Taltos Page 56

  "This is what you want?" Michael asked. "You want parents."

  "Yes, the old ones to tell their tales to me, the way it was once for us."

  "Yes," said Rowan firmly. "And then you will accept our protection, which means our authority and our guidance, that you're our newborn girl."

  "Yes."

  "And that we will care for you."

  "Yes!" She rose slightly in the chair, and then stopped, clutching both sides of the big desk, her arms like long, slender bones that should have supported wings. "Yes. I am a Mayfair. Say this with me. I am one of you. And one day, one day perhaps, by a human man, I'll conceive, and others like me will be born, from witches' blood as I was born, that I have this right to exist, to be happy, to know, to flourish.... God, you still have that scent. I can't bear the scent. You have to tell me the truth."

  "And what if we do?" asked Rowan. "And what if we say that you must stay here, that you are far too young and innocent to meet this male, that we will set the time for a meeting ..."

  "What if we promise," said Michael, "that we will tell him? And that you can know where he is, but only if you promise ..."

  "I swear," she cried. "I'll swear anything."

  "Is it that strong?" Mona whispered.

  "Mother, they're frightening me."

  "You have them in the palm of your hand," said the diminutive Mona nestled in the leather chair, cheeks wasted, skin pale. "They cannot harm anything that explains itself so well. You're as human as they are, don't you see? They see. Play it off. Continue."

  "Give me my place," she said, her eyes growing wide and seeming to catch fire as they had when she'd cried. "Let me be what I am. Let me couple if I will. Let me be one of you."

  "You can't go to him. You can't couple," said Rowan. "Not yet, not until your mind is capable of making that decision."

  "You make me mad!" she cried, drawing back.

  "Morrigan, knock it off," said Mona.

  "You just simmer down," said Mary Jane, climbing to her feet and moving cautiously behind the desk until she could put her hands on Morrigan's shoulders.

  "Tell them about the memories," said Mona. "How we taped them all. And the things you want to see."

  She was trying to pick up the thread again, to prevent a flood of tears or screams, he didn't know which.

  "To go to Donnelaith," Morrigan said in a shaky voice, "to find the plain."

  "You remember those things?"

  "Yes, and all of us together in the circle. I remember. I remember. I reach out for their hands. Help me!" Her voice rose again. But she had clapped her hand over her mouth, and when she cried now it was muffled.

  Michael stood up and came round, gently nudging Mary Jane out of the way.

  "You have my love," he said in her ear. "You hear me? You have it. You have my love and the authority that goes along with it."

  "Oh, thank God." She leant her head against him, just the way Rowan did it now and then, and she cried.

  He stroked her soft hair, softer, silkier than Mona's. He thought of the brief union on the sofa, on the library floor, and this, this frail and unpredictable thing.

  "I know you," she whispered, rubbing her forehead against his chest. "I know your scent too, and the things you've seen, I know the smell of the wind on Liberty Street, and the way the house looked when you first walked in, and how you changed it. I know different kinds of wood, and different tools, and what it's like to rub tung oil into the grain for a long, long time, the sound of the cloth on the wood. And I know when you drowned, when you were so cold, you got warm, you saw witches' ghosts. Those are the worst kind, the strongest kind, except maybe for the ghost of a Taltos. Witches and Taltos, you must have some of us inside you, waiting to come out, to be reborn, to make a race again. Oh, the dead know everything. I don't know why they don't talk. Why doesn't he come to me, or any of them? They just dance in my memories and say those things that mattered to them then. Father, Father, I love you."

  "I love you too," he whispered, his hand closing tightly on her head. He felt himself tremble.

  "And you know," she said, looking up at him, tears draining from her eyes in stains down her white cheeks. "You know, Father, that one day I shall take over completely."

  "And why is that?" he asked calmly, with a tight grip on his voice, on his face.

  "Because it has to be," she said in the same sincere, heated whisper. "I learn so quickly, I'm so strong, I know so much already. And when they come from my womb, and they will come, like I came from Mother and from you, they will have this strength, this knowledge, memories of both ways, the human, the Taltos. We have learned the ambition from you. And the humans will flee from us when they know. They will flee, and the world will ... the world will crumble. Don't you think, Father?"

