Bone weaver, p.1
Bone Weaver, page 1
Aden Polydoros grew up in Illinois and Arizona, and has a bachelor’s degree in English from Northern Arizona University. When he isn’t writing, he enjoys going to antique fairs and flea markets. He can be found on Twitter @adenpolydoros.
Praise for The City Beautiful
Winner of the 2022 Sydney Taylor Book Award
2021 National Jewish Book Award Finalist
2022 Lambda Literary Award Finalist
An Indie Next pick
A New York Public Library, BookPage, BuzzFeed, and Tor.com “Best Book of 2021”
“Polydoros seamlessly blends a murder mystery with Jewish folklore in this haunting historical fantasy.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“A gorgeous, disturbing, visceral and mystical experience.”
—BookPage, starred review
“A wild ride of a queer gothic fantasy that’s a must-have for YA fantasy collections.”
—School Library Journal, starred review
“The City Beautiful is a triumph, showcasing queer love, illuminating historical events, and guiding readers to an enthralling ending that will leave them satiated yet desirous to return to the world in which they have become immersed.”
—Booklist, starred review
“Like a darkly compelling dream; I dare readers to try to put down this queer triumph of a book where myth, mystery, and death lurk around every corner of the Windy City.”
—Sarah Glenn Marsh, author of the Reign of the Fallen series
“With a keen eye for historical details, Polydoros deftly weaves together a gruesome murder mystery, a beautiful romance, and a rich depiction of Jewish life in the 19th century.”
—Allison Saft, author of Down Comes the Night
“A gripping, fast-paced book that expertly marries thriller and murder mystery. Polydoros is not afraid to tear aside the façade of beauty and civility to confront the darkest aspects of human nature, no holds barred.”
—Sophie Gonzales, author of Only Mostly Devastated
“Readers will become immersed in Alter’s world, rooting for his survival, hoping for his reunion with his family, and wishing for him to find the love that he deserves.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Details rich with specificity and research, and its joys tinged with sorrow...[make] it all the more moving.”
—NPR.org
Bone Weaver
Aden Polydoros
For more information about the terms and phrases used in this story, please see the glossary at the end of this book.
* * *
Additionally, this book contains content and themes that may be difficult for some readers. For a list of content warnings, please visit adenpolydoros.com.
Dedicated to all those who’ve buried, silenced, and sacrificed parts of themselves in order to survive.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Author’s Note
Glossary
Acknowledgments
1
As the autumn wind pawed at the boarded windows like a wolf trying to break in, I arranged my medical supplies next to the teacup containing the severed finger. Needles and water, handspun thread, and clean rags.
“This is the second time this week, Galechka!” I exclaimed, picking up the finger. The first knuckle twitched when I touched it, then curled inward, prodding tentatively against my palm.
“I fell down again,” Galina mumbled, extending her arm across the table. She was in better condition than the other upyri in my family and still had most of her hair and flesh.
“Be more careful. Keep losing fingers, and someday you won’t have any left.” I took her left hand, examining the damage. Her skin was discolored and withered, buffed with a sheen of lavender oil to keep from tearing. Mine was a reminder of what hers had once been—smooth and still warm, a sandy beige against her waxen complexion.
“Can you make a pretty one this time?” she asked. “Like one of your rushnyky?”
“Okay, but promise me you’ll try not to lose anything else.” I gently tapped a finger against her forehead. “You don’t want me to reattach your head, do you?”
Galina giggled. “No.”
She didn’t wince when the needle pricked her. I used a geometrical stitch, embroidering her skin in a delicate red lattice of interlocking lines and diamonds. No blood welled up. The liquid had long since evaporated from her veins.
It made me proud being able to do this small deed for her. So much had fallen apart in my life, it was satisfying to know that I had the ability to sew things back together again. At least in this way, I could make a difference.
“This will protect you,” I said, tying off the final knot. My birth mother had taught me that the embroidery was a talisman against ill luck and the Unclean Force, a corrupting energy that sickened the body and soul. Over the years, I had decorated the walls of our house with rushnyky I had made using found linen. Some good must have come from the tapestries and their lucky embroidery, because the wilderness had yet to claim me.
After snipping the tail of thread, I cleaned her hand then bandaged it. Later, I’d probably find the strips of velvet scattered across the floor, forgotten as she admired my embroidery.
When Galina flexed her reattached finger and laughed, I smiled. Just that raspy sound made all my effort worth it.
“Thank you, Toma.” She curled her fingers to test them. “Will you come exploring?”
“I can’t. It’s too wet for me out there.”
“We can search for treasures.”
