Blood Canticle - Anne Rice [68]
As I stepped on the lawn I caught the faint scent of the alien species, the scent that Quinn had caught when he came here as a boy led by the ghost of Oncle Julien. I saw the scent hit Mona with her heightened gifts. She drew herself up as though revolted, and then took a deep breath. Quinn dipped down to kiss her.
Stirling played host with the gathering of the chairs about the table. He tried to disguise his amazement at the vision of Mona. The miracle of Quinn as vampire he’d seen in frightening circumstances, and then again, later, the night we went to tell him that Merrick Mayfair was no more. But Mona . . . he couldn’t quite keep it to himself.
Rowan’s snow white gown dragged in the mud. She didn’t care. She was murmuring or singing, I couldn’t tell which or catch any words or meaning to it. Michael stared at the oak as though talking to it. Then he took off his wrinkled white jacket. He put it over the back of a chair. But he stood staring at the tree as though finishing a soliloquy. He was a big chunk of a man, gorgeously made.
Stirling helped Mona to her chair, and bid Quinn to sit beside her. I waited for Rowan and Michael.
Suddenly Rowan turned and threw her arms around me. She fastened to me about as tight as a mortal woman could do it, so much divine silk and softness to me, whispering feverish words I couldn’t catch, eyes racing over me, while I stood stark still, my heart beating frantically. And then she began to touch me all over, open hands on my face, on my hair, then grabbing up my hands and slipping her fingers through my fingers. At last she thrust my hand between her legs and then drew back shuddering, letting me go and staring into my eyes.
I came quite close to losing my mind. Did anyone have a clue as to the crash and thunder inside me? I locked the casket of my heart. I punished it. I endured.
All this while, Michael never looked at us. He had sat down at some point, his back to the oak, facing Mona and Quinn, and he was talking to Mona, singing the fatherly chant again in a soothing voice as to how sweet and pretty she was, and that she was his darling daughter. I could see all that out of the corner of my eye, and then in sheer weakness, the lock inside me broke, and all was released. I gathered up Rowan’s supple limbs and I kissed her forehead, the hard sweet skin of her forehead, and then her soft unresisting lips, and let her loose arms go, watching her slip into the chair beside Michael. Silent. Done.
I went to the other side of the table and sat beside Mona. I was bitterly full of desire. It was unspeakable to need someone in this way. I closed my eyes and listened to the night. Ravenous, repulsive creatures singing magnificently. And working the soft fertile earth, creatures of such loathsomeness I couldn’t dwell on it. And the clatter of the riverfront train unendingly. And then the absurd song of the calliope on the riverboat that took the tourists up and down the waterway as they feasted and laughed and danced and sang.
“The Savage Garden,” I whispered. I turned away as if I hated them all.
“What did you say?” Rowan said. Her eyes broke from their feverish movement just for one moment.
Everyone went quiet, except the singing monsters. Monsters with wings and six or eight legs, or no legs at all.
“It’s just a phrase I used to use for the Earth,” I said, “in the old times when I didn’t believe in anything, when I believed the only laws were aesthetic laws. But I was young then and new to the Blood and stupid, expecting further miracles. Before I knew we knew more of nothing, and nothing more. Sometimes I think of the phrase again when the night is like this, so accidentally beautiful.”
“And now you do believe in something?” Michael asked.
“You surprise me,” I said.