Taltos (Lives of the Mayfair Witches 3)

Ryan had just come in. She could hear his voice in the dining room. He was talking to Eugenia. How marvelous to see Ryan. But he sure as hell wasn't taking Mary Jane out of here.

As soon as he stepped in the kitchen, Mona felt so sorry for him with his tired expression. He was still wearing his somber funeral suit. Ought to wear seersucker, the way the other men did this time of year. She loved the men in their seersucker suits in summer, and she loved the old ones who still wore the straw hats.

"Ryan, come join us," she said, chewing another huge mouthful of rice. "Mary Jane's cooked a feast."

"Just you sit right down here," said Mary Jane, hopping to her feet, "and I'll serve your plate, Cousin Ryan."

"No, I can't, dear," he said, being punctiliously polite to Mary Jane, because she was the country cousin. "I'm rushing. But thank you."

"Ryan is always rushing," said Mona. "Ryan, before you go, take a little walk outside, it's simply beautiful. Look at the sky, listen to the birds. And if you haven't smelled the sweet olives, it's time to do it now!"

"Mona, you're stuffing yourself with that rice. Is this going to be that kind of pregnancy?"

She tried not to go into spasms of laughter.

"Ryan, sit down, have a glass of wine," she said. "Where's Eugenia? Eugenia! Don't we have some wine?"

"I don't care for any wine, Mona, thank you." He made a dismissing gesture to Eugenia, who appeared for one moment in the lighted door, gnarled, angry, disapproving, and then slipped away.

Ryan looked so handsome in spite of his obvious crossness--a man who'd been polished all over with a big rag. She started to laugh again. Time for a gulp of milk, no, drink the whole glass. Rice and milk. No wonder people from Texas ate these two things together.

"Cousin Ryan, won't take a second--" said Mary Jane. "Just you let me fill you a plate."

"No, Mary Jane, thank you. Mona, there's something I have to tell you."

"Right now, during dinner? Oh, well, shoot. How bad can it be?" Mona poured some more milk from the carton, slopping a bit on the glass table. "After everything that's already happened? You know, the problem with this family is entrenched conservatism. I wonder if that is redundant. What do you think?"

"Miss Piggy," said Ryan dourly, "I am talking to you."

Mona went into hysterics. So did Mary Jane.

"I think I got a job as a cook," said Mary Jane, "and all I did to that rice was throw in some butter and garlic."

"It's the butter!" declared Mona, pointing at Mary Jane. "Where's the butter? That's the secret, slop butter on everything." She picked up a slice of ordinarily pukey white bread, and carved out a glomp of oozy warm butter slowly melting on the saucer.

Ryan was looking at his watch, the infallible signal that he would remain in this spot no more than four more minutes. And God bless us all, he had not said one word about taking Mary Jane away.

"What is it, big boy?" asked Mona. "Hit me with it. I can take it."

"I don't know if you can," he said in a low voice.

That sent her into another reel of laughter. Or maybe it was the blank expression on Ryan's face. Mary Jane couldn't stop giggling. She stood beside Ryan, with her hand over her mouth.

"Mona, I'm off," he said, "but there are several boxes of papers up in the master bedroom. These are things that Rowan wanted, writings that came out of her last room in Houston." He gave a pointed look to Mary Jane, as if to say, She is not to know about all that.

"Oh yeah, writings," said Mona. "I heard you talking about it last night. You know, I heard a funny story, Ryan, that when Daphne du Maurier, you know who she was?"

"Yes, Mona."

"Well, when she was writing Rebecca, it began as an experiment to see how long she could go on without naming her first-person narrator. Michael told me this. It's true. And you know by the end of the book the experiment didn't matter. But you never do know the name of Maxim de Winter's second wife in that novel, or in the movie. Did you see the movie?"

"What's the point?"

"Well, you're like that yourself, Ryan, you're going to go to the grave without ever saying Lasher's name." Again, she broke into laughter.

Mary Jane laughed and laughed as though she knew everything.

There is nothing funnier than someone laughing at a joke, except for someone who does not even crack a smile and stares at you with a face full of outrage.

