by Неизвестный
There was general agreement to that. The Vine Coven set off, going in the Covenstead's two station wagons. As they drove out through the silent farm, past the blackened field that Brother Pierce and his men had burned, Robin wondered if they might really have somehow brought a curse down upon themselves.
They reached the edge of the farm, then the limit of the estate itself. The lights of the cars played on the scar of the fire, and then on the purple stains in the road. He still had stickers in his hands from picking those blackberries.
There was a sharp ping from the hood.
Ivy, sitting beside him, peered forward. Just then there was another one. This time a long crack slit the windshield.
From the back seat somebody screamed.
Robin hit the horn to warn the wagon behind them and jammed the accelerator to the floor. The car lunged and slurried until the tires caught the asphalt. Then it shot ahead, its old engine roaring and rattling.
Somebody shouted a charm. “Things of the night, take flight.”
Robin was forced to slow down out of fear that he would lose control in the turn. People in the car were silent, stunned by surprise and fear. “They weren't actual bullets,” he said, “or the windshield would be shattered. Pellets or even BB's. We weren't in any real danger.”
He did not add what they all knew, that it was only a matter of time before this sort of thing escalated to open warfare. The people lurking at the gates were building courage.
“They must have somebody there all the time. I hadn't realized that.”
“We'll post guards,” Wistena said. “We'll have to.”
Robin pulled over, motioned the following wagon to come parallel. “You folks all right?”
Grape was driving. She gave him a tight smile. They went on, down West Street to Main, then up Main and across Bridge to The Lanes. There were a lot of cars in front of 24 Maple Lane.
From the house there came soft singing. The town covens must have assembled there spontaneously as soon as Constance had called them with news of the tragedy.
It occurred to Robin that he was going to have to see Amanda's dead body in a few minutes. He feared for his own ability to believe in her life, then. Ivy touched him. “You're trembling, brother.”
From behind, Wisteria put her hand on his shoulder. “We're all with you, Robin. Remember, she's in the Land of Summer now. The Goddess is taking care of her daughter.”
It was very hard, this new experience of grief.
Sky-flower opened his door for him. They had been initiated on the same day, he and she.
Robin began to approach the house. It was full of people, of course, not only the town witches but a large part of the Christian community as well. Most of the genuine Christians of Maywell viewed the witches with wary respect. Only Brother Pierce's followers hated, and Robin did not think of them as Christians.
A queen had died, and she would be honored among all the good people of this town. He could hear that they were singing one of the Covenstead's own songs, one of the most beautiful.
“Somewhere there is a nver Somewhere there is new youth. Oh, let me drink the cooling water Let me bathe my soul in truth.”
Just as the song ended, Sheriff Williams came tromping up the basement stairs. “Evening, Robin,” he said. He embraced Robin, pressing him against his cigar-smelling shoulder.
“We got shot at, Sheriff. Just at the entrance to the estate.”
“I've got my deputy out there.”
“We didn't see him.”
“Well, I'll talk to him about it.” He looked at Robin out of stricken eyes. The sheriff had given up a great deal for his beliefs and his lifelong love of Constance Collier.
“You going down to the basement, Robin?”
“I'm going down.”
To get through the house they had to step over people, covens sitting close to one another, clustering around their priestesses and priests, and Catholics and Episcopalians and Methodists with their pastors. Even people who had not known her sensed the wonder of her.
When they reached the mudroom and Robin saw the ugly little hatch to the cellar, his throat constricted. She had gone down into that dark place to face death.
“She tried to get away,” the sheriff said laconically.
“Made it as far as her car. He dragged her back.”
Robin could hardly bear to listen.
“Fred, we're coming down.”
“Okay.”
“Robin?”
“Yes, Sheriff?”
“Look, it's kind of bad.”
“I want to. I've got to.”
The sheriff put a big hand on Robin's neck. “In love with a witch. I know just what you're going through, boy.”
“We will gather at the river, the beautiful, beautiful river. . .”
They were singing again, the strong voice of the Episcopal rector leading the rest.
The basement stank of dank earth and something else, something like overheated electrical wiring. Something awful. “We haven't moved her, Robin,” Fred Harris said. “We'll carry her up as soon as the casket comes.”
Casket. Robin hated that word. He remembered their one experience of lovemaking, upon the humid earth, the moon setting red and low, she so full of all the furious urgency of the hunt, her body running with sweat and slick with the oils of the ritual, reeking of horse and human heat and the thick scent of love.
Cotd caressed Robin as he moved forward toward the little room where Mandy lay. Lights had been hung by the sheriff's people, and the place glared harshly.
“What is this? What are all these. . . cats?”
“He was crazy. We just didn't know how bad he was. Not even Connie.”
“Where is he. Sheriff?”
“We found his belt and some ballpoint pens down here. And there was blood on the floor. There's no sign of a body.”
“Why do you think he's dead?”
