The Fury and the Terror (9 page)

"You can see what's happening to me," the dpg said in a hollowed voice. "Kelane is about gone. I'm being sucked back into her ethereal vortex. In case you're curious, it doesn't hurt. On the other hand, it's not all that pleasant."

"Oh, God. What do you want from me?"

"There are things you need to know. First, trust your powers, and they will expand through your trust. Second, there is no limit to the good in this world, but the good must be nurtured. Third, there is no limit to the evil that finds its way to this world, and you must dedicate yourself and your powers to the containment of evil. How do you do that? There are no guidelines, as such. But you're a bright girl. You'll pick it up as you go along."

"You sound like one of those superheroes comic books I used to read." Kelane Cheng's dpg began to waver in the air, as if her image was projected onto a sheer window curtain. She trembled in the breeze riffling through the boughs of the nearby oaks, a lonely little phantom with eyes of black pearl. Her voice grew fainter.

"Don't be snide. Remember this: the Malterrans will know about you now. There are more of them to deal with these days, because the old gods have lost their pep and now Mordaunt is acting up again. But you know about that."

"I—what? Who is
Mordaunt
?"

"I don't have time to educate you. Should have been taken care of during your Dreamtime."

"Malterrans? Do you mean the 'Bad Souls'?"

"Yes. Unfortunately you won't always know them when you see them. Some of them are loaded with charm. The good news is you'll have some protection."

"What kind of protection?"

"The loving attention of your real mother."

"My
mother
?! Where is she, can I see—"

"No. Your mother was murdered on the earthly plane, almost a year ago today. She was the Avatar, before Kelane became the Avatar. So you might say you have a double helping of—oh-oh. Sorry. That's it. Kelane and I are finished here. Been good to know you, Eden."

"Wait!"

There was a bright burst of light like a spark from a live wire, accompanied by a faint far-gone humming sound. Then nothing, except for the breeze that conveyed the scent of floral tributes placed randomly across the hillside. Something narcotic in their sweetness. Eden's head felt heavy. She crawled through the grass to a space between the roots of one of the great old oaks and lay down there in dreamy exhaustion to grab the nap she urgently required.

"I
think what we have to do now is get Eden out of town. Quietly slip away. While the confusion lasts, and they're all still sorting out what happened."

"Putting two and two together," Riley said, tight-lipped. His back was hurting bad.

"Exactly," Betts said, prowling the rec room downstairs in their home, smoking, her eyes bright with urgency. "We'll lie low, wait for instructions."

"Nothing may come of it, though. For all anyone knows, Eden simply went a little haywire. Case of nerves."

Betts laughed unhappily, and lit another Merit from the one she'd been smoking. Riley cleared his throat in disapproval and tried to make himself comfortable in the rocking chair. He'd given himself a shot of Flexeril, but he was sure he'd slipped a disk this time.

The phone rang again upstairs. The answering machine cut in immediately. But the tape had to be nearly full. Betts didn't need to listen to any of the messages to know what the calls were about.

"Six thousand people heard her say an airliner was going to crash into the stadium. She was warning us to get out before anyone even saw the damn plane. No way to pass it off as mass hysteria. I wouldn't care to try." Betts gestured at the big-screen TV. The sound was off. "She's been all over CNN for the last two hours." She frowned. "This is no time for the unguardin' of Eden."

"Betts, I was wondering—" Riley rocked slowly, trying to focus through the soft haze the Flexeril had put in his brain. "Just how far Eden has progressed, the last few years."

Betts paused in her pacing. "Why ask that now? You never wanted to know before."

"Because I've always—I've only wanted her to be—"

"Healthy, happy, well adjusted. Well, she is. Eden has turned out beautifully. No wrinkles in her psyche."

"But she—I was scared today. I'm still scared."

"Maybe it's time for some boozter fuel," Betts suggested. "Applejack, or a shot of Black?"

