Lasher (Lives of the Mayfair Witches 2)

Emaleth looked out over the dark grass to the forest. She saw the darkness close in over the water, beyond the bridge. She wasn't sure she should wait for the shoes.

"They are born hardwired with almost nothing," Father had said. "And what is hardwired in them is soon forgotten. They no longer catch scents or see patterns. They no longer know by instinct what to eat. They can be poisoned. They no longer hear sounds the way you do, or hear the full beat of songs. They are not like us. They are fragments. Out of these fragments we will build but it will be their doom. Be merciful."

Where was Father? If Father had observed the stars over Donnelaith, then she, Emaleth, ought to know them and what they looked like. She caught not the faintest trace of his scent anywhere at all. None had clung anymore to Mother.

The woman had come back. She laid down the shoes. It was hard for Emaleth to get her soft long feet inside them, toes wriggling, the canvas scratching her skin, but she knew that this was best, to have shoes. She ought to wear shoes. Father wore shoes. And so had Mother. Emaleth had cut her foot already on a sharp stone in the grass. This was better. It felt good when the woman tied the laces tight. Little bows, how pretty. She laughed when she saw these bows. But prettier still were the woman's fingers when she tied them.

How big Emaleth's feet looked compared to those small feet of the little woman.

"Good-bye, lady. And thank you," said Emaleth. "You've been very kind to me. I'm sorry for everything that is going to happen."

"And what's that, child?" the woman asked. "Just exactly what is going to happen? Child, what is that smell? What is on your body? First I thought you were just all wet from the Bayou. But there is another smell."

"A smell?"

"Yes, it's kind of good, kind of like a good something cooking."

Ah, so Emaleth had the scent too. Was that why she couldn't smell Father? She was now wrapped in the scent, perhaps. She lifted her fingers to her nose. There it was. The scent came right out of her pores. The smell of Father.

"I don't know," said Emaleth. "I think I should know these things. My children will. I have to go now. I should go to New Orleans. That is what Mother said. Mother pleaded and pleaded with me. Go to New Orleans, and Mother said it was on the way to Scotland, that I didn't have to disobey Father. So I'm on my way."

"Wait a minute, child. Sit down, wait for Jerome to come back. Jerome is looking for your mother." The woman called out in the dark for Jerome. But Jerome was gone.

"No, lady. I'm going," said Emaleth, and she bent down and touched her hands lightly to the woman's shoulders and kissed her on the smooth brown forehead. She felt her black hair. She smelled it and smoothed her hand on the lady's cheek. Nice woman.

She could see the woman liked the smell of her.

"Wait, honey."

This was the first time Emaleth had kissed anyone but Mother and it made the tears come again, and she looked down at the brown woman with the black hair and the big eyes, and she felt sorrow, that they would all die. Kindly people. Kindly people. But the Earth simply wasn't big enough for them, and they had prepared the way for the more gentle, and the more childlike.

"Which way is New Orleans?" she said. Mother hadn't known. Father had never told.

"Well, that way, I reckon," said the woman. "I don't know, tell the truth, I think that's east. You can't just..."

"Thank you, darling dear," she said, using Father's favorite phrase. And she started walking.

It felt better with every step. She walked faster and faster on the sodden grass, and then out on the road, and beneath the white electric light, and then on and on, her hair blowing out, her long arms swinging.

She was all dry now underneath the clothes, except for a little water on her back, which she did not like but which would dry soon. And her hair. Her hair was drying quickly, getting lighter and lighter. She saw her shadow on the road and laughed. How tall and thin she was compared to the brown people. How large her head was. And even compared to Mother. Poor little Mother, lying beneath the tree and staring off into the darkness and the greenness. Mother had not even heard Emaleth anymore. Mother could hear nothing. Oh, if only they had not run away from Father.

But she would find him. She had to. They were the only ones in the world. And Michael. Michael was Mother's friend. Michael would help her. Mother had said, "Go to Michael. Do that first of all." Those had almost been the last words from Mother. Go to Michael, first of all.

