.

  * * *

  Her own apartment looked like a little slice of Hell, compared to the fertility clinic's waiting room. Cat stood in the doorway of the grungy living room, looking around at the badly painted walls where, in places, painted-over newspaper repaired holes. She'd reclaimed most of the furniture from sidewalks, using her ability to step to get to it before other people could, and saving herself the trouble of trying to fit it up narrow stairwells or around tight corners. The kitchenware came from thrift stores and the rarely-used electronics, from repair or pawn shops. She had chosen, and decorated, the apartment during her first weeks in the World, when she had virtually no money and even less sense of who she was, or what she could do on this side of the Torn.

  And she had loved it.

  She still did. It was the first space that had ever truly been her own. Everything else she'd ever had was handed down, usually grudgingly, from her father: her room, her clothes, her education; everything had been his, or chosen by him. When she'd gotten more money, back then, she'd spent it first on a courier bike, then on clothes, garbing herself in fashions as far away from those of the Torn as possible. It hadn't taken long to settle on a style and a wardrobe she'd liked, and since then, upgrading hadn't really occurred to her.

  She could afford better; she'd been able to for ages now. But it struck her that maybe she stayed in this little grey hole because she was still trying to hide from her damn father. Since he'd found her now, and extracted an oath that meant she was at his beck and call, maybe hiding out in a hovel wasn't quite as necessary as before.

  Not, if she thought about it objectively, that it had ever really been necessary. He hadn't exactly been looking for her. But a lifetime of trying to avoid his attention carried weight that she wasn't easily able to shed.

  Weight that her younger sibling would never have to carry.

  Cat sank into the sprung, thin-cushioned corner of the couch and put her face in her hands exactly in time for her phone to buzz in her coat's inner pocket. Her father probably wouldn't be texting her, although the idea made her mouth twist in sour amusement.

  Nope. Not her dad. A message from a courier friend, saying they'd scored a week's worth of Ethiopian food from the back door of the local restaurant, and that if Cat got there fast enough half of it was hers.

  She didn't step; that was too fast, too obvious, and—until a few hours ago—too dangerous. She'd spent years being incredibly cautious about traveling through the Waste, for fear of drawing her father's attention. Well, that wasn't a problem now, so there was no point in using her powers so sparingly.

  Except in cases where arriving too soon would raise suspicion, which, in most cases, was all the time. There were friends who did know she wasn’t entirely human, but the texter—Diana—wasn't one of them. Still, it only took a few minutes on the bike and a couple of traffic scares to skid down the alley of plenty, where a petite, pale-skinned blonde hunched over cartons and bags of food like a gargoyle protecting its lair.

  Cat groaned as she approached. "That smells so good. Thanks for thinking of me."

  "I owed you after that delivery last month. You coulda taken the bonus and you didn't." Diana had great hair, even when it had been mashed under a helmet all day, makeup that didn't run no matter how much she sweated, and fake fingernails that changed to match the color of her clothes. Cat could not imagine putting in the time and effort to maintain her look, but it was a great look.

  "Not your fault you got sideswiped. I'd be a real dick if I'd taken it."

  "See." Diana pointed at her, then got busy packing food into Cat's panniers. "This is why I like it when women come on the crew. Dudes, you can't trust dudes, man. But ladies generally got my back."

  Cat pulled one of the cartons open and nabbed a bite of injera with spinach gomen, then rolled her eyes and made appreciative sounds as she ate it. "We're more than even. This is amazing."

  "Great." Diana smiled and packed up her own panniers with boxes of food. "Tell Kallie hi next time you see her."

  "Oh, I get it. This was an elaborate ruse to get me to pass along greetings to somebody you could totally ask out yourself."

  "Yes. You caught me." The blonde cycled off and, once she was gone, Cat stepped back to her apartment, from whence she texted Kallie and Rick about the piles of Ethiopian food waiting for them.

  Rick's on a job, Kallie texted a minute later. Don't eat it all before I get there.

  I will absolutely eat it all if you don't get h
ere fast enough.

  'Bitch', surrounded by hearts, came back a moment later. Cat laughed and had the food laid out on a coffee table made of milk crates and raw plywood before Kallie arrived on the doorstep, sweaty and looking hungry. "Who'd you screw to get this spread?"

