Taltos

Fourteen

IT WAS ONE o’clock, perhaps, when Mona woke up in the upstairs front bedroom, her eyes turned towards the oaks outside the window. Their branches were filled with bright Resurrection ferns, once again green from the recent spring rain.

“Phone for you,” said Eugenia.

Mona almost said, God, I’m glad someone’s here. But she didn’t like admitting to anyone that she’d been spooked in the famous house earlier, and that her dreams had been deeply disturbing to her.

Eugenia looked askance at Mona’s big, billowy white cotton shirt. So what was wrong? It was loungewear, wasn’t it? In the catalogs, they called them Poets’ Shirts.

“Oughtn’t be sleepin’ in your pretty clothes!” declared Eugenia. “And look at those beautiful big sleeves all rumpled, and that lace, that delicate lace.”

If only she could say Buzz off. “Eugenia, it’s meant to be rumpled.”

There was a tall glass of milk, frosty, luscious looking, in Eugenia’s hand. And in the other, an apple on a small white plate.

“Who’s this from?” asked Mona, “the Evil Queen?”

Of course, Eugenia didn’t know what she was talking about, but it didn’t matter. Eugenia pointed to the phone again. Mona was about to pick up the phone when her mind, veering back to the dream, discovered the dream was gone. Like a veil snatched away, it left nothing but a faint memory of texture and color. And the very strange certainty that she must name her daughter Morrigan, a name she’d never heard before.

“And what if you’re a boy?” she asked.

She picked up the receiver.

It was Ryan. The funeral was over, and the Mayfair crowd was arriving at Bea’s house. Lily was going to stay there for a few days, and so would Shelby and Aunt Vivian. Cecilia was uptown, seeing to Ancient Evelyn, and was doing well.

“Could you offer some old-fashioned First Street hospitality to Mary Jane Mayfair for a while?” asked Ryan. “I can’t take her down to Fontevrault till tomorrow. And besides, I think it would be good if you got to know her. And naturally, she’s half in love with First and Chestnut and wants to ask you a thousand questions.”

“Bring her over,” said Mona. The milk tasted good! It was just about the coldest milk she’d ever tasted, which killed all the ickiness of it, which she had never much liked. “I’d welcome her company,” she went on. “This place is spooky, you are right.”

Instantly she wished she hadn’t admitted it, that she, Mona Mayfair, had been spooked in the great house.

But Ryan was off on the track of duty and organization and simply continued to explain that Granny Mayfair, down at Fontevrault, was being cared for by the little boy from Napoleonville, and that this was a good opportunity to persuade Mary Jane to get out of that ruin, and to move to town.

“This girl needs the family. But she doesn’t need any more of this grief and misery just now. Her first real visit has for obvious reasons been a disaster. She’s in shell shock from the accident. You know she saw the entire accident. I want to get her out of here-”

“Well, sure, but she’ll feel closer to everybody afterwards,” said Mona with a shrug. She took a big, wet, crunchy bite of the apple. God, was she hungry. “Ryan, have you ever heard of the name Morrigan?”

“I don’t think so.”

“There’s never been a Morrigan Mayfair?”

“Not that I remember. It’s an old English name, isn’t it?”

“Hmmm. Think it’s pretty?”

“But what if the baby is a boy, Mona?”

“It’s not, I know,” she said. And then caught herself. How in the world could she know? It was the dream, wasn’t it, and it also must have been wishful thinking, the desire to have a girl child and bring her up free and strong, the way girls were almost never brought up.

Ryan promised to be there within ten minutes.

Mona sat against the pillows, looking out again at the Resurrection ferns and the bits and pieces of blue sky beyond. The house was silent all around her, Eugenia having disappeared. She crossed her bare legs, the shirt easily covering her knees with its thick lace hem. The sleeves were horribly rumpled, true, but so what? They were sleeves fit for a pirate. Who could keep anything like that neat? Did pirates? Pirates must have gone about rumpled. And Beatrice had bought so many of these things! It was supposed to be “youthful,” Mona suspected. Well, it was pretty. Even had pearl buttons. Made her feel like a … a little mother!