“She isn't wounded, so the blood must have come from him. He's dead, all right.” He gestured at the vast bloodstain. “People don't bleed that much and live. Who killed him and what they did with the body we do not yet know.”
“This room is—”
“She had courage to come here.”
Robin could hardly bring himself to go to her, so hideous was the place, jammed with the jumble of George's strange scientific apparatus, haunted by the pictures of cats.
Robin forced himself to cross the basement, past the bulging furnace, to the little chamber. Closer, the profusion of cats was almost unbelievable. Perhaps because of all of the cat images, this place seemed connected to him, almost a part of him. “Tom is a black spark,” Constance had once said, “from the eye of Death.”
“Kate should have told us about this,” Robin said. “She was probably afraid. Look at the place.”
When he thought about it, Robin realized that it was impossible that Kate Walker had kept this secret from Constance. Of course Connie knew all about it. She knew exactly how dangerous George Walker was. When Robin peered into the death chamber, he felt the presence there as a thickening of the dark. “Tom, is that you?”
“Who?”
“Connie's familiar. The one she was going to give to Mandy. I sense his presence.”
“There's nothing like that here, Robin.”
“I don't think Tom's going to show himself.”
“That cat scares the hell out of me. It's too old, for one thing. At least forty, by my count. In my time as a witch, it's appeared once when Connie was a girl and Hoboes shot her to make her a shaman—that was in the twenties, for God's sake—then when Simon Pierce came to town, and now I've seen it around, sulking along here and there.”
Robin didn't bother to mention that Connie owned a painting of Tom done in 1654.
He took a deep breath He could delay no longer, and looked down at the form on the table.
Even in death she glowed. Her beauty, Robin thought, could defy the grave. Her face had been caught in a living expressio
n. Her eyes were open, the fine brows knitted as if in puzzlement. Her hands were clasped in her lap. “We removed the bindings,” Fred Harris said. “She was tied to the table.”
Robin prayed in his own private, wordless way, to the Goddess who awed him and the God he loved He let their images ride in his mind, the tail, pale Goddess and her shadowed consort, moving as ever in the Land of Summer. He wanted their comfort now.
Through the basement windows there came a honking of many horns and the ragged sound of human rage. “Damn,” the sheriff said, “they just ain't gonna leave us alone, are they?” The honking horns obtained an angry rhythm, their notes long and bitter.
“One of theirs died today, too.”
“Robin, that man was trying to burn down your farm!”
“He died a hard death.”
The people outside were literally growling, their voices dull and deep, as the fall of rain upon a place already drowned. “I'd better get up there and give them a little hell,” the sheriff said. He humed off across the basement.
Robin went around to the head of the table. He thought to close her eyes. “You can't, buddy,” Fred Harris said. “Too late to change the expression.”
He did not want her to stare like this. It wasn't a dead expression. Despite how cold it was, her body retained the suppleness of living muscle. In a way this was much more awful than the fixed stare of an ordinary corpse.
She was so obviously not at peace. “Isn't there any way at all?”
“I can make 'em look closed, but I have to take her back to my workroom.”
Her eyes were the shade of the moon dimming toward morning. Constance had said: “Every one of us has a hidden name, our real name. When you call her to the circle, call Moom.”
“Moon?” they had asked.
“No, with an 'm.' Moom is her real name. The Leannan calls her that.”
“Good-bye, Moom. Fare you well.” He visualized her on an old forest road, suitcase in hand, walking quickly away. Long breaths of sorrow filled him.
He was granted a vision of Moom: a dumpy little brown ball of a human being, reeking of fire smoke and rancid fat, full of thigh-slapping pride and laughter. That was the young Moom. Now the ancient soul seemed to stand over him, its face grave with the wisdom of very long time. “I feel her. She's right in this room.”
“Come on, now, the casket's arrived.”
Robin wanted just another minute alone with her, but there were a whole lot of people waiting and outside the din was getting louder. There were thuds. Rocks hitting the house. Sheriff Williams could be heard shouting, but he wasn't having much effect. Upstairs the singing went on. “Amazing Grace,” then the Pentagram Chant. “Pentagram glow, bring us tight and glow, oh, glow, pentagram glow. . .” Ivy led it in her powerful voice.
“You go on up, Robin. Tell some of my guys to come down and help me.”
“I'll help you.”
“You don't have to—I've got plenty of men upstairs.”
“I don't mind touching her. I want to.”
Her body was slack and cold. To put his hands on her like this, when in his imagination she was so warm and full of life, was really very difficult. But it was right. This was his responsibility, this body.
They got her strapped to the stretcher and carried her across the basement. Other hands took her up the ladder. When Robin arrived at the top, the stretcher was just going around the comer into the living room. The house was full of winking yellow light. The Bees had arrived with boxes of their handmade candles.
Others unstrapped her from the stretcher and laid her in the simple coffin favored by the witches of Maywell, a box of hand-rubbed pine, tightly made. “Let the flesh return quickly to the Mother,” Connie said. The box was a concession to state burial laws.
