Taltos

“But don’t you see, that will help!” declared Mary Jane. They were headed up now, and it only looked like one hundred steps to the light up there, and the thin figure of Benjy, who, having lighted the lights, was now making his slow, languid descent, though Mary Jane was already hollering at him.

Granny had stopped at the foot of the steps. Her white nightgown touched the soiled floor. Her black eyes were calculating, taking Mona’s measure. A Mayfair, all right, thought Mona.

“Get the blankets, the pillows, all that,” said Mary Jane. “Hurry up. And the milk, Benjy, get the milk.”

“Well, now, just wait a minute,” Granny shouted. “This girl looks like she doesn’t have time to be spending the night in that attic. She ought to go to the hospital right now. Where’s the truck? Your truck at the landing?”

“Never mind that, she’s going to have the baby here,” said Mary Jane.

“Mary Jane!” roared Granny. “God damn it, I can’t climb these steps on account of my hip.”

“Just go back to bed, Granny. Make Benjy hurry with that stuff. Benjy, I’m not going to pay you!!!!”

They continued up the attic steps, the air getting warmer as they ascended.

It was a huge space.

Same crisscross of electric lights she’d seen below, and look at the steamer trunks and the wardrobes tucked into every gable. Every gable except for one, which held the bed deep inside, and next to it, an oil lamp.

The bed was huge, built out of those dark, plain posts they used so much in the country, the canopy gone, and only the netting stretched over the top, veil after veil. The netting veiled the entrance to the gable. Mary Jane lifted it as Mona fell forward on the softest mattress.

Oh, it was all dry! It was. The feather comforter went poof all around her. Pillows and pillows. And the oil lamp, though it was treacherously close, made it into a little tent of sorts around her.

“Benjy! Get that ice chest now.”

“Chere, I just carry that ice chest to the back porch,” the boy said, or something like it, the accent clearly Cajun. Didn’t sound like the old woman at all. She just sounds like one of us, thought Mona, a little different maybe….

“Well, just go git it,” Mary Jane said.

The netting caught all the golden light, and made a beautiful solitary place of this big soft bed. Nice place to die, maybe better than in the stream with the flowers.

The pain came again, but this time she was so much more comfortable. What were you supposed to do? She’d read about it. Suck in your breath or something? She couldn’t remember. That was one subject she had not thoroughly researched. Jesus Christ, this was almost about to happen.

She grabbed Mary Jane’s hand. Mary Jane lay beside her, looking down into her face, wiping her forehead now with something soft and white, softer than a handkerchief.

“Yes, darlin’, I’m here, and it’s getting bigger and bigger, Mona, it’s just not, it’s …”

“It will be born,” Mona whispered. “It’s mine. It will be born, but if I die, you have to do it for me, you and Morrigan together.”

“What!”

“Make a bier of flowers for me-”

“Make a what?”

“Hush up, I’m telling you something that really matters.”

“Mary Jane!” Granny roared from the foot of the steps. “You come down here and help Benjy carry me up now, girl!”

“Make a raft, a raft, all full of flowers, you know,” Mona said. “Wisteria, roses, all those things growing outside, swamp irises …”

“Yeah, yeah, and then what!”

“Only make it fragile, real fragile, so that as I float away on it, it will slowly fall apart in the current, and I’ll go down into the water…. like Ophelia!”

“Yeah, okay, anything you say! Mona, I am scared now. I am really scared.”

“Then be a witch, ’cause there’s no changing anybody’s mind now, is there?”

Something broke! Just as if a hole had been poked through it. Christ, was she dead inside?

No, Mother, but I am coming. Please be ready to take my hand. I need you.

Mary Jane had drawn up on her knees, her hands slapped to the sides of her face.

“In the name of God!”

“Help it! Mary Jane! Help it!” screamed Mona.

Mary Jane shut her eyes tight and laid her hands on the mountain of Mona’s belly. The pain blinded Mona. She tried to see, to see the light in the netting, and to see Mary Jane’s squeezed-shut eyes, and feel her hands, and hear her whispering, but she couldn’t. She was falling. Down through the swamp trees with her hands up, trying to catch the branches.

“Granny, come help!” screamed Mary Jane.

And there came the rapid patter of the old woman’s feet!

“Benjy, get out!” the old woman screamed. “Go back downstairs, out, you hear me?”

Down, down through the swamps, the pain getting tighter and tighter. Jesus Christ, no wonder women hate this! No joke. This is horrible. God help me!

“Lord, Jesus Christ, Mary Jane,” Granny cried. “It’s a walking baby!”

“Granny, help me, take her hand, take it. Granny, you know what she is?”

“A walking baby, child. I’ve heard of them all my life, but never seen one. Jesus, child. When a walking baby was born out there in the swamps, to Ida Bell Mayfair, when I was a child, they said it stood taller than its mother as soon as it came walking out, and Grandpere Tobias went down there and chopped it up with an ax while the mother was laying there in the bed, screaming! Haven’t you never heard of the walking babies, child? In Santo Domingo they burned them!”

“No, not this baby!” wailed Mona. She groped in the dark, trying to open her eyes. Dear God, the pain. And suddenly a small slippery hand caught hers. Don’t die, Mama.

“Oh, Hail Mary, full of grace,” said Granny, and Mary Jane started the same prayer, only one line behind her, as if it were a reel. “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is …”

“Look at me, Mama!” The whisper was right by her ear. “Look at me! Mama, I need you, help me, make me grow big, big, big.”

“Grow big!” cried the women, but their voices were a long way off. “Grow big! Hail Mary, full of grace, help her grow big.”

Mona laughed! That’s right, Mother of God, help my walking baby!

But she was falling down through the trees forever, and quite suddenly someone grabbed both her hands, yes, and she looked up through the sparkling green light and she saw her own face above her! Her very own face, pale and with the same freckles and the same green eyes, and the red hair tumbling down. Was it her own self, reaching down to stop her fall, to save her? That was her own smile!

“No, Mama, it’s me.” Both hands clasped her hands. “Look at me. It’s Morrigan.”

Slowly she opened her eyes. She gasped, trying to breathe, breathe against the weight, trying to lift her head, reach for her beautiful red hair, raise up high enough just to … just to hold her face, hold it, and … kiss her.

Twenty-four

IT WAS SNOWING when she awoke. She was in a long cotton gown they’d given her, something very thick for the New York winters, and the bedroom was very white and quiet. Michael slept soundly against the pillow.

Ash worked below in his office, or so he had told her that he would. Or maybe he had finished his tasks and gone to sleep as well.

She could hear nothing in this marble room, in the silent, snowy sky above New York. She stood at the window, looking out at the gray heavens, and at the ways the flakes became visible, emerging distinct and small to fall heavily on the roofs around her, and on the sill of the window, and even in soft graceful gusts against the glass.