"Not with Flexeril. Betts, there were
two
Edens at the stadium this morning."

Betts looked at him, and away, at the ashy tip of the cigarette in her hand. She smiled tiredly. "That so?"

The phone again. Riley said, "Shouldn't we answer? Eden may be trying to get in touch."

"She'd page one of us; leave a number where she can be reached."

"Aren't you worried about her?"

"Geoff said she has his Taurus. You know Eden. When she's upset or has a problem she needs to think through, she grabs a set of wheels and goes. Needs her solitude. Eden must know we're okay. When she's ready, we'll hear from her."

"Are those TV lunatics still camped at the end of our drive?"

"Noose hounds on the loose. Kvetching in our vetch." Her hand was trembling; she dropped a cylinder of cigarette ash on the hardwood floor.

Riley winced. "Did you hear me the first time? Just before that plane crashed, I saw
two
Edens. At different ends of the stadium, at the same time."

Betts looked cautiously at him. "The mind plays tricks, Riley."

"Tell me I'm nuts, why don't you?" he said angrily.

"Oh, honey. I'm not telling you that." Betts sat on an arm of the rocker, put her arm across his shoulders. "It's a little difficult to explain. Maybe you truly don't want to know."

Riley's face convulsed. Tears leaked from beneath tightly closed lids. "She's my
baby
. I love her so much."

"You have to accept."

"It's hard. So hard."

"We knew from the beginning. The odds were heavily in favor of a supranormal child."

With a wad of tissue Betts wiped his streaming cheeks.

"Who have you told?" Riley asked.

"You know better. Our deal was, we raise Eden with no interference. No financial help needed, or wanted. K has never violated those terms. Like you, K never wanted to know very much. Just the ordinary things. The baby pictures, the birthday parties, the bumps, bruises, and braces. She's been satisfied with tidbits, all these years."

"In a little while, if she hasn't seen the news already, she'll be—"

"Well, it was inevitable. I'll deal with K. We're still making the decisions. We go away for a little while. Have ourselves a good rest. Fletch Elstott can cover for, you, and as for my patients, well, I always take four weeks in the summer anyway. I'll just take them a little early, far from the hurly-burly."

"Where—will we go?"

"Greenwood. Not our place. John Hassler's sabbatical will keep him away until the end of June. I happen to know his lodge isn't rented for the month, so we'll take it. The keys are at Four-Star Realty. I think we can count on Chickie to keep her mouth shut as to our whereabouts. She owes me, anyway. Lord knows if I'd been billing her all these years for the kitchen-table therapy I've dished out gratis—"

"You've always been a big softy."

"This will all blow over. Memory is fragile and unreliable, particularly if there's trauma involved. Good cheer, m'dear. I'm going to sneak out the back way when the sun goes down, and make our arrangements. You need to apply wet heat where it's hurting."

"Sneaking out of our own house," Riley said with a rueful grin. Then his face clouded again. "How does she do it? How is it possible that there could be two identical Edens?" His breathing was distressed. "I'm just a—I'm a horse doctor! The things of the mind, that you're so comfortable with—I can't deal with those things, Betts!"

Betts tweaked one of his chins, drew thoughtfully on her cigarette; exhaled. The phone was ringing again.

"Would you get my Bible for me?" Riley asked her. "I need my Bible."

E
den woke up with a hell of a start in the cemetery on the hill.

Sirens in the distance. Wind swishing through the myriad leaves of the oak she was resting against. Swift patterns of light and shade across her body. There were grass stains on the white pique dress she'd bought especially for graduation.

She was thirsty. Tongue dry, bad taste, a case of puke-mouth. She needed to go to the bathroom, but there were no facilities. Nothing up here but trees, modest grave markers, Geoff's car pulled off on the grass.

Down there, at the college, the remnant of holocaust. Eyes tearing, she surveyed the scattered remains of the DC-10, wondering who had been aboard. Survivors? Not many, probably. On the ground, there had to have been casualties. Anxiety was jammed below her breastbone like a hard fist. Betts. Riley ...?

