Everville (67 page)

"I said. Go!" Buddenbaum yelled at Tesla, and this time she tore her eyes from the spectacle and turned, only to meet a rush of sour, cold air, and Yie, coming at her.

"You tricked us!" he said, his voice like scalpels. It cut her courage to ribbons. She froze, staring into his doll-like face, while at her back Rare Utu uttered a shivering sigh and murmured, "This... is... wonder.fuL"

"What have you done to her?" Yie demanded. The questions was directed at Buddenbaum, but he caught hold of Tesla as he asked it, and hauled her close to his body. His limbs were far from strong; she could have broken the hold if she'd wanted to. But she didn't. The influence of this flesh was like peyote. She felt it invade her, Lifting her out of her fear.

"Set them free!" Yie said to Buddenbaum.

"I'm afraid it's too late for that," said Owen.

"I'll kill your woman if you don't," the Jai-Wai warned.

"She's not mine," came the reply. "Do whatever you need to do." Dreamily, Tesla glanced back over her shoulder at Buddenbaum, and by the light pouring from the ground saw him plainly for the first time. He was pitifully cold; his humanity consumed long ago in the effort that had brought him to this place. No doubt all he'd boasted in the Nook was true: The years had made him wiser than the Jaff. But his wisdom would do him no good. The Art would break him the way it had broken Randolph. Snap his reason and melt his mind.

Beyond him, in the blaze, Rare Utu had almost disappeared, but even now, with her substance pouring off into the ground where Haheh had already gone, she spoke.

"What happens next... ?" she said.

"Take her out of there!" Yie yelled to Buddenbaum.

"I told you: It's too late," he replied. "Besides, I don't think she wants to go."

Rare Utu was laughing now. "What's next?" she kept saying, her laughter growing insubstantial. "What? What?"

The ground at her feet was as soft as she, ribbons of brightness running off along the streets.

"Stop this!" Yie demanded again, his din so brutal that this time Tesla's body simply surrendered beneath its assault. Her legs failed, her bladder gave out, and she stumbled from Yie's grip towards the blaze.

"No you don't!" Buddenbaum snapped, retreating across the incandescent earth to protect the spot where Rare Utu had stood. "The Art's mine!"

"The Art?" Yie said, as though it was only now he understood the purpose of this trap. "Never, Buddenbaum... " his voice was rising with each syllable. "You will not have it!"

His lacerating din was too much for Tesla's beleaguered body. She felt something in her head break; felt her tongue slacken in her mouth and her lids fall. Saw, as darkness came, the bright ground divide before her And there it was, shining in the dirt: the cross of crosses, the sign of signs. In the long, slow moments of her dying fall, she remembered with a kind of yearning how she'd solved the puzzles of that cross; seen the four journeys that were etched upon it. One to the dream world, one to the real; one to the bestial, one to the divine. And there at the heart of these joumeys-where they crossed, where they divided, where they finished and began-the human mystery. It was not about the flesh, that mystery: It was not about hanging broken from a cross or the triumph of the spirit over suffering. It was about the living dream of mind, that made body and spirit and all they tookjoy in.

Remembering the revelation now the time between that moment and this-the years she'd spent wandering the roads of the lost Americas-folded up and fled. She had glimpsed the vast eternal sitting in the earth beneath Palomo Grove, and now she was dying into it, her lids closing, her heart stopping.

Somewhere far off she heard Yie shrieking, and knew the power here had claimed him as it had claimed the others.

She wanted to tell him not to be afraid; that he was going into a place where the future of being lay in wait. A time out of time when the singularity from which all things came would be whole again. But she had no tongue. No, nor breath. No, nor life.

It was over.

Harry, Raul, and Maeve O'Connell had just come in sight of the crossroads when Tesia slid from Yie's grasp, and stumbled forward.

Though they were a hundred yards from the spot or more, the light was exquisitely particular, and kept no detail of the expression on Tesia's face from Harry's eyes. She was dead, or dying, but her slackening features carried a look of strange contentment.

The luminous ground was no longer solid where she fell. It received her like a shining grave, and she was gone.

"Oh Jesus Harry breathed. "Oh Jesus Chnst in Heaven... "

He picked up his pace and raced towards the intersection, following the braided rivulets of light that ran in the ground beneath his feet.

