The Fifth Sacred Thing (78 page)

“Hush,” Madrone whispered. “I’m taking you out of here. Nod if you understand.”

Katy nodded, then bit her lip as a cramp rippled over her belly.

“I hate to ask you at a time like this, but do you think you can walk if I help you?”

Katy’s lips twisted but she didn’t say no, and Madrone unbuckled the restraints that held her arms and legs and helped her off the gurney. She was
naked under the sheet, so Madrone wrapped it around her and supported her as she staggered forward.

“Weak,” she whispered.

“It’s okay. Lean on me.”

It was more than leaning, more like half carrying her, Madrone thought, as she maneuvered her up the stairs.
Diosa
, I’m never going to make it, I’m still weak myself from nearly drowning. But there’s no choice, is there? Just go, step by step, up and up again, don’t think about how many more are to come, and keep breathing. An old song sang itself in her head,

There were more words, but she couldn’t remember them. No matter, just that phrase, repeating itself endlessly, idiotically, somehow helped her. She was sweating and panting. The blood was pounding in her ears. Pull in
ch’i
, pour it into Katy, keep her alive, keep herself alive, find it somewhere in these sterile halls. Johanna, help. Papa, help. Yemaya, you seem so far away now. Up, and up again. One flight gone and then half of another. Halfway there. Don’t think about it, just the next step, or this one, or something else entirely. Rock climbing with Bird when they were teenagers, thinking she would cling forever to the side of that cliff, and somehow finding the strength to go up and up. Breathing. Here was air, there was nothing to stop her breathing. In, out. Up, lift. Another flight, only half a flight more to go now, and maybe she should stop and rest, her head pounding, but at any moment this grace of time could evaporate, and she still had to figure what to do when she reached the top. Five more steps. Four. Three. Two. One. Blessed be.

She tucked Katy into a corner. In the Good Reality, no one will come in here while I’m gone, and in the Next Best Reality, they won’t notice her behind this doorway. “Rest a moment,” she said. “Stay quiet, okay?”

Katy nodded again. Madrone wiped the sweat off her face, adjusted her cap down low on her forehead, steadied her breathing not to where she felt rested but to where she could control its pace, and went out.

How do I get her out of here? she thought. As a basket of laundry? Where do I find one, and why would I be taking it out-of-doors? In a wheelchair? Where do I get one? Down by the front entrance, somebody’s bound to be released eventually and why shouldn’t it be now? Yes, there was someone going out, now wait, and watch the procedure, oh, blessed holy mother of everything living—no guards, no forms, just wheeled straight out—and now, if my
suerte
holds, and no energetic types take the stairs instead of the elevators,
and no one notices how I’ve slowed my pace down this corridor so as not to be lurking, and yes, here it comes, back in, now please, Mama, just help me pull this last one off.

“Oh, hey, thanks a heap,” she said, smiling and approaching the tech wheeling the empty chair. “Just what I need! Can I take it?” She blinked at him through her lashes, hoping she looked flirtatious and not simply grotesque. He grinned and winked at her.

“All yours, pretty mama.”

She winked back, hoping she didn’t reek of sweat and fear, and headed back down the hall. There was one more bad moment, when she had to leave the chair to rouse Katy, and guide her out into the corridor, praying that no one was passing to wonder why an obviously sick woman was emerging from the stairwell. But their luck held. Katy collapsed into the chair, and Madrone covered her with a sheet and the hospital blanket from the gurney.

“Try to look happy,” Madrone whispered, and wheeled on down the hall at a brisk but steady pace. Their time must be almost up. The trip up the stairwell had seemed to take an eternity, but even in objective time it had to be close to an hour or more since she had hidden from the doctors in the hallway. Had they returned to check on Katy? Oh, Goddess, let them linger over dinner, let them get drunk, let beautiful women seduce them for the night, let them choke on their food and die instantly of simultaneous heart failure. Yes, heart failure would be a poetically apt end. Breathe, now calm, now smile. Here is the entrance, with much coming and going, and with the last bit of
ch’i
you can muster up, wrap yourselves in the glamour that this is all entirely normal and expected, you are just wheeling a newly released patient to a waiting car, false labor, perhaps, nothing out of the ordinary, and, yes, there it was, the outside door, opening and closing, opening as in
El Mundo Bueno
it would open for them, automatically, normally, and yes, yes, with another breath, another step, they were going to make it, three more steps, two, one, pause, let the door open, and now, praise the earth, they were walking through.

As they passed through the doorway, the air was shattered with the shrieking of alarms.

Bells clanged, sirens screeched; behind them Madrone heard shouted commands and running feet. She didn’t stop to think but gripped the bars of Katy’s wheelchair and ran, ignoring the winding ramp and bouncing down the flight of shallow steps. A voice shouted out, and a warning beam of laser fire split the air above her head. She continued on. The drive seemed a million miles away. She could see a black car there, waiting. Was it the right car? By the time they crossed the fifty feet of cement walkway between here and there,
they might be crossing to the realm of the ancestors. She was so tired she no longer cared very much, as she willed her feet to keep moving, dodging, running, as she called out silently for help.

Another warning shout came from behind. A shot went wild, blasting the ground five yards beyond them. Another shot, and a bush burst into flame. And then they were surrounded by a swarm of bees. The sisters, Madrone thought, and she was part of the humming, buzzing, circling mass, her whole being filled with the scents of alarm and rage. Katy cried out, and Madrone placed a hand on her shoulder, gathered her last strength to protect her, send a mantle of
rightness
over her, even as part of her felt the swarm urge to kill the wrongness, the sickness, end the disease.