Eden began to shake in the cooling wind. The sun was in its late afternoon phase, burning up the western sky. Dense clouds in the east, not moving. She heard someone playing an accordion.

She walked toward Geoff's Taurus. She saw, halfway down the hill, a woman in a straw gardening hat with a wide drooping brim. The woman wore a flowered print dress that the wind wrapped around her bowed legs.

She was standing well along a row of grave markers, by a grave heaped with floral remembrances. It was her accordion Eden was listening to. She played it with the energy of a stevedore, rolling out the barrel. The woman had, apparently, driven to the cemetery in an old stake-sided pickup truck. No one else seemed to be around. Eden and the accordionist had the memorial gardens to themselves.

Eden glanced into the Taurus but she already knew. No keys. Nature called. She hunkered down behind the Taurus, dress hiked up, panty hose rolled down. Because she had no shoes, when she finished peeing she took the hose off, rolled them carefully, and put them in the glove compartment of Geoff's car. He might've left his cell phone in the trunk, but without a key she couldn't retrieve it. Still, she needed a phone.

So much anxiety in her breast she could barely swallow. Part of her mind seemed unwilling to do anything but replay horrors, incongruities, and curiosities, like the little Chinese doppelganger who had come and gone, making pronouncements but little sense. Gone for good, Eden hoped. The rest of her mind was firing blanks when she tried to come up with a coherent plan of action. Brief whiteouts of comprehension. After one of those she found herself walking barefoot down the hill toward the woman who swayed beside a grave with her large accordion, a giant thing of rosewood, brass, and ivory; the woman looked, from behind, as if she were tussling with something that had attacked her.

Eden waited, ten feet away, until the music stopped. She felt very tired. Whiteout.

"Hello, dear."

Eden blinked and focused.

"Oh ... hello."

Her face was old. Blunt wide nose, cheeks wrinkled like pink silk pillows. But it was a kind face, and Eden was grateful.

"Did you have a good nap?"

Eden reacted with a vague nod:

"Saw you sleeping up there under that tree. Didn't want to wake you, you looked so peaceful. Can I be of any help?"

Eden gestured. "Up there. My car ... I think I must have lost the keys."

"Dear, that
is
a problem."

"Was wondering if—you have a phone I could use to call—"

"You must mean one of those wireless jobbies, that fold up and fit in a pocket. No, sorry to say I don't."

"I apologize—for bothering you. I guess I'll . . ." Eden shrugged, smiling drearily. "I don't know."

"No bother. I've finished playing, and I'm entirely at your disposal." The woman unloaded her accordion with a profound huffing and set it on the ground. "Does get awfully burdensome. Haven't the stren'th for a full set any longer. Time was, I could play as long as there were dancing feet in front of me. Do you like to dance?"

"Uh—yes."

"I see you've stained that beautiful dress. Time was, it took a lot of scrubbing, but the stain never quite disappeared. Now this new miracle stuff, spray it on before you wash, poof. No stain. My name is Wardella Tinch." She turned with a fond smile to the grave behind her. "And this is my husband Mycal. I mean, of course, his resting place. Room aplenty in the Tinch family plot in Eureka, but Mycal was always put off by the monuments that generations of Tinchs had erected to their own memories. So he chose to come all the way to Innisfall, to the Gardens, where, he said, everyone gets the same shake. A simple bronze marker. Mycal didn't wish to stand out, you know, living or dead. He took a quiet sort of pride in hiding his light under a bushel. He was a musician too. You want to know why I drive this far just to play the accordion for Mycal? Well, because I know it brings a smile to his face. But you're in need of a telephone, you said."

"I have to find out if my parents are all right."

"Why, they're doing just
fine
, Eden. Although Riley strained his back getting himself out of harm's way when part of that plane came crashing into the stadium."