She laughed. Boy, this apple was good.

Mary Jane Mayfair. In a way, this was the only person in the family that Mona could possibly get excited about seeing, and on the other hand, what if Mary Jane started saying all kinds of wild and witchy things? What if she started running off at the mouth irresponsibly? Mona wouldn’t be able to handle it.

She took another bite of the apple. This will help with vitamin deficiencies, she thought, but she needed the supplements Annelle Salter had prescribed for her. She drank the rest of the milk in one Olympian gulp.

“What about ‘Ophelia’?” she said aloud. Would that be right, to name a girl child after poor mad Ophelia, who had drowned herself after Hamlet’s rejection? Probably not. Ophelia’s my secret name, she thought, and you’re going to be called Morrigan.

A great sense of well-being came over her. Morrigan. She closed her eyes and smelled the water, heard the waves crashing on the rocks.

A sound woke her, abruptly. She’d been asleep and she didn’t know how long. Ryan was standing beside the bed, and Mary Jane Mayfair was with him.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Mona, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and coming round to greet them. Ryan was already backing out of the room.

“I presume you know,” he said, “that Michael and Rowan are in London. Michael said he would call you.” Then he was off, headed down the stairs.

Here stood Mary Jane.

What a change from the afternoon she’d come sprouting diagnoses of Rowan. But one had to remember, thought Mona, that those diagnoses had been correct.

Mary Jane’s yellow hair was hanging loose and splendid, like flax, over her shoulders, and her big breasts were poking against the tight fit of a white lace dress. There was a little mud, from the cemetery, probably, on her beige high-heeled shoes. She had a tiny, mythical Southern waist.

“Hey there, Mona, I hope this doesn’t hang you up, my being here,” she said, immediately grabbing Mona’s right hand and pumping it furiously, her blue eyes glittering as she looked down at Mona from her seemingly lofty height of about five foot eight inches in the heels. “listen, I can cut out of here any time you don’t want me. I’m no stranger to hitchhiking, I can tell you. I’ll get to Fontevrault just fine. Hey, lookie, we’re both wearing white lace, and don’t you have on the most darlin’ little smock? Hey, that’s just adorable, you look like a white lace bell with red hair. Hey, can I go out there on the front porch?”

“Yeah, sure, I’m glad to have you here,” said Mona. Her hand had been sticky from the apple, but Mary Jane hadn’t noticed.

Mary Jane was walking past her.

“You have to push up that window,” said Mona, “then duck. But this is really not a dress, it’s some kind of shirt or something.” She liked the way it floated around her. And she loved the way that Mary Jane’s skirts flared from that tiny waist.

Well, this was no time to be thinking about waists, was it?

She followed Mary Jane outside. Fresh air. River breeze.

“Later on, I can show you my computer and my stock-market picks. I’ve got a mutual fund I’ve been managing for six months, and it’s making millions. Too bad I couldn’t afford to actually buy any of the picks.”

“I hear you, darlin’,” said Mary Jane. She put her hands on the front porch railing and looked down into the street. “This is some mansion,” she said. “Yeah, it sure is.”

“Uncle Ryan points out that it is not a mansion, it is a town house, actually,” said Mona.

“Well, it’s some town house.”

“Yeah, and some town.”

Mary Jane laughed, bending her whole body backwards, and then she turned to look at Mona, who had barely stepped out on the porch.

She looked Mona up and down suddenly, as if something had made an impression on her, and then she froze, looking into Mona’s eyes.

“What is it?” asked Mona.

“You’re pregnant,” said Mary Jane.

“Oh, you’re just saying that because of this shirt or smock or whatever.”

“No, you’re pregnant.”

“Well, yeah,” said Mona. “Sure am.” This girl’s country voice was infectious. Mona cleared her throat. “I mean, everybody knows. Didn’t they tell you? It’s going to be a girl.”