One way or the other, she was obedient to Father, or obedient to Mother.

"And I will be looking for you," he'd said.

It shouldn't be all that hard, and walking was fun.

Twenty-two

THEY WERE GATHERED by nine o'clock in the office on the top floor of the Mayfair Building--Lightner, Anne Marie, Lauren, Ryan, Randall and Fielding. Fielding really wasn't well enough to be there, anyone could see this. But no one was going to argue.

When Pierce came in, with Mona, there was no complaint and no surprise, though everyone stared at Mona, naturally enough, having never seen her in a blue wool suit, and of course this one--her mother's--was a little too big for her, though not much. She did look years older now, but that was as much on account of the expression on her face as the loss of childish locks and her ribbon. She wore a pair of high heels that did fit all right, and Pierce kept trying not to look at her legs, which were very beautiful.

Pierce had never found it easy to be around his cousin Mona, not even when she was very little. There had been something seductive about her even when she was four and he was eleven. She had tried countless times to lure him into the woods. "You're just too little" had become lame around five years ago. Now it was really lame. However, Mona was as exhausted as he was.

"Our mothers are dead!" She'd whispered that to him on the way downtown. In fact that was the only thing she'd said between Amelia Street and the office.

What the others would have to understand at some point was that Mona had taken over. Pierce had just gotten to Amelia Street with the news that all the Mayfairs were being called; that cousins as far away as Europe were being contacted. He thought he had things pretty much under control; indeed there was a curious excitement to it all, the excitement that death brings when everything is disrupted. Pierce thought perhaps it was like that at the very beginning of a war, before suffering and death wore everyone into despair.

Whatever, when they'd called to say Mandy Mayfair was dead too, he had not been able to respond. Mona had been at his elbow. "Give me that phone," she'd said.

Mandy Mayfair had died about twelve o'clock today. That was midway between Edith's death and Alicia's. Mandy had obviously been dressing for Gifford's funeral. Her prayer book and her rosary had been on the bed. The windows of her French Quarter a

partment were wide open to the little courtyard. Anyone could have come over that wall. There was no other sign of foul play, as they said, or forced entry. Mandy had been on the bathroom floor, knees drawn up, arms locked around her waist. There were flowers scattered all around her. Even the police had figured out they came from the courtyard garden. Sprigs of lantana which had bloomed again in the warm months after Christmas. All those little orange and purple blossoms had been broken up on top of her.

Now, no one was going to call this a "natural death" or the result of some mysterious illness. But Pierce could get no further than that in his reasoning. Because if something came in and killed Edith, and Mandy, and Alicia, and Lindsay in Houston, and the other cousin whose name, shamefully enough, he could not even remember, well, then that something had come in on his mother.

And her last moments had not been tranquil, hand reached out to receive the sea, and all the other mythology he had laid upon it when he saw her dead body, and heard how it had been found, and how the blood was washing away even as they picked her up and put her on the stretcher.

No, that was not the way it was.

He drew the chair back for Mona, adjusted it for her as a gentleman should, and then he sat down. Somehow or other he was facing Randall. But then when Pierce saw the expression on his father's face, he understood. Randall was at the head of the table because Randall was in charge. Ryan was in no condition anymore to do much of anything.

"Well, you know this is not what we thought," said Mona.

To Pierce's amazement, they all nodded, that is, those who bothered to do anything nodded. Lauren looked exhausted but otherwise calm. Anne Marie was the only one who seemed frankly horrified.

The biggest surprise perhaps was Lightner. Lightner was looking out the window. He was looking at the river down there and the lighted bridges of the Crescent City Connection. He seemed not even to have noticed that Pierce and Mona had come in. He did not look at Pierce now. Or at Mona.

"Aaron,' Pierce said, "I thought you'd have some help for us, some guidance." That just popped out of Pierce's mouth before he could stop himself. It was the sort of thing he said which constantly got him into trouble. His father said, A lawyer does not speak what is on his mind! A lawyer keeps his own counsel.