by Неизвестный
Mother Star of the Sea had to get moving. The damned cat was going berserk with impatience. There was no time to waste, not a single second. You took hell with you, even on vacation.
She did exactly what she was supposed to do—she ran. She did not know where she was going or even why she was here. That wasn't her business. She Just had to run. It that had brought her here would direct her movements.
There was one thing, though, she wanted to do on her own, and she wanted it so desperately that she risked the wrath of the cat for it.
For all the time she had been dead, she had been longing for one simple thing that was only available in life. Her last one had been stolen by a nurse's aide on the cancer ward at Perpetual Light Hospital. Her very last one, and she had done her terminal suffocation without even the small pleasure it would have brought.
Mother Star of the Sea fumbled in the pockets of Bonnie's jeans for some change. Thirty cents. Good.
She crossed a two-lane highway and went down into the familiar old town, looking for the right kind of store.
Bixter's. Of course. She went in. At the counter was a display so beautiful she almost wept to see it. With a trembling hand she picked out from among the stacks of M&Ms and Herseys and Oh Henryi's a lovely, fat, fresh Snickers bar. She shook as she held her coins out to the girl at the register.
“Thirty-two.”
“Excuse me?”
“Thirty-two cents. A Snickers is thirty-two cents.”
Mother Star of the Sea wasn't really surprised. Her guilt didn't miss a trick. She was here, sure, but she had no intention of letting up on herself. Her suffering would stay with her. She knew better than to try and steal the candy. What would happen then she couldn't even guess, but it would certainly be worse than not getting the damn Snickers at all. “Too bad,” she croaked. She put it back and left the store.
As she walked down the street, a little bit of hell amid all these happy souls, she found she hated them. They ate, they slept, they fornicated—and she couldn't even have a goddamn candy bar. Mother Star of the Sea begrudged them their silly, complacent lives. What a joke it all was. They thought they'd die, most of them, and face some sort of judgment. Saint Peter or whoever.
You could say not guilty, but it didn't matter a bit if you knew otherwise.
I am now walking around in a body I once hated with a passion so great it drew tears to my eyes. She looked down at the hands. They were smooth and pretty now, but in 1973 they had been plump, warty little things. Had she ever rulered them? She didn't recall, but she certainly hoped so. She raised one to wipe her nose. The arm was stronger than she had thought it would be, and she almost knocked herself out. Staggering, she recovered.
She was in here and she couldn't get out! How horrible. How funny.
Maybe I'm crazy. Perhaps I'm really Bonnie, but I think I'm the old dead nun. I'm Bonnie, and I've become my own guilt.
This speculation made her hate the people around her even more. In a few minutes the distance between her and her fellow human beings had become as wide as the black eternal pit into which she had fallen.
How she hated them, those bright faces, those innocent eyes, those sexy curves and jutting trousers. Two children passed. Their faces were smeared with chocolate. She smelled the aroma of Snickers on their sour children's breath. She would have gleefully roasted them over a slow fire.
As she walked along she noticed a trail of ants winding its way across the sidewalk. They were helpless. Unlike the people, they could be hurt. She pranced up and down, stomping them to ant butter.
“Are you all right, miss?”
A cop. “Yeah. I just don't like ants.”
“We got a lot of 'em this year. I been puttin' out them ant motels at my place all fall.”
She crossed the street. Wherever was she going, anyway? Hell if she knew. Let the cat take care of it. The cat always knew just what it wanted. If you refused or hesitated in hell, Ihe damn thing became a real tiger.
Something buzzed in her left ear like an enormous wasp, perhaps a cat struggling to make human sounds.
The words were clear enough, though. They told her just what was next. Cross Ames and walk a block farther on. Then take a left on North Street, down a block, and there it would be, huddled up against the back of the Tabernacle, Brother Pierce's shabby old Airstream trailer with “God Is Love” painted down the sides. She arrived panting.
“Brother Pierce? Brother Pierce, are you in there?”
