"Oh yes," Haheh replied. "We never tire of seeing the Great and Secret Show played out."
"My she said, "were you in Palomo Grove?"
"Regrettably no," Rare Utu told her. "We missed that one."
'-Mat was the beginning of our discontent with Owen, truth to tell," Hahch said. "We were growing tired of the same old slaughters. We had an appetite for something more@ow shall I put it?'
"Apocalyptic," Yie prompted.
"So he arranged this@'Tesia said.
"So it seems," said Haheh. "But his genius has deserted him. This afternoon, for instance. It should have been a triumph, but it just fizzled out. We were very disappointed. That's why we came after you. We want another Palomo Grove. People driven mad by their own nightmares."
"Have you no sympathy?" Testa said.
Of course," said Rare Utu. "We suffer a great deal at the sight of your suffering. If we didn't why would we seek it out?"
"Give me that again," Testa said.
"Better to show her," Haheh said.
"Are you sure that's wiset' Yie said. His beady eyes had narrowed to slits.
"I trust her," Haheh replied, descending the shadows and bypassing Yie to stand a few yards from Testa. As he did so his cocooning robes unfolded. they were more magnificent inside than out, the garments freighted with gems whose colors she could put no name to. Some were the size of fruits-peaches and pears-all overripe, all oozing liquid light.
"Mis one," Habeh said, gesturing to a jewel the size of an egg with his vestigial arm, "I got it in Des Moines, watching the most terrible tragedy. Three generations, or was it four-?"
"Four," Rare Utu said.
,,Four generations killed in one night in a gas main explosion. An entire family name, wiped out. Oh, it was piti u. And this one"-he said, indicating a gem that had more shades of amber than a Key West sunset-"I got in Arkansas, at the execution of a man who'd been wrongly convicted of murder. We were watching him fry, in the knowledge that the true culprit was smothering infants at that very moment. That was hard, very hard. Sometimes I see a milkiness in the blebs, you know, and I think it's there to remind me of the babes-" While he maundered on, Testa realized that the finery he'd unfurled was not a garment at alclass="underline" It was his body. The gems, the blebs as he'd called them, were indeed a kind of fruit, grown from flesh and sorrow. Part remembrance, part decoration, part trophy, they were gorgeous scabs, marking the. places where he'd been pierced byfeeling.
"I see you're amazed," Rare Utu said. "And revolted, I think," Yie said.
:'A little," Testa said.
'Well," Rare Utu replied appreciatively, "that's something to savor." She stared hard at Testa. "Buddenbaum was always very careful never to let us know what he felt. It's a consequence of his inversion, I think, the ease with which he conceals himself."
"Whereas you-" Haheh said.
"You are so naked, Testa," Utu said. "Simply being with you is a show unto itself."
"We could have such times," Haheh cooed.
"Aren't you forgetting something?" Testa said.
"What's that?"
"When you first met me, you said you knew I was going to die. And as it happens I know for a fact that's true."
"Details, details," Rare Utu replied. "Life is in our gift, Testa. Why you've seen for yourself how Buddenbaum outruns death. He took a bullet to the head this very afternoon, and by now he'll be nearly mended."
"We can't confer immortality upon you," Haheh said.
"Nor would we want to," Yie pointed out.
"But we can offer you our extended fifespan. Considerably extended, if we find our relationship productive."
"S(@if I say yes, I get to live, as long as I create experiences for you?" "Precisely. Make us feel, Testa Bombeck. Give us stories to wring our hearts."
While Rare Urn was speaking, two contrary voices in Tesia's head. "Take it!" one yelled. "It's what you ere born to do! This isn't churning out movies for popcomgobbling imbeciles! You'll be writing life!" The other voice was equally adamant. "It's grotesque. They're emotional leeches! Work for them and you throw you humanity to the wind!"
:'We need an answer, Tesla," Haheh said.
'Explain one thing to me," she said. "Why don't you just do this yourselves?" "Because we must not become involved," Rare Utu replied.
"It would dirty us. Taint us."
"Ruin us," said Yie.
"I see."
"Well?" said Haheh. "Do you have an answer?"
Tesia pondered a moment. Then she said, "Yes, I have an answer."
"What?" said Rare Utu.
She thought a moment longer. "Maybe," she replied.
When she got back inside the house she found Seth had taken Amy into the living room, and was sitting on the sofa, gently rocking her.
"Did she eat anything?"
"Yeah," he said quietly. "She's okay." He looked down at Amy fondly.
"Sweet little face," he said. "I heard you talking to them out there. What do they want?"
"My services," Tesla said. "In place of Owen?" Tesia nodded. "He figured that's what they were up to."
"Where is he now?"
"He'd said he'd wait for you at the Nook. It's a little restaurant off Main Street."
"Then I shouldn't keep him waiting any longer," Testa said.
Seth got to his feet very slowly, so as not to disturb Amy. "I'll come with you. I'll watch over the baby while you deal with Owen."
"You should know something about Amy-"
"She's not yours, is she?"
"No. Her mother and the man I thought was her father are dead. And the guy who may be her real father will be coming looking for her."
"Who is he?"
"His name's Tommy-Ray McGuire, but he prefers to be called the Death-Boy." While she was explaining this her eyes went to the cards spread out on the coffee table. "Are these yours?" she asked.
"No, I thought they were yours." She knew at a glance ' what they represented, of course. Lightning, cloud, ape, celclass="underline" all stations of Quiddity's cross. "Must be Harry's," she said, and sweeping them into a little pack pocketed them and headed for the door.
Two-thirds of the way down the mountain slope, passing through a patch of trees more thinly spaced than elsewhere, the woman on Harry's back said, "Stop a moment will you?" She surveyed the terrain. "I swear-this is where my daddy was murdered."
"was he lynched too?" Raul replied.
"No," she said. "Shot by a man who thought my daddy was a servant of the Devil."
"Why'd he think that?"
"It's a long story, and a bitter one," the O'Connell woman said. "But I found a way to keep his memory alive."
"How did you do that?" said Harry.
"His name was Harmon," she replied, and as they moved on away from the place she told Harry and Raul the whole bitter story. She told it without melodrama and withOut rancor. It was simply a sorrowful account of her father's last hours, and of how he had passed his vision of Everville to his daughter. "I knew it was my duty to build a city, and call it Everville, but it was hard. Towns don't just spring up because people dream them-well, not in this world, at least. There has to be a reason. A good reason. Maybe there's a place on a river where it's easy to cross. Maybe there's gold in the ground. But my valley just had a piddling little creek, d nobody ever found gold here. So I had to find some other ason for people to come here, and build houses and raise lies. That wasn't easy even at the best of times, and these weren't the best of times. See, the man who killed my daddy became a preacher in Silverton, and he used the pulpit to spread all kinds of rumors about how there was a hole to Hell right here on Hannon's Heights, and devils flew out of it at night.