this was a madhouse. Through the shop window she could see that the front of the hotel was
likewise thronged. There were yellow cars and long black cars with windows you couldn’t look
into (although the people inside could doubtless look out), and a huge silver conveyance that sat rumbling at the curb. Two men in green uniforms were in the street, blowing silver whistles.
Somewhere close by something began to rattle loudly. To Mia, who had never heard a
jackhammer, it sounded like a speed-shooter gun, but no one outside was throwing himself to the sidewalk; no one even looked alarmed.
How was she supposed to get to the Dixie Pig on her own? Richard P. Sayre had said he was
sure Susannah could help her find it, but Susannah had fallen stubbornly silent, and Mia herself was on the verge of losing control entirely.
Then Susannah spoke up again.
If I help you a little now — get you to a quiet place where you can catch your breath and at least do something about your shirt — will you give me some straight answers?
About what?
About the baby, Mia. And about the mother. About you.
I did!
I don’t think so. I don’t think you’re any more elemental than . . . well, than I am. I want the truth.
Why?
I want the truth, Susannah repeated, and then fell silent, refusing to respond to any more of Mia’s questions. And when yet another grinning little man approached her with yet another flash-thing, Mia’s nerve broke. Right now just getting across the hotel lobby looked like more than she could manage on her own; how was she supposed to get all the way to this Dixie Pig place?
After so many years in
(Fedic)
(Discordia)
(the Castle on the Abyss)
to be among so many people made her feel like screaming. And after all, why not tell the dark-
skinned woman what little she knew? She — Mia, daughter of none, mother of one — was
firmly in charge. What harm in a little truth-telling?
All right, she said. I’ll do as you ask, Susannah or Odetta or whoever you are. Just help me.
Get me out of here.
Susannah Dean came forward.
EIGHT
There was a women’s restroom adjacent to the hotel bar, around the corner from the piano player.
Two of the yellow-skinned, black-haired ladies with the tipped eyes were at the basins, one
washing her hands, the other fixing her hair, both of them twittering in their birdy-lingo. Neither paid any attention to the kokujin lady who went past them and to the stalls. A moment later they left her in blessed silence except for the faint music drifting down from the overhead speakers.
Mia saw how the latch worked and engaged it. She was about to sit down on the toilet seat
when Susannah said: Turn it inside out.
What?
The shirt, woman. Turn it inside out, for your father’s sake!
For a moment Mia didn’t. She was too stunned.
The shirt was a rough-woven callum-ka, the sort of simple pullover favored by both sexes in
the rice-growing country during cooler weather. It had what Odetta Holmes would have called a
boatneck. No buttons, so yes, it could very easily be turned inside out, but —
Susannah, clearly impatient: Are you going to stand there commala-moon all day? Turn it
inside out! And tuck it into your jeans this time.
W . . . Why?
It’ll give you a different look, Susannah replied promptly, but that wasn’t the reason. What she wanted was a look at herself below the waist. If her legs were Mia’s then they were quite
probably white legs. She was fascinated (and a little sickened) by the idea that she had become a kind of tu-tone halfbreed.
Mia paused a moment longer, fingertips rubbing the rough weave of the shirt above the worst
of the bloodstains, which was over her left breast. Over her heart. Turn it inside out! In the lobby, a dozen half-baked ideas had gone through her head (using the scrimshaw turtle to fascinate the people in the shop had probably been the only one even close to workable), but simply turning
the damned thing inside out hadn’t been one of them. Which only showed, she supposed, how
close to total panic she had been. But now . . .
Did she need Susannah for the brief time she would be in this overcrowded and disorienting
city, which was so different from the quiet rooms of the castle and the quiet streets of Fedic? Just to get from here to Sixty-first Street and Lexingworth?
Lexing ton , said the woman trapped inside her. Lexing ton . You keep forgetting that, don’t you?
Yes. Yes, she did. And there was no reason to forget such a simple thing, maybe she hadn’t
been to Morehouse, Morehouse or no house, but she wasn’t stupid. So why —
What? she demanded suddenly. What are you smiling about?
Nothing, said the woman inside . . . but she was still smiling. Almost grinning. Mia could feel it, and she didn’t like it. Upstairs in Room 1919, Susannah had been screaming at her in a
mixture of terror and fury, accusing Mia of betraying the man she loved and the one she
followed. Which had been true enough to make Mia ashamed. She didn’t enjoy feeling that way,
but she’d liked the woman inside better when she was howling and crying and totally
discombobulated. The smile made her nervous. This version of the brown-skinned woman was
trying to turn the tables on her; maybe thought she had turned the tables. Which was impossible, of course, she was under the protection of the King, but . . .
Tell me why you’re smiling!
Oh, it don’t amount to much, Susannah said, only now she sounded like the other one, whose name was Detta. Mia did more than dislike that one. She was a little afraid of that one. It’s just that there was this fella named Sigmund Freud, honey chile — honky muhfuh, but not stupid. And he said that when someone always be f’gittin sump ‘in, might be because that person want to be f’gittin it.
That’s stupid, Mia said coldly. Beyond the stall where she was having this mental
conversation, the door opened and two more ladies came in — no, at least three and maybe four
— twittering in their birdy-language and giggling in a way that made Mia clamp her teeth
together. Why would I want to forget the place where they’re waiting to help me have my baby?
Well, dis Freud — dis smart cigar-smoking Viennese honky muhfuh — he claim dat we got dis mind under our mind, he call it the unconscious or subconscious or some fuckin conscious. Now I ain’t claimin dere is such a thing, only dat he say dere was.
(Burn up the day, Eddie had told her, that much she was sure of, and she would do her best, only hoping that she wasn ‘t working on getting Jake and Callahan killed by doing it.)
Ole Honky Freud, Detta went on, he say in lots of ways de subconscious or unconscious mind smarter dan de one on top. Cut through de bullshit faster dan de one on top. An maybe yours understand what I been tellin you all along, that yo ‘frien Sayre nothin but a lyin rat-ass muhfuh goan steal yo baby and, Idunno, maybe cut it up in dis bowl and den feed it to the vampires like dey was dawgs an dat baby nuffin but a big-ass bowl o’ Alpo or Purina Vampire Ch —
Shut up! Shut up your lying face!
Out at the basins, the birdy-women laughed so shrilly that Mia felt her eyeballs shiver and threaten to liquefy in their sockets. She wanted to rush out and seize their heads and drive them into the mirrors, wanted to do it again and again until their blood was splashed all the way up to the ceiling and their brains —
Temper, temper, said the woman inside, and now it sounded like Susannah again.
She lies! That bitch LIES!
No, Susannah replied, and the conviction in that single short word was enough to send an arrow of fear into Mia’s heart. She says what’s an her mind, no argument there, but she doesn’t lie. Go on, Mia, turn your shirt inside out.
With a final eye-watering burst of laughter, the birdy-women left the bathroom. Mia pulled the
shirt off over her head, baring Susannah’s breasts, which were the color of coffee with just the smallest splash of milk added in. Her nipples, which had always been as small as berries, were
now much larger. Nipples craving a mouth.
There were only the faintest maroon spots on the inside of the shirt. Mia put it back on, then
unbuttoned the front of her jeans so she could tuck it in. Susannah stared, fascinated, at the point just above her pubic thatch. Here her skin lightened to a color that might have been milk with the smallest splash of coffee added in. Below were the white legs of the woman she’d met on the