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  Another flash of pain, small and mean and deep, for all its quickness.

  “Well, stop looking at it!” Mary Jane said. “You will not believe this, but I myself, with a compass and a piece of glass, have actually measured the angle of the tilt, and it is less than five degrees. It’s just all the columns make those vertical lines and look like they’re about to fall over.”

  She lifted the pole, and the flat-bottomed boat slipped forward fast on its own momentum. The dreamy night closed all around them, leafy and soft, vines trailing down from the boughs of a listing tree that looked as if it might fall too.

  Mary Jane dug the pole in again and shoved hard, sending the boat flying towards the immense shadow looming over them.

  “Oh my God, is that the front door?”

  “Well, it’s off the hinges now, if that’s what you mean, but that’s where we’re headed. Honey, I’m going to take you right up to the staircase inside. We’re going to tie this boat right there like always.”

  They had reached the porch. Mona put her hands over her mouth, wanting to cover her eyes, but knowing she’d fall if she did. She stared straight up at the wild vines tangled above them. Everywhere she looked she saw thorns. Must have been roses once, and maybe would be again. And there, look, blossoms glowing in the dark, that was wisteria. She loved wisteria.

  Why don’t the big columns just fall, and had she ever seen columns so wide? God, she’d never, when looking at all those sketches, ever dreamed the house was on this scale, yes, it was, absolutely Greek Revival grandeur. But then she’d never actually known anyone who really lived here, at least not a person who could remember.

  The beading of the porch ceiling was rotted out, and a hideous dark hole gaped above that could just harbor a giant python, or what about a whole nest of roaches? Maybe the frogs ate the roaches. The frogs were singing and singing, a lovely sound, very strong and loud compared to the more gentle sound of garden cicadas.

  “Mary Jane, there are no roaches here, are there?”

  “Roaches! Darlin’, there are moccasins out here, and cottonmouth snakes, and alligators now, lots of them. My cats eat the roaches.”

  They slid through the front door, and suddenly the hallway opened up, enormous, filled with the fragrance of the wet soaked plaster and the glue from the peeling wallpaper, and the wood itself, perhaps, oh, there were too many smells of rot and the swamp, and living things, and the rippling water which cast its eerie light all over the walls and the ceiling, ripples upon ripples of light, you could get drugged by it.

  Suddenly she pictured Ophelia floating away on her stream, with the flowers in her hair.

  But look. You could see through the big doors into a ruined parlor and, where the light danced on the wall there, the sodden remnant of a drapery, so dark now from the water it had drunk up that the color was no longer visible. Paper hung down in loose garlands from the ceiling.

  The little boat struck the stairs with a bump. Mona reached out and grabbed the railing, sure it would wobble and fall, but it didn’t. And a good thing, too, because another pain came round her middle and bit deep into her back. She had to hold her breath.

  “Mary Jane, we’ve got to hurry.”

  “You’re telling me. Mona Mayfair, I’m so scared right now.”

  “Don’t be. Be brave. Morrigan needs you.”

  “Morrigan!”

  The light of the lantern shivered and moved up to the high second-floor ceiling. The wallpaper was covered with little bouquets, faded now so that only the white sketch of the bouquet remained, glowing in the dark. Great holes gaped in the plaster, but she could not see anything through them.

  “The walls are brick, don’t you worry about a thing, every single wall, inside, out, brick, just like First Street.” Mary Jane was tying up the boat. Apparently they were beached on an actual step. They were steady now. Mona clung to the railing, as fearful of getting out as of staying in the little boat.

  “Go on upstairs, I’ll bring the junk. Go up and straight back and say hello to Granny. Don’t worry about your shoes, I got plenty of dry shoes. I’ll bring everything.”

  Cautiously, moaning a little, she reached over, took hold of the rail with both hands, and stepped up out of the boat, hoisting herself awkwardly until she found herself standing securely on the tread, with dry stairway ahead of her.

  If it hadn’t been tilting, it would have felt perfectly secure, she thought. And quite suddenly she stood there, one hand on the railing, one on the soft, spongy plaster to her left, and looking up, she felt the house around her, felt its rot, its strength, its obdurate refusal to fall down into the devouring water.

