"This seems amazingly easy for you," Quinn replied suspiciously. "Why is that so?"
Michael gave a short bitter laugh. "You have to understand what the Taltos was, and what they did to us. "
Rowan said in a low voice, "And what I did to one of them too quickly, too foolishly. " Her eyes moved away into memory.
"I don't know or understand," said Quinn. "I think what Lestat had in mind was an exchange of secrets. There are things Mona simply can't explain. They hurt her too much. They involve you. She becomes caught up in a web of loyalty, and she can't be free. But one thing is clear. She wants to find her daughter, Morrigan. "
"I don't know if we can help," said Michael.
"I can look for Morrigan now myself," Mona protested. "I'm strong again. " Her hand tightened on mine. "But you have to tell me all you know. For two years I lay in that bed confused and crazy. I'm still mixed- up. I don't know why you haven't found my daughter. "
"We'll take you all through it again," said Michael soothingly.
Rowan murmured under her breath, then came to the surface, eyes remote, uncertain, moving rapidly again over the table as over nothing.
"I knew about you," she said. Her words were hushed and ran on smoothly, "I mean, what you are-Blood Children, Blood Hunters, Vampires. I knew. It wasn't a simple matter. Michael knew. The knowledge came in stages. " She looked directly at me for the first time as she continued:
"I had seen one of your kind one time, walking, in the Quarter. It was a male with black hair, very handsome, and set apart from everything around him. He appeared to be searching for someone. I'd felt a paralytic conflict, an attraction to him, and a fear of him also. You know my powers. They're not developed as they ought to be. I'm a witch who won't be a witch, a Mad Scientist who won't be Mad. I wanted to know about him. I wanted to follow him. It was a long time ago. I never forgot about it- knowing he wasn't human, and that he wasn't a ghost. I don't think I told anyone about him.
"But then this woman disappeared from the Talamasca. Her name was Merrick Mayfair. I hadn't known her, but I'd known of her-that she was a colored Mayfair, descended from a downtown branch of the family. I can't remember. I think it was Lily Mayfair, yes, or was it Lauren-I despise Lauren, Lauren has an evil mind-Lauren who told me there were lots of colored Mayfairs, but this Merrick wasn't very close to any of them. This Merrick, she had tremendous psychic powers. She knew about us, the First Street gang, but she really didn't want contact. She'd spent most of her life in the Talamasca and we'd never even known of her. Mayfairs hate it when they don't know about Mayfairs.
"Lauren said that she'd come once, this Merrick Mayfair, when the house was opened for a Holiday Tour,
you know, a benefit for the Preservationists, after Michael had restored everything, after all the bad times were over, and before Mona was really sick. This person, Merrick, she'd gone through First Street with the tourists, imagine, just to see the nucleus. And we hadn't been here. We hadn't known. "
A sword went through me at these words. I glanced at Stirling. He too was suffering. I flashed back on Merrick climbing on the flaming altar, taking with her into the Light the spirit that had plagued Quinn all of his life. Don't reveal. Don't revive. Can't help.
But Rowan was talking about a time long before the other night when Merrick disappeared forever. Rowan was talking about Merrick's turning to us.
"Then she disappeared," Rowan said, "and the Talamasca was thrown into confusion. Merrick gone. Whispers of evil. That's when Stirling Oliver came South. " She looked at Stirling. He was watching her fearfully but calmly.
She lowered her eyes again, her voice continuing soft and low, just above a threatening hysteria.
"Oh yes," she said to me, "I know. I thought I was losing my mind at times. I built Mayfair Medical not to be the Mad Scientist. The Mad Scientist is capable of the unspeakable. Dr. Rowan Mayfair has to be good. I created this immense Medical Center to commit Dr. Rowan Mayfair to good. Once this plan was under way, I couldn't afford to go down into madness-dreaming of the Taltos and where they'd gone, dreaming of strange creatures I'd seen and lost without a trace. Mona's daughter. We tried everything we could to find her. But I couldn't live in a shadow world. I had to be there for all the ordinary people, signing contracts, rolling out blueprints, calling doctors all over the country, flying to Switzerland and Vienna to interview physicians who wanted to work in the ideal medical center, the medical center that surpassed every other in its equipment, its laboratories, its staff, its comforts, its protocols and projects.
"It was to rivet me to the sane world, it was to push my own medical visions to the very limits-. "
"Rowan, it's a magnificent thing that you did," Quinn said. "You speak as though you don't believe in it when you're not there. Everyone else believes in it. "
She went on in the same soft rush of words as though she hadn't heard him. "All kinds of people come to it," she said, her words flowing as if she couldn't stop them, "people who have never given birth to Taltos, people who have never seen ghosts, people who have never buried bodies in a Savage Garden, people who have never seen Blood Children, people who have never even hoped for the extraordinary in any form, it helps all manner of human beings, it embraces them, it's real to them, real, that's what was important. I couldn't let it go, I couldn't ever retreat into nightmares or scribblings in my room, I couldn't ever fail my interns and residents, my laboratory assistants, my research teams, and you know, with my background, the neurosurgeon, the scientist at heart, I brought to every aspect of this giant organism a personal approach; I couldn't run away, I couldn't fail, I can't fail now, I can't be absent, I can't. . . . "
She broke down, her eyes
closed, her right hand forming a fist on the table.
Michael looked at her with quiet sadness.
"Go on, Rowan," I said. "I'm listening to you. "
"You're making me angry," said Mona in a low sharp voice. "I think I hate you. "
I was appalled.
"Oh, yes, you always did," Rowan said, raising her voice but not her wandering eyes. "Because I couldn't make you well. And I couldn't find Morrigan. "
"I don't believe you!" Mona said.
"She's not lying to you," said Quinn in a chastising voice. "Remember what you just said. For years you've been sick, confused. "