Taltos (Lives of the Mayfair Witches 3)

big white shirt, just like the mother, and her soft white legs just went on forever and ever. Must have been sisters. Had to be.

"Whoa!" she said, staring down at him and then marching towards him, bare feet on the bare wood, though Mary Jane tried to stop her.

"Now you go back and sit down," said Mary Jane, "the lights will be on in a jiffy."

"You're a man," said the tall young woman, who was really a girl, no older than the pint-sized mother in the bed, or Mary Jane herself. She stood right in front of the doctor, scowling at him with red eyebrows, her green eyes bigger than those of the little one upstairs, with big curling lashes. "You are a man, aren't you?"

"I told you, this is the doctor," said Mary Jane, "come to fill out the birth certificate for the baby. Now, Dr. Jack, this is Morrigan, this is the baby's aunt, now Morrigan, this is Dr. Jack, sit down now, Morrigan! Let this doctor get about his business. Let's go, Doctor."

"Don't get so theatrical, Mary Jane," declared the beanpole girl, with a great spreading smile. She rubbed her long, silky-looking white hands together. Her voice sounded exactly like that of the little mother upstairs. Same well-bred voice. "You have to forgive me, Dr. Jack, my manners aren't what they should be yet, I'm still a little rough all over at the edges, trying to ingest a little more information, perhaps, than God ever intended for anyone of my ilk, but then we have so many different problems which we have to solve, for example, now that we have the birth certificate, we do have that, do we not, Mary Jane, that is what you were trying to make plain to me when I so rudely interrupted you, was it not, what about the baptism of this baby, for if memory serves me right, the legacy makes quite a point of the matter that the baby must be baptized Catholic. Indeed, it seems to me that in some of these documents which I've just accessed and only skimmed, that baptism is a more important point actually than legal registration."

"What are you talking about?" asked Dr. Jack. "And where in God's name did they vaccinate you, RCA Victor?"

She let out a pretty peal of laughter, clapping both of her hands together, very loudly, her red hair rippling and shaking out from her shoulders as she shook her head.

"Doctor, what are you talking about!" she said. "How old are you? You're a fairly good-sized man, aren't you, let me see, I estimate you are sixty-seven years old, am I right? May I see your glasses?"

She snatched them off his nose before he could protest, peering through them into his face. He was flabbergasted; he was also sixty-eight. She became a fragrant blur before his naked eyes.

"Oh, now this is major, really, look at this," she said. And quickly put the glasses back on the bridge of his nose with perfect aim, flaring into detail again, with plump little cheeks and a cupid's bow of a mouth just about as perfect as he'd ever seen. "Yes, it makes everything just a fraction bigger, doesn't it, and to think this is but one of the more common everyday inventions I'm likely to encounter within the first few hours of life, eyeglasses, spectacles, am I correct? Eyeglasses, microwave oven, clip-on earrings, telephone, NEC MultiSync 5D computer monitor. It would seem to me that later on, at a time of reflection on all that's taken place, one ought to be able to discern a certain poetry in the list of those objects which were encountered first, especially if we are right that nothing in life is purely random, that things only have the appearance from different vantage points of being random and that ultimately as we better calibrate all our tools of observation, we'll come to understand that even the inventions encountered on two stories of an abandoned and distressed house, do cluster together to form a statement about the occupants that is far more profound than anyone would suppose at first thought. What do you think!"

Now it was his turn to let out the peal of laughter. He slapped his leg. "Honey, I don't know what I think about that, but I sure do like the style with which you say it!" he declared. "What did you say your name was, you're the one that baby's named after, Morrigan, don't tell me you're a Mayfair, too."

"Oh yes, sir, absolutely, Morrigan Mayfair!" she said, throwing up her arms like a cheerleader.

There was a glimmer, then a faint purring sound, and on came the lights, and the computer behind them in the room began to make its grinding, winding, start-up noises.

"Ooops, there we go!" she said, red hair flying about her shoulders. "Back on line with Mayfair and Mayfair, until such time as Mother Nature sees fit to humble all of us, regardless of how well we are equipped, configured, programmed, and installed. In other words, until lightning strikes again!"

She dashed to the chair before the desk, took up her place before the screen, and began typing again, just as if she'd completely forgotten he was standing there.

Granny shouted from upstairs, "Mary Jane, go on, this baby's hungry!"

Mary Jane pulled on his sleeve.

