Taltos (Lives of the Mayfair Witches 3)

Maybe Bayou witches are just plain dumb, Mona thought. They can stand over the graves of monsters and never know it. Of course, none of the other witches in this family knew it either. Only the woman who won't talk, and Michael, the big hunk of Celtic muscle and charm standing beside Rowan.

"You and I are second cousins," Mary Jane had said to Mona, renewing her approach. "Isn't that something? You weren't born when I came to Ancient Evelyn's house and ate her homemade ice cream."

"I don't recall Ancient Evelyn ever making homemade ice cream."

"Darlin', she made the best homemade ice cream that I ever tasted. My mama brought me into New Orleans to--"

"You've got the wrong person," said Mona. Maybe this girl was an impostor. Maybe she wasn't even a Mayfair. No, no such luck on that. And there was something about her eyes that reminded Mona a little of Ancient Evelyn.

"No, I got the right person," Mary Jane had insisted. "But we didn't really come on account of the ice cream. Let me see your hands. Your hands are normal."

"So what?"

"Mona, be nice, dear," said Beatrice. "Your cousin is just sort of outspoken."

"Well, see these hands?" said Mary Jane. "I had a sixth finger when I was little, on both hands? Not a real finger? You know? I mean just a little one. And that's why my mother brought me to see Ancient Evelyn, because Ancient Evelyn has just such a finger herself."

"Don't you think I know that?" asked Mona. "I grew up with Ancient Evelyn."

"I know you did. I know all about you. Just cool off, honey. I'm not trying to be rude, it's just I am a Mayfair, same as you, and I'll pit my genes against your genes anytime."

"Who told you all about me?" Mona asked.

"Mona," said Michael softly.

"How come I never met you before?" said Mona, "I'm a Fontevrault Mayfair. Your second cousin, as you just said. And how come you talk like you're from Mississippi when you say you lived all that time in California?"

"Oh, listen, there's a story to it," said Mary Jane. "I've done my time in Mississippi, believe you me, couldn't have been any worse on Parchman Farm." It had been impossible to crack the kid's patience. She had shrugged. "You got any iced tea?"

" 'Course we do, dear, I'm so sorry." Off Beatrice had gone to get it. Celia had shaken her head with shame. Even Mona had felt negligent, and Michael had quickly apologized.

"No, I'll git it myself, tell me where it is," Mary Jane had cried.

But Bea had disappeared already, conveniently enough. Mary Jane popped her gum again, and then again in a whole side-mouth series of little pops.

"Awesome," said Mona.

"Like I said, there's a story to it all. I could tell you some terrible things about my time in Florida. Yeah, I been there, and in Alabama for a while, too. I had to sort of work my way back down here."

"No lie," said Mona.

"Mona, don't be sarcastic."

"I seen you before," Mary Jane had said, going on as if nothing at all had happened. "I remembered you when you and Gifford Mayfair came out to L.A. to go to Hawaii. That's the first time I was ever in an airport. You were sleeping right there by the table, stretched out on two chairs, under Gifford's coat, and Gifford Mayfair bought us the best meal???"

Don't describe it, Mona had thought. But Mona did have some hazy memory of that trip, and waking up with a crick in her neck in the Los Angeles airport, known by the snappy name of LAX, and Gifford saying to Alicia that they had to bring "Mary Jane" back home someday.

Only thing, Mona had no memory of any other little girl there. So this was Mary Jane. And now she was back home. Gifford must be working miracles from heaven.

Bea had returned with the iced tea. "Here it is, precious, lots of lemon and sugar, the way you like it, isn't that right? Yes, darling."

"I don't remember seeing you at Michael and Rowan's wedding," said Mona.

"That's 'cause I never came in," said Mary Jane, who took the iced tea from Bea as soon as it entered the nearest orbit, and drank half of it, slurping it and wiping it off her chin with the back of her hand. Chipped nail polish, but what a gorgeous shade of crape myrtle purple.

"I told you to come," said Bea. "I called you. I left a message for you three times at the drugstore."

