Taltos (Lives of the Mayfair Witches #3)(142)
Author: Anne Rice

“Settle down, honey,” said Mary Jane. “There’s a lot of time to find out.”

“We are your family,” said Mona. “Remember that. Whatever else you are, you are Morrigan Mayfair, designated by me to be heir to the legacy, and we have a birth certificate, a baptismal certificate, and fifteen Polaroid photographs with my solemn word on a sticker label pasted to the back of each of them.”

“Somehow or other that sounds insufficient,” said Morrigan, crying now, making a pout like a baby, the tears making her blink. “Hopelessly contrived, possibly legally irrelevant.” The car moved on, in its own lane, but they had come into Metairie, the traffic was getting heavy. “Perhaps a videotape is required, what do you think, Mother? But nothing in the end will suffice, will it, but love? Why do we speak of legal things at all?”

“Because they’re important.”

“But, Mother, if they don’t love—”

“Morrigan, we’ll do a videotape at First Street, soon as we get there. And you will have your love, mark my words. I’ll get it for you. I won’t let anything go wrong this time.”

“What makes you think that, given all your reservations and fears, and desires to hide from prying eyes?”

“I love you. That’s why I think it.”

The tears were springing from Morrigan’s eyes as if from a rainspout. Mona could hardly bear it.

“They will not have to use a gun, if they don’t love me,” Morrigan said.

Unspeakable pain, my child, this.

“Like hell,” said Mona, trying to sound very calm, very controlled, very much the woman. “Our love is enough, and you know it! If you have to forget them, you do it. We are enough, don’t you dare say we’re not, not enough for now, you hear me?” She stared at this graceful gazelle, who was driving and crying at the same time, passing every laggard in her path. This is my daughter. Mine has always been monstrous ambition, monstrous intelligence, monstrous courage, and now a monstrous daughter. But what is her nature, besides brilliant, impulsive, loving, enthusiastic, super-sensitive to hurts and slights, and given to torrents of fancy and ecstasy? What will she do? What does it mean to remember ancient things? Does it mean you possess them and know from them? What can come of this? You know, I don’t really care, she thought. I mean not now, not when it’s beginning, not when it’s so exciting.

She saw her tall girl struck, the body crumple, her own hands out to shield her, taking the head to her breast. Don’t you dare hurt her.

It was all so different now.

“All right, all right,” Mary Jane interjected. “Lemme drive, this is really getting crowded.”

“You are out of your mind, Mary Jane,” cried Morrigan, shifting forward in the seat and pressing on the accelerator to pass the car threatening on the left. She lifted her chin, and took a swat at her tears with the back of her hand. “I am steering this car home. I wouldn’t miss this for anything!”

Thirty

WHAT WAS IT like in the cave, I wondered. The voices of hell I had no desire to hear, but what about the singing of heaven?

I thought it over, and then decided to pass by. I had a long journey ahead of me. It was too early for rest. I wanted to be away from here.

I was about to set off and go around this part of the slope, when a voice called to me.

It was a woman’s voice, very soft and seemingly without a source, and I heard it say:

“Ashlar, I’ve been waiting for you.” I turned, looking this way and that. The darkness was unnerving. The Little People, I thought, one of their women, determined to seduce me. Again I determined to be on my way, but the call came again, soft as a kiss:

“Ashlar, King of Donnelaith, I am waiting for you.”

I looked at the little hovel, with its lights flickering in the dimness, and there I saw a woman standing. Her hair was red, and her skin very pale. She was human, and a witch, and she carried the very faint scent of a witch, which could mean, but might not, that she had the blood of the Taltos in her.

I should have gone on. I knew it. Witches were always trouble. But this woman was very beautiful and in the shadows my eyes played tricks on me, so that she looked somewhat like our lost Janet.

As she came towards me, I saw that she had Janet’s severe green eyes and straight nose, and a mouth that might have been carved from marble. She had the same small and very round br**sts, and a long graceful neck. Add to this her beautiful red hair, which has ever been a lure and a delight to the Taltos.

“What do you want of me?” I said.

“Come lie with me,” she said. “Come into my house. I invite you.”

“You’re a fool,” I said. “You know what I am. I lie with you and you’ll die.”

“No,” she said. “Not I.” And she laughed, as so many witches had before her. “I shall bear the giant by you.”

I shook my head. “Go your way, and be thankful I’m not easily tempted. You’re beautiful. Another Taltos might help himself. Who is there to protect you?”

“Come,” she said. “Come into my house.” She drew closer, and in the few feeble rays of light that broke through the branches, the long, very golden light of the last of the day, I saw her beautiful white teeth, and how her br**sts looked beneath her fine lace blouse, and above her painfully tight leather girdle.

Well, it wouldn’t hurt just to lie with her, just to put my lips on her br**sts, I thought. But then. She is a witch. Why do I allow myself to even think of this?

“Ashlar,” she said, “we all know your tale. We know you are the king who betrayed your kind. Don’t you want to ask the spirits of the cave how you might be forgiven?”

“Forgiven? Only Christ can forgive me my sins, child,” I said. “I’m going.”

“What power has Christ to change the curse that Janet has laid upon you?”

“Don’t taunt me anymore,” I said. I wanted her. And the angrier I became, the Jess I cared about her.

“Come with me,” she said. “Drink the brew that I have by the fire, and then go into the cave, and you will see the spirits who know all things, King Ashlar.”

She came up to the horse, and laid her hand on mine, and I felt the desire rising in me. She had a witch’s penetrating eyes; and the soul of Janet seemed to look out of them.

I had not even made up my mind when she’d helped me from my horse, and we were walking together through the thick bracken and elderberry.