“Was he sick?”
“In his head, yes. And in his heart. Something in him had curdled when he was a child, and I thought for the longest time he was a cretin. I gave up trying to teach him anything. But there was malice in him, I think: terrible malice. And he was best dead.” She gave Phoebe a sorrowful look. “Do you have children?” she said.
“No.”
“Count yourself lucky,” Maeve replied.
Then, abruptly shaking off her melancholy tone, she waved Phoebe away, shouting, “Rouse yourselves!” to her bearers, and the convoy went on its way, down the steep hill.
The state of the dream-sea had changed considerably in the hours in which Phoebe had been a guest in Maeve’s house. The ships in the harbor no longer lay peaceably at anchor, but pitched and bucked, tearing at their moorings like panicked thoroughbreds. The beacons that had been burning at the harbor entrance had been extinguished by the fury of the waves, which mounted steadily as the party descended.
“I begin to think I’ll not be able to keep my end of the bargain,” Maeve said to Phoebe once they were on flat ground.
“Why not?”
“Use your eyes,” Maeve replied, pointing down towards the beach, where the breakers were ten or twelve feet high. “I don’t think I’ll be speaking to the ’shu down there.”
“Who are the ’shu?”
“Tell her,” Maeve instructed Musnakaff. “And you, set me down.” Once again, the convoy came to a halt. “Help me out of this contraption,” Maeve demanded. The bearers sprang to do just that.
“Do you need help?” Musnakaff asked her.
“If I do I’ll ask for it,” Maeve replied. “Get on with educating the woman. Though Lord knows it’s a little late.”
“Tell me who the ’shu are,” Phoebe said to Musnakaff.
“Not who, what,” Musnakaff replied, his gaze drifting off toward his mistress. “What is she doing?”
“We’re having a conversation here,” Phoebe snapped.
“She’s going to do herself some harm.”
“I’m going to be doing some harm of my own if you don’t finish what you were saying. The ’shu—”
“Are spirit-pilots. Pieces of the Creator. Or not. There. Satisfied?” He made to go to his mistress’s side, but Phoebe caught hold of him.
“No,” she said. “I’m not satisfied.”
“Unhand me,” he said sniffily.
“I will not.”
“I’m warning you,” he said, jabbing a beringed finger at her. “I’ve got more important business than—” A puzzled look crossed his face. “Did you feel that?”
“The tremor, you mean? Yeah, there was one a few minutes ago. Some kind of earthquake—”
“I wish it were,” Musnakaff said. He stared at the ground between them. Another tremor came; this the strongest so far.
“What is it then?” Phoebe said, her irritation with Musnakaff forgotten.
She got no answer. The man just turned his back on her and hurried away to the spot on the cobbled stones where Maeve was standing. She could not do so without help. Two of her bearers were supporting her, and a third waiting behind in case she should topple.
“We must move on,” Musnakaff called to her.
“Do you know what happened on this spot?” she said to him.
“Lady—”
“Do you?”
“No.”
“This is where I was standing when he first came to find me.” She smiled fondly. “I told him, right at the beginning, I said to him: There’ll never be anyone to replace my Coker, because Coker was the love of my life—”
At this, the ground shook more vehemently than ever.
“Hush yourself,” Musnakaff said.
“What?” said Mistress O’Connell. “Hushing me? I should beat you for that.” She raised her stick, and swung at Musnakaff. The blow fell short of its mark, and Maeve lost her balance. Her bearers might have saved her from falling, but she was in a fine fury, and kept flailing even as she toppled. The stick struck the bearer to her right, and he went down, bloody-nosed. The man who had been watching over her from behind stepped in to catch hold of her, but as he did so she took another stumbling step towards Musnakaff, swinging again. This time she connected, the blow so hard her stick broke. Then she went down, carrying the bearer to her left—who had not relinquished his hold on her for an instant—down with her.
As she struck the ground, her fall cushioned by the sheer profusion of her shirts and coats, the ground shuddered yet again. But this time, the tremor did not die away. It continued to escalate, turning over the unattended sedan, and sending the guard who had been leading the procession scurrying back up the hill.
