(faxed)
sent to Mia. Was this a process that had started fast and slowed down, or started slow and
speeded up? The latter, she thought, because as time passed she’d felt less pregnant instead of more. The little swelling in her belly had mostly flattened out again. And now she understood
how both she and Mia could feel an equal attachment to the chap: it did, in fact, belong to both of them. Had been passed on like a . . . a blood transfusion.
Only when they want to take your blood and put it into someone else, they ask your
permission. If they’re doctors, that is, and not one of Pere Callahan’s vampires. You’re a lot closer to one of those, Mia, aren’t you?
“Science or magic? ” Susannah asked. “Which one was it that allowed you to steal my baby?”
Mia flushed a little at that, but when she turned to Susannah, she was able to meet Susannah’s
eyes squarely. “I don’t know,” she said. “Likely a mixture of both. And don’t be so self-righteous!
It’s in me, not you. It’s feeding off my bones and my blood, not yours.”
“So what? Do you think that changes anything? You stole it, with the help of some filthy
magician.”
Mia shook her head vehemently, her hair a storm around her face.
“No?” Susannah asked. “Then how come you weren’t the one eating frogs out of the swamp and shoats out of the pen and God knows what other nasty things? How come you needed all that
make-believe nonsense about the banquets in the castle, where you could pretend to be the one
eating? In short, sugarpie, how come your chap’s nourishment had to go down my throat?”
“Because . . . because . . .” Mia’s eyes, Susannah saw, were filling with tears. “Because this is spoiled land! Blasted land! The place of the Red Death and the edge of the Discordia! I’d not
feed my chap from here!”
It was a good answer, Susannah reckoned, but not the complete answer. And Mia knew it, too.
Because Baby Michael, perfect Baby Michael, had been conceived here, had thrived here, had
been thriving when Mia last saw him. And if she was so sure, why were those tears standing in
her eyes?
“Mia, they’re lying to you about your chap.”
“You don’t know that, so don’t be hateful!”
“I do know it.” And she did. But there wasn’t proof, gods damn it! How did you prove a feeling, even one as strong as this?
“Flagg — Walter, if you like that better — he promised you seven years. Sayre says you can have five. What if they hand you a card, GOOD FOR THREE YEARS OF CHILD-REARING
WITH STAMP, when you get to this Dixie Pig? Gonna go with that, too?”
“That won’t happen! You’re as nasty as the other one! Shut up!”
“You got a nerve calling me nasty! Can’t wait to give birth to a child supposed to murder his Daddy.”
“I don’t care!”
“You’re all confused, girl, between what you want to happen and what will happen. How do you know they aren’t gonna kill him before he can cry out his first breath, and grind him up and feed him to these Breaker bastards?”
” Shut . . . up! ”
“Kind of a super-food? Finish the job all at once?”
“Shut up, I said, shut UP! ”
“Point is, you don’t know. You don’t know anything. You just the babysitter, just the au pair.
You know they lie, you know they trick and never treat, and yet you go on. And you want me to shut up.”
“Yes! Yes!”
“I won’t,” Susannah told her grimly, and seized Mia’s shoulders. They were amazingly bony under the dress, but hot, as if the woman were running a fever. “I won’t because it’s really mine and you know it. Cat can have kittens in the oven, girl, but that won’t ever make em muffins.”
All right, they had made it back to all-out fury after all. Mia’s face twisted into something both horrible and unhappy. In Mia’s eyes, Susannah thought she could see the endless, craving,
grieving creature this woman once had been. And something else. A spark that might be blown
into belief. If there was time.
“I’ll shut you up,” Mia said, and suddenly Fedic’s main street tore open, just as the allure had.
Behind it was a kind of bulging darkness. But not empty. Oh no, not empty, Susannah felt that
very clearly.
They fell toward it. Mia propelled them toward it. Susannah tried to hold them back with no success at all. As they tumbled into the dark, she heard a singsong thought running through her head, running in an endless worry-circle: Oh Susannah-Mio, divided girl of mine, Done parked her RIG
FIFTEEN
in the DIXIE PIG, In the year of —
Before this annoying (but ever so important) jingle could finish its latest circuit through Susannah-Mio’s head, the head in question struck something, and hard enough to send a galaxy
of bright stars exploding across her field of vision. When they cleared, she saw, very large, in front of her eyes:
NK AWA
She pulled back and saw BANGO SKANK AWAITS THE KING! It was the graffito written
on the inside of the toilet stall’s door. Her life was haunted by doors — had been, it seemed, ever since the door of her cell had clanged closed behind her in Oxford, Mississippi — but this one
was shut. Good. She was coming to believe that shut doors presented fewer problems. Soon
enough this one would open and the problems would start again.
Mia: I told you all I know. Now are you going to help me get to the Dixie Pig, or do I have to do it on my own? I can if I have to, especially with the turtle to help me.
Susannah: I’ll help.
Although how much or how little help Mia got from her sort of depended on what time it was
right now. How long had they been in here? Her legs felt completely numb from
the knees down — her butt, too — and she thought that was a good sign, but under these
fluorescent lights, Susannah supposed it was always half-past anytime.
What does it matter to you? Mia asked, suspicious. What does it matter to you what time it is?
Susannah scrambled for an explanation.
The baby. You know that what I did will keep it from coming only for so long, don’t you?
Of course I do. That’s why I want to get moving.
All right. Let’s see the cash our old pal Mats left us.
Mia took out the little wad of bills and looked at them uncomprehendingly.
Take the one that says Jackson.
I . . . Embarrassment. I can’t read.
Let me come forward. I’ll read it.
No!
All right, all right, calm down. It’s the guy with the long white hair combed back kind of like Elvis. .
I don’t know this Elvis —
Never mind, it’s that one right on top. Good. Now put the rest of the cash back in your pocket, nice and safe. Hold the twenty in the palm of your hand. Okay, we’re blowing this pop-stand.
What’s a pop-stand?
Mia, shut up.
SIXTEEN
When they re-entered the lobby — walking slowly, on legs that tingled with pins and needles —
Susannah was marginally encouraged to see that it was dusk outside. She hadn’t succeeded in
burning up the entire day, it seemed, but she’d gotten rid of most of it.
The lobby was busy but no longer frantic. The beautiful Eurasian girl who’d checked her/them in was gone, her shift finished. Under the canopy, two new men in green monkeysuits were
whistling up cabs for folks, many of whom were wearing tuxedos or long sparkly dresses.
Going out to parties, Susannah said. Or maybe the theater.
Susannah, I care not. Do we need to get one of the yellow vehicles from one of the men in the green suits?
No. We’ll get a cab on the corner . . .
Do you say so?
Oh, quit with the suspicion. You’re taking your kid to either its death or yours, I’m sure of that, but I recognize your intention to do well and I’ll keep my promise. Yes, I do say so.
All right.
Without another word — certainly none of apology —Mia left the hotel, turned right, and
began walking back toward Second Avenue, 2 Hammarskjöld Plaza, and the beautiful song of
the rose.
SEVENTEEN
On the corner of Second and Forty-sixth, a metal waggon of faded red was parked at the curb.
The curb was yellow at this point, and a man in a blue suit — a Guard o’ the Watch, by his
sidearm — seemed to be discussing that fact with a tall, white-bearded man.
Inside of her, Mia felt a flurry of startled movement.