needed it, but she was doing all right hanging on to the gate and to the fence, and then they were in the carport. And there was the big sleek limousine, and bless her heart, Mary Jane had started the engine, and the door was open. Here we go.
“Morrigan, stop singing! I have to think, tell her about the gate-opener. You have to press the little magic twanger.”
“I know that! Get in.”
Roar of the engine, and the rusty, creaky sound of the gate rolling back.
“You know, Mona, I’ve got to ask you something. I’ve got to. What if this thing can’t be born without your dying?”
“Shhhh, bite your tongue, cousin! Rowan didn’t die, did she, and she gave birth to one and the other! I’m not dying. Morrigan won’t let me.”
No, Mother, I love you. I need you, Mother. Don’t talk of dying. When you talk of death, I can smell death.
“Shhhhhh. Mary Jane, is the best place Fontevrault? You’re sure? Have we considered all the possibilities, perhaps a motel somewhere …”
“Lissen, Granny’s there, and Granny can be completely trusted, and that little boy staying with her will light out of there soon as I give him one of these twenty-dollar bills.”
“But he can’t leave his boat at the landing, not for someone else to—”
“No, he won’t do that, honey, don’t be silly, he’ll take his pirogue up home to his place! He doesn’t come by the landing. He lives up near town. Now just you sit back and rest. We’ve got a stash of things at Fontevrault. We have the attic, all dry and warm.”
“Oh yes, that would be wonderful.”
“And when the sun comes up in the morning, it will come into all the attic windows….”
Mary Jane hit the brakes. They were already at Jackson Avenue.
“Sorry, honey, this car is so powerful.”
“You’re having trouble? God, I never sat up here before, with the whole damned stretch behind me. This is weird, like driving a plane.”
“No, I’m not having trouble!” Mary Jane took the turn onto St. Charles. “ ’cept with these creepy drunken New Orleans drivers. It’s midnight, you know. But this is a cinch to drive, actually, especially if you’ve driven an eighteen-wheeler, which I certainly have.”
“And where the hell did you do that, Mary Jane?”
“Arizona, honey, had to do it, had to steal the truck, but that’s another story.”
Morrigan was calling her, singing again, but in that rapid humming voice. Singing to herself, perhaps.
I can’t wait to see you, to hold you! I love you more for what you are! Oh, this is destiny, Morrigan, this eclipses everything, the whole world of bassinets and rattles and happy fathers, well, he will be happy eventually, when he comes to understand that the terms now have changed utterly ….
The world spun. The cold wind swept down over the plain. They were dancing in spite of it, trying desperately to keep warm. Why had the warmth deserted them? Where was their homeland?
Ashlar said, “This is our homeland now. We must learn the cold as well as we learned the warmth.”
Don’t let them kill me, Mama.
Morrigan lay cramped, filling the bubble of fluid, her hair falling around her and under her, her knees pressed against her eyes.
“Honey, what makes you think anyone will hurt you?”
I think it because you think it, Mama. I know what you know.
“You’re talking to that baby?”
“I am, and it’s answering me.” Her eyes were closing when they hit the freeway. “Just you sleep now, darlin’. We’re burning up the miles, honey, this thing does ninety and you can’t even feel it.”
“Don’t get a ticket.”
“Honey, don’t you think a witch like me can handle a policeman? They never finish writing the ticket!”
Mona laughed. Things couldn’t have worked out better. Really, they couldn’t have.
And the best was yet to come.
Twenty-one
THE BELL TOLLING …
He was not really dreaming; he was planning. But when he did this on the edge of sleep, Marklin saw images vividly, saw possibilities that he could not see any other way.
They would go to America. They would take with them every scrap of valuable information which they had amassed. To hell with Stuart and with Tessa. Stuart had deserted them. Stuart had disappointed them for the last time. They would carry with them the memory of Stuart, Stuart’s belief and conviction, Stuart’s reverence for the mystery. But that would be all of Stuart that they would ever need.
They would set up some small apartment in New Orleans, and begin their systematic watch of the Mayfair