"Don't touch the boxes," said Ryan solemnly. "They belong to Rowan! But there is something I must tell you, about Michael, something I found in a genealogy in those papers. Mary Jane, please do sit down and eat your supper."

Mary Jane sat down.

"Right, genealogies," said Mona. "Wow, maybe Lasher knew things we didn't know. Mary Jane, genealogy is not a special interest with this family, it's a full-time obsession. Ryan, your four minutes are nearly up."

"What four minutes?"

She was laughing again. He had to leave. She was going to get sick, laughing like this.

"I know what you're gonna say," said Mary Jane, who jumped up again out of her chair, as though for truly serious conversations she had to be standing. "You're going to say Michael Curry is a Mayfair. I told you!"

All the vitality drained out of Ryan's face.

Mona drank down the fourth glass of milk. She had finished her rice, and lifting the serving bowl, she tipped it and let a new little mountain of soft, steaming rice grains fall on her plate.

"Ryan, stop staring at me," she said. "What is it about Michael? Is Mary Jane right? Mary Jane said Michael was a Mayfair the first time she met him."

"He is," declared Mary Jane. "I saw the resemblance right away, and you know who he looks like? He looks like that opera singer."

"What opera singer?" asked Ryan.

"Yeah, what opera singer?"

"Tyrone MacNamara, the one that Beatrice has pictures of, you know????? Those engravings on her wall???? Julien's father???? Well, Ryan, he must be your great-grandfather. I saw a passel a' cousins at the genealogical laboratory looked like that, Irish as can be, you never noticed? Of course you didn't, but then y'all have got Irish blood, F

rench blood--"

"And Dutch blood," said Ryan in a terse, uncomfortable little voice. He looked at Mona, and then back at Mary Jane. "I have to go."

"Wait a second, is that it?" Mona demanded. She gulped down her mouthful of rice, took another drink of milk. "Is that what you were going to tell me? Michael is a Mayfair?"

"There is a mention," Ryan said, "in those papers, that apparently pertains to Michael, explicitly."

"God damn, you don't mean it," said Mona.

"You all are sooooo divinely inbred!" said Mary Jane. "It's like royalty. And here sits the Czarina herself!"

"I'm afraid you're right," said Ryan. "Mona, have you taken any medicine?"

"Certainly not, would I do that to my daughter?"

"Well, I have no choice but to go," he said. "Do try to behave yourselves. Remember the house is surrounded by guards. I don't want you going out, and please don't devil Eugenia!"

"Shucks," said Mona. "Don't leave. You're the life of the party. What do you mean 'devil Eugenia'?"

"When you've returned to your senses," said Ryan, "would you please call me? And what if this child is a boy? Certainly you aren't going to risk his life with one of those tests to determine gender."

"He's not a boy, silly," said Mona. "She's a girl and I've already named her Morrigan. I'll call you. Okay? Okay."

And away he went, hurrying in his own special quiet way of hurrying. Kind of like the way nuns hurry, or doctors. With a minimum of sound and fuss.

"Don't touch those papers," he called out from the butler's pantry.

Mona relaxed, took a deep breath. That was the last adult scheduled to be looking in on them, as far as she knew.

And what was this about Michael? "God, you think it's true? Hey, Mary Jane, when we're finished, let's go up and look at those papers."

"Oh, Mona, I don't know, he just said those were Rowan's papers, didn't he just say that? 'Don't touch those papers.' Mona, have some cream gravy. Don't you want the chicken? That's the best chicken I ever fixed."

"Cream gravy! You didn't say it was cream gravy. Morrigan doesn't want meat. Doesn't like meat. Look, I have a right to look at those papers. If he wrote things, if he left anything in writing."

"Who's he?"

"Lasher. You know who he is. Don't tell me your Granny didn't tell you."

"She told me, all right, you believe in him?"

"Believe in him, dollface, he almost attacked me. I almost became a statistic like my mother and Aunt Gifford and all those other poor dead Mayfair women. Of course I believe in him, why he's ..." She caught herself pointing to the garden, in the direction of the tree. No, don't tell her that, she'd sworn to Michael, never tell anyone, buried out there, and the other one, the innocent one, Emaleth, the one that had to die, though she'd never done anything to anyone ever.