“Damn you, woman!” Musnakaff hollered to Maeve as he went to help pick her up. “Now look what you’ve done.”
“What’s happening?” Phoebe yelled.
“It’s him!” Musnakaff said. “He heard her! I knew he would.”
“King Texas?”
Before Musnakaff could reply the street shook from end to end, and this time the ground cracked open. These were not fissures, like those Phoebe had skipped on Harmon’s Heights. There was nothing irregular about them; nothing arbitrary. They were elegantly shaped, carving arabesques in the paving, and everywhere joining up, so that within moments the entire street looked like an immense jigsaw puzzle.
“Everybody stay where they are,” Musnakaff said, his voice trembling. “Don’t anybody move.” Phoebe did as she was instructed. “Tell him you’re sorry,” Musnakaff yelled to Maeve. “Quickly!”
With the help of her two conscious bearers the woman had got to her knees. “I’ve got nothing to apologize for,” Maeve said.
“God, you are a stubborn woman!” Musnakaff roared, and raised his arm as if to strike her.
“Don’t,” Phoebe yelled at him. She’d lost most of her patience with Maeve in the last half-hour, but the sight of her about to be struck brought back painful memories.
She’d no sooner spoken than the divided ground shook afresh, and pieces of the jigsaw fell away, leaving holes three, four, even five feet across in a dozen places. The chill out of them made the icy air seem balmy.
“I told you,” Musnakaff said, his voice dropped to a hoarse whisper.
Phoebe’s eyes darted from one hole to the next, wondering which one the lovelorn King Texas was going to emerge from.
“We should never . . . never . . . have come,” Maeve was murmuring. “You talked me into it, woman!” She jabbed her finger in Phoebe’s direction. “You’re in cahoots with him, aren’t you?” She started to struggle to her feet, with the air of her bearers. “Admit it,” she said, the words flying from her mouth along with a spray of spittle. “Go on, admit it.”
“You’re crazy,” Phoebe said, “you’re all crazy!”
“Now there’s a woman knows what she’s talkin’ about,” said a voice from the earth, and from every one of the holes rose a column of writhing dirt, which within seconds had climbed up to twice human height.
The sight was more remarkable than intimidating. Gasping with astonishment, Phoebe turned around to see that on every side the tips of the columns were already sprouting branches like spokes, which spread and knotted together overhead.
“Musnakaff?” Phoebe said. “What’s happening?”
It was Maeve who replied. “He’s making shade for himself,” he said, plainly unimpressed by the display. “He doesn’t like the light, poor thing. He’s afraid it’s going to make him wither away.”
“Look who’s talkin’!” said the voice out of the ground. “You wrote the book on witherin’, love of my wretched life.”
“Am I supposed to be flattered?” Maeve said.
“No . . . ” the voice from the ground replied. “You’re supposed to remember that I always tell you the truth, even when it stings a little. And, sweetness, you look old. No, strike that. You look forlorn. Forsaken. Empty.”
“That’s rich, coming from a hole in th
e ground!” Maeve snapped.
There was laughter now, out of the earth; soft, ripe laughter.
“Are you going to show yourself,” Maeve said, “or are you too ugly these days?”
“I’m whatever you want me to be, my little pussy-rose.”
“Don’t be crude, for once.”
“I’ll be a monk for you. I’ll never touch myself. I’ll—”
“Oh God, how you talk!” Maeve said. “Are you going to show yourself or not?”
There was a short silence. Then the voice simply said “Here,” and up out of one of the holes between Maeve and Phoebe came a stream of muddy matter that began to congeal—even before it had finished rising—into a vaguely human form. It had its back to Phoebe, so she had no sense of its physiognomy, but to judge by the dorsal view it was an unfinished thing: a man of dust and raw rock.
“Satisfied?” it drawled.
“I think it’s too late for that,” Maeve replied.
