Taltos (Lives of the Mayfair Witches 3)

"Why did you do it?"

"He was trying to hurt me. He'd shot me up with heroin and he was giving it to me and telling me that him and me were going to be lovers together. He was a goddamned pimp. I pushed him off the fire escape."

"Did anyone come after you?"

"No," said Mary Jane, shaking her head. "I never told that story to anybody else in this family."

"I won't either," said Mona. "But that kind of strength isn't unusual in this family. How many girls, do you think, had been turned out by this pimp? That's the phrase for it, isn't it?"

Eugenia was serving them and ignoring them. The veal did look OK, well browned and juicy, with a light wine sauce.

Mary Jane nodded. "Lots of girls. Idiots," she said.

Eugenia had set down a cold salad of potatoes and peas, another Michael Curry gentleman's special, tossed in oil and garlic. Eugenia plopped a big spoon of it on Mary Jane's plate.

"Do we have any more milk?" asked Mona. "What are you drinking, Mary Jane?"

"Coca-Cola, please, Eugenia, if you don't mind, but then I can certainly get up and get it myself."

Eugenia was outraged at the suggestion, especially coming from an unknown cousin who was obviously a perfect rube. She brought the can and the glass of ice.

"Eat, Mona Mayfair!" Eugenia said. She poured the milk from the carton. "Come on now."

The meat tasted awful to Mona. She couldn't figure why. She loved this kind of food. As soon as it had been set before her, it had begun to disgust her. Probably just the usual bout of sickness, she thought, and that proves I'm on schedule. Annelle had said it would happen at just about six weeks. That is, before she'd declared the baby was a three-month-old monster.

Mona bowed her head. Little wisps of that last dream were catching hold of her, very tenacious and full of associations that were just moving away from her at jet speed as soon as she tried to catch them, and hold them, and open up the dream itself.

She sat back. She drank the milk slowly. "Just leave the carton," she said to Eugenia, who hovered over her, wrinkled and solemn, glaring at her, and at her untouched plate.

"She'll eat what she needs to eat, won't she?" asked Mary Jane, helpfully. Sweet kid. She was already gobbling her veal, and noisily stabbing every bit of mushroom and onion she could find with her fork.

Eugenia finally ambled off.

"Here, you want this?" said Mona. "Take it." She pushed the plate towards Mary Jane. "I never touched it."

"You sure you don't want it?"

"It's making me sick." She poured herself another glass of milk. "Well, I was never much of a milk lover, you know, probably because the refrigerator in our house never kept it cold. But that's changing. Everything's changing."

"Oh yeah, like what?" Mary Jane asked, rather wide-eyed. She chugalugged her entire Coke. "Can I get up and get another one?"

"Yes," said Mona.

She watched Mary Jane as she bounced towards the refrigerator. Her dress had just enough flare to remind you of a little girl's. Her legs looked beautifully muscled, thanks to the high heels, though they had looked beautifully muscled the other day when she'd been wearing flat shoes.

She flopped back down and started devouring Mona's offering.

Eugenia poked her head in the door from the butler's pantry.

"Mona Mayfair, you didn't eat nothin'. You live on potato chips and junk!"

"Get out of here!" Mona said firmly. Eugenia vanished.

"But she's trying to be maternal and all," said Mary Jane. "Why did you yell at her?"

"I don't want anybody to be maternal with me. And besides, she's not. She's a pest. She thinks ... she thinks I'm a bad person. It's too long to explain. She's always scolding me about something."

"Yeah, well, when the father of the baby is Michael Curry's age, you know, people are either going to blame him or you."

"How did you know that?"

Mary Jane stopped gobbling, and looked at Mona.

"Well, it is him, isn't it? I kinda figured you were sweet on him, first time I come here. I didn't mean to make you mad. I thought you were happy about it. I keep getting this vibe that you're really happy that he's the father."

"I'm not sure."

"Oh, it's him," said Mary Jane. She jabbed the fork through the last piece of veal, picked it up, and stuffed it in her mouth and chewed it lustily, her smooth brown cheeks working furiously without so much as a line or a wrinkle or any real distortion. This was one beautiful girl. "I know," she said, as soon as she had swallowed a wad of chewed meat big enough to catch in her windpipe and choke her to death.

