Taltos (Lives of the Mayfair Witches #3)(17)
Author: Anne Rice

“She does like it,” he said now, as if they’d been discussing this concoction all along. “I know she does. Bea said something about its being too acid. There’s no evidence she finds it too acid.” He shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said.

“I think,” said Mona, “that she stopped talking because of me.”

Mona stared at him, and then the tears came, wet and frightening. She didn’t want to break down. She didn’t want to make such a demand or display. But she was miserable. What the hell did she want from Rowan? She scarcely knew Rowan. It was as if she needed to be mothered by the designee of the legacy who had lost her power to carry on the line.

“No, honey,” he said with the softest, most comforting smile.

“Michael, it’s because I told her about us,” she said. “I didn’t mean to. It was the first morning I spoke to her. All this time, I’ve been scared to tell you. I thought she was just being quiet. I didn’t … I don’t … She never spoke after that, Michael. It’s true, isn’t it? It was after I came.”

“Honey chile, don’t torture yourself,” he said, wiping up some of the sticky gunk from the counter. He was patient, reassuring, but he was too tired for all this, and Mona was ashamed. “She’d stopped talking the day before, Mona. I told you mat. Pay attention.” He gave her a little smile to mock himself. “I just didn’t realize it then, that she’d quit talking.” He stirred the juice again. “Well, now comes the big decision. Egg or no egg.”

“Egg! You can’t put an egg in fruit juice.”

“Sure I can. Honey, you’ve never lived in Northern California, have you? This is a first-rate health-food special. And she needs the protein. But a raw egg can give you salmonella. Old problem. The family is split right down the middle on the subject of the raw egg. I should have asked Mary Jane her opinion last Sunday.”

“Mary Jane!” Mona shook her head. “Damn the family,” she said.

“I don’t know about that,” said Michael. “Beatrice thinks raw eggs are dangerous, and she has a point. On the other hand, when I was in high school, playing football, I used to pop a raw egg into a milkshake every morning. But Celia says …”

“Lord deliver me,” said Mona, imitating Celia perfectly. “What does Aunt Celia know about raw eggs?”

She was so sick of the family discussing Rowan’s tiny likes and dislikes, and Rowan’s blood count, and Rowan’s color, that if she found herself in one more pointless, ineffectual, and tiresome discussion, she would start screaming to be let out.

Maybe she had just had too much of it all, from the day they’d told her she was the heiress—too many people giving her advice, or asking after her as though she were the invalid. She’d written mock headlines on her computer:

GIRL KNOCKED ON HEAD BY WHOLE LOAD OF MONEY. Or, WAIF CHILD INHERITS BILLIONS AS LAWYERS FRET.

Naaah, you wouldn’t “fret” in a headline today. But she liked the word.

She felt so terrible suddenly as she stood here in the kitchen that the tears spilled out of her eyes like they would from a baby, and her shoulders began to shake.

“Look, honey, she stopped the day before, I told you,” he said. “I can tell you the last thing she said. We were sitting right there at the table. She’d been drinking coffee. She’d said she was dying for a cup of New Orleans coffee. And I’d made her a whole pot. It was about twenty-two hours from the time she woke up; and she hadn’t slept at all. Maybe that was the problem. We kept talking. She needed her rest. She said, ‘Michael, I want to go outside. No, stay, Michael. I want to be alone for a while.’ ”

“You’re sure that was the last thing she said?”

“Absolutely. I wanted to call everyone, tell them she was all right. Maybe I scared her! I’m the one, making that suggestion. And after that, I was leading her around, and she wasn’t saying anything, and that’s the way it’s been since then.”

He picked up what appeared to be a raw egg. He cracked it suddenly on the edge of the plastic blender and then pulled open the two halves of shell to let loose the icky white and yolk.

“I don’t think you hurt her at all, Mona. I really, really doubt you did. I wish you hadn’t told her. If you must know, I could have done without your telling her that I committed statutory rape on the living room couch with her cousin.” He shrugged. “Women do that, you know. They tell afterwards.” He gave her a bright reproving look, the sunlight glinting in his eyes. “We can’t tell, but they can tell. But the point is, I doubt she even heard you. I don’t think … she gives a damn.” His voice trailed off.

The glass was foamy and faintly disgusting-looking.

“I’m sorry, Michael.”

“Honey, don’t—”

“No, I mean I’m okay. She’s not okay. But I’m okay. You want me to take that stuff to her? It’s gross, Michael, I mean gross. Like it is absolutely disgusting!”

Mona looked at the froth, the unearthly color.

“Gotta blend it,” he said. He put the square rubber cap on the container, and pressed the button. Then came the ghastly sound of the blades turning as the liquid jumped inside.

Maybe it was better if you didn’t know about the egg.

“Well, I put lots of broccoli juice in it this time,” he said.

“Oh God, no wonder she won’t drink it. Broccoli juice! Are you trying to kill her?”

“Oh, she’ll drink it. She always drinks it. She drinks anything I put before her. I’m just thinking about what’s in it. Now listen to me. If she wasn’t listening when you made your confession, I’m not sure it came as a surprise. All that time she was in the coma, she heard things. She told me. She heard things people said when I was nowhere about. Of course, nobody knew about you and me and our little, you know, criminal activity.”

“Michael, for chrissakes, if there is a crime of statutory rape in this state, you’d have to get a lawyer to look it up to be sure. The age of consent between cousins is probably ten, and there may even be a special law on the books lowering the age to eight for Mayfairs.”

“Don’t kid yourself, sweetheart,” he said, shaking his head in obvious disapproval. “But what I was saying is, she heard the things you and I said to each other when we sat by the bed. We’re talking about witches, Mona.” He fell into his thoughts, staring off, brooding almost, looking intensely handsome, beefcake and sensitive.