Taltos (Lives of the Mayfair Witches #3)(140)
Author: Anne Rice

Morrigan’s hair was tangled and falling all over her shoulders and her arms, a brighter red, as far as Mona could tell, but in the same family as her own hair. And the uncanny resemblance between their faces was enough to completely unnerve Mona if she let herself stare too long at Morrigan. As for the voice, well, the big danger was obvious. Morrigan could pretend to be Mona on the phone. She had done it with ease when Uncle Ryan had finally called Fontevrault. What a hilarious conversation that had been! Ryan had asked “Mona” very tactfully if she was taking amphetamines, and reminded her gently that anything ingested might hurt the baby. But the point was, Uncle Ryan had never guessed that the fast-talking and inquisitive female on the other end of the line was not Mona.

They were all dressed in their Easter Sunday best, as Mary Jane had called it earlier, including Morrigan, whom they had outfitted in the fashionable shops of Napoleonville. The white cotton shirtwaist dress would have been ankle length on Mona or even Mary Jane. On Morrigan it came to the knee; the waste was cinched really tight, and the plain V neck, the symbol of matronly good sense, became against her fairly well-developed br**sts a plunging neckline. It was the old story; put a plain, simple dress on a flamboyantly beautiful girl, and it becomes more eye-catching than gold foil or sable. Shoes had been no problem, once they had faced that she was a size ten. One size larger and they would have had to put her in men’s lace-ups. As it was, she had stiletto heels and had danced around the car in them for fifteen minutes, before Mona and Mary Jane had laid firm hands on her, told her to shut up, don’t move, and get in. Then she had demanded to drive. Well, it wasn’t the first time …

Granny, in Wal-Mart’s best cotton knit pantsuit, slept beneath her baby-blue thermal blanket. The sky was blue, the clouds magnificently white. Mona wasn’t sick anymore at all, thank God, just weak. Dismally weak. They were now one half hour from New Orleans. “Like what moral technicality?” asked Mary Jane. “This is a question of safety, you know, and what do you mean, ‘take over’?”

“Well, I’m talking about something inevitable,” said Morrigan, “but let me break it to you in stages.” Mona laughed.

“Ah, you see, Mother is smart enough to know, of course, to see the future as a witch might, I suppose, but you, Mary Jane, persist in being a cross between a disapproving aunt and the devil’s advocate.”

“You sure you know the meaning of all those words?”

“My dear, I have imbibed the entire contents of two dictionaries. I know all the words my mother knew before I was born, and a great many my father knew. How else would I know what a socket wrench is, and why the trunk of this car contains an entire set of them?

“Now back to the crisis of the moment: Where do we go, which house? And all of that nonsense?”

Immediately she answered her own questions.

“Well, my thinking is that whose house we go to is not all that fired important. Amelia Street would be a bad idea, simply because it is loaded with other people, as you have thrice described, and though it may be Mother’s house in a sense, it truly belongs to Ancient Evelyn. Fontevrault is too far away. We are not going back, I don’t care what happens! An apartment is a hideout which I cannot, in my anticipatory anxiety, abide! I will not choose some small impersonal lodgings obtained under false pretenses. I cannot live in boxes. First Street does belong to Michael and Rowan, that’s true, but Michael is my father! What we need is at First Street. I need Mona’s computer, her records, the papers Lasher scribbled out, any notes my father has made in his copy of his famous Talamasca file, everything which is presently in that house, and to which Mona has acknowledged access. Well, not Lasher’s scribblings, but again, that is a technicality. I claim the rights of breed to take those notes. And I do not have a single scruple about reading Michael’s diary if I do find it. Now don’t start screaming, both of you!”

“Well, just slow down for one thing!” shouted Mary Jane. “And I get a creepy feeling in my bones from the way you say those words, ‘take over.’ ”

“And let’s think this out a little further,” said Mona.

“You have reminded each other enough in my presence that the name of the game is survival,” Morrigan replied. “I need this knowledge—diaries, files, records—for survival. And First Street is empty now, we know that, and we can make our preparations in peace for Michael and Rowan’s homecoming. So I will make the decision here and now that that is where we go, at least until Michael and Rowan have returned and we have apprised them of the situation. If my father then wishes to banish me from the house, we seek an appropriate dwelling, or put into operation Mother’s plan to obtain funds for the complete restoration of Fontevrault. Now, do you have all this in your memories?”

“There are guns in that house,” said Mary Jane, “she has told you that. Guns upstairs, downstairs. These people are going to be scared of you. This is their house. They’re going to start screaming! Don’t you understand? They think that Taltos are evil beings, evil! Trying to take over the world!”

“I am a Mayfair!” declared Morrigan. “I am the daughter of my father and my mother. And the hell with guns. They are not going to aim a gun at me. That’s perfectly absurd, and you are forgetting that they are not expecting me to be there at all, and will be utterly unprepared when you search them for guns, as if they would be carrying guns at all, and furthermore you will be there, both of you, to protect me, and speak for me, and to issue dire warnings that they are not to harm me, and please remember for more than five consecutive minutes at a stretch that I have a tongue in my mouth with which to protect myself, that nothing in this situation is analogous to any that existed before, and that it is best to settle in there, where I can examine everything I should examine, including this famous Victrola, and the backyard—there you go, stop screaming, both of you!”

“Just don’t dig up the bodies!” Mona cried.

“Right, leave those bodies under the tree!” declared Mary Jane.

“Absolutely, I will. I shall. I told you. No digging up bodies. Bad, bad idea. Morrigan is sorry. Morrigan won’t do it. Morrigan has promised Mona and Mary Jane. No time for bodies! Besides, what are these bodies to me?” Morrigan shook her head, making her red hair tumble and tangle and then giving it a vigorous and determined toss. “I am the child of Michael Curry and Mona Mayfair. And that is what matters, isn’t it?”