"My mother?" Bron said. His mouth opened in amazement. He'd given up hope of finding her years ago. "How do you know she's my mother?"
Monique said softly. "Before your mother left you, she bleached your hair, reddened it so that the Draghouls wouldn't realize what you were. She wrapped you in a blue blanket, and took you to the Happy Valley Inn. She laid a black-eyed Susan next to you. She pinned a note to you that said, 'Bron is free.' It wasn't a price tag. She wasn't offering to give you away. You were being hunted, both of you, and it was a prayer. She hoped that finally, someday, you would be free."
After their talk, Olivia joined Monique in the kitchen to help fix dinner. Olivia found a vegetarian lasagna that had been flown in from a fine restaurant in Vegas, rich with wine, sun-dried tomatoes, spinach leaves, fresh matsutake mushrooms, and exotic cheeses.
As she warmed it in the oven, Monique blended ice, sugar and fresh juice from lemons and limes to make a frappe. Olivia glanced out on the fore-deck, saw Bron sitting alone with his thoughts, staring at the starlight and the untroubled waters.
"I don't get it," Olivia whispered softly as Monique squeezed the juices. "Why do you want to bring his mother into this?"
In order to assure a level of privacy, Monique switched to ancient French. "Il me fait peur," Monique said simply. He scares me. "It is not the rage that bothered me. When I tried to look into his heart and find what he loved ... it was too empty. I'm thinking that Bron needs this. I'm sure that his mother needs it, too."
That stopped Olivia. She hadn't searched Bron's memories quite so thoroughly. "If we look deeply enough, we'll find some affection, somewhere."
"You don't see him for what he is. You haven't looked at his balance. Sure, there's love, but damned little of it. If he had a wealth of love in him, and rage in equal measure, it would only mean that he's passionate. But there's an imbalance here.
"Olivia, you're a loving person. You love everyone—the kids at your school, your husband, the teachers with whom you work...."
"They're good people," Olivia argued.
"No, they're not," Monique said. "You simply project your own values on them, imagining that they're good. You know the statistics. At least one in every twenty kids in your school is a sociopath. Yet you imagine that they are all like you."
Monique was right, Olivia knew. She loved pretty much everyone. It's what kept her working at the school for fifteen hours a day, five and six days a week, teaching during the days and helping with plays and concerts at nights. Everyone had dreams to fulfill, and she wanted to help make them all come true. And when she came home exhausted, she still had Mike to care for.
Then there was her work with the PTA during the school year and with charitable causes during the summer.
All week, Olivia had been running herself ragged, until she felt exhausted.
Olivia got it from her mother.
Her mom had worked her fingers to the bone, growing vast gardens up in Brigham City, planting melons and strawberries and corn and beans. At the end of each year, the family didn't eat a fiftieth of what they grew. Instead, Olivia's mother would drive her around at the end of each day, passing out fresh vegetables to the elderly, the indigent, and to the families of migrant laborers that came each year to harvest fruit from the local orchards.
Olivia had learned young that the lasting joy in life comes from giving, not taking.
She hoped that Bron might learn that, too. But she couldn't be sure that he ever would. How could he ever learn to love others, when the truth was that he feared them? He dared not get too close to them, let himself become vulnerable.
"If you believe that sociopaths exist," Olivia said, "then Bron might be one. But I don't buy the argument that people are born without consciences. A child who is loved learns to love in return. Bron can't help it if his first foster mother couldn't stand to be touched...."
Immediately Olivia knew that she'd said the wrong thing. Children who weren't able to bond with a mother were far more likely to exhibit sociopathic behaviors than others.
"My god," Monique said. "You knew what he was the day you took him in! You're ... trying to fix him."
"To help him," Olivia said. "I'll give him love, and maybe I can teach him how to love, at least a little."
"Don't get your hopes up," Monique warned.
"Why not?" Olivia asked. "You've got yours up. Your first instinct was to send him to his mother. Mine was to try to be his mother."
That stopped Monique. Olivia had her, she knew. For a long moment she worked, mixing juices and then pouring them over the ice. "This is a dangerous game we're playing," Monique said. "Bron is a killer in the making. And if the enemy finds him—"
"We'll just have to keep that from happening."
Chapter 26
Quicksand
"You can't help where you come from, but you can choose where you will go."
Though his bed was softer than a dream, Bron slept little that night. His mind was churning with unanswered questions, whirling with excitement.
Shortly after dawn, the chopper set down outside, and Monique said her goodbyes. She hugged Olivia like an old friend, shook Bron's hand and said, "Bron, I wish you well. I hope to see you again soon."
He wondered if "soon" would ever come.
"Where are we going?" Bron asked.
"You'll go to the airport in Vegas," she said. "After that, you'll take a jet to New Orleans. It has all been arranged."
"Will my mother meet us there?"
"She has been notified that you're coming," Monique said. "Whether or not she comes, will be up to her. Bron, if she doesn't show, you should know something. Your mother is a frightened woman, for good reason."
The helicopter rose above a blue ribbon of lake, following the channel as if it were a road. Bron suspected that between the roar of the engine and the baffling afforded by the privacy glass, the pilot couldn't hear anything they might say. Still, Bron turned up the volume on the stereo, and then began to grill Olivia. He said casually, "There is something wrong with Monique's eyes. When you look into them, she seems very, very old. But I don't think that she's any older than you."
"You're observant," Olivia said.
"I was thinking about the priest. He said that he was three hundred years old. If he was an old man, and he put his memories into the head of a young person that he captured... he could make younger copies of himself. He could live forever."
Olivia's smile faltered. "That would be a very evil thing. Monique would never do that."
"Is she your boss?"
Olivia thought for a moment, bit her lip.
"You can't keep me completely in the dark," Bron suggested. "I don't want to go stumbling into something by accident. I don't think that Monique would want that, either."
Olivia pursed her lips, "No, we wouldn't want that."
"So tell me," Bron said, "what is Monique to you?"
"She's highly respected, she's ..." Olivia fumbled to explain, "special. Let me put it this way. When I was a child, I loved music, and I chose to play the guitar and the violin, and to sing. You're learning the extent of my knowledge. I don't perform for others—it would draw too much attention. So I perform for myself, for my own enjoyment. Because of the narrowness of my training, I'm only a muse.