"Now wait just a minute," he said. But he had lost the amazing young woman, totally and completely, he realized that, just as he realized that she was purely naked under the white shirt, and that the light of her gooseneck lamp was shining right on her breast and her flat belly and her naked thighs. Didn't look like she had any panties on, either. And those long bare feet, what big bare feet. Was it safe to be typing on a computer in a lightning storm in your bare feet? Her red hair just flooded down to the seat of the chair.

Granny shouted from above.

"Mary Jane, you got to get this baby back by five o'clock!"

"I'm going, I'm going, Dr. Jack, come on!"

" 'Bye there, Dr. Jack!" shouted the beanpole beauty, suddenly waving at him with her right hand, which was at the end of an amazingly long arm, without even taking her eyes off the computer.

Mary Jane rushed past him and jumped in the boat. "You coming or not?" she said. "I'm pulling out, I got things to do, you want to be stuck here?"

"Get that baby where by five o'clock?" he demanded, coming to his senses, and thinking about what that old woman had just said. "You're not taking that baby out again to be baptized!"

"Hurry up, Mary Jane!"

"Anchors aweigh!" Mary Jane screamed, pushing the pole at the steps.

"Wait a minute!"

He took the leap, splashing into the pirogue as it rocked against the balusters and then the wall. "All right, all right. Just slow down, will you? Get me to the landing without dumping me into the swamp, would you do that, please?"

Clickety, clickety, clickety.

The rain had slacked up a bit, praise God. And a little bit of sun was even breaking through the heavy gray clouds just enough to shine on the drops!

"Now, here, Doctor, you take this," said Mary Jane, as he climbed into the car. It was a fat envelope just full of bills, and, he saw by the way she ruffled them with her thumb, all new twenties. He eyeballed that to be a thousand. She slammed the door and ran around to the other side.

"Now that's just too much money, Mary Jane," he said, but he was thinking Weed Eater, lawn mower, brand-new electric shrub clippers, and Sony color TV, and there wasn't a reason in the world to declare this on his taxes.

"Oh, shut up, you keep it!" she said. "Coming out on a day like this, you earned it." There went her skirt, back down to her thighs. But she couldn't hold a candle to that flaming darling upstairs, and what would it be like to get his hands on something like that, just for five minutes, something that young and that sleek and fresh and that beautiful, with those long long legs! Hush now, you old fool, you're going to give yourself a heart attack.

Mary Jane threw the car into reverse, wheels whirring in the wet shells of the road, and then made a dangerous one-hundred-eighty-degree turn and headed off over the familiar potholes.

He looked back at the house one more time, the big hulk of rotting columns and wood towering over the cypresses, with the duckweed muck lapping at its half-sunk windows, and then at the road ahead. Boy, he was glad to get out of here.

And when he got home and his little wife Eileen said, "What all did you see out there at Fontevrault, Jack?" what was he going to tell her? Not about the three prettiest young

women he'd ever seen under one roof, that's for sure. And not about this wad of twenty-dollar bills in his pocket, either.

Twenty-eight

WE INVENTED A human identity for ourselves.

We "became" an ancient tribe called the Picts, tall because we came from the northern countries where men grow tall, and we were eager to live in peace with those who would not disturb us.

Of course, we had to go about this very gradually. Word went out before we did. There was a waiting period at first, during which no strangers were admitted to the glen; then occasional travelers were let through, and from these we gleaned valuable knowledge. Then we ventured out, declaring ourselves to be the Picts and offering enlightened friendship to those whom we encountered.

Over time, in spite of the legend of the Taltos, which was always around, and gained some new impetus every time some poor Taltos was captured, we succeeded with this ruse. And our security improved not through battlements, but through our slow integration with human beings.

We were the proud and reclusive Clan of Donnelaith, but others would receive hospitality at our brochs. We did not speak of our gods much. We did not encourage questions about our private ways or our children.

But we lived as noblemen; we held the concepts of honor, and pride in our homeland.

It began to work rather beautifully. And with the doors of the glen open finally, new learning came to us for the first time directly from outside elements. We quickly learned to sew, to weave, and weaving proved a trap for the obsessive Taltos. Men, women, all of us would weave. We would weave for days and nights on end. We could not stop ourselves.

The only remedy was to pull away and turn to some other new craft and master it. Working with metals. We learned this. And though we never did more than forge a few coins and make arrowheads, we nevertheless went mad for a while with it.

Writing also had come to us. Other peoples had come to the shores of Britain, and unlike the uncouth warriors who had destroyed our world of the plain, these people wrote things on stone, on tablets, and on sheepskin especially worked by them to be permanent and beautiful to see and touch.