Behind him, Maeve had started to shout.

"I know that man!" she hollered. "That's Buddenbaum! My Lord, that's Buddenbaum! That's the bastard started all this!" Wresting herself from Raul's custody, she started to hobble after D'Amour.

ill you please stop her?" Coker yelled in Raul's ear.

Raul was too distressed by Tesla's disappearance to reply. Coker yelled on until Raul said, "I thought you'd gone."

"No, never," Coker replied. "I was simply silenced by her bitterness. Now I beg you, my friend, don't let her be taken from me. I want her to know what I feel for her, just once."

Raul swallowed a sob. So many people already taken, and this last the most unthinkable. Tesla had survived a bullet, Kissoon, and enough drugs to fell a horse. But now she was gone.

"Please," Coker said. "Go after Maeve."

"I'll do my best," Raul said, and started in pursuit of the old woman. For all her frailty, she'd already covered quite a distance.

"Wait!" he called after her. "Somebody wants to talk to you!"

As he caught up with her, she scowled. "It's him I want to talk to!" she said, nodding in Buddenbaum's direction. "He's the one!"

"Listen to me a moment," Raul said, catching hold of her arm. "It wasn't an accident we found you. Somebody led us to you. Do you understand? Somebody who's here, right now, beside us."

"Are you crazy?" Maeve replied, looking around.

"You don't see him because he's dead."

"I don't give a shit for the dead," Maeve snapped. "It's the living I want answers from! Buddenbaum!" she yelled.

It was Erwin who piped up now. "Tell her who you are!" he said to Coker.

"I wanted it to be a special moment," Coker replied.

"I wasted my life waiting for the special moments," Erwin told him. "Now is all we've got!" So saying, he pushed his fellow phantom aside to get access to Raul's ear. "Tell her it's Coker! Go on! Tell her!"

"Coker?" Raul said aloud.

Maeve O'Connell stopped in her hobbling tracks. "What did you say?" she murmured.

"The dead man's name is Coker," Raul replied. "I' in her husband," said Coker.

"He says he's-"

"I know who he is," she said, and drawing a gasping breath she said,

"Coker? My Coker? Can this be true?"

"It's true," Raul said.

Tears came, but she didn't stop saying his name. "Coker oh my Coker... my sweet Coker...

Harry heard Maeve sobbing behind him, and looked round to see her with her head flung back, as though her husband was raining kisses on her and she was bathing in them. When he returned his gaze to the crossroads, Buddenbaum had dropped to the ground where Tesla had vanished, and was beating his fists violently against the now-solidified street. He was on the verge of apoplexy, sprays of spittle, sweat, and tears erupting from his face. "You can't, you bitch!" he shrieked at the street. "I won't let you have it!"

Energies were still pouring up out of the ground, spirals and filigrees rising around him. He tried to snatch hold of them in his bloodied hands, as if they might still transfigure him, but his fists extinguished those he caught, and the rest simply climbed on out of his reach and faded into the darkness above him. His fury and frustration mounted. He began to swing around, unleashing a solid scream of rage,

"This can't happen! It can't! It can't!"

Behind him, Harry heard Maeve O'Connell say, "Do you see this, Coker? At the crossroads?" "He sees it," Raul replied.

"That's where I buried the medallion," Maeve went on. "Does Coker know that?" "He knows."

Maeve had come to HarTy's side now. Her face was wet with tears but her smile was unalloyed. "My husband's here... she said to Harry, rather proudly. "Imagine that...

"That's wonderful."

She pointed down the street. "That's where we had the whorehouse. Right there. It's no coincidence, is it?"

"No," said Harry, "I don't think it is."

"All that light, it's coming from the medallion."

"It certainly looks that way."

Her smile broadened. "I'm going to see for myself"

"I wouldn't if I were you."

"Well you're not me," she said sharply. "Whatever's going on there's my doing." She calmed herself a little, and the smile crept back on to her face. "I don't think you know what's going on any more than I do, am I right?"

"More or less," Harry conceded.

"So if we don't know what's to be afraid of, why be afraid?" she reasoned. "Raul? I want you on my left side. And Coker, wherever you are, I want you on my right."

"At least let me go first," Harry said, and without waiting for her permission, headed on towards Buddenbaum, who was once again berating the asphalt. He saw Harry coming from the corner of his eye.

