She thanked Alfredo for a delightful lunch, and went out into the busy street. The espresso had given her a fair buzz, but it wasn't just coffee that quickened her step as she headed north; it was the sudden realization that she had, after all, a place of refuge, if it wasn't too late to request it.
Given how little warmth there is in my relationship with Zabrina (I think my last reported exchange with her was in the kitchen, while she juggled the devouring of pies) you can imagine how surprised I was when she appeared in my room yesterday evening. She had tears pouring down her face, and all the usual ruddiness had gone out of her skin.
"You have to come with me!" she said.
I asked her why, but she insisted that she had no time for explanations. I was simply to come; right now.
"At least tell me where we're going," I said.
"It's Mama," she said, her sobs coming on with new vigor. "Something's happened to Mama! I think maybe she's dying."
This was enough to make me get up out of my chair and follow Zabrina, though as we went I was quite certain she'd made a mistake. Nothing was ever going to happen to Cesaria: she was an eternal force. A creature born out of the primal fire of the world does not pass away quietly in her bed.
And yet the closer we got to Cesaria's chambers the more I began to suspect there might be real reason for Zabrina's panic. There had always been a subtle agitation in the passageways close to Cesaria's rooms, as though her presence excited motion at a molecular level. To be there was to feel, in some unaccountable way, more alive. The light seemed dearer, the colors brighter; when you inhaled you seemed to feel the shape of your lungs as they expanded. But not today; today the passageways were like mausoleums. I began to feel a prickling dread creep over me. What if she was dead? Cesaria Yaos, the mother of mothers, dead? What would that mean for us who were left behind? The Gearys were about to mount an assault against us, I had no doubt of that. Holt's journal, containing a detailed description of how to get to this very house, was in the hands of Garrison Geary himself. And Mama Cesaria was dead? Oh God.
Zabrina had halted a few yards from the door of Cesaria's chambers.
"I can't go in again…" she said, a new flood of tears coming.
"Where is she?"
"In her bedroom."
"I've never been in her bedroom."
"Just… go straight in, make the second right, and it's at the end of the passageway."
I was more than a little nervous now. "Come with me," I said to Zabrina.
"I can't," she said. I don't think I've ever seen anyone look so scared.
I left her to her trembling, and entered, my dread growing with every step I took. No doubt Cesaria had intended that anyone coming into these chambers should feel they were entering the temple of her body; certainly that was how I felt. The walls and ceiling were painted a purplish red, the bare boards underfoot were darkly stained. There was no furniture in the passageways; the rooms that lay to right and left were too gloomy for me to see into very dearly, but they also appeared to be bare.
I made the second right as Zabrina had instructed. For the first time since my healing at Cesaria's hands I felt a stab of the old pain in my legs, and had a paranoid vision of my muscles atrophying in this dead air.
"Stop it," I murmured to myself.
I might have uttered the words-m a vacuum. Though I could feel my palate shape the syllables, and my breath expel them, the passageway refused to hear them uttered. They were snatched away and smothered.
I didn't say anything more; I didn't dare. I simply walked on to the door of Cesaria's bedroom, and stepped inside.
It was as gloomy as all the other rooms, the heavy drapes dosed against the sky, against the world. I waited for a few moments to let my eyes accommodate themselves to the murk, and by degrees they did just that.
There was a massive bed in the room. That was all, a massive bed, upon which my father's wife lay like a body on a catafalque. None of her splendor was removed by her supine position. Even in death-if indeed she was dead-the physical fact of her demanded reverence. There was an uncanny precision about her; she seemed perfect, even in this state: like a great funereal work sculpted by her own genius.
I approached the bed, glad now that Zabrina hadn't come with me. I didn't want to share this moment with anybody. Though I was afraid, it was a glorious fear, a fear that surely you could only feel in the presence of a dead or dying goddess: a fear mingled with great swelling gratitude that I was allowed this sight.
Her face! Oh her face. The great black mane of her hair swept back from her wide brow, her dark skin gleaming, her mouth open, her lids open a little way too, but showing only the whites of her eyes.
Finally, I found the courage to speak. I said her name.
This time, the air consented to bear my word; it went from me lightly. But there was no response from Cesaria Yaos. Not that I expected there to be. I was increasingly certain that Zabrina was right. Mama was dead.
What now, I thought. Did I dare approach the bed and actually touch the body? Look for vital signs as if the woman before me were just a common cadaver? I couldn't face that possibility. Better to go to the window, I thought, and open the drape a little way, so that I could see the body more clearly. That way I could make an assessment of her condition from a respectful distance.
Moving with due reverence I crossed the room to the window, thinking as I went what a life of sad confinement Cesaria had lived since my father's passing. What had she done to fill the years, I wondered? Had the memories been enough to give her a taste of happiness? Or had she stewed in her sorrow up here, cursing her longevity, and the children who'd failed to give her joy?
I caught hold of one of the drapes, and started to pull it open. But as I did so, I felt something brush the back of my neck-just a feather touch, but it was enough to make me freeze. I glanced back over my shoulder, my hand still gripping the fabric. Had some subtle change come over Cesaria's face? Were her eyes open a fraction wider? Her head was turned a little in my direction? I stared at her for fully a minute, studying her face for some evidence of life. But I was imagining it: there was nothing.
Mastering my courage, I once again began to draw back the drape, and had opened it perhaps an inch when whatever had brushed my neck a little while before came against my face, not lightly this time, but like a blow. I heard a cracking sound in my head, and the next moment blood began to run from my nose. Needless to say, I let go of the drape instantly. If I hadn't had to pass the bed to get to the door I might have run for it there and then, but I decided passivity was the wisest response. Whatever was here in the room with me, I didn't doubt it could do me some serious damage if it set its mind to the task. I wanted to prove that I was no threat to it; or, perhaps more pertinently, to the sanctity of the body on the bed.
I didn't even tend to my bleeding nose while I waited. I just let it run, and after a while the flow slowed and stopped. As for my attacker, wherever he was, he seemed satisfied of my innocence, because he made no further assault upon me.
And then, the strangest thing. Without moving her lips, Cesaria spoke.
Maddox, she said, what are you doing here?
The question wasn't presented as a challenge. There was a gentle musicality in her voice. She almost sounded dreamy, in fact; as though she were speaking in her sleep.
"I thought-that is, Zabrina thought-something had happened to you," I said.
It has, Cesaria replied.
"Are you sick? We thought perhaps you were dying?"
I'm not dying. I'm just traveling.