“You think so?” Something was making Mary Jane extremely uneasy. By all rights, she should have enjoyed descending upon Mona and making all kinds of predictions about the baby. Isn’t that what self-proclaimed witches did?

“You get your test results back?” asked Mona. “You have the giant helix?” It was lovely up here in the treetops. Made her want to go down into the garden.

Mary Jane was actually squinting at her, and then her face relaxed a little, the tan skin without a single blemish and the yellow hair resting on her shoulders, full but sleek.

“Yeah, I have the genes all right,” said Mary Jane. “You do too, don’t you?”

Mona nodded. “Did they tell you anything else?”

“That it probably wouldn’t matter, I’d have healthy children, everybody always did in the family, ’cept for one incident about which nobody is willing to talk.”

“Hmmmmm,” said Mona. “I’m still hungry. Let’s go downstairs.”

“Yeah, well, I could eat a tree!”

Mary Jane seemed normal enough by the time they reached the kitchen, chattering about every picture and every item of furniture she saw. Seemed she’d never been in the house before.

“How unspeakably rude that we didn’t invite you,” said Mona. “No, I mean it. We weren’t thinking. Everybody was worried about Rowan that afternoon.”

“I don’t expect fancy invitations from anybody,” said Mary Jane. “But this place is beautiful! Look at these paintings on the walls.”

Mona couldn’t help but take pride in it, the way Michael had refurbished it, and it occurred to her suddenly, as it had upwards of fifty million times in the last week, that this house would someday be hers. Seemed it already was. But she mustn’t presume on that, now that Rowan was OK again.

Was Rowan ever going to be really OK? A flash of memory came back to her, Rowan in that sleek black silk suit, sitting there, looking at her, with the straight dark eyebrows and the big, hard, polished gray eyes.

That Michael was the father of her baby, that she was pregnant with a baby, that this connected her to both of them-these things suddenly jarred her.

Mary Jane lifted one of the curtains in the dining room. “Lace,” she said in a whisper. “Just the finest, isn’t it? Everything here is the best of its kind.”

“Well, I guess that’s true,” said Mona.

“And you, too,” said Mary Jane, “you look like some kind of princess, all dressed in lace. Why, we’re both dressed in lace. I just love it.”

“Thanks,” said Mona, a little flustered. “But why would somebody as pretty as you notice somebody like me?”

“Don’t be crazy,” said Mary Jane, sweeping past her into the kitchen, hips swinging gracefully, high heels clicking grandly. “You’re just a gorgeous girl. I’m pretty. I know I am. But I like to look at other girls who are pretty, always have.”

They sat together at the glass table. Mary Jane examined the plates that Eugenia set out for them, holding hers up to the light.

“Now this is real bone china,” she said. “We got some of this at Fontevrault.”

“Really, you still have those sorts of things down there?”

“Darlin’, you’d be amazed what’s in that attic. Why, there’s silver and china and old curtains and boxes of photographs. You should see all that. That attic’s real dry and warm too. Sealed tight up there. Barbara Ann used to live up there. You know who she was?”

“Yeah, Ancient Evelyn’s mother. And my great-great-grandmother.”

“Mine too!” declared Mary Jane triumphantly. “Isn’t that something.”

“Yep, sure is. Part of the entire Mayfair experience. And you should look at the family trees where it gets all crisscrossed, like if I were to marry Pierce for instance, with whom I share not only that great-great-grandmother, but also a great-grandfather, who also pops up … damn, it’s the hardest thing to keep track of. There comes a point in the life of every Mayfair when you spend about a year drawing family trees everywhere, trying just to keep it clear in your mind who is sitting next to you at the family picnic, know what I mean?”

Mary Jane nodded, eyebrows raised, lips curled in a smile. She wore a kind of smoky violet lipstick, to die for. My God, I am a woman now, Mona thought. I can wear all that junk, if I want to.

“Oh, you can borry all my things, if you want,” said Mary Jane. “I’ve got an overnight case??? You know??? Just full of cosmetics that Aunt Bea bought for me, and all of them from Saks Fifth Avenue, and Bergdorf Goodman in New York.”

