Taltos (32 page)

Mary Jane nodded. “Lots of girls. Idiots,” she said.

Eugenia had set down a cold salad of potatoes and peas, another Michael Curry gentleman’s special, tossed in oil and garlic. Eugenia plopped a big spoon of it on Mary Jane’s plate.

“Do we have any more milk?” asked Mona. “What are you drinking, Mary Jane?”

“Coca-Cola, please, Eugenia, if you don’t mind, but then I can certainly get up and get it myself.”

Eugenia was outraged at the suggestion, especially coming from an unknown cousin who was obviously a perfect rube. She brought the can and the glass of ice.

“Eat, Mona Mayfair!” Eugenia said. She poured the milk from the carton. “Come on now.”

The meat tasted awful to Mona. She couldn’t figure why. She loved this kind of food. As soon as it had been set before her, it had begun to disgust her. Probably just the usual bout of sickness, she thought, and that proves I’m on schedule. Annelle had said it would happen at just about six weeks. That is, before she’d declared the baby was a three-month-old monster.

Mona bowed her head. Little wisps of that last dream were catching hold of her, very tenacious and full of associations that were just moving away from her at jet speed as soon as she tried to catch them, and hold them, and open up the dream itself.

She sat back. She drank the milk slowly. “Just leave the carton,” she said to Eugenia, who hovered over her, wrinkled and solemn, glaring at her, and at her untouched plate.

“She’ll eat what she needs to eat, won’t she?” asked Mary Jane, helpfully. Sweet kid. She was already gobbling her veal, and noisily stabbing every bit of mushroom and onion she could find with her fork.

Eugenia finally ambled off.

“Here, you want this?” said Mona. “Take it.” She pushed the plate towards Mary Jane. “I never touched it.”

“You sure you don’t want it?”

“It’s making me sick.” She poured herself another glass of milk. “Well, I was never much of a milk lover, you know, probably because the refrigerator in our house never kept it cold. But that’s changing. Everything’s changing.”

“Oh yeah, like what?” Mary Jane asked, rather wide-eyed. She chugalugged her entire Coke. “Can I get up and get another one?”

“Yes,” said Mona.

She watched Mary Jane as she bounced towards the refrigerator. Her dress had just enough flare to remind you of a little girl’s. Her legs looked beautifully muscled, thanks to the high heels, though they had looked beautifully muscled the other day when she’d been wearing flat shoes.

She flopped back down and started devouring Mona’s offering.

Eugenia poked her head in the door from the butler’s pantry.

“Mona Mayfair, you didn’t eat nothin’. You live on potato chips and junk!”

“Get out of here!” Mona said firmly. Eugenia vanished.

“But she’s trying to be maternal and all,” said Mary Jane. “Why did you yell at her?”

“I don’t want anybody to be maternal with me. And besides, she’s not. She’s a pest. She thinks … she thinks I’m
a bad person. It’s too long to explain. She’s always scolding me about something.”

“Yeah, well, when the father of the baby is Michael Curry’s age, you know, people are either going to blame him or you.”

“How did you know that?”

Mary Jane stopped gobbling, and looked at Mona.

“Well, it is him, isn’t it? I kinda figured you were sweet on him, first time I come here. I didn’t mean to make you mad. I thought you were happy about it. I keep getting this vibe that you’re really happy that he’s the father.”

“I’m not sure.”

“Oh, it’s him,” said Mary Jane. She jabbed the fork through the last piece of veal, picked it up, and stuffed it in her mouth and chewed it lustily, her smooth brown cheeks working furiously without so much as a line or a wrinkle or any real distortion. This was one beautiful girl. “I know,” she said, as soon as she had swallowed a wad of chewed meat big enough to catch in her windpipe and choke her to death.

“Look,” said Mona. “This is something I haven’t told anybody yet, and …”

“Everybody knows it,” said Mary Jane. “Bea knows it. Bea told me. You know what’s going to save Bea? That woman is going to get over her grief for Aaron on account of one simple reason. She never stops worrying about everybody else. She’s real worried about you and Michael Curry, because he’s got the genes, as everybody knows, and he’s Rowan’s husband. But she says that gypsy you fell in love with is just all wrong for you. He belongs with another kind of woman, somebody wild and homeless and without a family, like himself.”

“She said all that?”

Mary Jane nodded. Suddenly she spied the plate of bread which Eugenia had set out for them, slices of plain white bread.