  He was shivering inside. He heard Ash's voice. He looked at Rowan, whose face remained still, impassive.

  "To live together, that was our vow," he said. He bent, his lips just touching Morrigan's forehead. Smell of baby skin, fresh and sweet. "Those are the dreams of the young, to rule, to dominate all. And the tyrants of history were those who never grew up," he said. "But you will grow. You will have all the knowledge that all of us can give you."

  "Boy, this sure is going to be something," Mary Jane said, folding her arms.

  He stared at her, shocked rudely by her words, and the little laugh that came out of her as she shook her head. He looked at Rowan, whose eyes were once again reddened and sad as she turned her head slightly to the side, gazing at the strange daughter, and then at Mona. And only in Mona's face did he see not wonder and shock, but fear, a calculated, controlled fear.

  "The Mayfairs are my kind now, too," Morrigan whispered. "A family of walking babies, don't you see? And the powerful ones should be brought together. Computer files must be scanned; all those with the double helix made to couple at once; until the numerical score has been evened, at least, at least, and then we will be side by side.... Mother, I must work now. I must get into the Mayfair computer again."

  "Simmer down," said Mary Jane.

  "What do you think and feel?" Morrigan demanded, staring directly at Rowan.

  "You have to learn our ways, and maybe you'll discover someday that they are your ways too. No one is made to couple in our world. Numerical scores are not our forte. But you'll see. We'll teach you, and you will teach us."

  "And you won't hurt me."

  "We can't. We wouldn't," Rowan said. "We don't want to."

  "And the male. This male who left his scent all over you. Is he alone too?" Rowan hesitated, then nodded. Morrigan looked up into Michael's eyes. "All alone like me?"

  "More alone," Michael said. "You have us, your family."

  She rose to her feet, hair flying out, making several quick pirouettes as she crossed the room, the taffeta skirts rustling, reflecting the light in fluid racing flashes.

  "I can wait. I can wait for him. I can wait. Only tell him, please. I leave it to you, I leave it to the tribe. Come, Dolly Jean, come, Mona, it's time to dance. Mary Jane, do you want to? Rowan and Michael, I want to dance."

  She lifted her arms, turning round and round, head falling back, hair hanging long and low. She hummed a song, something soft, something Michael knew he had heard before, something perhaps that Tessa had sung, Tessa, closeted away to die without ever seeing this child? Or Ash, had he hummed this song, Ash, who would never never forgive them if they kept this secret from him, the world-weary wanderer.

  She dropped to her knees beside Rowan. The two young women stiffened, but Mona motioned that Mary Jane was to wait.

  Rowan did nothing. She was hugging her knees with her clasped hands. She did not move as the lithe, silent figure drew very close, as Morrigan sniffed at her cheeks, her neck, her hair. Then slowly Rowan turned, staring into her face.

  Not human, no, dear God, not at all. What is she?

  Calm and collected, Rowan gave no sign that she might be thinking the very same thing. But surely she sensed somet
hing like danger.

  "I can wait," Morrigan said softly. "Write it in stone, his name, where he is. Carve it in the trunk of the funeral oak. Write it somewhere. Keep it from me, but keep it, keep it until a time comes. I can wait."

  Then she drew back and, making those same pirouettes, left the room, humming to herself, the humming higher and higher until it became like a whistle.

  They sat in silence. Suddenly Dolly Jean said, "Oh!" She had fallen asleep, and now she was awake. "Well, what happened?" she asked.

  "I don't know," Rowan said.

  She looked at Mona, and Mona looked at her, and something silent passed between them.

  "Well, I better go watch her," said Mary Jane, hurrying out of the room. "Before she goes and jumps in the swimming pool again with all her clothes, or lies down on the grass back there, trying to smell those two dead bodies."

  Mona sighed.

  "So what does the mother have to say to the father?" Michael asked.

  Mona thought for a long moment. "Watch. Watch and wait." She looked at Rowan. "I know now why you did what you did."