“Well, that’s very sweet of you.” Mind reader, be careful.

Eugenia had taken some veal out of the refrigerator, little tender cuts for scallopini, which Michael had set aside for Rowan. She was frying these now, the way Michael had taught her, with sliced mushrooms and onions, already prepared, from a little plastic sack.

“God, that smells good, doesn’t it?” said Mary Jane. “I didn’t mean to read your mind, just happens.”

“I don’t care about that, it doesn’t matter. As long as we both know it’s very hit-and-miss, and easy to misunderstand.”

“Oh, absolutely,” said Mary Jane.

Then she looked at Mona again, the way she had looked at her upstairs. They were sitting opposite each other, just the way that Mona and Rowan sat, only Mona was in Rowan’s place now, and Mary Jane was in Mona’s. Mary Jane had been looking at her silver fork, and suddenly she just stopped moving and narrowed her eyes again and looked at Mona.

“What’s the matter?” asked Mona. “You’re looking at me like something’s the matter.”

“Everybody just looks at you when you’re pregnant, they always do, soon as they know.”

“I know that,” said Mona. “But there’s something different in the way you’re looking at me. Other people are giving me swoony, loving looks, and looks of approbation, but you-”

“What’s approbation?”

“Approval,” said Mona.

“I got to get an education,” said Mary Jane, shaking her head. She set the fork down. “What is this silver pattern?”

“Sir Christopher,” said Mona.

“You think it’s too late for me to ever be a truly educated person?”

“No,” said Mona, “you’re too smart to let a late start discourage you. Besides, you’re already educated. You’re just educated in a different way. I’ve never been the places you’ve been. I’ve never had the responsibility.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t always want that myself. You know, I killed a man? I pushed him off a fire escape in San Francisco and he fell four stories into an alley and cracked open his head.”

“Why did you do it?”

“He was trying to hurt me. He’d shot me up with heroin and he was giving it to me and telling me that him and me were going to be lovers together. He was a goddamned pimp. I pushed him off the fire escape.”

“Did anyone come after you?”

“No,” said Mary Jane, shaking her head. “I never told that story to anybody else in this family.”

“I won’t either,” said Mona. “But that kind of strength isn’t unusual in this family. How many girls, do you think, had been turned out by this pimp? That’s the phrase for it, isn’t it?”

Eugenia was serving them and ignoring them. The veal did look OK, well browned and juicy, with a light wine sauce.

Mary Jane nodded. “Lots of girls. Idiots,” she said.

Eugenia had set down a cold salad of potatoes and peas, another Michael Curry gentleman’s special, tossed in oil and garlic. Eugenia plopped a big spoon of it on Mary Jane’s plate.

“Do we have any more milk?” asked Mona. “What are you drinking, Mary Jane?”

“Coca-Cola, please, Eugenia, if you don’t mind, but then I can certainly get up and get it myself.”

Eugenia was outraged at the suggestion, especially coming from an unknown cousin who was obviously a perfect rube. She brought the can and the glass of ice.

“Eat, Mona Mayfair!” Eugenia said. She poured the milk from the carton. “Come on now.”

The meat tasted awful to Mona. She couldn’t figure why. She loved this kind of food. As soon as it had been set before her, it had begun to disgust her. Probably just the usual bout of sickness, she thought, and that proves I’m on schedule. Annelle had said it would happen at just about six weeks. That is, before she’d declared the baby was a three-month-old monster.

Mona bowed her head. Little wisps of that last dream were catching hold of her, very tenacious and full of associations that were just moving away from her at jet speed as soon as she tried to catch them, and hold them, and open up the dream itself.

She sat back. She drank the milk slowly. “Just leave the carton,” she said to Eugenia, who hovered over her, wrinkled and solemn, glaring at her, and at her untouched plate.

“She’ll eat what she needs to eat, won’t she?” asked Mary Jane, helpfully. Sweet kid. She was already gobbling her veal, and noisily stabbing every bit of mushroom and onion she could find with her fork.