Ruby of the Rock Coven came to the head of the coffin. She looked long at Amanda. “We'll go back in procession,” she said. “Rock will carry her all the way to the mountain.”
They closed the coffin then, and Fred Harris bustled up. “You're going to walk all that way? That's two miles.”
Ruby was Fred's daughter Sally in the outside world. Robin wouldn't have challenged her like that. “There are plenty of us,” she snapped. “We want to do it this way.”
“That crowd out there—”
“There's a crowd in here, too!”
“Okay, honey, I meant no offense. I was just pointing out the facts.”
“We want to show our strength. And to respect our dead.” With that Ruby was joined by the rest of her coven. They surrounded the coffin and took its gleaming brass handles. Others gathered before and behind them, witches and town people alike, all carrying candles.
The local churches preached acceptance, and the witches in turn respected them. Together the group, Christians and witches alike, filed out into the rage of the night.
Brother Pierce was standing in the back of a jeep, his jutting jaw flashing in the glare of gasoline tantems and powerful searchlights. After the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 a wave of survivalism had swept his congregation. World War III had not broken out, but they had not abandoned their preparations. Station wagons, jeeps, pickups, and powerful four-wheel-drive trucks were their vehicles of choice.
“You are the harlot of the Devil,” he roared, pointing at the advancing procession. “You killed a man today, you murdering demons!”
Ivy was the first to start singing. “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.”
“You see nothing but the darkness and evil of your hearts! What are you doing—celebrating our sorrow?”
Brother Pierce and his flock had been attracted to the house by the crowd assembled there, not by any knowledge of what had happened to Amanda.
His spitting voice mingled with the hymn. For an instant Robin saw his face clearly in the sweep of a searchlight from one of the trucks. His expression was not one of hate. It was beyond that. You couldn't look at it.
The entire crowd lapsed to silence when the coffin was -brought out the door. In the back of his jeep Brother Pierce made a sullen hissing sound. Slowly one of the lights came about and fixed on the Rock Coven and its burden—
They were humming softly, a nameless song of woe.
Brother Pierce pointed at them. “Rejoice, for death has taken one of the evil!” He hugged himself, twisting and smiling to the night sky. “For wickedness burneth as the fire; it shall devour the briars and thorns, and shall kindle in the thickets of the forest, and they shall mount up like the lifting up of smoke! Oh glory, oh hallelujah!”
He began to clap, and each clap of his long, narrow hands exploded through Robin's sorrow. But Ruby had been right, so very right! They belonged here, with their burden.
A song burst from the throats of Brother Pierce's followers: “We're gonna tell the world about this! We're gonna tell the nations about that! The battle's done, the victory's been won. There's joy, joy, joy in our hearts.”
How quickly they forgot their own dead.
The procession left the street at last, leaving Brother Pierce and his jubilant mob behind. Father Evans fell in beside Robin. “I hope you can forgive them, Robin.” His head was bowed. “I'm trying myself.”
“Are you succeeding?”
“No.”
“It's that much harder for us, Father. For me, I loved her, you know.”
“The rector told me how important she was to you. Still and all, that nude ride—”
“That's our way!”
“Okay, let's not get into that. Just know that it'sure upset the Catholics. You oughtn't do things that violate the town ordinances.”
“We had a parade license.”
“The nudity—”
Robin really didn't want to have an argument with Father Evans. “I doubt if you'll see another Wild Hunt. This Covenstead will probably disband.”
“If I'm ever needed—”
“Thank you, Father.”
As they marched they drew more and more people from their homes, until it seemed as if all the town that was not with Brother Pierce was in the procession.
“Are there any more candles?”
“Dad!”
“Connie called me. It's a terrible thing, son.”
Robin couldn't answer. His mother had come down from the house as well. She and Ivy were walking together just behind.
They entered the main gate of the estate, which had been thrown open for the occasion. “Who was she, son, really?”
“She'd been coming to us for a long, long time. We belonged to her.”
The great old forest that separated the estate from Maywell was filled with the peace of nature. Some small creature screamed among the trees, and great wings swept away. By the time they passed the house the procession was more tightly packed, in part because there were more people and in part because the Rock Coven, struggling at the front with the coffin, was slowing down. The house was totally dark.
It was some little time before Robin saw Constance standing on the front porch. Around her the ravens clustered in unaccustomed silence. In her black cloak and hood she might have been a statue, faintly sinister in the light of the moon. She raised her head and Robin thought she might be about to speak. But then she came forward. She joined her people, and Robin was very glad—
The coveners had laid a way of hooded candles up the mountainside, each one carefully placed among stones to avoid the danger of fire. Even so, it was rough going, and not everybody was prepared for the journey. Even some of the town witches fell by the wayside. They joined others gathering in the fields, and as Robin negotiated the rough path he heard them beginning to sing together. Ahead the Rock Coven struggled mightily with their burden.