Taltos (Lives of the Mayfair Witches #3)(71)
Author: Anne Rice

“Yeah, I know how to do that, you take it easy, Mona Mayfair, you call me if you need me.”

“Yeah, I will. I …” She turned around. “I really like having you here, Mary Jane,” she said. “There’s no telling when Rowan or Michael will come back.”

What if they never came back? The fear was growing, including all things at random that came into her mind. Nonsense. They were coming back. But of course they had gone to look for people who might very well want to hurt them….

“Don’t you worry now, darlin’,” said Mary Jane. “Yeah,” said Mona again, pushing open the door. She wandered out on the flagstones and off towards the back garden. It was still early and the sun was high and falling down on the lawn beneath the oak, as it would be, really, until late in the day. Best, warmest time in the back garden.

She walked out on the grass. This had to be where they were buried. Michael had added earth to this place, and the newest, tenderest grass grew here.

She went down on her knees, and stretched out on the earth, not caring that it was getting on her beautiful white shirt. There were so many of them. That’s what it meant to be rich, and she was already feeling it, having so many of everything, and not having to wear shoes with holes. She pressed her cheek to the cool mud and grass, and her billowing right sleeve was like a big white parachute fallen beside her from heaven. She closed her eyes.

Morrigan, Morrigan, Morrigan … The boats came across the sea, torches lifted. But the rocks looked so dangerous. Morrigan, Morrigan, Morrigan … Yeah, this was the dream! The flight from the island to the north coast. The rocks were the danger, and the monsters of the deep who lived in the lochs.

She heard the sound of someone digging. She was wide awake and staring across the grass at the distant ginger lilies, at the azaleas.

No one was digging. Imagination. You want to dig them up, you little witch, she said to herself. She had to admit it was fun playing little witches with Mary Jane Mayfair. Yeah, glad she’d come. Have some more bread.

Her eyes slid closed. A beautiful thing happened. The sun struck her eyelids, as if some big branch or cloud had just freed it, and the light made the darkness brilliant orange, and she felt the warmth creeping all over her. Inside her, in the belly that she could still sleep on, the thing stirred again. My baby.

Someone was singing the nursery rhyme again. Why, that must be the oldest nursery rhyme in the world. That was Old English, or was it Latin?

Pay attention, said Mona. I want to teach you how to use a computer before you are four years old, and I want you to realize that there’s nothing stopping you from being anything you ever want to be, you’re listening?

The baby laughed and laughed. She turned somersaults and stretched her tiny arms and hands and laughed and laughed. It looked like a tiny “tailless leaping amphibian.” Mona couldn’t stop laughing either. “That’s what you are!” she said to the baby.

And then the voice of Mary Jane said—in a pure dream now, and on some level Mona knew it, yes, because Mary Jane was all dressed up like Ancient Evelyn, in old lady clothes, a gabardine dress and string shoes, this was definitely a dream—the voice of Mary Jane said, “There’s more to it than that, darlin’. You better make up your mind real soon.”

Fifteen

“LOOK, FORGET WHAT you did, bolting,” said Tommy. They were driving back to the Motherhouse, because Tommy insisted. “We have to behave as if we are guilty of nothing. All the evidence is gone now, the route destroyed. They can’t trace any phone to any other phone. But we have to go back there and we have to behave as if nothing’s happened, and we have to show our concern over the death of Marcus, that’s all.”

“I’ll tell them I was so worried about Stuart,” said Marklin.

“Yes, that’s exactly what you should tell them. You were worried about Stuart. Stuart was under such a terrible strain.”

“Maybe they didn’t even notice, I mean, maybe the older ones took no notice that I was even gone.”

“And you didn’t find Stuart, and now you’ve come back home. Got it? You have come back home.”

“And then what?”

“That depends on them,” said Tommy. “Regardless of what happens, we must remain there so as not to arouse suspicion. Our attitude is simply, ‘What has happened? Won’t anyone explain?’ ”

Marklin nodded. “But where is Stuart?” he asked. He chanced a glance at Tommy. Tommy was as calm as he’d been at Glastonbury, when Marklin would have fallen on his knees before Stuart and begged him to come back.

“He’s gone to meet Yuri, that’s all. Stuart isn’t under suspicion, Mark. You’re the one who may be under suspicion because of the way you bolted. Now get a grip, old man, we have to play this well.”

“For how long?”

“How should I know?” asked Tommy, same calm voice. “At least until we have some natural reason to leave again. Then we go back to my place in Regent’s Park and we decide. Is the game up? What do we have to lose by remaining in the Order? What do we have to gain?”

“But who was it that killed Aaron?”

Tommy shook his head. He was watching the road now, as if Marklin needed a pilot. And Marklin wasn’t so sure that he didn’t. If he hadn’t known this route by heart, he wasn’t sure he could have made it.

“I’m not sure we should go back there,” said Marklin.

“That’s foolish. They haven’t an inkling of what really happened.”

“How do you know?” asked Marklin. “My God, Yuri could have told them! Tommy, will you use your head? Perhaps it’s not a healthy sign to be so calm in the face of this. Stuart went to see Yuri, and Yuri may be at the Motherhouse himself by now.”

“You don’t think Stuart had the sense to tell Yuri to stay away? That there was some sort of conspiracy, and that Stuart didn’t know the extent of it?”

“I think you would have the sense to do that, and perhaps I would, but I don’t know about Stuart.”

“And so what if Yuri is there? They know about the conspiracy, they just don’t know about us! Stuart wouldn’t tell Yuri about us, no matter what happened. You’re the one who’s not thinking. What does Yuri have to tell? He’ll fill them in on whatever happened in New Orleans, and if that goes into the records … You know, I think I’m going to regret that I destroyed the intercept.”