Eugenia finally ambled off.

“Here, you want this?” said Mona. “Take it.” She pushed the plate towards Mary Jane. “I never touched it.”

“You sure you don’t want it?”

“It’s making me sick.” She poured herself another glass of milk. “Well, I was never much of a milk lover, you know, probably because the refrigerator in our house never kept it cold. But that’s changing. Everything’s changing.”

“Oh yeah, like what?” Mary Jane asked, rather wide-eyed. She chugalugged her entire Coke. “Can I get up and get another one?”

“Yes,” said Mona.

She watched Mary Jane as she bounced towards the refrigerator. Her dress had just enough flare to remind you of a little girl’s. Her legs looked beautifully muscled, thanks to the high heels, though they had looked beautifully muscled the other day when she’d been wearing flat shoes.

She flopped back down and started devouring Mona’s offering.

Eugenia poked her head in the door from the butler’s pantry.

“Mona Mayfair, you didn’t eat nothin’. You live on potato chips and junk!”

“Get out of here!” Mona said firmly. Eugenia vanished.

“But she’s trying to be maternal and all,” said Mary Jane. “Why did you yell at her?”

“I don’t want anybody to be maternal with me. And besides, she’s not. She’s a pest. She thinks … she thinks I’m a bad person. It’s too long to explain. She’s always scolding me about something.”

“Yeah, well, when the father of the baby is Michael Curry’s age, you know, people are either going to blame him or you.”

“How did you know that?”

Mary Jane stopped gobbling, and looked at Mona.

“Well, it is him, isn’t it? I kinda figured you were sweet on him, first time I come here. I didn’t mean to make you mad. I thought you were happy about it. I keep getting this vibe that you’re really happy that he’s the father.”

“I’m not sure.”

“Oh, it’s him,” said Mary Jane. She jabbed the fork through the last piece of veal, picked it up, and stuffed it in her mouth and chewed it lustily, her smooth brown cheeks working furiously without so much as a line or a wrinkle or any real distortion. This was one beautiful girl. “I know,” she said, as soon as she had swallowed a wad of chewed meat big enough to catch in her windpipe and choke her to death.

“Look,” said Mona. “This is something I haven’t told anybody yet, and …”

“Everybody knows it,” said Mary Jane. “Bea knows it. Bea told me. You know what’s going to save Bea? That woman is going to get over her grief for Aaron on account of one simple reason. She never stops worrying about everybody else. She’s real worried about you and Michael Curry, because he’s got the genes, as everybody knows, and he’s Rowan’s husband. But she says that gypsy you fell in love with is just all wrong for you. He belongs with another kind of woman, somebody wild and homeless and without a family, like himself.”

“She said all that?”

Mary Jane nodded. Suddenly she spied the plate of bread which Eugenia had set out for them, slices of plain white bread.

Mona didn’t consider bread like that fit for consumption. She only ate French bread, or rolls, or something properly prepared to accompany a meal. Sliced bread! Sliced white bread!

Mary Jane grabbed the top slice, mushed it together, and started sopping up veal juice.

“Yeah, she said all that,” said Mary Jane. “She told Aunt Viv and she told Polly and Anne Marie. Didn’t seem to know that I was listening. But I mean, this is what is going to save her, that she’s got so much on her mind about the family, like coming down to Fontevrault and making me leave.”

“How could they all know this about me and Michael?”

Mary Jane shrugged. “You’re asking me? Darlin’, this is a family of witches, you’re supposed to know that better than I do. Any number of ways they could have found out. But, come to think of it, Ancient Evelyn spilled the beans to Viv, if I am not mistaken. Something about you and Michael being here alone?”

“Yeah,” said Mona with a sigh. “So big deal. I don’t have to tell them. So much for that.” But if they started being mean to Michael, if they started treating him any differently, if they started …

“Oh, I don’t think you have to worry about that, like I said, when it’s a man that age and a girl your age, they blame one or the other, and I think they blame you. I mean, not in a mean way or anything, they just say things like, ‘Whatever Mona wants, Mona gets,’ and ‘Poor Michael,’ and you know, stuff like, ‘Well, if it got him up off that bed and to feeling better, maybe Mona’s got the healing gift.’ ”

“Terrific,” said Mona. “Actually, that’s exactly the way I feel myself.”

“You know, you’re tough,” said Mary Jane.

The veal juice was gone. Mary Jane ate the next slice of bread plain. She closed her eyes in a deliberate smile of satiation. Her lashes were all smoky and slightly violet, rather like her lipstick actually, very subtle however, and glamorous and beautiful. She had a damned near perfect face.

“Now I know who you look like!” cried Mona. “You look like Ancient Evelyn, I mean in her pictures when she was a girl.”

“Well, that makes sense, now doesn’t it?” said Mary Jane, “being’s we’re come down from Barbara Ann.” Mona poured the last of the milk into her glass. It was still wonderfully cold. Maybe she and this baby could live on milk alone, she wasn’t sure.

“What do you mean, I’m tough?” asked Mona. “What did you mean by that?”

“I mean you don’t get insulted easily. Most of the time, if I talk like this, you know, completely open-like, with no secrets, like really trying to get to know somebody??? You know??? I offend that person.”

“Small wonder,” said Mona, “but you don’t offend me.”

Mary Jane stared hungrily at the last thin, forlorn slice of white bread.

“You can have it,” said Mona.

“You sure?”

“Positive.”

Mary Jane grabbed it, tore the middle out of it, and started rolling the soft bread into a ball. “Boy, I love it this way,” she said. “When I was little??? You know??? I used to take a whole loaf, and roll it all into balls!”

“What about the crust?”

“Rolled it into balls,” she said, shaking her head with nostalgic wonder. “Everything into balls.”

“Wow,” said Mona flatly. “You know, you really are fascinating, you’re the most challenging combination of the mundane and mysterious that I’ve ever run across.”

“There you go, showing off,” said Mary Jane, “but I know you don’t mean any harm, you’re just teasing me, aren’t you? Did you know that if mundane started with a b, I’d know what it meant?”

“Really? Why?”

“Because I’m up to b in my vocabulary studies,” said Mary Jane. “I’ve been working on my education in several different ways, I’d like to know what you think about it. See, what I do is, I get a big-print dictionary??? You know???? The kind for old ladies with bad eyes??? And I cut out the b words, which gives me some familiarity with them right there, you know, cutting out each one with the definition, and then I throw all the little balls of paper … oops, there we go again,” she laughed. “Balls, more balls.”

“So I notice,” said Mona. “We little girls are just all obsessed with them, aren’t we?”

Mary Jane positively howled with laughter.

“This is better than I expected,” said Mona. “The girls at school appreciate my humor, but almost no one in the family laughs at my jokes.”

“Your jokes are real funny,” said Mary Jane. “That’s because you’re a genius. I figure there are two kinds, ones with a sense of humor and those without it.”

“But what about all the b words, cut out, and rolled into balls?”

“Well, I put them in a hat, you know??? Just like names for a raffle.”

“Yeah.”

“And then I pick them out one at a time. If it’s some word nobody ever uses, you know, like batrachian?? I just throw it away. But if it’s a good word like beatitude-‘a state of utmost bliss’???? Well, I memorize it right on the spot.”

“Hmmm, that sounds like a fairly good method. Guess you’re more likely to remember words that you like.”

“Oh yeah, but really, I remember almost everything, you know?? Being as smart as I am?” Mary Jane popped the bread ball into her mouth and started pulverizing the frame of crust.

“Even the meaning of batrachian?” asked Mona.

“ ‘A tailless leaping amphibian,’ ” Mary Jane answered. She nibbled on the crust ball.

“Hey, listen, Mary Jane,” said Mona, “there’s plenty of bread in this house. You can have all you want. There’s a loaf right over there on the counter. I’ll get it for you.”