She hammered on the screen door that had been attached by coat hanger wires to the frame. The interior of the trailer was dark and quiet, warm from the sun despite the chilly day.
“Brother Pierce?”
She opened the screen door and stepped in. The trailer was not large. One side of it consisted of a reeking, unmade bed, the other of a desk and plastic-covered table littered with dishes.
She was careful to close and latch the door. The places where the cat's claws had penetrated her scalp burned like fire. She didn't care to encounter that creature again.
This was certainly a dreary little hole. Hot. Stinky. She cast around for some cigarettes, found a stale-looking pack of Saratoga 100s, put one in her mouth. Amazingly enough, she also located a book of matches. At least she would be allowed some small pleasure. But when she saw that there were just two matches left in the book, their phosphorus tips crumbling, she didn't even try to light one. What was the point? Without further ado she tossed cigarette and matches over her shoulder.
The voice had not told her what she was supposed to do here, so she stood, as inert as an undirected zombie.
As the minutes passed, Mother Star of the Sea came to seem less a self and more a memory. Bonnie was returning, the old nun dissolving away. It occurred to the reappearing woman that the Mother Star of the Sea delusion could be an unexpected consequence of her temporary death.
It made her feel cold and clammy to realize that she had memories from the time she had been dead. Death hadn't been blackness or emptiness, not at all.
It had been Mother Star of the Sea and. . . oh, dear.
That problem. But she hadn't—or had she—ruined Mother Star of the Sea's life?
She certainly had. And she had gone to hell for doing it. In a little while she was going back. Forever.
Mother Star of the Sea was standing in the back of the trailer, her habit billowing like great wings. There was a great pile of whiskey bottles behind her.
Bonnie rushed wildly from the grim apparition—and into the arms of a short, fat gasping man who was on his way in the door. “I got to see Brother Pierce,” the man wailed.
“He's not here.”
The man wrung his hands. “I got to see him!”
“You'll have to wait.”
“I can't wait! No time.” She heard brakes squeal around the side of the trailer. “Oh, Jesus! Tell him there's gonna be a witch ride through the town tonight. Big secret, we ain't supposed to know! Tell him!”
Three more men hurried around the trailer. Then fatso was off, puffing and blowing, his pursuers close behind. Their car came swinging around the corner raising dust, driven by a fourth man.
A witch ride? She could never say that!
“May I help you, daughter?”
“Oh.”
“I am Simon Pierce.” He did not smile so much as reveal his teeth.
“I—” She wanted to tell him she was just leaving, but she couldn't very well do that. This was his home and she was standing right in the middle of it.
“I ask that members of the congregation never come in here.” He chuckled. “I am an inveterate bottle collector and some of my prizes are very delicate. Worthless, of course, except to me.” He stared at her, his eyes full of calculation. “Who are you, daughter?”
“I'm—a messenger! I have a message for you from, from—” She waited for the buzzing voice in her ear. There was only silence.
“Bill Peters? Bill sent you?”
She had to think up someth
ing. “That's it,” she babbled. “Bill sent me. He said to tell you there's going to be a witch ride tonight.” It had burst from her on its own.
“Bill said that? Where is he?”
“Some men were after him—”
“Say no more. Bless you, daughter! You have brought me gold. Gold!”
So this was why she had been sent here. The cat of hell wanted to be certain that Brother Pierce knew about the witch ride.
He strode past her and got on the phone. Her last sight of him was of his back as he bent over the instrument, talking with excitement and relish. She had to get to the lab right now. She was remembering an incredible wealth of detail, and she had to tell George. Mother Star of the Sea, indeed. Guilty secrets of the dead.
She hurried up North Street to the place where it forms a tnangie with Meecham and the Morris Stage Road. Bonnie was a careful girl. She negotiated the Meecham part of the crossing and paused on the pedestrian island, waiting for a break in the MSR traffic. She waited for some time. This was the commuter hour, and there was a steady stream of cars coming back to town from their day's journeys. There was a loud feline growl behind her. She whirled, shocked. All she saw were eyes and teeth, hanging in the air. But the eyes were glaring things, and the teeth curved tike tyrannic fingernails.