Mona didn’t consider bread like that fit for consumption. She only ate French bread, or rolls, or something properly prepared to accompany a meal. Sliced bread! Sliced
white
bread!

Mary Jane grabbed the top slice, mushed it together, and started sopping up veal juice.

“Yeah, she said all that,” said Mary Jane. “She told Aunt Viv and she told Polly and Anne Marie. Didn’t seem to know that I was listening. But I mean, this is what is going to save her, that she’s got so much on her mind about the family, like coming down to Fontevrault and making me leave.”

“How could they all know this about me and Michael?”

Mary Jane shrugged. “You’re asking me? Darlin’, this is a family of witches, you’re supposed to know that better than I do. Any number of ways they could have found out. But, come to think of it, Ancient Evelyn spilled the beans to Viv, if I am not mistaken. Something about you and Michael being here alone?”

“Yeah,” said Mona with a sigh. “So big deal. I don’t have to tell them. So much for that.” But if they started being mean to Michael, if they started treating him any differently, if they started …

“Oh, I don’t think you have to worry about that, like I said, when it’s a man that age and a girl your age, they blame one or the other, and I think they blame you. I mean, not in a mean way or anything, they just say things like, ‘Whatever Mona wants, Mona gets,’ and ‘Poor Michael,’ and you know, stuff like, ‘Well, if it got him up off that bed and to feeling better, maybe Mona’s got the healing gift.’ ”

“Terrific,” said Mona. “Actually, that’s exactly the way I feel myself.”

“You know, you’re tough,” said Mary Jane.

The veal juice was gone. Mary Jane ate the next slice of bread plain. She closed her eyes in a deliberate smile of satiation. Her lashes were all smoky and slightly violet, rather like her lipstick actually, very subtle however, and glamorous and beautiful. She had a damned near perfect face.

“Now I know who you look like!” cried Mona. “You look like Ancient Evelyn, I mean in her pictures when she was a girl.”

“Well, that makes sense, now doesn’t it?” said Mary Jane, “being’s we’re come down from Barbara Ann.” Mona poured the last of the milk into her glass. It was
still wonderfully cold. Maybe she and this baby could live on milk alone, she wasn’t sure.

“What do you mean, I’m tough?” asked Mona. “What did you mean by that?”

“I mean you don’t get insulted easily. Most of the time, if I talk like this, you know, completely open-like, with no secrets, like really trying to get to know somebody??? You know??? I offend that person.”

“Small wonder,” said Mona, “but you don’t offend me.”

Mary Jane stared hungrily at the last thin, forlorn slice of white bread.

“You can have it,” said Mona.

“You sure?”

“Positive.”

Mary Jane grabbed it, tore the middle out of it, and started rolling the soft bread into a ball. “Boy, I love it this way,” she said. “When I was little??? You know??? I used to take a whole loaf, and roll it all into balls!”

“What about the crust?”

“Rolled it into balls,” she said, shaking her head with nostalgic wonder. “Everything into balls.”

“Wow,” said Mona flatly. “You know, you really are fascinating, you’re the most challenging combination of the mundane and mysterious that I’ve ever run across.”

“There you go, showing off,” said Mary Jane, “but I know you don’t mean any harm, you’re just teasing me, aren’t you? Did you know that if mundane started with a
b
, I’d know what it meant?”

“Really? Why?”

“Because I’m up to
b
in my vocabulary studies,” said Mary Jane. “I’ve been working on my education in several different ways, I’d like to know what you think about it. See, what I do is, I get a big-print dictionary??? You know???? The kind for old ladies with bad eyes??? And I cut out the
b
words, which gives me some familiarity with them right there, you know, cutting out each one with the definition, and then I throw all the little balls of paper … oops, there we go again,” she laughed. “Balls, more balls.”

“So I notice,” said Mona. “We little girls are just all obsessed with them, aren’t we?”

Mary Jane positively howled with laughter.

“This is better than I expected,” said Mona. “The girls at school appreciate my humor, but almost no one in the family laughs at my jokes.”

“Your jokes are real funny,” said Mary Jane. “That’s because you’re a genius. I figure there are two kinds, ones with a sense of humor and those without it.”

“But what about all the
b
words, cut out, and rolled into balls?”

“Well, I put them in a hat, you know??? Just like names for a raffle.”

