Taltos (Lives of the Mayfair Witches 3)

"This is what you want?" Michael asked. "You want parents."

"Yes, the old ones to tell their tales to me, the way it was once for us."

"Yes," said Rowan firmly. "And then you will accept our protection, which means our authority and our guidance, that you're our newborn girl."

"Yes."

"And that we will care for you."

"Yes!" She rose slightly in the chair, and then stopped, clutching both sides of the big desk, her arms like long, slender bones that should have supported wings. "Yes. I am a Mayfair. Say this with me. I am one of you. And one day, one day perhaps, by a human man, I'll conceive, and others like me will be born, from witches' blood as I was born, that I have this right to exist, to be happy, to know, to flourish.... God, you still have that scent. I can't bear the scent. You have to tell me the truth."

"And what if we do?" asked Rowan. "And what if we say that you must stay here, that you are far too young and innocent to meet this male, that we will set the time for a meeting ..."

"What if we promise," said Michael, "that we will tell him? And that you can know where he is, but only if you promise ..."

"I swear," she cried. "I'll swear anything."

"Is it that strong?" Mona whispered.

"Mother, they're frightening me."

"You have them in the palm of your hand," said the diminutive Mona nestled in the leather chair, cheeks wasted, skin pale. "They cannot harm anything that explains itself so well. You're as human as they are, don't you see? They see. Play it off. Continue."

"Give me my place," she said, her eyes growing wide and seeming to catch fire as they had when she'd cried. "Let me be what I am. Let me couple if I will. Let me be one of you."

"You can't go to him. You can't couple," said Rowan. "Not yet, not until your mind is capable of making that decision."

"You make me mad!" she cried, drawing back.

"Morrigan, knock it off," said Mona.

"You just simmer down," said Mary Jane, climbing to her feet and moving cautiously behind the desk until she could put her hands on Morrigan's shoulders.

"Tell them about the memories," said Mona. "How we taped them all. And the things you want to see."

She was trying to pick up the thread again, to prevent a flood of tears or screams, he didn't know which.

"To go to Donnelaith," Morrigan said in a shaky voice, "to find the plain."

"You remember those things?"

"Yes, and all of us together in the circle. I remember. I remember. I reach out for their hands. Help me!" Her voice rose again. But she had clapped her hand over her mouth, and when she cried now it was muffled.

Michael stood up and came round, gently nudging Mary Jane out of the way.

"You have my love," he said in her ear. "You hear me? You have it. You have my love and the authority that goes along with it."

"Oh, thank God." She leant her head against him, just the way Rowan did it now and then, and she cried.

He stroked her soft hair, softer, silkier than Mona's. He thought of the brief union on the sofa, on the library floor, and this, this frail and unpredictable thing.

"I know you," she whispered, rubbing her forehead against his chest. "I know your scent too, and the things you've seen, I know the smell of the wind on Liberty Street, and the way the house looked when you first walked in, and how you changed it. I know different kinds of wood, and different tools, and what it's like to rub tung oil into the grain for a long, long time, the sound of the cloth on the wood. And I know when you drowned, when you were so cold, you got warm, you saw witches' ghosts. Those are the worst kind, the strongest kind, except maybe for the ghost of a Taltos. Witches and Taltos, you must have some of us inside you, waiting to come out, to be reborn, to make a race again. Oh, the dead know everything. I don't know why they don't talk. Why doesn't he come to me, or any of them? They just dance in my memories and say those things that mattered to them then. Father, Father, I love you."

"I love you too," he whispered, his hand closing tightly on her head. He felt himself tremble.

"And you know," she said, looking up at him, tears draining from her eyes in stains down her white cheeks. "You know, Father, that one day I shall take over completely."

"And why is that?" he asked calmly, with a tight grip on his voice, on his face.

"Because it has to be," she said in the same sincere, heated whisper. "I learn so quickly, I'm so strong, I know so much already. And when they come from my womb, and they will come, like I came from Mother and from you, they will have this strength, this knowledge, memories of both ways, the human, the Taltos. We have learned the ambition from you. And the humans will flee from us when they know. They will flee, and the world will ... the world will crumble. Don't you think, Father?"

