"Michael, what's going on?"
Was she crying?
"Do it, Rowan, about the white light. Just trust me on this. Work on protecting me."
"A white light," she whispered. "All around you."
"Yeah. A white light. I love you, honey. I'm coming home."
Forty-five
"OH, THIS IS the very worst winter," said Beatrice. "You know they're even saying we might have snow?" She stood up and put her wineglass on the cart. "Well, darling, you've been very patient. And I was so worried. Now that I see you're all right, and that this great big house is so deliciously warm and cheerful, I'll be going."
"It was nothing, Bea," said Rowan, merely repeating what she had already explained. "Just depressed because Michael has been gone so long."
"And what time do you expect him?"
"Ryan said before morning. He was supposed to leave an hour ago but San Francisco International is fogged in."
"Winter, I hate it!" she said.
Rowan didn't bother to explain that San Francisco International was often fogged in during the summer. She simply watched Beatrice put on her cashmere cape, drawing the graceful hood up over her beautifully groomed gray hair.
She walked Beatrice to the door.
"Well, don't retreat in your shell like this, it worries us too much. Call me when you're down, I'll cheer you up."
"You're wonderful," said Rowan.
"We just don't want you to be frightened here. Why, I should have come over before now."
"I'm not frightened. I love it. Don't worry. I'll call you sometime tomorrow. Soon as Michael gets in, everything will be fine. We'll decorate the tree together. You must come and see it, of course."
She watched Beatrice go down the marble steps, and out the gate, the cold air gusting into the hallway. Then she shut the front door.
She stood quiet for a long time, her head bowed, letting the warmth seep around her, and then she walked back in the parlor and stared at the enormous green tree. Just beyond the arch it stood, touching the ceiling. A more perfectly triangular Christmas tree she'd never seen. It filled the whole window to the side porch. And only a small sprinkling of needles lay beneath it on the polished floor. Wild, it looked, primitive, like part of the woods come inside.
She went to the fireplace, knelt down, and placed another small log on the blaze.
"Why have you tried to hurt Michael?" she whispered, staring into the flames.
"I have not tried to hurt him. "
"You are lying to me. Have you tried to hurt Aaron too?"
"I do as you command me to do, Rowan." The voice was soft and deep as always. "My world is pleasing you."
She rested back on her heels, arms folded, eyes misting, so that the flames were softened into a great flickering blur.
"He is not to suspect anything, do you hear me?" she whispered.
"I always hear you, Rowan."
"He is to believe everything is as it was."
"That is my wish, Rowan. We are in accord. I dread his enmity because it will make you unhappy. I will do only as you wish."
But it couldn't go on forever, and suddenly the fear that gripped her was so total that she couldn't speak or move. She couldn't attempt to disguise her feelings. She could not retreat into an inner sanctum of her mind as Aaron had told her to do. She sat there, shivering, staring at the flames.
"How will it end, Lasher? I don't know how to do what you want of me."
"You know, Rowan."
"It will take years of study. Without a deeper understanding of you, I can't hope to begin."
"Oh, but you know all about me, Rowan. And you seek to deceive me. You love me but you do not love me. You would lure me into the flesh if you knew how in order to destroy me."
"Would I?"
"Yes. It is an agony to feel your fear and your hatred, when I know what happiness waits for both of us. When I can see so far."
"What would you have? The body of a man already alive? With consciousness knocked out of him through some sort of trauma, so that you could begin your fusion unimpeded by his mind? That's murder, Lasher."
Silence.
"Is that what you want? For me to commit murder? Because we both know it could be done that way."
Silence.
"And I won't commit that crime for you. I won't kill one single living being so that you can live."
She closed her eyes. She could actually hear him gathering, hear the pressure building, hear the draperies rustling as he moved against them, writhing and filling the room around her, and brushing against her cheeks and her hair.
"No. Let me alone," she sighed. "I want to wait for Michael."
"He will not be enough for you now, Rowan. It causes me pain to see you weep. But I am speaking the truth."
"God, I hate you," she whispered. She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. Through the blur of her tears she looked at the huge green tree.
"Ah, but you don't hate me, Rowan," he said. Fingers caressing her hair, stroking it back away from her forehead, tiny fingers stroking her neck.
"Leave me alone now, Lasher," she pleade
d. "If you love me, leave me alone."
Leiden. She knew it was the dream again and she wanted to wake up. Also the baby needed her. She could hear it crying. I want to leave the dream. But they were all gathered at the windows, horrified by what was happening to Jan van Abel, the mob tearing him limb from limb.
"It wasn't kept secret," said Lemle. "It's impossible for ignorant people to understand the importance of experimentation. What you do when you keep it secret is merely take the responsibility on yourself."
"In other words, protecting them," said Larkin.
He pointed to the body on the table. How patiently the man lay there, with his eyes open and all the tiny budlike organs shivering inside. Such little arms and legs.
"I can't think with the baby crying."
"You have to see the larger picture, the greater gain."
"Where is Petyr? Petyr must be frantic after what's happened to Jan van Abel."
"The Talamasca will take care of him. We're waiting for you to begin."
Impossible. She stared at the little man with the truncated arms and legs and the tiny organs. Only the head was normal. That is a normal-sized head.
"One fourth of the size of the body, to be exact."
Yes, the familiar proportion, she thought. Then the horror seized her as she stared down at it. But they were breaking the windows. The mob was streaming into the corridors of the University of Leiden, and Petyr was running towards her.
"No, Rowan. Don't do it."
She woke up with a start. Footsteps on the stairs.
She climbed out of the bed. "Michael?"
"I'm here, honey."
Just a big shadow in the darkness, smelling of the winter cold, and then his warm trembling hands on her. Roughened and tender, and his face pressed against her.
"Oh, God, Michael, it's been forever. Why did you leave me?"
"Rowan, honey ... "
"Why?" She was sobbing. "Don't let me go, Michael, please. Don't let me go."
He cradled her in his arms.
"You shouldn't have gone, Michael. You shouldn't have." She was crying and she knew he couldn't even understand what she was saying, and that she shouldn't say it, and finally she just covered him with kisses, savoring the saltiness and roughness of his skin, and the clumsy gentleness of his hands.
"Tell me what's the matter, what's really the matter?"
"That I love you. That when you're not here, it's ... it's like you aren't real."