Taltos (Lives of the Mayfair Witches #3)(70)
Author: Anne Rice

“Hmmm, that sounds like a fairly good method. Guess you’re more likely to remember words that you like.”

“Oh yeah, but really, I remember almost everything, you know?? Being as smart as I am?” Mary Jane popped the bread ball into her mouth and started pulverizing the frame of crust.

“Even the meaning of batrachian?” asked Mona.

“ ‘A tailless leaping amphibian,’ ” Mary Jane answered. She nibbled on the crust ball.

“Hey, listen, Mary Jane,” said Mona, “there’s plenty of bread in this house. You can have all you want. There’s a loaf right over there on the counter. I’ll get it for you.”

“Sit down! You’re pregnant, I’ll git it!” Mary Jane declared. She jumped up, reached for the bread, caught it by its plastic wrapping, and brought it down on the table.

“How about butter? You want some butter? It’s right here.”

“No, I’ve conditioned myself to eat it without butter, to save money, and I don’t want to go back to butter, because then I’ll miss the butter and the bread won’t taste so good.” She tore a slice out of the plastic, and scrunched up the middle of it.

“The thing is,” said Mary Jane, “I will forget batrachian if I don’t use it, but beatitude I will use, and not forget.”

“Gotcha. Why were you looking at me in that way?”

Mary Jane didn’t answer. She licked her lips, tore loose some fragments of soft bread, and ate them. “All this time, you remembered that we were talking about that, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“What do you think about your baby?” asked Mary Jane, and this time she looked worried and protective, sort of, or at least sensitive to what Mona felt.

“Something might be wrong with it.”

“Yeah.” Mary Jane nodded. “That’s what I figure.”

“It’s not going to be some giant,” said Mona quickly, though with each word, she found it more difficult to continue. “It’s not some monster or whatever. But maybe there’s just something wrong with it, the genes make some combination and … something could be wrong.”

She took a deep breath. This might be the worst mental pain she’d ever felt. All her life she’d worried about things—her mother, her father, Ancient Evelyn, people she loved. And she’d known grief aplenty, especially of late. But this worrying about the baby was wholly different; it aroused a fear so deep in her that it was agony. She found she’d put her hand on her belly again. “Morrigan,” she whispered.

Something stirred inside her, and she looked down by moving her eyes instead of her head.

“What’s wrong?” asked Mary Jane.

“I’m worrying too much. Isn’t it normal to think that something’s wrong with your baby?”

“Yeah, it’s normal,” said Mary Jane. “But this family has got lots of people with the giant helix, and they haven’t had horrible deformed little babies, have they? I mean, you know, what’s the track record of all this giant-helix breeding?”

Mona hadn’t answered. She was thinking, What difference does it make? If this baby’s not right, if this baby’s … She realized she was looking off through the greenery outside. It was still early afternoon. She thought of Aaron in the drawerlike crypt at the mausoleum, lying one shelf up from Gifford. Wax dummies of people, pumped with fluid. Not Aaron, not Gifford. Why would Gifford be digging a hole in a dream?

A wild thought came to her, dangerous and sacrilegious, but not really so surprising. Michael was gone. Rowan was gone. Tonight she could go out there into the garden alone, when no one was awake on the property, and she could dig up the remains of those two that lay beneath the oak; she could see for herself what was there.

Only trouble was, she was frightened to do it. She had seen plenty of scenes in horror movies over the years in which people did that sort of thing, traipsed off to the graveyard to dig up a vampire, or went at midnight to discover just who was in what grave. She had never believed those scenes, especially if the person did it by herself or himself. It was just too frightening. To dig up a body, you had to have a lot more balls than Mona had.

She looked at Mary Jane. Mary Jane had finished her feast of bread, apparently, and she just sat there, arms folded, looking steadily at Mona in a manner that was slightly unnerving, Mary Jane’s eyes having taken on that dreamy luster that eyes have when the mind has drifted, a look that wasn’t vacant but deceptively seriously focused.

“Mary Jane?” she said.

She expected to see the girl startle, and wake up, so to speak, and immediately volunteer what she had been thinking. But nothing like that happened. Mary Jane just kept looking at her in exactly the same fashion, and she said:

“Yes, Mona?” without a single change in her face.

Mona stood up. She went towards Mary Jane, and stood right beside her, looking down at her, and Mary Jane continued to look at her with the same large and frightening eyes.

“Touch this baby, here, touch it, don’t be shy. Tell me what you feel.”

Mary Jane turned the gaze on Mona’s belly, and she reached out very slowly, as if she was going to do what Mona had asked her to do, and then suddenly she jerked her hand back. She rose from the chair, moving away from Mona. She looked worried.

“I don’t think we should do it. Let’s not do witchcraft with this baby. You and I are young witches,” she said. “You know, we really are. What if witchcraft can, you know??? Have an effect on it???”

Mona sighed. Suddenly she didn’t want to talk about this anymore; the feeling of fear was too draining and too damned painful, and there had been quite enough.

The only person in the world who could answer her questions was Rowan, and she was going to have to ask them, sooner or later, because she could feel this baby now, and that was flat-out impossible, really, to feel a baby moving like this, just this tiny, tiny movement, even, when a baby was only six or even ten or even twelve weeks.

“Mary Jane, I have to be alone right how,” she said. “I’m not being rude. It’s just this baby has me worried. That is the simple truth.”

“You sure are sweet to explain this to me. You go right ahead. I’m going upstairs if it’s okay. Ryan??? He put my suitcase in Aunt Viv’s room, you know??? I’m going to be in there.”

“You can use my computer if you want,” said Mona. She turned her back to Mary Jane and looked out again in the garden. “It’s in the library, there are plenty of open programs. It boots right to WordStar, but you can go to Windows or Lotus 1-2-3 simply enough.”