“Not her, not her,” Madrone cried to them, but words were not the way to reach them, only smells and energies and images. They could smell the sickness in Katy, and it was stronger than the sense of danger from behind. She cried out again and covered her face with her hands.

“They’re stinging me,” she cried. “Make them stop!”

Madrone stopped running. Danger here, danger behind, but she needed a moment, no matter what it cost, just to stop, to breathe, to center. She threw herself over Katy, sheltering her with her body, trying to form the image, the scent, of the brood queen, she who must be protected at all cost, and behind them, back at the source of the stinging projectiles, danger, danger! She tried to remember the Melissa’s training. Breathe, form the image, smell the scent, and let it well up as a bead of sweat in the center of her forehead. Yes, there was a change now; she heard screams from behind and could vaguely make out, through the cloud of bees around her, forms swinging and swatting and dashing back behind the safety of closed doors. Thank you, sisters. You have bought us a precious moment of time with your deaths.

She grasped the handles of the wheelchair again. A black car with smoked windows awaited them in the circular drive, a horn honked, and Madrone dashed toward it. She couldn’t see who drove but a hand emerged that bore Sara’s flashing diamond.
Diosa
, let it really be her!

Madrone flung open the back door. Katy tried to enter but her bulk stuck and Madrone pushed her roughly in and flung herself on top. The car careened out of the drive, its door still flying open, Katy crying out in pain. Somehow Madrone managed to get the door shut and to disentangle herself and Katy as Sara drove wildly out past the hospital grounds.

“What happened?” Sara asked.

“The alarms went wild as we went out the door.”

“Check her for an ID bracelet, tattoo, anything they might have keyed to trigger an alarm.”

“I should have thought of that,” Madrone said.

“You can’t think of everything.”

There was a thin band of plastic around Katy’s right arm. Madrone ripped it off with her teeth.

“Could it be thin white plastic?”

“Let’s hope. It could be something implanted in her internal organs, to track her if she gets away.”

Yes, the bracelet had a hum, when Madrone
felt
it. She should have noticed that. Rolling down the window, she tossed it out, letting it drift off behind them as Sara turned a sharp corner. What else? Breathing, she
felt
throughout Katy’s body. But it seemed clear of other devices. Nevertheless, she was still in a serious condition. Labor had intensified, and her fever was rapidly returning. And Madrone herself was exhausted. But they had made it so far. Half a dozen bees were trapped in the car with them, and their sound was a comfort, but Madrone opened the window again and shooed them out. Sweet, sweet, she projected, beads of honey sweat, offerings, thanks. Without you, we would both be bloody rags on a pavement. You have given us back our lives.

30

“I
f I could just have five minutes of quiet and something to drink,” Madrone said. Or sleep, she thought, even half an hour of sleep.
Diosa
, how was she going to carry on, exhausted to the point of dull fury now that the adrenaline wash of fear had left her beached, high and dry?

The cabin of Isis’ boat was crammed with too many bodies. Katy was installed on the side bunk, her contractions coming faster now. Angela was crying, Mary Ellen was holding and soothing the child, and Isis was bustling around pulling life jackets out of cabinets and stowing supplies. They were all on edge, waiting for Sara’s return.

“Or some food,” Madrone went on. “Honey water, acorn grits, I don’t care.…” If you would just all go away, for a moment, and leave me with no one else’s weight to drag.

“Hmph.” Mary Ellen snorted. “We can do better than that. Where’s that bag of food I brought from Miss Sara’s house? Angela baby, you hush now. Sit right here, you gonna be all right. I’ll get some food for Miss Madrone.”

“Just Madrone,” Madrone said through gritted teeth. How could she be angry at the poor woman, but it grated on her, like an insult. “No miss, no mistress, no servants here. We’re all equal now. Get used to it.” That’s right, be rude to the woman. She’s trying to help you, and you’re acting like a bitch. If only she could sleep for a night, a year, forever, before facing this next task. But Katy’s moaning reminded her that she couldn’t.

Mary Ellen smiled at her kindly, impervious to offense. “You want some fruit, maybe a little honey on it? Easy to digest. I’ll slice you an apple, and I brought some juice for the baby.”

“You’re an—” Madrone stopped. She had started to say “angel” but the word made her gag. “A goddess.”

Angela’s cries continued to provide a descant to Katy’s moans.

“I’m going up to make sail,” Isis said.

“You need help?” Madrone asked.

“No. You rest up. As soon as Sara gets back, we’re casting off. Mary
Ellen, there’s life jackets in the closet by the head; better put one on the baby. And yourself, too, unless you swim. Madrone’s already proved she’s a Witch; toss her in the water and she floats like a cork.”

“Eat,” Mary Ellen said to Madrone. On the counter she had set sliced strawberries, a bowl of honey, toast and butter and cream. Madrone ate, as the teakettle boiled. She dipped a spoon into the honey and licked it, feeling a little energy return. Sara was taking a long time to get back from leaving the car.

“Leave it far away,” Isis had told Sara, “so if they find it they won’t right away come looking for a boat. Trash it a bit, take the hubcaps and radio, make it look like highflyers lifted it and dumped it later.”