“Don’t you have enough of those?” I teased, gesturing at the array of objects lining the shelves along the wall. Jars filled with ceramic pipe stems and tarnished coins sat alongside bottles dredged from the mud, the glass so old that it had acquired an iridescent gleam. She had found brass artillery shells, which I engraved and turned into vases, until each windowsill overflowed with cotton stems and wildflowers.
“Please.” Galina scrounged through her dress pockets and came out with a handful of faceted barrel-shaped beads. “Look what I found in one of the houses.”
“Is that how you lost your finger? You shouldn’t be digging around in those kinds of places.” I took the beads from her, rolling them around in my palm so they caught the firelight. “These are beautiful, Galechka. They’re so blue, they look just like sapphires.”
She smiled in excitement, revealing teeth like river pearls. “You think they’re sapphires?”
“They could be,” I said, although I doubted sapphires would be so heavily chipped.
“I didn’t know they were blue.”
I felt a twinge of sadness. Did Galina even remember what the color blue looked like? She admired things for their shape and feel, but she’d never know the ring of embroidery around her finger was as crimson as the berries of a guelder rose.
“I want to see if I can find the rest of the necklace, but I don’t want to go alone.” Galina pocketed the beads when I handed them back to her. “It’s scary in there.”
I sighed. I wasn’t looking forward to caving my skull in with a fallen beam, but how could I refuse her? “It’s going to get dark soon. If it stops raining, we can go tomorrow, all right?”
“Oh, fine.” Galina rose to her feet. A draft intruded through the door as she opened it, rustling the bundles of herbs and wild garlic nailed to the rafters. She looked so fragile standing there, framed by the bruised sky and dark tree line, as though the world might swallow her whole. There wasn’t much of her left to give—year by year, more hair fell out in chunks, and just in the last summer, she had started carrying her lost milk-teeth in a sachet I’d sewn myself. It frightened me. Someone as small and delicate as her seemed prone to disappearing.
“Don’t lose anything else!” I called after Galina as she closed the door. If she answered, a resounding thunder blast stole her words.
To fight off the chill, I busied myself by cleaning my supplies in the water basin. Once everything was put away, I added another log to the massive masonry stove that occupied nearly a third of the room. Every night, I clear ed the ashes and made sure there was enough wood and tinder. I needed to be careful to keep the fire going. It wasn’t as though I could conjure flames with magic.
Magic was a gift reserved for bogatyri and witches, not someone like me. Thinking back to my childhood among the living, I could recall only a handful of magically endowed individuals, all high-ranking soldiers or nobility. While the heroic bogatyri in Galina’s storybooks were occasionally peasants, in reality the Three Sisters never bestowed their gift on commoners. It was always the duchesses, the earls, the captains, and the commanders who wore the deep-purple epaulets and sashes of the bogatyri. And in the tales, it was them who hunted creatures like my family for their kingdom’s honor.
Witches, or kolduny, were a different story. Their powers came from the Unclean Force, and they infiltrated all levels of society. With a single glance, a koldun—or his female counterpart, the koldunia—could spoil a person, cursing them with disease and misfortune. Just a few words uttered from a koldun’s mouth could be fatal, or so the stories told. I’d never met one myself, and unlike creatures like upyri or rusalki, I wasn’t even sure if kolduny existed in the world. Perhaps they had died out years ago.
After closing the stove door, I sat down to work on my newest rushnyk. The tapestry was my most ambitious one yet—it was so long it billowed down to my feet, the folds of white linen covered in a wealth of geometrical embroidery. I’d dyed the thread myself, hand spinning it from flax and steeping it in madder. I couldn’t wait to see how the rushnyk would look once I finished.
Just as I was done embroidering one corner, Galina burst through the door.
Smiling, I lowered my needle. “Too wet for you?”
“There’s someone out there,” she cried, her voice breaking on the last word.
“Someone?” I asked, baffled.
“Like you, Toma. Someone like you. I think he’s still alive!”
I barely had enough time to grab my hunting satchel from the shelf and tug on my gloves and embroidered buckskin coat before Galina herded me into the downpour.
Windblown trees, craggy outcroppings, a couple of decaying houses, so much rain. So cold. The storm’s chill worked its way into my bones.
Galina raced across the ground with coltish ease, a tiny figure held together by rags and leather belts. I hurried after her, swatting away the rain that stung my exposed cheeks.
Someone alive. Someone like me. How long had it been since I’d last seen a living person? More than a year, certainly. Two or three, at least. The moment the hunter had spotted me, he’d dropped his snared rabbits and rushed off, leaving me with a nice dinner but a sinking heart. I had spent the entire day afterward searching my dark eyes for any sign of blood or fading and pawing at my hair in terror that the black strands might break away in ash-tinged fistfuls, until I was reassured that I hadn’t transformed into an upyr as well.
At the thought of encountering another living person, my breath seized in nervous excitement. One of my favorite pastimes was watching airships pass overhead and fantasizing about the distant lands they were traveling to. But it was a different thing altogether to look into another human’s eyes.
Galina led me down to the river. As we approached the bridge, a pale figure flitted through the wind-torn shallows. I caught a glimpse of long hair and shining eyes before the rusalka retreated into deeper waters.
The river spirits ignored us as we crossed the bridge. I had never been attacked by rusalki, but I had once seen them swarm a caribou, all thrashing limbs and burgundy hair, until the water ran red with blood. It wasn’t uncommon to find gnawed bones and scraps of hide littering the banks.
My feet touched down on solid ground. I lifted my gaze to the horizon and gasped. A trail of smoke rose in the distance, black against the downpour.
“Come on, come on,” Galina urged, tugging at my sleeve.
The wind changed directions, blowing the smoke toward us. Each breath I took was sullied by its acrid odor. Pressing my coat collar over my nose and mouth, I broke into a run, heading toward the fire’s source.
Galina and I took a natural trail formed by decades of deer migration. When the underbrush thickened and obscured our path, we wove our way between red currant brambles and clumps of spurge laurel overladen with berries as black as ink drops. I curtained her with the flap of my buckskin coat when we strayed too close to a thornbush, wary of what its barbed branches might do to her skin and hair.
Before long, the forest thinned. Hornbeams and young oaks replaced the towering spruce and beech trees, admitting in sallow radiance. A pall of smoke caught the sunlight and trapped it in hazy columns.
Ahead, I spotted the deflated remains of an airship ensnared in the trees. Not one of those minnow-shaped vessels that occasionally passed overhead, but a smaller machine whose rowboat-like wicker compartment was open to the elements. Loose ropes and mounds of soot-blackened canvas hung from the branches. A man lay facedown beside the ruined basket, his blond hair streaked with mud.
Stepping carefully over the rubble, I made my way to his side. Here and there, broken machinery bristled from the soil. The barrel of a gun or cannon, and a scatter of brass shells each no longer than my finger. This vessel had been built for war.
I would know—to the south, the wilderness was scarred with overgrown craters and trenches on the verge of collapse, and whenever I hunted in that area, I had to proceed warily. Unexploded ordnance studded the land there, and though the black powder had gone impotent with age or decay, barbed wire and broken glass lined the ground like teeth.
Galina hid behind me, her twig-like fingers grasping at my coat. Her eyes had long since wasted away, but I knew that in her own way, she could see. And while she was incapable of producing tears, I could tell when she cried because her sorrow twisted like a dagger deep inside me.
“Is he dead?” Galina whispered.
“I don’t know.” I sank to my knees beside the wheat-haired man. If he was dead or dying, I didn’t want her to see it. Didn’t want her to be reminded of her own last moments. “Go find Mama and Papa. Hurry.”
Galina rushed into the forest. I waited until she was out of sight before turning back to the man.
“Hey, are you okay?” I lightly shook his shoulder. “Can you hear me?”
Groaning, he struggled into a sitting position and lifted his arms to ward me off. Weak veins of fire pulsed across his skin, sizzling in the rain.
I froze.
A bogatyr.
“You need...you need to help him.” His voice was scarcely louder than a whisper as the flames throbbed, fizzled, and then receded. He sank against the basket, his eyes clouding over like silty puddles. “He needs a doctor.”
“Who does?” I whispered.
Before he could answer, a pole clattered across the ground. I turned, suspecting it had only been the wind, but then a scrap of canvas bulged as something stirred beneath it. Crawling over, I pulled back the flap.
There was another young man beneath the wreckage. He wore a gray wool coat and broadcloth trousers. His face was almost as pale as the ashes caught in his dark brown hair, his full lips chapped and blued from the cold. Even in unconsciousness, there was a cruel edge to his features, something hard about the cast of his mouth and his sunken cheeks.
“Is he alive?” the bogatyr mumbled, knitting his hands over his stomach as though to hold part of himself in. Blood darkened the crisp white linen of his uniform shirt. Though he was a bogatyr, there was no trace of indigo on him, not even a ribbon pinned to his collar or piping down his sleeves.
I took off my glove and pressed a palm against the dark-haired boy’s cheek. The heat of his skin shocked me. When he drew in a shallow breath, I found myself holding my own breath in turn, feeling as though I was witnessing something precious.
My shoulders slumped in relief. “He’s still breathing.”
“Praise the Three,” the bogatyr said with a sigh.
The dark-haired boy stirred and cracked open his eyes. They were the palest gray, as though they were simply reflections of the sky above. He flinched when he saw me, but he was too weak to shy away.
“My name’s Toma.” I returned my hand to my side, worried my touch might be hurting him. “Don’t be afraid, I’m a friend.”
