was speechless. So was he. It would have been Mona’s voice except it sounded older, and a little less strong, as though chastened already by the world.
He looked up to see her standing there, big spill of vivid red locks, woman’s breasts and long curved legs, and her eyes, her eyes like green fire.
“Father,” she whispered, dropping to her knees. Her long fingers shot out and clasped his face.
He closed his eyes.
“Rowan,” she said. “Love me, please, and then maybe he will.”
Rowan cried, her fingers tightening on his neck. His heart was thudding in his ears, thudding as if it were growing bigger and bigger.
“Morrigan is my name,” she said.
“She’s mine, my child,” Mona said, “and yours, Michael.”
“And I think it’s time that you let me speak,” said Morrigan, “that I take the burden of decision from both of you.”
“Honey, slow down,” he said. He blinked his eyes slowly, trying to clear his vision.
But something had disturbed this long nymph. Something had made her draw back her hands and then sniff at her fingers. Her eyes flashed to Rowan and then to him. She rose, rushing close to Rowan, before Rowan could possibly move away, sniffing at Rowan’s cheeks, and then standing back.
“What is that scent?” she said. “What is it! I know that scent!”
“Listen to me,” Rowan said. “We’ll talk. That’s what you said. Now come.” She moved forward, releasing him to die of a heart attack entirely by himself, and she put her arms around the girl’s waist, the girl staring down at her with comically frightened eyes.
“The scent’s all over you.”
“What do you think it is?” Mona asked. “What could it be?”
“A male,” the girl whispered. “They’ve been with him, these two.”
“No, he’s dead,” said Mona, “you’re picking it up again from the floorboards, from the walls.”
“Oh no,” she whispered. “This is a living male.” Suddenly she grabbed Rowan by the shoulders. Mona and Mary Jane sped to her side, gently tugging her arms away. Michael was on his feet. God, the creature was the same height as he was. Mona’s face, but not Mona, no, not Mona at all.
“The smell is driving me mad,” she whispered. “You keep this secret from me? Why?”
“Give them time to explain,” Mona pleaded. “Morrigan, stop it, listen to me.” And then she had the girl’s hands in hers, holding them tight. And Mary Jane was standing on tiptoe.
“Now just you simmer down, long tall Sally, and let them tell us the scoop.”
“You don’t understand,” Morrigan said, voice suddenly thick and tears gathering in her huge green eyes, as she looked again to Michael, to Rowan. “There’s a male, don’t you see? There’s a male of me! Mother, you can smell the scent. Mother, tell the truth!” It was a scream. “Mother, please, I can’t stand it!” And her sobs came like something tumbling downstairs, her face clenched in pain, her tall angular body wobbling, and bending gently as she let the other two embrace her and keep her from falling.
“Let us take her now,” said Mary Jane.
“Just don’t do anything, you have to swear,” Mona pleaded.
“And we’ll meet and we’ll talk, and we’ll …”
“Tell me,” the stricken girl whispered. “Tell me, where is he?”
Rowan pushed Michael towards the elevator, pulling open the old wooden door. “Get in.”
And the last thing he saw, as he leaned against the back wall of the elevator, was those pretty cotton dresses, as the three of them fled up the stairs together.
He lay on the bed.
“Now, don’t think of it now. Don’t think,” Rowan said.
The wet rag felt exactly like a wet rag. He didn’t like it.
“I’m not going to die,” he said quietly. And what an effort, the words. Was it defeat again, was it a great ghastly defeat, and the scaffolding of the normal world buckling beneath its weight, and the future forecast once more in the colors of death and Lent, or was it something that they could embrace and contain, something that they could somehow accept without the mind shattering?
“What do we do?” she whispered.
“You are asking me this, you? What do we do?” He rolled over on his side. The pain was a little less. He was sweating all over and despised it, the feel of it, the inevitable smell. And where were they, the three beauties? “I don’t know what we do,” he answered.
She sat still on the side of the bed, her shoulders slightly hunched, her hair falling down against her cheek, her eyes gazing off.