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The Thread that Binds the Bones
Families, Book 1
Nina Kiriki Hoffman
1993

ISBN: 0-380-77253-1

NINA KIRIKI HOFFMAN

“A name you should know”
—Fantasy & Science Fiction

“One of a kind. An American original ... One of the finest writers working the blurry edge of fantasy
and horror”
—Locus

The Thread That Binds The Bones

“There is absolutely no other voice in contemporary fantasy like Hoffman’s. Here is a writer to
follow, to heed and, most of all, to read with wonder and enormous enthusiasm.”
—Edward Bryant

“A crazy, wonderful adventure ... One of my favorite novels ... Nina Kiriki Hoffman is a magician.
Her words create worlds no one has ever seen before ... She is one of the fantasy field’s greatest
talents.”
—Kristine Kathryn Rusch, author of White Mists of Power

“Nina Kiriki Hoffman weaves plots together with gold and silver, platinum and spider silk. The
Thread That Binds The Bones is pure magic—Nina Kiriki Hoffman magic. There is no better.”
—Algis Budrys, author of Falling Torch



For Dean and Kris and Kate and Damon, who urged me to fix it and send it out;
For Matt, who encouraged me to clean it up;
And for Debb, the first reader of my dreams: thanks for letting me use your shower.



Chapter 1
Tom Renfield kicked the door of the girls’ rest room open and pushed the mop bucket in ahead of
him, wondering if there would be any new graffiti since he last cleaned there a week ago. The room
smelled of disinfectant and used tampons, with a hint of perfume. He flipped on the light switch just inside
the door, driving night out the window, and glanced at the high pale ceiling to see if there had been any
recent wadded-wet-toilet-paper fights. The kids at Portland, Oregon’s Chester Arthur High School
rediscovered every year that toilet paper plus water and soap equaled a missile that would stick to the
ceiling, sometimes falling on somebody else later, which was a satisfying conclusion, worth double the
pleasure of just getting something up and not having it fall down again right away. No new ammunition
hung up there, so he didn’t need the ladder tonight. He trundled the mop bucket across the gray linoleum,
past the stainless-steel half-moon-shaped sink, with its foot-activated sprinkler that sent out a semicircle