“Yeah.”

“And then I pick them out one at a time. If it’s some word nobody ever uses, you know, like
batrachian??
I just throw it away. But if it’s a good word like
beatitude
—‘a state of utmost bliss’???? Well, I memorize it right on the spot.”

“Hmmm, that sounds like a fairly good method. Guess you’re more likely to remember words that you like.”

“Oh yeah, but really, I remember almost everything, you know?? Being as smart as I am?” Mary Jane popped the bread ball into her mouth and started pulverizing the frame of crust.

“Even the meaning of
batrachian?”
asked Mona.

“ ‘A tailless leaping amphibian,’ ” Mary Jane answered. She nibbled on the crust ball.

“Hey, listen, Mary Jane,” said Mona, “there’s plenty of bread in this house. You can have all you want. There’s a loaf right over there on the counter. I’ll get it for you.”

“Sit down! You’re pregnant, I’ll git it!” Mary Jane declared. She jumped up, reached for the bread, caught it by its plastic wrapping, and brought it down on the table.

“How about butter? You want some butter? It’s right here.”

“No, I’ve conditioned myself to eat it without butter, to save money, and I don’t want to go back to butter, because then I’ll miss the butter and the bread won’t taste so good.” She tore a slice out of the plastic, and scrunched up the middle of it.

“The thing is,” said Mary Jane, “I will forget
batrachian
if I don’t use it, but
beatitude
I will use, and not forget.”

“Gotcha. Why were you looking at me in that way?”

Mary Jane didn’t answer. She licked her lips, tore loose some fragments of soft bread, and ate them. “All this time, you remembered that we were talking about that, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“What do you think about your baby?” asked Mary Jane, and this time she looked worried and protective, sort of, or at least sensitive to what Mona felt.

“Something might be wrong with it.”

“Yeah.” Mary Jane nodded. “That’s what I figure.”

“It’s not going to be some giant,” said Mona quickly, though with each word, she found it more difficult to continue. “It’s not some monster or whatever. But maybe there’s just something wrong with it, the genes make some combination and … something could be wrong.”

She took a deep breath. This might be the worst mental pain she’d ever felt. All her life she’d worried about things—her mother, her father, Ancient Evelyn, people she loved. And she’d known grief aplenty, especially of late. But this worrying about the baby was wholly different; it aroused a fear so deep in her that it was agony. She found she’d put her hand on her belly again. “Morrigan,” she whispered.

Something stirred inside her, and she looked down by moving her eyes instead of her head.

“What’s wrong?” asked Mary Jane.

“I’m worrying too much. Isn’t it normal to think that something’s wrong with your baby?”

“Yeah, it’s normal,” said Mary Jane. “But this family has got lots of people with the giant helix, and they haven’t had horrible deformed little babies, have they? I mean, you know, what’s the track record of all this giant-helix breeding?”

Mona hadn’t answered. She was thinking, What difference does it make? If this baby’s not right, if this baby’s … She realized she was looking off through the greenery outside. It was still early afternoon. She thought of Aaron in the
drawerlike crypt at the mausoleum, lying one shelf up from Gifford. Wax dummies of people, pumped with fluid. Not Aaron, not Gifford. Why would Gifford be digging a hole in a dream?

A wild thought came to her, dangerous and sacrilegious, but not really so surprising. Michael was gone. Rowan was gone. Tonight she could go out there into the garden alone, when no one was awake on the property, and she could dig up the remains of those two that lay beneath the oak; she could see for herself what was there.

Only trouble was, she was frightened to do it. She had seen plenty of scenes in horror movies over the years in which people did that sort of thing, traipsed off to the graveyard to dig up a vampire, or went at midnight to discover just who was in what grave. She had never believed those scenes, especially if the person did it by herself or himself. It was just too frightening. To dig up a body, you had to have a lot more balls than Mona had.

She looked at Mary Jane. Mary Jane had finished her feast of bread, apparently, and she just sat there, arms folded, looking steadily at Mona in a manner that was slightly unnerving, Mary Jane’s eyes having taken on that dreamy luster that eyes have when the mind has drifted, a look that wasn’t vacant but deceptively seriously focused.

“Mary Jane?” she said.

She expected to see the girl startle, and wake up, so to speak, and immediately volunteer what she had been thinking. But nothing like that happened. Mary Jane just kept looking at her in exactly the same fashion, and she said: