World's End

Page 138

"I hate my mother! She never understood anything.

She made my father feel like nothing, because he was

. . . full of dreams. She never had any dreams. She never understood about being a sibyl. It was only a job to her.

She let the Company use her and give us nothing. She was a sibyl, she could have asked for anything! But she wouldn't go somewhere where we could be rich and honored. She wouldn't listen to us--"

"Sibyls aren't supposed to want money or power," I say weakly, but she isn't listening.

"She didn't understand when I told her to infect me!

She knew I was lying ... but she did it anyway. And now she's sorry, but it's too late, too late. . . ."

She wrings her hands. I realize finally that it wasn't World's End that drove her mad, but her madness that drove her into

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World's End.

Did mine? I climb slowly to my feet, staring out the window at the Lake. "I hate my brothers," I say thickly.

"I don't know why I came . . . except that maybe I hated myself more." I turn back to her. "All my life, I always tried to do the right thing--but it always came out wrong." I'd been as self-deluded as any of the others back in C'uarr's place, the ones I'd despised for running away into World's End.

But this doesn 't have to be the end of the world. "We can leave 176

WORLD S END

here, Song. Nothing's keeping us here. Tell me how to find my brothers--"

"You'll never leave here. Not unless you ask the right questions!"

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"How?" I wave my arms. "What else can I try?"

She only stares at me, her face darkening. She gets to her feet suddenly and goes into the bedchamber with the globe in her hands. After a little I hear her call out the window to someone. I follow her into the other room.

She stands before an ornate mirror, holding a pot of red paint in her hands. She has put on the white shift I