“Sit down! You’re pregnant, I’ll git it!” Mary Jane declared. She jumped up, reached for the bread, caught it by its plastic wrapping, and brought it down on the table.

“How about butter? You want some butter? It’s right here.”

“No, I’ve conditioned myself to eat it without butter, to save money, and I don’t want to go back to butter, because then I’ll miss the butter and the bread won’t taste so good.” She tore a slice out of the plastic, and scrunched up the middle of it.

“The thing is,” said Mary Jane, “I will forget batrachian if I don’t use it, but beatitude I will use, and not forget.”

“Gotcha. Why were you looking at me in that way?”

Mary Jane didn’t answer. She licked her lips, tore loose some fragments of soft bread, and ate them. “All this time, you remembered that we were talking about that, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“What do you think about your baby?” asked Mary Jane, and this time she looked worried and protective, sort of, or at least sensitive to what Mona felt.

“Something might be wrong with it.”

“Yeah.” Mary Jane nodded. “That’s what I figure.”

“It’s not going to be some giant,” said Mona quickly, though with each word, she found it more difficult to continue. “It’s not some monster or whatever. But maybe there’s just something wrong with it, the genes make some combination and … something could be wrong.”

She took a deep breath. This might be the worst mental pain she’d ever felt. All her life she’d worried about things-her mother, her father, Ancient Evelyn, people she loved. And she’d known grief aplenty, especially of late. But this worrying about the baby was wholly different; it aroused a fear so deep in her that it was agony. She found she’d put her hand on her belly again. “Morrigan,” she whispered.

Something stirred inside her, and she looked down by moving her eyes instead of her head.

“What’s wrong?” asked Mary Jane.

“I’m worrying too much. Isn’t it normal to think that something’s wrong with your baby?”

“Yeah, it’s normal,” said Mary Jane. “But this family has got lots of people with the giant helix, and they haven’t had horrible deformed little babies, have they? I mean, you know, what’s the track record of all this giant-helix breeding?”

Mona hadn’t answered. She was thinking, What difference does it make? If this baby’s not right, if this baby’s … She realized she was looking off through the greenery outside. It was still early afternoon. She thought of Aaron in the drawerlike crypt at the mausoleum, lying one shelf up from Gifford. Wax dummies of people, pumped with fluid. Not Aaron, not Gifford. Why would Gifford be digging a hole in a dream?

A wild thought came to her, dangerous and sacrilegious, but not really so surprising. Michael was gone. Rowan was gone. Tonight she could go out there into the garden alone, when no one was awake on the property, and she could dig up the remains of those two that lay beneath the oak; she could see for herself what was there.

Only trouble was, she was frightened to do it. She had seen plenty of scenes in horror movies over the years in which people did that sort of thing, traipsed off to the graveyard to dig up a vampire, or went at midnight to discover just who was in what grave. She had never believed those scenes, especially if the person did it by herself or himself. It was just too frightening. To dig up a body, you had to have a lot more balls than Mona had.

She looked at Mary Jane. Mary Jane had finished her feast of bread, apparently, and she just sat there, arms folded, looking steadily at Mona in a manner that was slightly unnerving, Mary Jane’s eyes having taken on that dreamy luster that eyes have when the mind has drifted, a look that wasn’t vacant but deceptively seriously focused.

“Mary Jane?” she said.

She expected to see the girl startle, and wake up, so to speak, and immediately volunteer what she had been thinking. But nothing like that happened. Mary Jane just kept looking at her in exactly the same fashion, and she said:

“Yes, Mona?” without a single change in her face.

Mona stood up. She went towards Mary Jane, and stood right beside her, looking down at her, and Mary Jane continued to look at her with the same large and frightening eyes.

“Touch this baby, here, touch it, don’t be shy. Tell me what you feel.”

Mary Jane turned the gaze on Mona’s belly, and she reached out very slowly, as if she was going to do what Mona had asked her to do, and then suddenly she jerked her hand back. She rose from the chair, moving away from Mona. She looked worried.