  It was a massive and sturdy thing, giving in only slowly, perhaps stopped at this pitch forever. But when she thought of the muck, she didn’t know why they weren’t both sucked right down now, like bad guys on the run in motion-picture quicksand.

  “Go on up,” said Mary Jane, who had already hurled one sack up on the step above Mona. Crash, bang, slam. The girl was really moving.

  Mona began to walk. Yes, firm, and amazingly dry by the time she reached the very top, dry as if the sun of the spring day had been fiercely hot, trapped in here, and bleaching the boards, look, yes, bleaching it as surely as if it were driftwood.

  At last she stood on the second floor, estimating the angle to be less than five degrees, but that was plenty enough to drive you mad, and then she narrowed her eyes the better to see to the very end of the hallway. Another grand and lovely door with sidelights and fanlight, and electric bulbs strung on crisscrossing wire, hanging from the ceiling. Mosquito netting. Was that it? Lots and lots of it, and the soft electric light, nice and steady, shining through it.

  She took several steps, clinging to the wall still, which did indeed feel hard and dry now, and then she heard a soft little laugh coming from the end of the hall, and as Mary Jane came up with the lantern in hand and set it down beside her sack at the top of the stairs, Mona saw a child standing in the far doorway.

  It was a boy, very dark-skinned, with big inky eyes and soft black hair and a face like a small Hindu saint, peering out at her.

  “Hey, you, Benjy, come help me here with all this. You gotta help me!” shouted Mary Jane.

  The boy sauntered forward, and he wasn’t so little as he came closer. He was maybe almost as tall as Mona, which wasn’t saying much, of course, since Mona hadn’t broken five feet two yet, and might never.

  He was one of those beautiful children with a great mysterious mingling of blood-African, Indian, Spanish, French, probably Mayfair. Mona wanted to touch him, touch his cheek and see if his skin really felt the way it looked, like very, very fine tanned leather. Something Mary Jane had said came back to her, about him selling himself downtown, and in a little burst of mysterious light, she saw purple-papered rooms, fringed lampshades, decadent gentlemen like Oncle Julien in white suits, and of all things, herself in the brass bed with this adorable boy!

  Craziness. The pain stopped her again. She could have dropped in her tracks. But quite deliberately she picked up one foot and then the other. There were the cats, all right, good Lord, witches’ cats, big, long-tailed, furry, demon-eyed cats. There must have been five of them, darting along the walls.

  The beautiful boy with the gleaming black hair carried two sacks of groceries down the hall ahead of her. It was even sort of clean here, as if he’d swept and mopped.

  Her shoes were sopping wet. She was going to go down.

  “That you, Mary Jane? Benjy, is that my girl? Mary Jane!”

  “Coming, Granny, I’m coming, what are you doing, Granny?”

  Mary Jane ran past her, holding the ice chest awkwardly, with her elbows flying out and her long flaxen hair swaying.

  “Hey, there, Granny!” She disappeared around the bend. “What you doing now?”

  “Eating graham crackers and cheese, you want some?”

  “No, not now, gimme a kiss, TV broken?”

  “No, honey, just got sick of it
. Benjy’s been writing down my songs as I sing them. Benjy.”

  “Listen, Granny, I got to go, I got Mona Mayfair with me. I’ve got to take her up to the attic where it’s really warm and dry.”

  “Yes, oh yes, please,” Mona whispered. She leant against the walls which tilted away from her. Why, you could lie right on a tilted wall like this, almost. Her feet throbbed, and the pain came again.

  Mama, I am coming.

  Hold on, sweetheart, one more flight of steps to climb. “You bring Mona Mayfair in here, you bring her.”

  “No, Granny, not now!” Mary Jane came flying out of the room, big white skirts hitting the doorjamb, arms out to reach for Mona.

  “Right on up, honey, right straight, come on around now.”

  There was a rustling and a clatter, and just as Mary Jane turned Mona around and pointed her to the foot of the next stairs, Mona saw a tiny little woman come scuttling out of the back room, gray hair in long loose braids with ribbons on the end of them. She had a face like wrinkled cloth, with amazing jet black eyes, crinkled with seeming good humor.

  “Got to hurry,” Mona said, moving as quickly as she could along the railing. “I’m getting sick from the tilt.”

  “You’re sick from the baby!”

  “You go on ahead, and turn on those lights,” shouted the old woman, clamping one amazingly strong and dry little hand to Mona’s arm. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me this child was pregnant. God, this is Alicia’s girl, like to died when they cut off that sixth finger.”

  “What? From me, you mean?” Mona turned to look into the little wrinkled face with the small lips pressed tight together as the woman nodded.

  “You mean I had a sixth finger?” asked Mona.

  “Sure did, honey, and you almost went to heaven when they put you under. Nobody ever told you that tale, about the nurse giving you the shot twice? About your heart nearly stopping dead, and how Evelyn came and saved you!”

  Benjy rushed by, headed up the stairs, his bare feet sounding dusty on the bare wood.

  “No, nobody ever told me! Oh God, the sixth finger.”

  “But don’t you see, that will help!” declared Mary Jane. They were headed up now, and it only looked like one hundred steps to the light up there, and the thin figure of Benjy, who, having lighted the lights, was now making his slow, languid descent, though Mary Jane was already hollering at him.

  Granny had stopped at the foot of the steps. Her white nightgown touched the soiled floor. Her black eyes were calculating, taking Mona’s measure. A Mayfair, all right, thought Mona.

  “Get the blankets, the pillows, all that,” said Mary Jane. “Hurry up. And the milk, Benjy, get the milk.”

  “Well, now, just wait a minute,” Granny shouted. “This girl looks like she doesn’t have time to be spending the night in that attic. She ought to go to the hospital right now. Where’s the truck? Your truck at the landing?”

  “Never mind that, she’s going to have the baby here,” said Mary Jane.

  “Mary Jane!” roared Granny. “God damn it, I can’t climb these steps on account of my hip.”

  “Just go back to bed, Granny. Make Benjy hurry with that stuff. Benjy, I’m not going to pay you!!!!”

  They continued up the attic steps, the air getting warmer as they ascended.

  It was a huge space.

  Same crisscross of electric lights she’d seen below, and look at the steamer trunks and the wardrobes tucked into every gable. Every gable except for one, which held the bed deep inside, and next to it, an oil lamp.

  The bed was huge, built out of those dark, plain posts they used so much in the country, the canopy gone, and only the netting stretched over the top, veil after veil. The netting veiled the entrance to the gable. Mary Jane lifted it as Mona fell forward on the softest mattress.

  Oh, it was all dry! It was. The feather comforter went poof all around her. Pillows and pillows. And the oil lamp, though it was treacherously close, made it into a little tent of sorts around her.

  “Benjy! Get that ice chest now.”

  “Chère, I just carry that ice chest to the back porch,” the boy said, or something like it, the accent clearly Cajun. Didn’t sound like the old woman at all. She just sounds like one of us, thought Mona, a little different maybe….

  “Well, just go git it,” Mary Jane said.

  The netting caught all the golden light, and made a beautiful solitary place of this big soft bed. Nice place to die, maybe better than in the stream with the flowers.

  The pain came again, but this time she was so much more comfortable. What were you supposed to do? She’d read about it. Suck in your breath or something? She couldn’t remember. That was one subject she had not thoroughly researched. Jesus Christ, this was almost about to happen.

  She grabbed Mary Jane’s hand. Mary Jane lay beside her, looking down into her face, wiping her forehead now with something soft and white, softer than a handkerchief.

  “Yes, darlin’, I’m here, and it’s getting bigger and bigger, Mona, it’s just not, it’s …”

  “It will be born,” Mona whispered. “It’s mine. It will be born, but if I die, you have to do it for me, you and Morrigan together.”

  “What!”

  “Make a bier of flowers for me-”

  “Make a what?”

  “Hush up, I’m telling you something that really matters.”

  “Mary Jane!” Granny roared from the foot of the steps. “You come down here and help Benjy carry me up now, girl!”

  “Make a raft, a raft, all full of flowers, you know,” Mona said. “Wisteria, roses, all those things growing outside, swamp irises …”

  “Yeah, yeah, and then what!”

  “Only make it fragile, real fragile, so that as I float away on it, it will slowly fall apart in the current, and I’ll go down into the water…. like Ophelia!”

  “Yeah, okay, anything you say! Mona, I am scared now. I am really scared.”

  “Then be a witch, ’cause there’s no changing anybody’s mind now, is there?”

  Something broke! Just as if a hole had been poked through it. Christ, was she dead inside?

  No, Mother, but I am coming. Please be ready to take my hand. I need you.

  Mary Jane had drawn up on her knees, her hands slapped to the sides of her face.

  “In the name of God!”

  “Help it! Mary Jane! Help it!” screamed Mona.

  Mary Jane shut her eyes tight and laid her hands on the mountain of Mona’s belly. The pain blinded Mona. She tried to see, to see the light in the netting, and to see Mary Jane’s squeezed-shut eyes, and feel her hands, and hear her whispering, but she couldn’t. She was falling. Down through the swamp trees with her hands up, trying to catch the branches.

  “Granny, come help!” screamed Mary Jane.

  And there came the rapid patter of the old woman’s feet!

  “Benjy, get out!” the old woman screamed. “Go back downstairs, out, you hear me?”

  Down, down through the swamps, the pain getting tighter and tighter. Jesus Christ, no wonder women hate this! No joke. This is horrible. God help me!

  “Lord, Jesus Christ, Mary Jane,” Granny cried. “It’s a walking baby!”

  “Granny, help me, take her hand, take it. Granny, you know what she is?”

  “A walking baby, child. I’ve heard of them all my life, but never seen one. Jesus, child. When a walking baby was born out there in the swamps, to Ida Bell Mayfair, when I was a child, they said it stood taller than its mother as soon as it came walking out, and Grandpère Tobias went down there and chopped it up with an ax while the mother was laying there in the bed, screaming! Haven’t you never heard of the walking babies, child? In Santo Domingo they burned them!”

  “No, not this baby!” wailed Mona. She groped in the dark, trying to open her eyes. Dear God, the pain. And suddenly a small slippery hand caught hers. Don’t die, Mama.

  “Oh, Hail Mary, full of grace,” said Granny, and Mary Jane sta
rted the same prayer, only one line behind her, as if it were a reel. “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is …”

  “Look at me, Mama!” The whisper was right by her ear. “Look at me! Mama, I need you, help me, make me grow big, big, big.”

  “Grow big!” cried the women, but their voices were a long way off. “Grow big! Hail Mary, full of grace, help her grow big.”

  Mona laughed! That’s right, Mother of God, help my walking baby!

  But she was falling down through the trees forever, and quite suddenly someone grabbed both her hands, yes, and she looked up through the sparkling green light and she saw her own face above her! Her very own face, pale and with the same freckles and the same green eyes, and the red hair tumbling down. Was it her own self, reaching down to stop her fall, to save her? That was her own smile!

  “No, Mama, it’s me.” Both hands clasped her hands. “Look at me. It’s Morrigan.”

  Slowly she opened her eyes. She gasped, trying to breathe, breathe against the weight, trying to lift her head, reach for her beautiful red hair, raise up high enough just to … just to hold her face, hold it, and … kiss her.

  Twenty-four

  IT WAS SNOWING when she awoke. She was in a long cotton gown they’d given her, something very thick for the New York winters, and the bedroom was very white and quiet. Michael slept soundly against the pillow.

  Ash worked below in his office, or so he had told her that he would. Or maybe he had finished his tasks and gone to sleep as well.

  She could hear nothing in this marble room, in the silent, snowy sky above New York. She stood at the window, looking out at the gray heavens, and at the ways the flakes became visible, emerging distinct and small to fall heavily on the roofs around her, and on the sill of the window, and even in soft graceful gusts against the glass. She had slept six hours. That was enough. She dressed as quietly as possible, putting on a simple black dress from her suitcase, another new and expensive garment chosen by another woman, and perhaps more extravagant than anything she might have bought for herself. Pearls and pearls. Shoes that laced above the instep, but with dangerously high heels. Black stockings. A touch of makeup.