Taltos (Lives of the Mayfair Witches 3)

"You do?" Rowan whispered.

"Yeah," Mona said. "Yeah, I know." Slowly she climbed to her feet. She was leaving the room, when suddenly she turned. "I didn't mean ... I didn't mean it was all right to hurt her."

"We know that it's not all right," said Michael. "And she's my child too, remember."

Mona looked up at him, torn, helpless, as if there were a thousand things she wanted to say, to ask, to explain. And then she only shook her head and, turning her back on them, moved towards the door quietly. At the very last, she looked back, her face a radiant burst of light, of feeling. The little girl with the woman's body beneath her fussy dress. And my sin has done this, my sin has unleashed this thing, as if from the heart and mind of Mona herself, he thought.

"I smell it too, the scent," said Mona. "A living male. Can't you wash it off? Scrub it off with soap. Then maybe, maybe she'll calm down, she'll stop thinking about it and talking about it, she'll be all right. In the night, she may come into your room, you may wake up with her bending over you. She won't hurt you. In a way you've got the upper hand."

"How so?" Michael asked.

"If she doesn't do everything we say, you'll never tell her about the male. It's simple."

"Yes, it's a means of control," said Rowan.

"There are other means. She suffers so."

"You're tired, honey," said Michael. "You should rest."

"Oh, we will, in each other's arms. It's only when you wake and you see her sniffing at the clothes, don't be frightened. It can look kind of terrible."

"Yes," said Rowan. "We will all be prepared."

"But who is he?" Mona asked.

Rowan turned, as if to make sure she had heard this question right.

Dolly Jean, her head bowed, gave a sudden startling snore.

"Who is the male?" asked Mona, insistent, her eyes suddenly half-mast with exhaustion and slightly haunted.

"And if I tell you," said Rowan, "then you must keep it from her. Let us be the strong ones on that score. Trust us."

"Mother!" Morrigan called. A waltz had begun, Richard Strauss, strings, one of those lovely bland records that you can listen to for the rest of your life. He wanted to see them dancing, but in a way he didn't.

"Do the guards know she's not to go out?" Michael asked.

"Well, not really," Mona said. "You know, it would be easier if you told them to go away. She ... she upsets them. I can control her more easily if they're gone. She won't run away, not from her mother."

"Yes," Rowan said. "We'll dismiss them."

Michael was unsure.

But then he nodded. "We are in this ... together." The voice of Morrigan called out again. The music surged. Mona slowly turned and left them.

*

Late in the night, he could hear them laughing still, and the music now and then, or was it a dream of Stuart Gordon's tower? Then the keys of the computer tapping away, and that laughter, and the soft rumble of their running feet on the stairs. And the sound of mingled voices, young and high and very sweet, singing that song.

Why try to sleep, but then he was gone, too tired, too needy of rest and of escape, too hungry for the simplicity of cotton sheets, and Rowan's warm body against his. Pray, pray for her. Pray for Mona. Pray for them....

"Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come--"

His eyes opened wide. "Thy kingdom come. No." The feeling of sudden distress was too vast, yet elusive. He was too tired. "Thy kingdom come." He couldn't think it out. He turned over and buried his face in the crook of Rowan's warm neck and shoulder.

"Love you," she whispered, a murmured prayer out of the depths of sleep, perhaps, more comforting than his prayer had been.

Thirty-four

THE CLEAN MONOTONY of snow, of meetings without end, of phone calls, of the sheets of faxes full of statistics, summaries, of the business of life which he himself had made, reaching for the gold and dreams.

At midday he put his head down on the desk. It had been a full five days since Michael and Rowan had gone home, and they had not called him, or written even a note. And now he wondered if his gifts had somehow made them sad or been the wrong thing, or if they were blotting him out the way he tried to blot out the memory of Tessa, of Gordon dead on the floor, of Yuri stammering and wringing his hands, of cold winter in the glen, and the jeers of Aiken Drumm.

What do we seek? What do we need? How can we know what will make us happy? It was a simple thing to pick up the phone, to call Rowan or Michael, to ask if they were all right, if they had recovered from their journey.

