the moment for that kind of witchcraft is past, and another eon of new witchcraft—”
“Darling, we really don’t take this entire witchcraft thing too seriously,” said Bea.
“You know the family history?” Celia had asked gravely.
“Know it? I know things about it you don’t know. I know things my granny told me, that she heard from Old Tobias, I know things that are written on the walls in that house, still. When I was a little child, I sat on Ancient Evelyn’s knee. Ancient Evelyn told me all kinds of things that I remember. Just one afternoon, that’s all it took.”
“But the file on our family, the file by the Talamasca …” Celia had pressed. “They did give it to you at the clinic?”
“Oh, yeah, Bea and Paige brought that stuff to me,” said Mary Jane. “Look here.” She pointed to the Band-Aid on her arm that was just like the Band-Aid on her knee. “This is where they stuck me! Took enough blood to sacrifice to the devil. I understand the entire situation. Some of us have a whole string of extra genes. You breed two close kins with the double dose of double helix, and wham, you’ve got a Taltos. Maybe! Maybe! After all, think about it, how many cousins have married and married, and it never happened, did it, till … Look, we shouldn’t talk about it in front of her, you’re right.”
Michael had given a weary little smile of gratitude.
Mary Jane again squinted at Rowan. Mary Jane blew a big bubble with her gum, sucked it in, and popped it.
Mona laughed. “Now that’s some trick,” she said. “I could never do that.”
“Oh, well, that might be a blessing,” said Bea.
“But you did read the file,” Celia had pressed. “It’s very important that you know everything.”
“Oh, yeah, I read every word of it,” Mary Jane had confessed, “even the ones I had to look up.” She slapped her slender, tanned little thigh and shrieked with laughter. “Y’all talking about giving me things. Help me get some education, that’s about the only thing I could really use. You know, the worst thing that ever happened to me was my mama taking me out of school. ’Course, I didn’t want to go to school then. I had much more fun in the public library, but—”
“I think you’re right about the extra genes,” Mona said. And right about needing the education.
Many, many of the family had the extra chromosomes which could make monsters, but none had ever been born to the clan, no matter what the coupling, until this terrible time.
And what of the ghost this monster had been for so long, a phantom to drive young women mad, to keep First Street under a cloud of thorns and gloom? There was something poetic about the strange bodies lying right here, beneath the oak, under the very grass where Mary Jane stood in her short denim skirt with her flesh-colored Band-Aid on her little knee, and her hands on her little hips, and her little filthy white patent leather buckle shoe rolled to one side and smeared with fresh mud—with her little dirty sock half down in her heel.
Maybe Bayou witches are just plain dumb, Mona thought. They can stand over the graves of monsters and never know it. Of course, none of the other witches in this family knew it either. Only the woman who won’t talk, and Michael, the big hunk of Celtic muscle and charm standing beside Rowan.
“You and I are second cousins,” Mary Jane had said to Mona, renewing her approach. “Isn’t that something? You weren’t born when I came to Ancient Evelyn’s house and ate her homemade ice cream.”
“I don’t recall Ancient Evelyn ever making homemade ice cream.”
“Darlin’, she made the best homemade ice cream that I ever tasted. My mama brought me into New Orleans to—”
“You’ve got the wrong person,” said Mona. Maybe this girl was an impostor. Maybe she wasn’t even a Mayfair. No, no such luck on that. And there was something about her eyes that reminded Mona a little of Ancient Evelyn.
“No, I got the right person,” Mary Jane had insisted. “But we didn’t really come on account of the ice cream. Let me see your hands. Your hands are normal.”
“So what?”
“Mona, be nice, dear,” said Beatrice. “Your cousin is just sort of outspoken.”
“Well, see these hands?” said Mary Jane. “I had a sixth finger when I was little, on both hands? Not a real finger? You know? I mean just a