“But they needed you to-to focus them just now. I … After Faun… God, Cal, I felt so lost.”
Impulsively, I put my hands out to take her shoulders. “For a moment, Mary. For only a moment. None of us are one-man or one-woman shows. How far do you think I’d have gotten if I didn’t have Doc and Goldie and Colleen with me? Where would any of us have been if you hadn’t rescued us from that dead-end mound cave? I needed you then, you needed me in this emergency. I’m good at emergencies, I guess. But after I’m gone, this community you’ve built will need someone who can hold it together. That’s what you’re good at.”
She took a deep breath and met my eyes, the light in them suddenly wry. “You know, I think you’d make a good lawyer.”
I laughed, dropping my hands from her shoulders. “Yeah, so I’m told. You know I’ve wondered: what were you before all this?”
She shook her head. “Unsatisfied. Tried being an executive secretary-oh, pardon, an executive assistant-tried teaching. I liked teaching, but frankly, it was a depressing occupation. Then I started a day-care center outside of Dayton.”
She’d surprised more laughter out of me.
“What?”
“I had you pegged as an administrator, a judge, or a politician.” Or the Dalai Lama.
She pointed a stern finger at my forehead. “Young man, I ought to wash your mouth out with soap for that last crack.”
A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, and I suffered another sharp pang of deja vu. She turned and headed toward the Lodge, then paused and glanced back over one shoulder. “I was an administrator’s secretary. Now, don’t you think you’d better get yourself into a change of dry clothes?”
There was, I thought, following her, something to that old truism about who really runs an office.
ELEVEN
DOC
“Got a minute?”
I looked up from the table where I was grinding herbs to paste and found Colleen in the doorway of the Preserve’s little apothecary shop. It seemed to me that I often saw Colleen in doorways, as if caught between coming and going. I gestured for her to come in.
She hesitated but entered, nodding to my two assistants, who variously filled containers with homemade remedies or folded bandages, some of which would accompany us on our westward journey, some of which would go to their own infirmary.
She came to stand close beside me, leaning as if to peer into my mortar, and said, “Can we talk someplace private?” “Certainly.”
I picked up the tray on which I worked and carried it to the back room, calling back over my shoulder for her to come help me. There was less light here, but it was private, as she had requested.
“Light me that lamp, please?” I nodded at an antique copper oil lamp that sat on a shelf across the room.
She fetched it without hesitation, lit it, and brought it to the counter where I had set my tray of herbs. She dipped her head toward the preparations, then wrinkled her nose. “What is that?”
“Wintergreen,” I said. “Good for rashes and abrasions. Is that what you came to ask of me so privately?”
“No. How’s the leg?”
“It will serve. Colleen, what is it?”
The room darkened, the oil lamp spat, and we breathed in harmony while she watched me play at being an herbalist. I did not prompt her again. She would speak in her own time.
Finally, she said, “I fell asleep, if you can believe it. Right after supper. Just now woke up.”
“It has been a draining day for everyone,” I said. It certainly had been that for me-and sobering. I glanced at her sharply. “You are not ill?”
“Huh? Oh… no. Nothing like that. It was just… I had a dream.”
“Yes?” I hoped it was nothing like my dreams.
“I dreamed of being cornered in that little cave in the mounds. It reminded me of something I’d forgotten.” I stopped crushing leaves and gave her my full attention. “I remembered what the tweak said just before the attack.”
“What he said? As I recall, he was barely coherent.” “He was coherent enough to know what changed him.” I shrugged. “The Source changed him, of course.” “No, not the Source. The tweak said, ‘He did this.’ ” “Did …?”
She put a hand on my arm and shook it. “Tweaked him. I thought he meant Cal at first, because he was looking into the cave when he said it, then I realized he was talking about Enid. I’d forgotten it until the dream put it back in my head.”
“Perhaps you dreamed that as well?”
“No, Doc. I didn’t dream that. I remembered it. Don’t you remember? ‘The music burns,’ he said.”
I struggled for memory. “Vaguely, I recall… You are saying…?”
The look in her eyes chilled me. “That Enid’s music does more than attract refugees.”
I watched Colleen pace the lounge. In the silence that always follows disclosure, six pairs of eyes followed her, only to drift away when the meaning had fully penetrated. All but mine.
Enid seemed to sink beneath the weight of the revelation. He was a deflated man, cornered, his eyes wary.
It was Mary who first looked his way. “Were you aware of this, Enid? That your music… had this effect?”
Colleen stopped pacing and made a gesture that brought to mind a scarecrow in a high wind. “Don’t pretend you didn’t know!”
“Colleen,” I said softly, and she moved away to a hearth-side chair, where she sat, folded up.
Mary seemed not to have noticed her. She moved to Enid and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Enid?”
He nodded, eyes still on the rug between his shoes. “I knew… I knew my music could do … stuff like that. I just didn’t know how bad the leak was.”
“The leak?” Cal repeated.
“Sometimes,” Magritte said softly, “neither of us is real strong. When he gets shaky, I hear the Storm. When I get shaky, there’s leaks.”
“We’ve seen no evidence of it here.”
“It don’t happen here. It happens out there.” Enid canted his head to the wall. “Everywhere I go, I leave a trail of tweaked shit. Mostly rocks and trees. Sometimes animals.”
“And people,” muttered Colleen under her breath. I think I may have been the only one to hear her.
“Tweaked trees,” repeated Goldie.
Enid glanced at him. “You seen ’em.”
Goldie nodded. “Uh, yeah, and followed them here. Wow.”
Enid looked as if he might cry or rage. “I swear to you all, I did not know about those people.”
Beside him, Magritte hovered solicitously, hands fluttering toward him like frightened birds. She was the only flare not sequestered in the caverns tonight. The others were weakened, and it was feared they might be able to hear the Source whisper to them even through the veil of music. Mary McCrae was taking no chances.
“How long?” asked Mary. “How long has it done this?” “Always,” Enid said. “Ever since the Storm. In here, I’m safe. And things are safe from me. That’s why I’ve stayed.” “But you went out time after time,” Mary said. “Why?” He looked up, finally meeting her gaze. “Because you
needed me to. I figured the good I did outweighed the bad.
If I didn’t have Magritte, it’d be worse.”
Mary shook her head. “Why, Enid? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You might not have let me go out. And you needed me to go out. They needed me to go out, the folks I’ve brought in. You gotta understand, Mary, I didn’t know about these guys Colleen’s talking about. I mean, I seen ’em. And I knew my music… did stuff. But I didn’t connect it all.” He closed his eyes, his face gray. “Shit, no, that’s not right. I just didn’t want to. Didn’t want to know.”
Beside the fire, Colleen made a soft sound that was either a moan or a growl.