  "I screwed no one," Cat said in a superior tone. "Diana called me about it because she wants to screw you."

  Kallie threw her helmet onto a pile of dirty laundry, then threw herself into the slightly-less-threadbare-than-the-couch armchair on the coffee table's far side. She was pretty in ways Cat could only dream of, with close-cropped tight black curls, a heart-shaped face, and curves that sixty miles of cycling a day could only hone and improve, not whittle away. She never wore a coat, always wore bangles up and down her forearms, and usually wore foundation with gold in it. Her dark skin all but glowed against the armchair's cream brocade. "Methinks you doth protest too much, Cat. She coulda called me if she was trying to bribe me with food. I think she's into you. What happened to your watch?"

  Cat glanced at her wrist as Kallie leaned forward to grab some injera and started to scoop food up with it. "I gave it away. And if Di's into me, why'd she ask me to say hi to you?"

  "Subterfuge," Kallie said around a mouthful. "So you'll be off-guard when she asks you out. Oh my god, this is delicious. Who'd you give it to?"

  "I would definitely be off-guard." Cat sank back in the couch with a pile of food and worked on making it disappear before saying, "Somebody who needed it."

  Kallie pointed at her, rattling her bangles and deliberately shaking her wrist to emphasize the loosely-fitted, sparkling watch in their midst. "You've given exactly three people one of those watches in the last seven years, and now just some random person who needed it? That's bullshit."

  "Dad found me." Cat almost choked on the words, having not intended to say them. There were very few people she would say them to—the three people she'd given watches to, specifically—and even so, she hadn't meant to. But Kallie had been there since the beginning.

  Kallie had been the one to pull Cat out of traffic, the day she'd first landed in the World.

  They hadn't met again until weeks later, of course. Months, probably. The time blurred. But one wet afternoon they'd run into each other on a street corner and Kallie had blurted, "You're that nut job I pulled out of traffic!"

  Cat had cut her hair by then, and changed her wardrobe entirely, and wouldn't have expected anyone to recognize her. Wouldn't have expected anyone to remember her, regardless; no one did, in the Torn. Not in a good way, at least. But Kallie had sounded delighted. "I'd been worried about you, in those weird thin clothes and all that rain and the sense God gave a goose. Nice wardrobe upgrade, anyway, much better than that flimsy thing you were wearing, although it would have looked fabulous on me," which was true. "Swear to God, though, I've had nightmares about that. I don't even know where you came from," she'd said, clearly baffled. "One second you weren't there and the next you were in the middle of goddamn traffic."

  "You wouldn't believe it if I told you," Cat had said then, and she'd been right. Kallie hadn't, when she eventually did tell her. But it wasn't that hard to make a believer out of somebody when she could step away, into the Waste, and back again, or shape an Artifact out of the stuff of the World. It hadn't taken all that much. And it had taken everything, of course. It had taken everything Cat had, to trust somebody in the World that much.

  It had been worth it, though. Having a friend who really knew who she was and who liked her anyway, without expecting anything from her, had been worth it. After a while, Cat had found another, and then a third person she thought she could trust that much.

  And right now, the first of that trio sat up straight, brown eyes gone wide, as Cat tried to sink even deeper into the couch. "Holy fuck, Cat. Why? Are you okay? What happened?"

  "I'm…I mean, yes? I'm okay? Like I'm not dead or injured? He used another Artificer to catch me in the Waste, and he…well, he wanted my courier package. He wanted what I was carrying."

  "Which was…?" Kallie set her food aside, a worried frown marring the gold-glittered skin between her eyebrows. "What were you couriering, Cat?"

  Cat sighed. "A baby."

  "A b—" Kallie slammed her mouth shut on the word, staring at Cat for what felt like forever before she spoke again, her voice very, very careful. "Whose baby?"

  "His. My half-sibling."

  Kallie's voice sharpened. "He told you that? You can't trust him, Cat."

  "You're right, but he also can't lie. Not to a direct question."

  "Did you give it to him?" Dread filled Kallie's tone.

  "No. Of course not." Cat closed her eyes, not wanting to see Kallie's expression as she said the next thing. "I swore an oath of fealty to him instead."

  "Cat!"

  Cat waited a minute, hoping Kallie would get her expression under control, then opened her eyes.

