I was clutching nothing.
I was all alone.
It was sweetly warm and there was a numbing quiet in the vibration of the distant trucks, a winking beauty in the passing headlights.
Who missed the deep silence of so many past centuries? Who missed the deep darkness of the long ago pre-electric nights? Not me.
When I reached the Talamasca Retreat House, Stirling was standing on the terrace. Loose gray hair
mussed, cotton pajamas, sashed robe, bare feet. A mortal couldn't have discovered him, standing in the shadows, waiting. An empathetic face, patient celibate alertness.
"I brought her over," I said.
"I know," he answered.
"I kissed Rowan Mayfair. "
"You did what?" he answered.
"They're after me, the Mayfair ghosts. "
He didn't respond, except for a small scowl and an undisguised look of wonder.
I scanned the Retreat House. Empty. Maid out in the back cottages. One postulant out there writing in a notebook by a goose
neck lamp. Saw her in her self-conception. Hungered for her. Had no intention of feeding on her. Ridiculous idea. Absolutely verboten.
"Give me a bedroom, please," I asked. "Just a room in which heavy draperies can be drawn. "
"Of course," he said.
"Ah, the Talamasca, ready again to count upon my honor. "
"I can depend upon it, can I not?"
I followed him into the front hallway and then up the broad staircase. How curious it was, to be his guest, to be walking on this wool carpet as if I were a mortal. Sleeping under the roof that wasn't mine. Next I'd be doing it at Blackwood Farm. This could get out of hand. Please let it get out of hand.
And here the fragrant and cozy bedroom with all its inevitable details. Pineapples carved into the four posts of the bed, canopy of hand-worked lace through which you could peer at the faint water stains on the ceiling, loving, caring, patchwork quilt of loops and circles and careening colors, parchment lamp shades, dark clots breaking through the old mirrors, needlepoint tiptoe chairs.
"What Mayfair ghosts are after you?" he asked softly. It was respectful, his manner. "What have you seen?" And when I didn't answer, "What have they done?"
"Mona gave birth long ago to a daughter," I whispered. Yes, he knew all about it, didn't he? "But you can't tell me, can you, what you know?"
"No, I can't," he replied.
"She wants to find that child," I said.
"Does she," he said politely. He was afraid.
"Sleep well," I said and turned to the bed.
He left me. But he knew the child's name. That much I'd filched from him. He knew its name and its nature but he couldn't tell.
Chapter 10
10
I KNEW that Rowan Mayfair was in the Retreat House when I opened my eyes. Heavy. Somebody who loved her was with her, somebody who knew all about her too. Way heavy. And Stirling in a state of angst.