He was shivering inside. He heard Ash's voice. He looked at Rowan, whose face remained still, impassive.

"To live together, that was our vow," he said. He bent, his lips just touching Morrigan's forehead. Smell of baby skin, fresh and sweet. "Those are the dreams of the young, to rule, to dominate all. And the tyrants of history were those who never grew up," he said. "But you will grow. You will have all the knowledge that all of us can give you."

"Boy, this sure is going to be something," Mary Jane said, folding her arms.

He stared at her, shocked rudely by her words, and the little laugh that came out of her as she shook her head. He looked at Rowan, whose eyes were once again reddened and sad as she turned her head slightly to the side, gazing at the strange daughter, and then at Mona. And only in Mona's face did he see not wonder and shock, but fear, a calculated, controlled fear.

"The Mayfairs are my kind now, too," Morrigan whispered. "A family of walking babies, don't you see? And the powerful ones should be brought together. Computer files must be scanned; all those with the double helix made to couple at once; until the numerical score has been evened, at least, at least, and then we will be side by side.... Mother, I must work now. I must get into the Mayfair computer again."

"Simmer down," said Mary Jane.

"What do you think and feel?" Morrigan demanded, staring directly at Rowan.

"You have to learn our ways, and maybe you'll discover someday that they are your ways too. No one is made to couple in our world. Numerical scores are not our forte. But you'll see. We'll teach you, and you will teach us."

"And you won't hurt me."

"We can't. We wouldn't," Rowan said. "We don't want to."

"And the male. This male who left his scent all over you. Is he alone too?" Rowan hesitated, then nodded. Morrigan looked up into Michael's eyes. "All alone like me?"

"More alone," Michael said. "You have us, your family."

She rose to her feet, hair flying out, making several quick pirouettes as she crossed the room, the taffeta skirts rustling, reflecting the light in fluid racing flashes.

"I can wait. I can wait for him. I can wait. Only tell him, please. I leave it to you, I leave it to the tribe. Come, Dolly Jean, come, Mona, it's time to dance. Mary Jane, do you want to? Rowan and Michael, I want to dance."

She lifted her arms, turning round and round, head falling back, hair hanging long and low. She hummed a song, something soft, something Michael knew he had heard before, something perhaps that Tessa had sung, Tessa, closeted away to die without ever seeing this child? Or Ash, had he hummed this song, Ash, who would never never forgive them if they kept this secret from him, the world-weary wanderer.

She dropped to her knees beside Rowan. The two young women stiffened, but Mona motioned that Mary Jane was to wait.

Rowan did nothing. She was hugging her knees with her clasped hands. She did not move as the lithe, silent figure drew very close, as Morrigan sniffed at her cheeks, her neck, her hair. Then slowly Rowan turned, staring into her face.

Not human, no, dear God, not at all. What is she?

Calm and collected, Rowan gave no sign that she might be thinking the very same thing. But surely she sensed somet

hing like danger.

"I can wait," Morrigan said softly. "Write it in stone, his name, where he is. Carve it in the trunk of the funeral oak. Write it somewhere. Keep it from me, but keep it, keep it until a time comes. I can wait."

Then she drew back and, making those same pirouettes, left the room, humming to herself, the humming higher and higher until it became like a whistle.

They sat in silence. Suddenly Dolly Jean said, "Oh!" She had fallen asleep, and now she was awake. "Well, what happened?" she asked.

"I don't know," Rowan said.

She looked at Mona, and Mona looked at her, and something silent passed between them.

"Well, I better go watch her," said Mary Jane, hurrying out of the room. "Before she goes and jumps in the swimming pool again with all her clothes, or lies down on the grass back there, trying to smell those two dead bodies."

Mona sighed.

"So what does the mother have to say to the father?" Michael asked.

Mona thought for a long moment. "Watch. Watch and wait." She looked at Rowan. "I know now why you did what you did."