"I know you did, Aunt Beatrice, ain't nobody who could say that you didn't do your level best to get us to that wedding. But, Aunt Beatrice, I didn't have shoes! I didn't have a dress? I didn't have a hat? See these shoes? I found these shoes. These are the first shoes that are not tennis shoes that I have worn in a decade! Besides, I could see perfect from across the street. And hear the music. That was fine music you had at your wedding, Michael Curry. Are you sure you aren't a Mayfair? You look like a Mayfair to me; I could make let's say seven different points about your appearance that's Mayfair."

"Thank you, sweetheart. I'm not a Mayfair."

"Oh, you are in your heart," said Celia.

"Well, of course," said Michael, never taking his eyes off the girl even once, no matter who spoke to him. And what do men see when they look at bundles of charm like this?

"You know when we were little," Mary Jane had gone on, "we didn't have anything out there, we just had an oil lamp and a cooler with some ice in it and a lot of mosquito netting hung all over the porch and Granny would light the lamp every evening and ..."

"You didn't have electricity?" Michael had asked. "How long ago was this? How long ago could it have been?"

"Michael, you've never been in the Bayou Country," said Celia. And Bea gave a knowing nod.

"Michael Curry, we were squatters, that's what we were," said Mary Jane. "We were just hiding out in Fontevrault. Aunt Beatrice could tell you. Sheriff would come to throw us out periodically. We'd pack and he'd take us into Napoleonville and then we would go back and he'd give up on us, and we'd be in peace for a while, till some goody-two-shoes passed by in a boat, some game warden, somebody like that, and called in on us. We had bees, you know, on the porch for honey? We could fish right off the back steps? We had fruit trees all around the landing then, before the wisteria got them like a giant boa constrictor, you know, and blackberries? Why, I'd just pick all I wanted right there where the road forks. We had everything. Besides, now I have electricity! I hooked it up myself from the highway, and I did the same thing with the cable TV."

"You really did that?" asked Mona.

"Honey, that's against the law," said Bea.

"I certainly did. My life's far too interesting for me to ever tell lies about it. Besides, I've got more courage than imagination, that's always been the case." She drank the iced tea with another noisy slurp, spilling more of it. "God, that's good. That's so sweet. That's artificial sweetener, isn't it?"

"I'm afraid so," said Bea, staring at her in mingled horror and embarrassment. And to think she had said "sugar." And Bea did hate people who ate and drank sloppily.

"Now, just think of it," said Mary Jane, wiping the back of her hand across her mouth and then wiping her hand on her denim skirt. "I'm tasting something now that is fifty times sweeter than anything anybody ever tasted on earth until this very time. That's why I've bought stock in artificial sweetener."

"You've bought what?" asked Mona.

"Oh, yeah. I have my own broker, honey, discount broker but that's the best kind, since I do the picking most of the time anyway. He's in Baton Rouge. I've got twenty-five thousand dollars sunk in the stock market. And when I make it rich, I'm draining and raising Fontevrault. I'm bringing it all back, every peg and board! You wait and see. You're looking at a future member of the Fortune Five Hundred."

Maybe there was something to this dingbat, Mona had thought. "How did you get twenty-five thousand dollars?"

"You could be killed, fiddling with electricity," declared Celia.

"Earned every penny of it on the way home, and that took a year, and don't ask me how I did it. I had a couple of things going for me, I did. But that's a story, now, really."

"You could be electrocuted," said Cel

ia. "Hooking up your own wires."

"Darling, you are not in the witness box," said Bea anxiously.

"Look, Mary Jane," said Michael, "if you need anything like that, I'll come down there and hook it up for you. I mean it. You just tell me when, I'll be there."

Twenty-five thousand dollars?

Mona's eyes had drifted to Rowan. Rowan was frowning just a little at the flowers, as if the flowers were talking to her in a quiet and secret tongue.

There followed a colorful description from Mary Jane of climbing swamp cypresses, of knowing just what electric wires to touch and not to touch, of purloined work gloves and boots. Maybe this girl was some kind of genius.

"What other stocks do you own?" asked Mona.