“Oh no, baby, that’s not true. It’s not true at all.” He raised his arm (his hand was the size of a snow shovel) as if to touch the old lady. But he refrained from contact, his lumpen fingers hovering an inch from her cheek. “Give up your flesh,” he said. “And come and be rock with me. We’ll melt together, baby. We’ll let people live on our backs and we’ll just be down there, warm and cosy.” Phoebe studied Maeve’s face through this strange seduction and knew she’d heard (or read) these words countless times. “You’ll never have another wrinkle,” King Texas went on. “You’ll never have your bowels seize up. You’ll never ache. You’ll never wither. You’ll never die.” He ran out of sweet talking there, and seeing that his words were having no effect, turned to Phoebe. “Now I ask you,” he said (as she’d suspected, his face was barely sketched in clay), “does that sound so damn bad?” His breath was cold and smelled of the underworld. Caves and pure water; things growing in darkness. It was not unpleasant. “Well does it?” he said.
Phoebe shook her head. “No,” she replied. “It sounds fine to me.”
“There!” said Texas, glaring back over his shoulder at Maeve but almost instantly returning his gaze to Phoebe. “She understands me.”
“Then take her. Write your damn letters to her. I want no part of you.”
Phoebe saw a wounded look cross King Texas’s unfinished face. “You won’t get another chance,” he said to Maeve, still studying Phoebe as he spoke. “Not after this. The Iad’s goin’ to destroy your city and you’ll go with it.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Maeve replied.
“Oh, wait now . . . ” King Texas said, “can you be thinking of going back into business?” He swung his huge head round to peer at Maeve.
“Why not?” she said.
“Because the Iad have no feelings. Nor do they have much between the legs.”
“So you’ve seen them, have you?”
“Dreamed ’em,” King Texas said. “Dreamed ’em over and over.”
“Well go back to your dreams,” Maeve said. “And leave me to get on with what’s left of my life. You’ve got nothing I need.”
“Oh that hurts,” King Texas said. “If I had veins I’d bleed.”
“It’s not just veins you’re missing!” Maeve replied.
The King’s gigantic form shuddered, and he growled out a warning: “Be careful,” he said.
But the words went unheeded. “You’re old and womanly—” Maeve said.
“Womanly?” Now the street rocked again. Phoebe heard Musnakaff muttering to himself, and realized it was a prayer she knew: “Mary, mother of God . . . ”
“I’m a lot of things,” King Texas said. “And some of ’em I’m none too proud of. But womanly—” His head had started to sprout snaky shapes as thick as fingers. Hundreds of them, running from his scalp in writhing streams. “Does this look womanly to you?” he demanded to know. His entire body was transforming, Phoebe saw, his anatomy bulging and rippling. As it did so he stepped out of the hole from which he’d risen onto solid ground, detaching himself from the flow of rock. He stood before Maeve like a shaggy titan, with a growl in his throat. “I could take you all down with me,” he said, reaching to seize the cobbled street, the way somebody might catch hold of a rug. “Let you see what it’s like in my beautiful darkness.” He tugged on the street, just a little. Musnakaff was thrown off his feet, and instantly slid towards one of the holes.
“Please God no!” he shrieked. “Mistress! Help me!”
“Just stop it!” Maeve said, as though speaking to a fractious child. Much to Phoebe’s surprise, the tone worked. King Texas let go of the ground, leaving Musnakaff sobbing with relief.
“Why do we always end up arguing?” Texas said, his tone suddenly placatory. “We should be spending this time reminiscing.”
“I’ve got nothing to reminisce about,” Maeve said.
“Not true, not true. We had fine times, you and me. I built you a highway. I built you a harbor.” Maeve looked up at him unmoved. “What are you thinking of?” King Texas said, leaning a little closer to her. “Tell me, blossom.”
Maeve shrugged. “Nothing,” she said.
“Then let me think for us both. Let me love for us both. What I feel for you is more than any man ever felt for any woman in the history of love. And without it—”
“Don’t do this,” Maeve whined.
“Without it, I am in grief, and you—”
“Why won’t you listen?”
“You are forgotten.”
At this, Maeve bristled. “Forgotten?” she said.
“Yes. Forgotten,” Texas replied. “This city will be gone in a few hours. Our harbor, your fine buildings . . . ” He waved his huge hands in the air, to evoke their passing. “The Iad will wipe it all away. And as for Everville—”
“I don’t want to talk about that.”
