Taltos (Lives of the Mayfair Witches #3)(109)
Author: Anne Rice

“Lord, Jesus Christ, Mary Jane,” Granny cried. “It’s a walking baby!”

“Granny, help me, take her hand, take it. Granny, you know what she is?”

“A walking baby, child. I’ve heard of them all my life, but never seen one. Jesus, child. When a walking baby was born out there in the swamps, to Ida Bell Mayfair, when I was a child, they said it stood taller than its mother as soon as it came walking out, and Grandpère Tobias went down there and chopped it up with an ax while the mother was laying there in the bed, screaming! Haven’t you never heard of the walking babies, child? In Santo Domingo they burned them!”

“No, not this baby!” wailed Mona. She groped in the dark, trying to open her eyes. Dear God, the pain. And suddenly a small slippery hand caught hers. Don’t die, Mama.

“Oh, Hail Mary, full of grace,” said Granny, and Mary Jane started the same prayer, only one line behind her, as if it were a reel. “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is …”

“Look at me, Mama!” The whisper was right by her ear. “Look at me! Mama, I need you, help me, make me grow big, big, big.”

“Grow big!” cried the women, but their voices were a long way off. “Grow big! Hail Mary, full of grace, help her grow big.”

Mona laughed! That’s right, Mother of God, help my walking baby!

But she was falling down through the trees forever, and quite suddenly someone grabbed both her hands, yes, and she looked up through the sparkling green light and she saw her own face above her! Her very own face, pale and with the same freckles and the same green eyes, and the red hair tumbling down. Was it her own self, reaching down to stop her fall, to save her? That was her own smile!

“No, Mama, it’s me.” Both hands clasped her hands. “Look at me. It’s Morrigan.”

Slowly she opened her eyes. She gasped, trying to breathe, breathe against the weight, trying to lift her head, reach for her beautiful red hair, raise up high enough just to … just to hold her face, hold it, and … kiss her.

Twenty-four

IT WAS SNOWING when she awoke. She was in a long cotton gown they’d given her, something very thick for the New York winters, and the bedroom was very white and quiet. Michael slept soundly against the pillow.

Ash worked below in his office, or so he had told her that he would. Or maybe he had finished his tasks and gone to sleep as well.

She could hear nothing in this marble room, in the silent, snowy sky above New York. She stood at the window, looking out at the gray heavens, and at the ways the flakes became visible, emerging distinct and small to fall heavily on the roofs around her, and on the sill of the window, and even in soft graceful gusts against the glass. She had slept six hours. That was enough. She dressed as quietly as possible, putting on a simple black dress from her suitcase, another new and expensive garment chosen by another woman, and perhaps more extravagant than anything she might have bought for herself. Pearls and pearls. Shoes that laced above the instep, but with dangerously high heels. Black stockings. A touch of makeup.

And then she walked through the silent corridors. Press the button marked M, they had said, and you will see the dolls.

The dolls. What did she know of dolls? In childhood they had been her secret love, one which she had always been ashamed to confess to Ellie and Graham, or even to her friends. She had asked for chemistry sets at Christmastime, or a new tennis racket, or new stereo components for her room.

Wind howled in the elevator shaft as if it were a chimney. She liked the sound.

The elevator doors slid open, revealing a cab of wood paneling and ornate mirrors, which she scarcely recalled from this morning, when they’d arrived just before dawn. They had left at dawn. They had arrived at dawn. Six hours had been given back to them. It was evening for her body and she felt it, alert, ready for the night.

Down she went, in mechanical silence, listening to the howling, thinking how utterly ghostly it was, and wondering if Ash liked it too.

There must have been dolls in the beginning, dolls she didn’t remember. Doesn’t everybody buy them for girls? Perhaps not. Perhaps her loving foster mother had known of the witches’ dolls in the trunk in the attic, made of real hair and real bone. Maybe she had known that there was one doll for every Mayfair witch of past years. Maybe dolls gave Ellie the shivers. And there are people who are, regardless of background, taste, or religious beliefs, simply afraid of dolls.

Was she afraid of dolls?

The doors opened. Her eyes fell on glass cases, brass fittings, the same pristine and shining marble floors. A brass plaque on the wall said simply, THE PRIVATE COLLECTION.

She stepped out, letting the door rush closed behind her, realizing that she stood in a vast, brilliantly lighted room.

Dolls. Everywhere she looked, she saw their staring glass eyes, their flawless faces, their mouths half open with a look of frank and tender awe.

In a huge glass case right before her stood a doll of some three feet in height, made of bisque, with long mohair tresses and a dress of finely tailored faded silk. This was a French beauty from the year 1888, made by Casimir Bru, said the little card beneath it, greatest dollmaker perhaps in the world.

The doll was startling, whether one liked it or not. The blue eyes were thick and filled with light and perfectly almond-shaped. The porcelain hands of pale pink were so finely wrought they seemed about to move. But it was the doll’s face, of course, her expression, that so captivated Rowan. The exquisitely painted eyebrows were ever so slightly different, giving movement to its gaze. Curious and innocent and thoughtful it looked.

It was a nonpareil of its kind, one couldn’t doubt it. And whether or not she’d ever wanted dolls, she felt a desire to touch this one now, to feel its round and brightly rouged cheeks, to kiss, perhaps, its slightly parted red lips, to touch with the tip of her right finger the subtly shaped br**sts pressed so erotically beneath its tight bodice. Its golden hair had thinned with the ages, obviously. And its fancy little leather shoes were worn and cracked. But the effect remained timeless, irresistible, “a joy forever.” She wished she could open the case and hold it in her arms.

She saw herself rocking it, rather like a newborn, and singing to it, though it was no infant. It was just a little girl. Little blue beads hung from its perfectly fashioned ears. A necklace hung about its neck, fancy, a woman’s perhaps. Indeed, when one considered all the aspects of it, it was no child at all, really, but a sensual little woman of extraordinary freshness, perhaps a dangerous and clever coquette.