She hurled herself away from the horror—and into the middle of the Morris Stage Road. The last thing she saw was the onrushing grillwork of a huge Lincoln. Mike Kominski didn't even have time to swerve.
Her message delivered, Tom returned the messenger to its eternal abode.
Chapter 14
THE WILD HUNT
The moon had risen high, casting its light upon the mountain. Mandy stood beside the house with Constance, holding her cold, dry hand and watching the golden sickle in the sky.
“I want to stay here forever, Constance.”
“Yes.” There was shyness in her tone. Despite the march of years she had much still of youth in her “But you must be certain Would you give your life for it?”
Mandy raised her eyebrows, regarded Constance. “I've teamed to be suspicious of questions like that.”
“Well, no need to answer just this instant. You've been given a reprieve The ravens are announcing a visitor.”
Mandy heard their gleeful blaring babble of half-aware voices. She could detect the pleasure and excitement in their tone. “They know the visitor. Somebody they're glad to see.
“Very good, dear. You're learning how to listen to them.”
“Just the tone. Not the words.”
“The two are one and the same among birds. If you're careful, you'll hear the celebration in their greeting.” She smiled. “Ravens only celebrate one thing, and that is food. So we will find that our visitor is feeding them as he comes up the road.”
“He?”
“The female's voices are sharpest. It's a he.”
They went back inside and down the long central hall to the front cfehe house. Ivy had not yet lit the candles. That wouldn't occur until the moon cleared the trees. “It's nice to do things that remind us this old planet rolls,” Ivy had said. “It's going somewhere, and we're going there, too.”
Rise of moon, setting of sun, tumble of stars, all were noticed on the Collier estate.
A man in hat, down jacket, and snow boots was just mounting the final rise to the house. As he walked, he tossed bits of something to the darting, gleeful birds.
Mandy was no longer so desolate about the work they had destroyed. One glimpse of the Leannan had made her past efforts seem callow, at least the efforts at fairies. Their destruction was a grace; she would not have been able to bear them now.
“Well, look who it is. Ivy! Robin! Your father's come for a visit.”
As she and Constance watched him making his way up the walk in his cioud of ravens, Mandy heard a rattle of footsteps from the house. A moment later Robin and Ivy burst past them and met him at the steps. With a cry of happiness Ivy threw herself into his arms. “Dad!”
“Hey, baby! Hiya, Bill.”
“Their outside names are Margaret and Bill,” Constance commented. She offered no further explanation as their father stomped the snow off his boots on the wide front porch.
“Lord, Connie, why don't you get somebody in to plow that road? Tumbuli'd do it for a hundred bucks.”
“Hello, Steven. Come on in and dry your boots by the fire. We've got some hot mulled wine.”
He tramped through the door rubbing his hands. “Nobody mulls wine like you people,” he rumbled. Mandy was fascinated. Robin had talked about the danger of outsiders learning too much, but here was one outsider who seemed familiar enough with them.
Ivy soon brought wine in steaming mugs. “Oh, that is good,” Steven said, leaning into the warmth. His face, reflecting the firelight, communicated strength and gentleness. His eyes were set in tangled brows, but the way they twinkled suggested that he did not take the witches quite as seriously as they themselves did. He seemed so at peace, so accepting. She could understand why he was trusted here.
“Snow in October! We had three inches down in the town.” He looked askance at Constance. “Sure is unusual, snow in October. I wonder if she was as surprised as we were.” He chuckled. “It is beautiful, though, the white against the autumn colors.”
“It'll melt.”
“Good! I can get my compost finished. Say, she didn't tell you when, did she?”
Constance risked. “That is no business of the Episcopalians.”
