'Just means the powers that be kept the lid on. So far. Probably by manufacturing clever stories. Gang warfare. Ethnic strife. Something like that. There. I'm caught up.'
Nothing interesting happened for the rest of the day.
68
I did get to bed before sundown, never having taken a sip of beer. Dean had gone up right after supper. Singe didn't stay up much longer than I did. We left the house to Penny and Dollar Dan.
I fell asleep snuggling with the breather and a mound of handkerchiefs. Singe had delivered a mug of fierce medicinal tea on her way to her repose. That put me under, fast.
I wakened with the sun on the rise. And I was not alone.
Strafa was spooned up against me as though she had been there every night for years. She was leaner and warmer than what I was accustomed to.
I was startled, but only for a moment. Where else could she stay? The other beds were taken.
I moved slightly. She adjusted, too. My right hand discovered something smaller and more firm than what I anticipated. I cupped it. She pushed against my hand and made a little sound of contentment. I slipped back into Nod. She was purring.
When next I wakened I was on my back. Strafa's head was on my chest, over my heart. She was against me tightly, all the way down. Her hand was on my belly, thumb resting on my navel.
It all seemed perfectly reasonable.
My heartbeat quickened.
That wakened Strafa, slightly. Her hand drifted.
I squeaked. She purred but granted a stay after brief exploration. She wrapped that arm around me, over my right shoulder, pulled herself even closer, half on top, purred some more, and went back to sleep.
Singe awakened us. She showed no attitude. 'You won't have time to eat if you don't get moving.' She grabbed my used handkerchiefs. 'I'll get these washed. There are fresh downstairs.' Her nose twitched, no doubt telling her what she wanted to know. 'The Dead Man is still asleep. General Block should be here in about an hour. His message didn't say why. Otherwise, there is no news.'
Strafa untangled herself from the bedding while Singe talked, exposing my nakedness. No surprise to Singe. She knows I sleep raw. But Strafa was equally bare and not the least self-conscious.
Singe's nose twitched some more. She said nothing. Her season was no longer causing completely tormenting emotions.
She collected the breather. 'I'll have Dean recharge this.'
'Thanks.' I did not look at her. I could not stop staring at Strafa, who was digging in a trunk that hadn't been against the west wall when I went to bed.
The door shut behind Singe. Strafa looked at me, now sitting on the edge of the bed. 'You're having naughty thoughts. I can tell.'
Oh, yeah.
She came to me, pushed me back, straddled me, asked, 'Now? Or wait till tonight?'
I was no moral hero. I was no faithful lover. Had the name Tinnie Tate come up just then my best response would have been, 'Who?' I couldn't talk. My brains were scrambled. The woman had found her way deep inside my head. She had established emotional colonies. There was no way to drive her out.
I couldn't come up with an answer. So Strafa allowed herself the luxury of deciding for me.
As far as she was concerned the issue never was if but when.
69
I was still distracted when we reached the kitchen. Kind old Dean served breakfast despite the time. He was in a fine mood.
Morley shuffled in. He checked us out, smirked, but never said a word. Penny appeared as Dean set a plate in front of Morley. She sniffed as she settled into the last chair. She gave Strafa a dark look but didn't say anything, either.
Playmate stuck his head in. 'Anything I can do, Dean?' While he eyeballed me and Strafa.
'You could grab a hammer, some nails, and some boards, and add on to my kitchen. Otherwise, no. We can't squeeze another body in.'
It wasn't
I asked, 'Dean, who all is here? Besides who all I can see right now.'
'Singe. Some of John Stretch's people. That creature who calls himself the Bird.'
Penny said, 'Bird came to paint. His Honor is napping, though. So Bird is silencing his voices instead.'
That was about the longest speech she'd ever made in my presence. She sounded disconsolate. I risked panicking her. 'What do you think about him, Penny? Does he really hear voices?'
She made herself reply, her voice tiny as she did so. 'Yes. He hears them. And not just because he's crazy. They're real. He let me talk to them while we were working.'
Kitchen business stopped. Penny shrank under the pressure of curious eyes.
'The Dead Man thinks the Bird belongs in the crazy ward at the Bledsoe.'
'His Honor can't hear the voices. He only hears Bird's answers. If Bird does answer. Mostly, he just takes another drink.'
'How did you talk to the voices, then?'
'Bird told me what they said. They heard me when I answered.'
Dean rested a reassuring hand on Penny's shoulder. 'You'll be all right.'
I didn't get the girl. A couple, three years ago she had been hell on wheels, acting in her role as high priestess of a screw-ball country cult, hiding out from religious enemies. But she'd always been pathologically shy around me. Which, as Kyra had told her, was totally Tinnie's fault.
I asked, 'You talked to them?'
'Sure.'
I blew my nose. 'How did that work?'
'Bird just lets the voice take over. Then I talk to the ghost. It doesn't last long. Bird only lets them talk so people will know he's telling the truth.'
I made myself stay calm. I had to keep the intensity down. Penny would trample Playmate trying to get away if I tripped her panic response. 'I'd sure like to see that.' Penny did not volunteer to arrange it. 'Who do the voices belong to?'
'Dead people. People who were murdered. Awful people, mostly.'
I once spent time in a relationship with a woman who had been murdered when I was a child. I met her ghost as an adult. I had no trouble with Penny's notion. 'Do tell.'
'Tell what? That the ones I talked to sounded like they got what they had coming? That's what drives Bird crazy. He has these whiny haunts, who deserved what they got, insisting that he do things for them.'
'I've got it.' Not only did the Bird have to deal with ghosts, his spooks belonged to that select crew who think they are more special than anyone else and should get special treatment always, in the main because they survived childbirth.
In TunFaire these leeches tend to come to a bad end early, though their survivability has improved since the war's end.
Once upon a time the body politic shed its parasites in the cauldron of the Cantard. They could be counted on to get themselves killed.
The war had had its fierce egalitarian side. There had been no buying out of it-though the clever had been