  "You do?" Rowan whispered.

  "Yeah," Mona said. "Yeah, I know." Slowly she climbed to her feet. She was leaving the room, when suddenly she turned. "I didn't mean ... I didn't mean it was all right to hurt her."

  "We know that it's not all right," said Michael. "And she's my child too, remember."

  Mona looked up at him, torn, helpless, as if there were a thousand things she wanted to say, to ask, to explain. And then she only shook her head and, turning her back on them, moved towards the door quietly. At the very last, she looked back, her face a radiant burst of light, of feeling. The little girl with the woman's body beneath her fussy dress. And my sin has done this, my sin has unleashed this thing, as if from the heart and mind of Mona herself, he thought.

  "I smell it too, the scent," said Mona. "A living male. Can't you wash it off? Scrub it off with soap. Then maybe, maybe she'll calm down, she'll stop thinking about it and talking about it, she'll be all right. In the night, she may come into your room, you may wake up with her bending over you. She won't hurt you. In a way you've got the upper hand."

  "How so?" Michael asked.

  "If she doesn't do everything we say, you'll never tell her about the male. It's simple."

  "Yes, it's a means of control," said Rowan.

  "There are other means. She suffers so."

  "You're tired, honey," said Michael. "You should rest."

  "Oh, we will, in each other's arms. It's only when you wake and you see her sniffing at the clothes, don't be frightened. It can look kind of terrible."

  "Yes," said Rowan. "We will all be prepared."

  "But who is he?" Mona asked.

  Rowan turned, as if to make sure she had heard this question right.

  Dolly Jean, her head bowed, gave a sudden startling snore.

  "Who is the male?" asked Mona, insistent, her eyes suddenly half-mast with exhaustion and slightly haunted.

  "And if I tell you," said Rowan, "then you must keep it from her. Let us be the strong ones on that score. Trust us."

  "Mother!" Morrigan called. A waltz had begun, Richard Strauss, strings, one of those lovely bland records that you can listen to for the rest of your life. He wanted to see them dancing, but in a way he didn't.

  "Do the guards know she's not to go out?" Michael asked.

  "Well, not really," Mona said. "You know, it would be easier if you told them to go away. She ... she upsets them. I can control her more easily if they're gone. She won't run away, not from her mother."

  "Yes," Rowan said. "We'll dismiss them."

  Michael was unsure.

  But then he nodded. "We are in this ... together." The voice of Morrigan called out again. The music surged. Mona slowly turned and left them.

  *

  Late in the night, he could hear them laughing still, and the music now and then, or was it a dream of Stuart Gordon's tower? Then the keys of the computer tapping away, and that laughter, and the soft rumble of their running feet on the stairs. And the sound of mingled voices, young and high and very sweet, singing that song.

  Why try to sleep, but then he was gone, too tired, too needy of rest and of escape, too hungry for the simplicity of cotton sheets, and Rowan's warm body against his. Pray, pray for her. Pray for Mona. Pray for them....

  "Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come--"

  His eyes opened wide. "Thy kingdom come. No." The feeling of sudden distress was too vast, yet elusive. He was too tired. "Thy kingdom come." He couldn't think it out. He turned over and buried his face in the crook of Rowan's warm neck and shoulder.

  "Love you," she whispered, a murmured prayer out of the depths of sleep, perhaps, more comforting than his prayer had been.

  Thirty-four

  THE CLEAN MONOTONY of snow, of meetings without end, of phone calls, of the sheets of faxes full of statistics, summaries, of the business of life which he himself had made, reaching for the gold and dreams.

  At midday he put his head down on the desk. It had been a full five days since Michael and Rowan had gone home, and they had not called him, or written even a note. And now he wondered if his gifts had somehow made them sad or been the wrong thing, or if they were blotting him out the way he tried to blot out the memory of Tessa, of Gordon dead on the floor, of Yuri stammering and wringing his hands, of cold winter in the glen, and the jeers of Aiken Drumm.

  What do we seek? What do we need? How can we know what will make us happy? It was a simple thing to pick up the phone, to call Rowan or Michael, to ask if they were all right, if they had recovered from their journey.

