She lifted her arms, turning round and round, head falling back, hair hanging long and low. She hummed a song, something soft, something Michael knew he had heard before, something perhaps that Tessa had sung, Tessa, closeted away to die without ever seeing this child? Or Ash, had he hummed this song, Ash, who would never never forgive them if they kept this secret from him, the world-weary wanderer.
She dropped to her knees beside Rowan. The two young women stiffened, but Mona motioned that Mary Jane was to wait.
Rowan did nothing. She was hugging her knees with her clasped hands. She did not move as the lithe, silent figure drew very close, as Morrigan sniffed at her cheeks, her neck, her hair. Then slowly Rowan turned, staring into her face.
Not human, no, dear God, not at all. What is she?
Calm and collected, Rowan gave no sign that she might be thinking the very same thing. But surely she sensed something like danger.
“I can wait,” Morrigan said softly. “Write it in stone, his name, where he is. Carve it in the trunk of the funeral oak. Write it somewhere. Keep it from me, but keep it, keep it until a time comes. I can wait.”
Then she drew back and, making those same pirouettes, left the room, humming to herself, the humming higher and higher until it became like a whistle.
They sat in silence. Suddenly Dolly Jean said, “Oh!” She had fallen asleep, and now she was awake. “Well, what happened?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Rowan said.
She looked at Mona, and Mona looked at her, and something silent passed between them.
“Well, I better go watch her,” said Mary Jane, hurrying out of the room. “Before she goes and jumps in the swimming pool again with all her clothes, or lies down on the grass back there, trying to smell those two dead bodies.”
Mona sighed.
“So what does the mother have to say to the father?” Michael asked.
Mona thought for a long moment. “Watch. Watch and wait.” She looked at Rowan. “I know now why you did what you did.”
“You do?” Rowan whispered.
“Yeah,” Mona said. “Yeah, I know.” Slowly she climbed to her feet. She was leaving the room, when suddenly she turned. “I didn’t mean … I didn’t mean it was all right to hurt her.”
“We know that it’s not all right,” said Michael. “And she’s my child too, remember.”
Mona looked up at him, torn, helpless, as if there were a thousand things she wanted to say, to ask, to explain. And then she only shook her head and, turning her back on them, moved towards the door quietly. At the very last, she looked back, her face a radiant burst of light, of feeling. The little girl with the woman’s body beneath her fussy dress. And my sin has done this, my sin has unleashed this thing, as if from the heart and mind of Mona herself, he thought.
“I smell it too, the scent,” said Mona. “A living male. Can’t you wash it off? Scrub it off with soap. Then maybe, maybe she’ll calm down, she’ll stop thinking about it and talking about it, she’ll be all right. In the night, she may come into your room, you may wake up with her bending over you. She won’t hurt you. In a way you’ve got the upper hand.”
“How so?” Michael asked.
“If she doesn’t do everything we say, you’ll never tell her about the male. It’s simple.”
“Yes, it’s a means of control,” said Rowan.
“There are other means. She suffers so.”
“You’re tired, honey,” said Michael. “You should rest.”
“Oh, we will, in each other’s arms. It’s only when you wake and you see her sniffing at the clothes, don’t be frightened. It can look kind of terrible.”
“Yes,” said Rowan. “We will all be prepared.”
“But who is he?” Mona asked.
Rowan turned, as if to make sure she had heard this question right.
Dolly Jean, her head bowed, gave a sudden startling snore.
“Who is the male?” asked Mona, insistent, her eyes suddenly half-mast with exhaustion and slightly haunted.
“And if I tell you,” said Rowan, “then you must keep it from her. Let us be the strong ones on that score. Trust us.”
“Mother!” Morrigan called. A waltz had begun, Richard Strauss, strings, one of those lovely bland records that you can listen to for the rest of your life. He wanted to see them dancing, but in a way he didn’t.
“Do the guards know she’s not to go out?” Michael asked.
“Well, not really,” Mona said. “You know, it would