“Hell, Connie, I'm not just a church deacon. I'm also a gardener. I need to know. And you got my kids, you old witch. I think I'm entitled to a few favors.”
“Steven, I'd like you to meet Amanda Walker. She's going to be with us from now on. Amanda, this is Steven Cross. He's my neighbor across the road.”
Mandy smiled. She knew the name Cross, of course. It was one of the old Maywell names. There had been Crosses in the Founder's Excursion in 1702. Mother Star of the Sea had drilled that into their heads in History, along with the equally important fact that two of the founding families, the Stemleighs and the Albarts, were Roman Catholic.
“My Lord, you do get the pretty ones.” His big hand lingered in her own. Then he turned his eyes on Constance once again. “I thought I'd better come up.” His voice lowered. “Something happened last night.” He cast a significant glance in Mandy's direction. “Pretty serious.”
“She can hear. She's going to team it all.”
His eyebrows shot up. “You mean she's the new—”
“That's right. But don't congratulate her yet, she only just survived the first challenge. Now, why did you come? What's happened?”
“About midnight last night I noticed a lot of traffic out on Bridge Road. I went down the front walk and took a look. There was a regular procession, Connie.”
“Who?”
“Brother Pierce has gotten wind of something.”
“Maybe he's managed to slip a spy into one of the town covens. I wouldn't be surprised. That's the way it usually happened in the old days.”
“I hope none of the ones who use our facilities.”
“I doubt it. The covens that meet at Saint George's have been going for years.”
“How about Leonora Brown's group—”
“The Priestess Quest. She is rather new at it. Have you met any of her coven?”
“The rector says it's a good group.”
“And your Charlie knows people. No, I don't think my problem is there. I'd be more inclined to nose about the Kominski group. She's got three covens now. 1 cautioned her about growing too fast.”
Steven smiled. “You folks sell ecstasy. That's a hard thing to beat in this day and age. People want to join, Connie. I don't think you realize how much you're affecting me life of Maywell. Far more than you did even five years ago.”
“I realize it. Never assume I don't know what I'm doing. And my people can keep their secrets.”
He tucked his chin into his chest. His eyes we
re no longer twinkling. “Please forgive me, but I beg to differ. Not only Brother Pierce but everybody else in town knows there's some kind of a big do on tonight.”
“Of course. They have to know.”
He rocked back with surprise. “What? Oh, Connie, come on!”
“The essence of the ritual is danger. If it wasn't dangerous it wouldn't work. To be real, magic must be serious. We aren't playing games here.”
Mandy listened with the utmost care. She believed these words.
Cross's voice rose as he spoke. “Connie, I don't think you understand what your people are doing. They're recruiting all over town, even in the churches. Even from Pierce.”
“They aren't recruiting. We don't recruit. Witches are rare. It takes a very special person to become a witch.”
He shook his head. “Whatever, you're going public. Connie, you people are way out in never-never land and this is a very conservative little town.”
“There's a long tradition of toleration here in Maywell.”
“Maywell is a Christian community, of course it's tolerant. Except for Pierce, that is. And he is far from tolerant.” Steven stopped, looked a long time at the floor. Finally he spoke again. “You're in danger. All of you. This business of public rituals is highly irresponsible. And the recruitment—”
“We do not recruit!”
“Whatever it is! It's going to get you in trouble, mark my words. You've got families breaking up over this thing. Let me tell you how Maywell thinks of you. The tolerant ones—us, the Catholics, most of the established churches—still figure live and let live, but the more noise you make the more uneasy we get. As for Brother Pierce's followers, watch out. They're running around with torches in the night, my dear.”
Connie smiled softly. “We have to do what we do and be what we are. Nobody really has a choice in such matters. If it means that we lose the toleration of the town, then that's what must be. But we love you and respect you. Carry that message to your congregation, Steven. Wilt you do that?”
“You know I'll do what I can. But my strong sense of it is that things are about to get out of hand. Puti back for a while.”