From a few yards away a figure watched, silent, unmoving. Upon her breast glowed a swollen moon. It gave forth beams of splintered light as she raised her arms and chanted in a clear strong voice.
And now that the bees had gone she summoned their sisters:
—and the ants came, the voracious red driver ants named eciton that lay waste to vast areas of the rain forest, devouring anything in their path. They were like a shadow creeping down the hillside, like a ragged hem of darkness falling across that small still form. As quickly as the bees had found Cloud, the ants foamed across the barren desert and onto her corpse. Their feet made a whispering sound as they climbed upon her, her limbs and face bloated with venom. They darkened her skin like a bruise, crept beneath her loose clothing so that the fabric moved with a soft undercurrent of sound, a rustling that grew into a sort of tearing noise, like shears being drawn through thick canvas.
The noise continued for a long time. An acrid smell filled the air, released from glands near the ants’ mandibles. As they fed, other creatures crept up from the tiled veranda to watch: a pair of soft slow tarantulas and the elfin kit fox. But when they detected that bitter smell the tarantulas raised their front legs defensively and stalked back into the darkness. The kit fox’s ears flattened against its skull as it whined, then fled into the shadows. Only the bats whistled overhead, now and then sweeping down to carry off one of the winged sentries that hovered above the corpse.
When finally they had fed, the ants moved on. Like water poured onto the desert floor, the dark cloud spread; then disappeared into countless unseen cracks and crevices. Only their scent remained, a smell like bitter melons, and a glistening assemblage of bones and skull, a torn black shirt and khaki shorts like the flag of a fallen army sunk between loops of ivory.
It was Martin who found her early the next morning, out on his dawn run. He recognized her clothes, and also the three tiny gold rings he found caught in the curve of a finger bone, alongside the shivering crystal wedge of an insect’s wing.
“Oh, my god,” he whispered, and raced back to the house.
“What is it?” demanded Angelica, as she met him at the door.
“Stay inside, just stay in here,” commanded Martin, and he dialed 911 with shaking hands.
A short while later the police and ambulance arrived, but of course there was nothing they could do. The dogs they brought, sturdy cheerful German shepherds trained in tracking lost children and hikers, sniffed at the sad array of bones and then bellied miserably onto the ground, pawing at their muzzles and whining.
“The coroner’s on his way, and Dr. Sorrell from up at Flagstaff,” the chief of police told Angelica. He was pale as he scratched a few notes onto his clipboard. By the pool Martin was comforting the hysterical Kendra, who had, despite orders from Angelica, run to the top of the ridge and seen what was there. Sunday was talking excitedly to a reporter, telling him about the puma she’d seen months before. “He says fire ants have killed folks in South Texas but that was more of an allergic reaction. This just seems like some kinda crazy freakish thing—”
“I can’t believe it, I just can’t believe it,” murmured Angelica. She shook her head and stared out the open front door. Three police cars and the coroner’s car and an ambulance were in the drive, along with the pickup trucks of two local reporters, all parked every which way, some with their doors still hanging open. As she stared a plume of yellowish dust rose from between the jaws of the wooden gate at the top of the hill. A moment later a Jeep came bouncing down the drive.
“Who’s this?” asked the chief of police.
“My son,” Angelica said softly. “He’s been driving back from college—”
The Jeep slammed to a stop. Its door flew open and a tall figure jumped out. He paused and stared at Martin and Kendra on the patio, turned to gaze in disbelief at the policemen and ambulance and the howling brace of dogs caged in a police car.
“Mom?” he yelled, running up the sidewalk. He ducked through the front door, glancing around frantically until he saw her. “Mom!”
“Dylan,” she said, and opened her arms to embrace him. “Dylan—”
“What happened, Mom, what’s—”
“Shhh,” she said, raising her hand to stroke the long hair from his eyes. “Shhh, don’t worry, it’s okay—
“Just something bad, that’s all. Something bad that happened to Cloud.”
CHAPTER 13
Other Echoes
WHEN I CALLED THE Beacon I got Baby Joe’s voice mail, his soft sleepy voice followed by a few bars of the Bernard Herrmann score for Jason and the Argonauts. I left a message, then went to clear my head.
Outside on the Mall, the Aditi was in full swing. Raga music, wailing flutes, fire-eaters and magicians and puppet masters, all obscured by the duck smoke of frying samosas and the dust raised by thousands of passing feet. Already the grass had been trampled into a dirty greenish mat pleached with cigarette butts and trampled hot dogs and broken balloons. You could see the heat shimmering from the sidewalks and the flow of traffic on Constitution Avenue. In front of the National Gallery of Art, water arced from a line of sprinklers and children ran shrieking in and out of the rainbow spray. A woman in a stained sundress rummaged through a trash bin.
It was the second of July. Tens of thousands of tourists had descended on the city, and they all seemed to be right here, mingling with the dancers and fakirs and weavers imported from India at the expense of Winesap, Inc. I watched a family in full American tourist drag staring at a Bengali mother in tissue-silk sari and gold bracelets and her children, as they watched two young men angle a pair of fighter kites across the sky. In the background the Capitol glowed like a huge white cloud, its perimeter ringed with flags and the concrete bulwarks set up over the last few years to guard against terrorist attacks. The kites swooped and dipped, delta chips of green and yellow. Their strings had been coated with broken glass, so that when one suddenly dived at the other, the tail of the second kite was severed. It went into a stall and crashed. The victor reeled in his kite, smiling; then the two warriors gathered their reels and arm in arm walked to a Good Humor wagon.
It was all a little too weird for me. I went to a booth with a yellow-and-white awning and bought a lemonade. I crossed the Mall to the Freer, always an oasis of calm amidst the summer storm of tourists and children. I sat on a bench and sipped my lemonade and mused on what I had seen on TV.
Angelica a cult figure.
I shook my head and took another sip, getting a grainy mouthful of sour sugar. Although, really, it wasn’t totally unexpected. If I really thought about it, I would have been surprised if Angelica hadn’t turned out to be somehow extraordinary. If instead of an Italian count, she’d married a chemical engineer from Houston and settled there to raise their children. I wondered if she had children, dismissed the notion as ridiculous, maybe even a little grotesque. I could imagine Angelica hiring someone else to bear a daughter for her, and then engaging an army of nannies and tutors and linguists to raise her, a serenely beautiful child playing by herself in a Florentine garden.