"Look," said Mona. "This is something I haven't told anybody yet, and ..."

"Everybody knows it," said Mary Jane. "Bea knows it. Bea told me. You know what's going to save Bea? That woman is going to get over her grief for Aaron on account of one simple reason. She never stops worrying about everybody else. She's real worried about you and Michael Curry, because he's got the genes, as everybody knows, and he's Rowan's husband. But she says that gypsy you fell in love with is just all wrong for you. He belongs with another kind of woman, somebody wild and homeless and without a family, like himself."

"She said all that?"

Mary Jane nodded. Suddenly she spied the plate of bread which Eugenia had set out for them, slices of plain white bread.

Mona didn't consider bread like that fit for consumption. She only ate French bread, or rolls, or something properly prepared to accompany a meal. Sliced bread! Sliced white bread!

Mary Jane grabbed the top slice, mushed it together, and started sopping up veal juice.

"Yeah, she said all that," said Mary Jane. "She told Aunt Viv and she told Polly and Anne Marie. Didn't seem to know that I was listening. But I mean, this is what is going to save her, that she's got so much on her mind about the family, like coming down to Fontevrault and making me leave."

"How could they all know this about me and Michael?"

Mary Jane shrugged. "You're asking me? Darlin', this is a family of witches, you're supposed to know that better than I do. Any number of ways they could have found out. But, come to think of it, Ancient Evelyn spilled the beans to Viv, if I am not mistaken. Something about you and Michael being here alone?"

"Yeah," said Mona with a sigh. "So big deal. I don't have to tell them. So much for that." But if they started being mean to Michael, if they started treating him any differently, if they started ...

"Oh, I don't think you have to worry about that, like I said, when it's a man that age and a girl your age, they blame one or the other, and I think they blame you. I mean, not in a mean way or anything, they just say things like, 'Whatever Mona wants, Mona gets,' and

'Poor Michael,' and you know, stuff like, 'Well, if it got him up off that bed and to feeling better, maybe Mona's got the healing gift.' "

"Terrific," said Mona. "Actually, that's exactly the way I feel myself."

"You know, you're tough," said Mary Jane.

The veal juice was gone. Mary Jane ate the next slice of bread plain. She closed her eyes in a deliberate smile of satiation. Her lashes were all smoky and slightly violet, rather like her lipstick actually, very subtle however, and glamorous and beautiful. She had a damned near perfect face.

"Now I know who you look like!" cried Mona. "You look like Ancient Evelyn, I mean in her pictures when she was a girl."

"Well, that makes sense, now doesn't it?" said Mary Jane, "being's we're come down from Barbara Ann." Mona poured the last of the milk into her glass. It was still wonderfully cold. Maybe she and this baby could live on milk alone, she wasn't sure.

"What do you mean, I'm tough?" asked Mona. "What did you mean by that?"

"I mean you don't get insulted easily. Most of the time, if I talk like this, you know, completely open-like, with no secrets, like really trying to get to know somebody??? You know??? I offend that person."

"Small wonder," said Mona, "but you don't offend me."

Mary Jane stared hungrily at the last thin, forlorn slice of white bread.

"You can have it," said Mona.

"You sure?"

"Positive."

Mary Jane grabbed it, tore the middle out of it, and started rolling the soft bread into a ball. "Boy, I love it this way," she said. "When I was little??? You know??? I used to take a whole loaf, and roll it all into balls!"

"What about the crust?"

"Rolled it into balls," she said, shaking her head with nostalgic wonder. "Everything into balls."

"Wow," said Mona flatly. "You know, you really are fascinating, you're the most challenging combination of the mundane and mysterious that I've ever run across."

"There you go, showing off," said Mary Jane, "but I know you don't mean any harm, you're just teasing me, aren't you? Did you know that if mundane started with a b, I'd know what it meant?"

"Really? Why?"

"Because I'm up to b in my vocabulary studies," said Mary Jane. "I've been working on my education in several different ways, I'd like to know what you think about it. See, what I do is, I get a big-print dictionary??? You know???? The kind for old ladies with bad eyes??? And I cut out the b words, which gives me some familiarity with them right there, you know, cutting out each one with the definition, and then I throw all the little balls of paper ... oops, there we go again," she laughed. "Balls, more balls."