  And what if their voices were brittle and indifferent, and he was left with the instrument in his hand, and the wire gone dead after careless farewells? No, that would have been worse than nothing.

  Or more truly, it was not what he wanted.

  Just go there. Just see them. Without lifting his head, he pressed the button. Prepare the plane. Fly away from the city of bitter cold, to the lost land of love. Just look at them, see their house with its warm lights, see through the windows they so lovingly described, and go away without a sound, without begging for their eyes to meet yours. Just look at them. There will be a comfort in that.

  Once all dwellings were small and shut up, windowless, fortified. And you couldn't see the beings within. But now it was different. One could gaze upon a perfect life as if peering at a painting. Sheer glass was enough to shut one out, and demarcate the secret turf of each one's love. But the gods were kind, and you could peep inside. You could see those you missed.

  It will be enough. Do it. And they'd never know. He wouldn't frighten them.

  The car was ready. Remmick had sent the bags down. "Must be good to be going south, sir," he said.

  "Yes, to summerland," he replied.

  "That's what Somerset means, sir, in England."

  "Yes, I know," he said. "I'll see you soon. Keep my rooms warm. Call me at once if ... Well, don't hesitate if there is anything."

  A speaking twilight, a city so wooded still that the creatures of the air sang the songs of dusk. He slipped out of the car blocks from the house. He knew the way. He had checked his map, and now he walked past the iron picket fences, and vines of florid pink trumpet flower. Windows were already full of light, yet the sky stretched radiant and warm in all directions. Listen to the cicadas' song, and are those starlings who swoop down as if to plant a kiss, when it is simply to devour?

  He walked faster and faster, marveling at the uneven sidewalks, the buckling flags, the moss-covered bricks, so many many beautiful things to touch and to see. And at last he came to their corner.

  There stood the house where a Taltos had been born. Grand for these times, with its stucco walls made to look like stone, and chimneys rising high into the clouds.

  His heart beat too fast. His witches.

  Not to disturb. Not to beg. Merely to see. Forgive me that I wal
k along the fence, under the bending boughs of these flowered trees, that here suddenly in this deserted street, I climb the fence and slip down into the moist shrubbery.

  No guards around this place. Does that mean you trust me, that I would never come, in stealth, unbidden, unexpected? I don't come to steal. I come only to take what anyone can have. A look from afar, we take nothing from those who are watched.

  Take care. Keep to the hedges and the tall shiny leafed trees swaying in the wind. Ah, the sky is like the moist soft sky of England, so near, so full of color!

  And this, was it the crape myrtle tree, beneath which their Lasher had stood, frightening a small boy, beckoning Michael to the gate, Michael a witch child whom a ghost could spot, passing in the real world through zones of enchantment.

  He let his fingers touch the waxy bark. The grass was deep beneath his feet. The fragrance of flowers and green things, of living things and breathing soil, was everywhere. A heavenly place.

  Slowly he turned and looked at the house. At the iron lace porches stacked one upon the other. And that had been Julien's room up there, where the vines groped with helpless tendrils in the empty air. And there, beyond that screen, the living room.

  Where are you? Dare I come just a little closer? But to be discovered now would be so tragic, when the evening is descending in this raiment of violet, and the flowers glow in their beds, and once again the cicadas sing.

  Lights went on in the house. Behind lace curtains. Illuminating paintings on the walls. Was it so simple that, veiled in the dark, he could draw near to those windows?

  The murals of Riverbend, wasn't that what Michael had described, and might they be gathering this soon for their meal? He walked as lightly as he could across the grass. Did he look like a thief? Rosebushes shielded him from those behind the glass.

  So many. Women old and young, and men in suits, and voices raised in controversy. This was not my dream. This was not my hope. But, eyes fastened to the portal, he couldn't step away. Just give me one glimpse of my witches.

  And there Michael was, like the direct answer to his prayer, gesticulating in a little fury it seemed, with others who pointed their fingers and talked, and then all on cue sat down, and the servants glided through the room. He could smell the soup, the meat. Alien food.