“Mother!” I cried. “I’m pregnant!”
No wind in answer, no song of bird. Not even the squeak of a bat, high in that moon-tunneled darkness. Silence and sleep. I stood amid watching shadows and wept.
[We stood in the darkness and watched her, Israfel and I. I think I cried, I who have wept only once since the fountains of the deep grew dry.
“She was supposed to go from here, into hiding,” I said. “To Chinanga, where no one could hurt her!”
“Yes,” Israfel nodded. “But she needed a little rest first.”
“Perhaps we could take it out of her and hide it somewhere else,” I said.
“We’d kill her if we tried,” said Israfel. “It has grown into her. She permeates it, now. You can’t get it out without killing her.”
“Is the Dark Lord looking for it yet?”
“He has been looking for it since he was born. He simply doesn’t know what it is.”
“And he has not found it yet.”
Israfel shook his head to tell me no, the Dark Lord had not found it yet.
I think people sensed it in her. I think Jaybee and Barrymore Gryme had sensed it, without knowing what it was. Perhaps the Dark Lord had sensed it as well, though he had not found it yet.
“Can we wait until she has the baby?” I asked.
“We must,” said Israfel. “Since it was fathered by someone who may be a minion of the Dark Lord himself, who knows what it is likely to be,” he said. “She cannot have it in Chinanga. She would remain pregnant forever in Chinanga. She could have it in Faery, but everyone would talk of it and the Dark Lord would surely be curious about it. Better that she have it here, where it will evoke no curiosity, where it will only be another birth among these fecund humans. If it is a monster, we can protect her from it.”
“Poor child,” I said. I had said that several times recently. Briefly I wondered, if I had known her before we did what we did, would I have done it?
“Yes,” said Israfel, reading my mind. “You would.”]
There was no answer to my cry. I tried again. “What am I going to do?” Still no answer. The shadows looked like robed figures, watching me. Almost I expected them to speak, but they did not. Instead they wavered, as in a breeze, and became only shadows.
What could I do. Go back to the twentieth. Stay where I was. Go somewhere else. Oh God, oh God, where was Father Raymond? Where was Doll? Asleep, deep asleep.
In the twentieth it wouldn’t be much. Women had children all the time, married or not. As Candy would say, not enough to shed two tears over. Except he was there, Jaybee. Wouldn’t he love it, making me pregnant. Wouldn’t he strut, cock of the walk, cock of the dung heap. Wouldn’t he whisper to me, stroking me like a cat, Beauty, Beauty, come with me, Beauty, or else.… And what would he do to a child?
I couldn’t. I would rather die. Not merely words, those, but truth. If dying were the choice, then I’d do it. Drown myself out in the lake. Swim out until I couldn’t swim any farther, then go down, choking, just for a little time, into swimmy depths.
Not to know how it all came out? Not to know where Mama was? Not to know whether it would be a boy, or a girl. Or neither! There was a thought!
Abortion. I could go back and have an abortion! Go to some other place. New York, New York, the wonderful town. Chicago. It didn’t have to be the States of America, it could be London! I didn’t need to have it. It could be ripped out.
I howled.
I didn’t want it to be ripped out. I didn’t want it, either, but I didn’t …
Didn’t …
Don’t, I told myself. Don’t do anything. Don’t decide anything. You’re too tired and upset. Go up to your room and sleep, here in Westfaire. Wrapped in your cloak, you’re safe. Sleep.
I did. I went up the winding staircase to my own tower room, finding it miraculously repaired, all signs of the fire gone away. I started to lie down on the bed but found myself lying there already. Someone had brought Beloved up from the room far below where I had put her. Somebody had put her in the tower, where romance and glamour demanded she be. The fairy aunts, like enough. I would have done it had I been all fairy. On the chest beside her my mysterious thing made its quiet noise, and I looked long at it, convincing myself the lacy arrow had moved. Not much, but some. It was now exactly halfway between the fourteen and the fifteen.
“Oh, shit,” I said, leaving it there to go thumping my way down the stairs, down to Aunt Lavender’s room. She was asleep on the floor. Her bed would be empty, dust free and sweet scented by the herb she was named after. As it was, for Grumpkin and I lay down there, wrapped in the cloak, and slept, deeply and dreamlessly, until morning.
Morning was as strange as night had been. Everything was lost in a green murk. Only at noon, with the sun straight overhead, was there any light, for the roses went up to make a great chimney, open at the top. I could look straight up and see clouds passing, birds flying. “Mama,” I called again, thinking she might be about, for perhaps she had helped to move Beloved, “I’m pregnant!”
No answer. Perhaps Aunt Joyeause had moved Beloved. Perhaps they had all come together, riding on doves, to repair the tower and
