I went down to meet him. The evening was all aglow and full of the scent of the kitchens of the Quarter.
I motioned for the guards to let Michael come on back.
He was in a frantic state. He was wearing the same three-piece white suit as yesterday, shirt now open and tie gone, and he was all rumpled and smudged with dirt and his hair was mussed.
"What's the matter, man?" I asked, as I reached to take his arm.
He shook his head. He was choking on the words he wanted to say. His thoughts were scrambled. On some unconscious level he blocked me from reading him, while appealing to me at the same time.
I led him into the courtyard. He was sweating badly. The garden was just too hot. I had to take him in where the artificial winds blow.
"Come on," I said. "Let's go upstairs. "
Mona appeared in the doorway just as we reached the back parlor, pretty blue silk dress, heels strapped at the ankles, just her hair tousled from bed.
"Uncle Michael, what's wrong!" She was instantly distraught.
"Hey, baby," Michael said weakly. "You're sure looking fine. " He collapsed on the velvet sofa and he put his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.
"What is it, Uncle Michael?" she said, obviously shy of touching him, settling uncertainly on the edge of a nearby chair.
"It's Rowan," he said. "She's gone out of her mind, and I don't know if we can bring her back this time. It's worse than it ever was before. "
He looked at me. "I came here to ask you point blank if you'd help. You have a power over her. You calmed her last night. You might be able to do it again. "
"But what's happening to her?" Mona asked. "Is she catatonic like before?"
I caught only jumbled images from Michael's mind. He didn't appear to register Mona's question. I had to settle for his words.
"Stirling's with her now," Michael said, "but he's not getting through. This morning she insisted she wanted to go to Confession. I called Fr. Kevin. They were alone for about an hour. Of course he can't tell anybody what she said. You ask me, I think Fr. Kevin's on the brink too. You can't take a regular priest like Fr. Kevin and plunge him into a family like ours, and expect him to survive, expect him to represent something, expect him to exercise his priestly functions. It's not fair. "
"Michael," I said. "What is Rowan doing?"
He didn't seem to hear me. He went on.
"Mayfair Medical, all her work on it has been frenetic, you know that, or at least you did know that-" he looked at Mona-"but nobody else really realizes it, that she works to the point of exhaustion so that there will be no inner life, no quiet life, no life of the mind other than that which is locked to Mayfair Medical, it's a complete vocation, yeah, marvelous, but it's also a complete escape. "
"A mania," said Mona quietly. She was badly shaken.
"Right," said Michael. "Her public persona is the only persona she really has. The interior Rowan has utterly disintegrated. Or it has to do with the secrets of Mayfair Medical. And now this breakdown, this complete disconnection, this madness. Do you realize how many people are riding on her energy? Her example? She's created a world that's dependent upon her-members of the family from all over come here to study medicine, the new wing is under way at the hospital, there's the Brain Study Program, she's monitoring four research projects, I don't even know the half of it. You chuck my own selfish needs, and then there's all that-. "
"What actually happened?" I pushed.
"Last night she lay on the bed for hours. She was whispering things. I couldn't hear her. She wouldn't talk to me. She wouldn't come out of it. She wouldn't dress for bed, or take anything to eat or drink. I lay beside her-what you told me to do. I held her. I even sang to her. Irish people do that, you know. We sing when we're melancholy. It's the strangest thing. I thought I was the only one. Then I realized all Mayfairs do it. That's the Tyrone McNamara blood down through Oncle Julien. I sang these melancholy songs to her. I fell asleep. When I woke up, she was gone.
"I found her in the back garden on the lawn under the oak. She was barefoot out there, in her pretty silk suit, digging, digging where the remains were. " He looked at Mona. "She was in her bare feet and she was digging with one of the gardener's big shovels. She was talking to herself about Emaleth and Lasher
and she was cursing herself. When I tried to stop her, she hit me. I tried to remind her she'd had the remains removed. As soon as Mayfair Medical was complete, she had had a team out to scour for the remains. "
"Emaleth and Lasher?" I asked.
"I remember," said Mona. "I was there when it happened. "
"She was crazy that day," Michael said. "She kept repeating herself. She said that she belonged in the Talamasca. They sifted through that dirt like a pack of archaeologists. Yeah, you saw them, and that fragrance, it was so strong. "
Mona was fighting back her usual tears. My heart went out to both of them. They were prisoners of these secrets.
"Go on," said Mona.