“I don’t think we should do it. Let’s not do witchcraft with this baby. You and I are young witches,” she said. “You know, we really are. What if witchcraft can, you know??? Have an effect on it???”

Mona sighed. Suddenly she didn’t want to talk about this anymore; the feeling of fear was too draining and too damned painful, and there had been quite enough.

The only person in the world who could answer her questions was Rowan, and she was going to have to ask them, sooner or later, because she could feel this baby now, and that was flat-out impossible, really, to feel a baby moving like this, just this tiny, tiny movement, even, when a baby was only six or even ten or even twelve weeks.

“Mary Jane, I have to be alone right how,” she said. “I’m not being rude. It’s just this baby has me worried. That is the simple truth.”

“You sure are sweet to explain this to me. You go right ahead. I’m going upstairs if it’s okay. Ryan??? He put my suitcase in Aunt Viv’s room, you know??? I’m going to be in there.”

“You can use my computer if you want,” said Mona. She turned her back to Mary Jane and looked out again in the garden. “It’s in the library, there are plenty of open programs. It boots right to WordStar, but you can go to Windows or Lotus 1-2-3 simply enough.”

“Yeah, I know how to do that, you take it easy, Mona Mayfair, you call me if you need me.”

“Yeah, I will. I …” She turned around. “I really like having you here, Mary Jane,” she said. “There’s no telling when Rowan or Michael will come back.”

What if they never came back? The fear was growing, including all things at random that came into her mind. Nonsense. They were coming back. But of course they had gone to look for people who might very well want to hurt them….

“Don’t you worry now, darlin’,” said Mary Jane. “Yeah,” said Mona again, pushing open the door. She wandered out on the flagstones and off towards the back garden. It was still early and the sun was high and falling down on the lawn beneath the oak, as it would be, really, until late in the day. Best, warmest time in the back garden.

She walked out on the grass. This had to be where they were buried. Michael had added earth to this place, and the newest, tenderest grass grew here.

She went down on her knees, and stretched out on the earth, not caring that it was getting on her beautiful white shirt. There were so many of them. That’s what it meant to be rich, and she was already feeling it, having so many of everything, and not having to wear shoes with holes. She pressed her cheek to the cool mud and grass, and her billowing right sleeve was like a big white parachute fallen beside her from heaven. She closed her eyes.

Morrigan, Morrigan, Morrigan … The boats came across the sea, torches lifted. But the rocks looked so dangerous. Morrigan, Morrigan, Morrigan … Yeah, this was the dream! The flight from the island to the north coast. The rocks were the danger, and the monsters of the deep who lived in the lochs.

She heard the sound of someone digging. She was wide awake and staring across the grass at the distant ginger lilies, at the azaleas.

No one was digging. Imagination. You want to dig them up, you little witch, she said to herself. She had to admit it was fun playing little witches with Mary Jane Mayfair. Yeah, glad she’d come. Have some more bread.

Her eyes slid closed. A beautiful thing happened. The sun struck her eyelids, as if some big branch or cloud had just freed it, and the light made the darkness brilliant orange, and she felt the warmth creeping all over her. Inside her, in the belly that she could still sleep on, the thing stirred again. My baby.

Someone was singing the nursery rhyme again. Why, that must be the oldest nursery rhyme in the world. That was Old English, or was it Latin?

Pay attention, said Mona. I want to teach you how to use a computer before you are four years old, and I want you to realize that there’s nothing stopping you from being anything you ever want to be, you’re listening?

The baby laughed and laughed. She turned somersaults and stretched her tiny arms and hands and laughed and laughed. It looked like a tiny “tailless leaping amphibian.” Mona couldn’t stop laughing either. “That’s what you are!” she said to the baby.

And then the voice of Mary Jane said-in a pure dream now, and on some level Mona knew it, yes, because Mary Jane was all dressed up like Ancient Evelyn, in old lady clothes, a gabardine dress and string shoes, this was definitely a dream-the voice of Mary Jane said, “There’s more to it than that, darlin’. You better make up your mind real soon.”