  Kallie's expression was most definitely not under control. Horror, worry, disbelief, fear, and other things, more difficult to define, were stamped on her mutable human features. Cat had a much better poker face, when she needed it; being easy to read would have gotten her killed in the Torn, powerful father or no. Or maybe she'd only had one expression to present in the Torn: permanently pissed off. Forever wearing a Bitchy Cat Face, the same way her dad wore Bitchy Elf Face, was as effective as being actually unreadable.

  "But Cat," Kallie said, this time in a whisper, and asked the one thing Cat had been trying not to think about. "Cat, what about your mom?"

  * * *

  The people of the Torn had very good memories. Excellent for remembering slights that had happened decades, centuries, or even eons ago; excellent for nursing those insults and injuries, and plotting slow, exacting revenge. Good for planning one's own rise; good for bringing forth a bit of destructive gossip from ages past; good for many, many things.

  Difficult, though, for a small girl, half of the Torn, when her mother returned to the World without her.

  She couldn't have been more than three or four; young enough that had she been fully of the World, she might not have remembered her mother at all, and at best, would have held a handful of hazy recollections.

  Not so for a child of the Torn. Cat remembered so much of those early years, of her laughing, lively mother, whose vibrancy and quick-burning humanity made her seem vastly more alive than those around her. When she left—when she disappeared—Cat's own personal world had become darker and much, much more confusing.

  Her mother had left, according to her father. Simply left, without saying goodbye or wanting to bring Cat with her. Cat had known, even then, that her father didn't—couldn't—lie, but many years passed before she realized not lying didn't mean he told the whole truth.

  Lilibeth Rose, daughter of the World, had whispered stories of the World to Cat, and promised they would someday go there together. That broken promise had become the foundation of Cat's life. Not that she had turned against her absent mother, or been brought closer to her cool, remote father after Lilibeth's disappearance, but it had left an empty certainty that the only person she could rely on was herself. And for all of that, she hadn't been wrong, but neither, exactly, was she right.

  It was someone else's slip of the tongue that hinted at what had really happened. Banished, someone said, a word that ghosted by the edge of Cat's hearing. A word that had no meaning, at the time. Sent away, someone else said, and do you remember how she screamed, before he put the sleep upon her. Phrases that meant nothing when they were spoken, but gradually put together a picture very unlike the one her father had painted for her. It had been, in the language of fairy tales, long and long and long again before Cat had understood.

  Lilibeth Rose had not left her daughter behind, nor left the Torn at all, not willingly. She had been ejected by her lover, by Cat's father, and it had taken both might and magic to send her from her daughter's side. It was true that she hadn't said goodbye, or wanted to bring Cat with her, but it was t
rue because her father had taken great pains to make sure she couldn't say goodbye or want, in the moment, to bring her daughter with her.

  It was known, in her father's part of the Torn, in the woodlands that he ruled over, that Lilibeth had been banished; it was also known that to suggest such a thing to the abandoned daughter would make an enemy of the father. No one cared about, or feared, earning Cat's enmity. And indeed, no one needed to, save the one person who would never lower himself to have such concerns.

  Abandoning her to the Waste had been the greatest good her father had ever done for her. It had offered Cat a chance to find her mother again, and she seized on that with both hands.

  But her mother's World was not the same one Cat had found her way to. Time separated them, and perhaps distance. That was why she mapped the Waste, using her gifts sparingly in hopes of avoiding her father's notice, but trying to learn all she could in the moments she dared the in-between place. She'd charted leagues of pathways, learning to move reliably between some places. Knowing those paths allowed her to step off them and explore other locations, hoping she would find what she was looking for.

  But she'd gotten careless. She'd gotten caught. And she had probably lost her mother forever, because of it. Her father would be able to trace her journeys through the Waste, now. He'd know if she stepped somewhere out of time; every trip she took through the Waste left contrails, faint paths that could be followed. Cat was certain that was how he'd bloody well caught her in the first place, by finding the paths that shone more brightly because she used them too much, like the one between New York and Los Angeles. It would be much, much easier for him to follow them now. If she somehow found her way across the space that separated her from her mother, he would know, and he would not be forgiving. He certainly hadn't banished Lilibeth just to allow Cat to find her again.

  And there wasn't a single goddamn thing Cat could think to do about it.