"Keep your distance," he gasped, his breathing raw. "This ground's mine. And I've still got power in me if you uy to take it from me."

"I'm not here to take anything," Harry said.

"You and that bitch Bombeck, plotting against me."

"Mere was no plot. Tesla never wanted to be a part of this-"

"Of course she did!" Buddenbaum replied. "She wasn't stupid. She wanted the Art the same as everyone." He looked round at D'Amour, his fury decaying into self-pity. "But you see I trusted her. That was my mistake. And she lied!" He slammed his wounded palms down upon the solid ground. 'This was my ground! My miracle!"

"Listen to the shit he speaks!" Maeve hollered. Harry stood aside, to let Buddenbaum see her. "You're the liar!" she said. "that land was, is, and always will be mine."

Buddenbaum's expression turned from fury to astonishment. "Are you... are you what I think you are?"

"Why do you look surprised?" Maeve said. "Sure, I got old, but we can't all do deals with the Devil."

"It wasn't the Devil I dealt with," Buddenbaum said softly. "I might have more to show for it if I had. What are you doing here?"

"I came to get some answers," Maeve said. "I deserve some, don't you think, before we both go to our graves?"

"I'm not going to my grave," Buddenbaum said.

"Oh are you not?" Maeve replied. "My mistake." She waved Raul away, so as to proceed unaided to where Buddenbaum knelt. "Do you want another hundred, hundred and fifty years?" she said to him. "You're welcome to them. I'm off, after this. Somewhere my bones don't ache."

While she was speaking, one of the luminous ribbons risin- from the ground strayed in her direction. She reached out towards it and instead of avoiding her grasp it woye between her arthritic fingers. "Did you ever see the house we built here?" she said, as she watched the ribbon at play. "Oh it was such a sight. Such a sight."

The ribbon went from her fingers now, but several more strands and particles were rising from out of the earth towards her.

"What are you doing, woman?" Buddenbaum said.

"Nothing," Maeve shrugged.

"Even if the land isn't mine, the magic is."

"I'm not taking it from you," Maeve said mildly, "I'm too old to be possessive about anything. Except maybe my memories. Those are mine, Buddenbaum... " The motes were getting busier all the time, as though inspired by what she was saying. "And right now they're very clear.

Very, very, clear." She closed her eyes for a moment, and a new wave of luminosity broke from the street, rising to graze her hands and face before darting off. "Sometimes I think I remember my childhood more clearly than yesterday... " she went on, extending her hand. "Coker?" she said. "Are you there?"

"He's right here," said Raul.

"Will you take my hand?" she said.

"He says he's doing it," Raul said. Then, after a moment. "He's got tight hold of you."

Maeve smiled. "You know I believe I can feel it?" she said.

Buddenbaum caught hold of Hany's sleeve. "Is she

?" crazy

"No. Her husband's ghost is here."

"I should have seen, I suppose," he said, his voice a monotone. "Final acts... they're a bitch...

"Better get used to it," Harry said.

"I never liked the sentimental shit," Buddenbaum replied.

"I think it's more than that," Harry said, looking up at the motes and filaments that had touched Maeve's skin. they were not extinguishing themselves in the night sky as those that had gone before had done, but were roving purposefully, like bees in a field of flowers, mazing the air as they went about their purpose. Where they traveled they left trails of light, which, once loosed, proceeded to elaborate themselves, describing a multitude of forms in the warm night air.

It was Raul who spoke what he saw first. "The house-2' he said in amazement. "You see it, Harry?"

"I see it."

"Enough," said Buddenbaum, waving the sight away as if nauseated. "I'm done with the past. Done with it!"

Covering his head with his hands he stumbled off as Maeve's memory raised her whorehouse out of light and air: walls and windows, staircase and ceilings. Off to Harry's left a passageway led to the front door, and the step beyond. to his right, through another door there was a parlor, and through another, a kitchen, and through a third a yard where the trees were blossoming. And everywhere, even as the floors were laid, the rooms were being filled with furniture and rugs and plants and vases, the sheer proliferation of detail suggesting that once the process had been initiated these objects were coming back into being of their own accord. Their solid selves had gone to dust decades since, but these, their imagined forms, remained encoded at the spot where they'd existed. Now they came again, remembering themselves in all their perfection.