“Is it too painful? I don’t blame you. You were there at the beginning, and now they’ve forgotten you.”
“Stop saying that!” Maeve raged. “Jesus and Mary, will you never learn? I am not going to be bullied or shamed or tempted or seduced into ever loving you again! You can build me a thousand harbors! You can write me a love letter every minute of every day till the end of the world and I WILL NOT LOVE YOU!” With this, she turned to the closest of her bearers. “What’s your name?” she said.
“Noos Cataglia.”
“Your back, Noos.”
“I beg your—?”
“Turn around. I want to climb on your back.”
“Oh—yes. Of course.” The man duly presented his back to Maeve, who with his help began to scramble up onto it.
“What are you doing?” King Texas said quietly.
“I’m going to prove you wrong,” Maeve said, grabbing hold of her mount’s collar. “I’m going back to Everville.”
For the first time in several minutes, Phoebe piped up. “You can’t,” she protested.
“You tell her,” King Texas said. “She won’t listen to me.”
“You promised to help me find Joe,” Phoebe went on.
“I’m afraid he’s lost, Phoebe,” Maeve said, “so let it go.” She pursed her lips. “Look, I’m sorry,” she said, though plainly the apology was hard. “But didn’t I say to you, don’t put your faith in love?”
“If you did I wouldn’t believe you.”
“Listen to this woman!” King Texas said to Maeve. “She’s wise! Wise!”
“She’s as much a fool for love as you are,” Maeve said, her rheumy gaze going from Phoebe to Texas and back again. “You deserve each other!” Then she tugged on her mount’s collar. “Move yourself!” she said.
As the poor man started away up the gradient, King Texas looked down at Musnakaff, who had cautiously scrambled to his feet during this exchange. “Woman!” Texas yelled to Maeve. “If you go, I’ll kill your little boot-licker.”
Maeve cast a glance over her shoulder. “You wouldn’t be so petty,” she said.
“I’ll be whatever I like!” Texas roar
ed. “Now you come back! I’m warning you! Come back!” Maeve simply dug her knees into Cataglia’s flanks. “He has seconds left to see the sky, woman!” Texas yelled. “I mean it!”
Musnakaff had started to let out a pitiful mewling sound and was retreating from the closest of the holes.
“You are cruel!” Texas hollered after Maeve. “Cruel! Cruel!”
With that he seemed to lose all patience, and reached down to tug at the ground.
“Don’t—” Phoebe said, but her appeal was drowned out by Musnakaff’s shriek as he was thrown from his feet. He scrabbled at the cobbles as the street tipped beneath him, but his fingers found too little purchase and he tumbled towards the hole. Phoebe couldn’t stand by and watch him go to his death. Yelling to him to hold on, she raced towards him, arms outstretched. He raised his head, a brief glimpse of hope appearing on his ashen face and reached out towards her.
Before her fingers could find his, however, he lost what hold he had and fell. For a fraction of a second their eyes locked and she saw how terrible this was. Then he was gone, screaming and screaming.
She retreated from the hole, letting out a sob of horror—and more, of rage—as she did so.
“Now, hush,” King Texas said.
She looked up at him. He was just a looming form, blurred by her tears, but that didn’t stop her speaking her mind. “You did this for love?” she said.
“Do you blame me? That woman—”
“You just killed somebody!”
“I was trying to make her change her mind,” he said, his voice thickening.
“Well you didn’t! You just made more grief—”
Texas shrugged. “He’ll be safe down there. It’s quiet. It’s dark—” She heard him sigh, heavily. “All right. I was wrong.” Phoebe sniffed hard, and wiped the tears from her eyes. “I can’t bring him back,” Texas went on, “but please, let me comfort you—”
He raised his vast hand as he spoke, as if to touch her. It was the last thing she wanted. She tried to wave it away, but in doing so lost her balance. She flailed, attempting to recover it, but her foot somehow missed the street completely. She looked down, and to her utter horror saw that the hole where Musnakaff had gone was there beneath her.