Taltos (Lives of the Mayfair Witches #3)(107)
Author: Anne Rice

They slid through the front door, and suddenly the hallway opened up, enormous, filled with the fragrance of the wet soaked plaster and the glue from the peeling wallpaper, and the wood itself, perhaps, oh, there were too many smells of rot and the swamp, and living things, and the rippling water which cast its eerie light all over the walls and the ceiling, ripples upon ripples of light, you could get drugged by it.

Suddenly she pictured Ophelia floating away on her stream, with the flowers in her hair.

But look. You could see through the big doors into a ruined parlor and, where the light danced on the wall there, the sodden remnant of a drapery, so dark now from the water it had drunk up that the color was no longer visible. Paper hung down in loose garlands from the ceiling.

The little boat struck the stairs with a bump. Mona reached out and grabbed the railing, sure it would wobble and fall, but it didn’t. And a good thing, too, because another pain came round her middle and bit deep into her back. She had to hold her breath.

“Mary Jane, we’ve got to hurry.”

“You’re telling me. Mona Mayfair, I’m so scared right now.”

“Don’t be. Be brave. Morrigan needs you.”

“Morrigan!”

The light of the lantern shivered and moved up to the high second-floor ceiling. The wallpaper was covered with little bouquets, faded now so that only the white sketch of the bouquet remained, glowing in the dark. Great holes gaped in the plaster, but she could not see anything through them.

“The walls are brick, don’t you worry about a thing, every single wall, inside, out, brick, just like First Street.” Mary Jane was tying up the boat. Apparently they were beached on an actual step. They were steady now. Mona clung to the railing, as fearful of getting out as of staying in the little boat.

“Go on upstairs, I’ll bring the junk. Go up and straight back and say hello to Granny. Don’t worry about your shoes, I got plenty of dry shoes. I’ll bring everything.”

Cautiously, moaning a little, she reached over, took hold of the rail with both hands, and stepped up out of the boat, hoisting herself awkwardly until she found herself standing securely on the tread, with dry stairway ahead of her.

If it hadn’t been tilting, it would have felt perfectly secure, she thought. And quite suddenly she stood there, one hand on the railing, one on the soft, spongy plaster to her left, and looking up, she felt the house around her, felt its rot, its strength, its obdurate refusal to fall down into the devouring water.

It was a massive and sturdy thing, giving in only slowly, perhaps stopped at this pitch forever. But when she thought of the muck, she didn’t know why they weren’t both sucked right down now, like bad guys on the run in motion-picture quicksand.

“Go on up,” said Mary Jane, who had already hurled one sack up on the step above Mona. Crash, bang, slam. The girl was really moving.

Mona began to walk. Yes, firm, and amazingly dry by the time she reached the very top, dry as if the sun of the spring day had been fiercely hot, trapped in here, and bleaching the boards, look, yes, bleaching it as surely as if it were driftwood.

At last she stood on the second floor, estimating the angle to be less than five degrees, but that was plenty enough to drive you mad, and then she narrowed her eyes the better to see to the very end of the hallway. Another grand and lovely door with sidelights and fanlight, and electric bulbs strung on crisscrossing wire, hanging from the ceiling. Mosquito netting. Was that it? Lots and lots of it, and the soft electric light, nice and steady, shining through it.

She took several steps, clinging to the wall still, which did indeed feel hard and dry now, and then she heard a soft little laugh coming from the end of the hall, and as Mary Jane came up with the lantern in hand and set it down beside her sack at the top of the stairs, Mona saw a child standing in the far doorway.

It was a boy, very dark-skinned, with big inky eyes and soft black hair and a face like a small Hindu saint, peering out at her.

“Hey, you, Benjy, come help me here with all this. You gotta help me!” shouted Mary Jane.

The boy sauntered forward, and he wasn’t so little as he came closer. He was maybe almost as tall as Mona, which wasn’t saying much, of course, since Mona hadn’t broken five feet two yet, and might never.

He was one of those beautiful children with a great mysterious mingling of blood—African, Indian, Spanish, French, probably Mayfair. Mona wanted to touch him, touch his cheek and see if his skin really felt the way it looked, like very, very fine tanned leather. Something Mary Jane had said came back to her, about him selling himself downtown, and in a little burst of mysterious light, she saw purple-papered rooms, fringed lampshades, decadent gentlemen like Oncle Julien in white suits, and of all things, herself in the brass bed with this adorable boy!

Craziness. The pain stopped her again. She could have dropped in her tracks. But quite deliberately she picked up one foot and then the other. There were the cats, all right, good Lord, witches’ cats, big, long-tailed, furry, demon-eyed cats. There must have been five of them, darting along the walls.

The beautiful boy with the gleaming black hair carried two sacks of groceries down the hall ahead of her. It was even sort of clean here, as if he’d swept and mopped.

Her shoes were sopping wet. She was going to go down.

“That you, Mary Jane? Benjy, is that my girl? Mary Jane!”

“Coming, Granny, I’m coming, what are you doing, Granny?”

Mary Jane ran past her, holding the ice chest awkwardly, with her elbows flying out and her long flaxen hair swaying.

“Hey, there, Granny!” She disappeared around the bend. “What you doing now?”

“Eating graham crackers and cheese, you want some?”

“No, not now, gimme a kiss, TV broken?”

“No, honey, just got sick of it. Benjy’s been writing down my songs as I sing them. Benjy.”

“Listen, Granny, I got to go, I got Mona Mayfair with me. I’ve got to take her up to the attic where it’s really warm and dry.”

“Yes, oh yes, please,” Mona whispered. She leant against the walls which tilted away from her. Why, you could lie right on a tilted wall like this, almost. Her feet throbbed, and the pain came again.

Mama, I am coming.

Hold on, sweetheart, one more flight of steps to climb. “You bring Mona Mayfair in here, you bring her.”

“No, Granny, not now!” Mary Jane came flying out of the room, big white skirts hitting the doorjamb, arms out to reach for Mona.