And what if their voices were brittle and indifferent, and he was left with the instrument in his hand, and the wire gone dead after careless farewells? No, that would have been worse than nothing.

Or more truly, it was not what he wanted.

Just go there. Just see them. Without lifting his head, he pressed the button. Prepare the plane. Fly away from the city of bitter cold, to the lost land of love. Just look at them, see their house with its warm lights, see through the windows they so lovingly described, and go away without a sound, without begging for their eyes to meet yours. Just look at them. There will be a comfort in that.

Once all dwellings were small and shut up, windowless, fortified. And you couldn't see the beings within. But now it was different. One could gaze upon a perfect life as if peering at a painting. Sheer glass was enough to shut one out, and demarcate the secret turf of each one's love. But the gods were kind, and you could peep inside. You could see those you missed.

It will be enough. Do it. And they'd never know. He wouldn't frighten them.

The car was ready. Remmick had sent the bags down. "Must be good to be going south, sir," he said.

"Yes, to summerland," he replied.

"That's what Somerset means, sir, in England."

"Yes, I know," he said. "I'll see you soon. Keep my rooms warm. Call me at once if ... Well, don't hesitate if there is anything."

A speaking twilight, a city so wooded still that the creatures of the air sang the songs of dusk. He slipped out of the car blocks from the house. He knew the way. He had checked his map, and now he walked past the iron picket fences, and vines of florid pink trumpet flower. Windows were already full of light, yet the sky stretched radiant and warm in all directions. Listen to the cicadas' song, and are those starlings who swoop down as if to plant a kiss, when it is simply to devour?

He walked faster and faster, marveling at the uneven sidewalks, the buckling flags, the moss-covered bricks, so many many beautiful things to touch and to see. And at last he came to their corner.

There stood the house where a Taltos had been born. Grand for these times, with its stucco walls made to look like stone, and chimneys rising high into the clouds.

His heart beat too fast. His witches.

Not to disturb. Not to beg. Merely to see. Forgive me that I wal

k along the fence, under the bending boughs of these flowered trees, that here suddenly in this deserted street, I climb the fence and slip down into the moist shrubbery.

No guards around this place. Does that mean you trust me, that I would never come, in stealth, unbidden, unexpected? I don't come to steal. I come only to take what anyone can have. A look from afar, we take nothing from those who are watched.

Take care. Keep to the hedges and the tall shiny leafed trees swaying in the wind. Ah, the sky is like the moist soft sky of England, so near, so full of color!

And this, was it the crape myrtle tree, beneath which their Lasher had stood, frightening a small boy, beckoning Michael to the gate, Michael a witch child whom a ghost could spot, passing in the real world through zones of enchantment.

He let his fingers touch the waxy bark. The grass was deep beneath his feet. The fragrance of flowers and green things, of living things and breathing soil, was everywhere. A heavenly place.

Slowly he turned and looked at the house. At the iron lace porches stacked one upon the other. And that had been Julien's room up there, where the vines groped with helpless tendrils in the empty air. And there, beyond that screen, the living room.

Where are you? Dare I come just a little closer? But to be discovered now would be so tragic, when the evening is descending in this raiment of violet, and the flowers glow in their beds, and once again the cicadas sing.

Lights went on in the house. Behind lace curtains. Illuminating paintings on the walls. Was it so simple that, veiled in the dark, he could draw near to those windows?

The murals of Riverbend, wasn't that what Michael had described, and might they be gathering this soon for their meal? He walked as lightly as he could across the grass. Did he look like a thief? Rosebushes shielded him from those behind the glass.

So many. Women old and young, and men in suits, and voices raised in controversy. This was not my dream. This was not my hope. But, eyes fastened to the portal, he couldn't step away. Just give me one glimpse of my witches.

And there Michael was, like the direct answer to his prayer, gesticulating in a little fury it seemed, with others who pointed their fingers and talked, and then all on cue sat down, and the servants glided through the room. He could smell the soup, the meat. Alien food.