And throwing their great coils across the shattered ground, the sidewinders departed, their rattles so loud they sent hollow echoes booming from the mesas.
“You, scorpions,” she said next, “As Innana I command you, and Echidna and Walutahanga and all those who guard wives and concubines. Go now and hide beneath the beds of cruel and unfaithful lovers, and sting them with your tails!”
And the little scorpions raised their pincers and clacked them together like stones, then scattered across the desert in a great army.
“Tortoises now,” she cried, and what had appeared to be a row of boulders lumbered toward her, their heads nodding wisely on withered necks. “In the name of the nymph Chelone I call you! She who was stoned when she refused to lay blossoms at the feet of Zeus. Go now to the lakes and seas and rivers, and wake there your sleeping sisters, the kraken and leviathan and Scylla of the gnashing waves! This I command in the name of Moroch, of all those who lay too long abed from fear.”
On and on she went. Each creature she called to her by name, and in the name of each of their patronesses she commanded them: Melissa of the bees, Arachne’s spiders, the patient ants and scarabs who had been waiting since Nefertari’s death to receive their due. All the beasts she named, all those that crawl upon their bellies and more besides, wolves and shrikes and owls and bats, every creature maligned by men because it had once been sacred to Her. And all of them answered, all of them came; and into the darkness they all raced away, to bring to all the other creatures and places of the earth her bidding.
At last she seemed to be alone in the darkness. Above her the moon had risen into the soft summer sky, its crescent smiling down upon her and the lunula upon her breast smiling back. The air was strong with the acrid odor of ants and scorpions and the venom of rattlers, but there was another scent there too, something sweeter and yet more noisome to the woman. A faint noise sounded in the sharp spears of the ocotillo, and the dry leaves of the huisache rustled softly.
“Who is there?” Angelica called. She turned with fiery eyes to stare into the grove of trees. “Who has not answered me?”
There came no reply. But it seemed that a wind was stirring the huisache, though it was a wind Angelica did not feel; and then it seemed that upon the dry branches blossoms opened, blossoms pale and fragrant in the moonlight. Angelica drew her breath in sharply: the blossoms lifted from the trees, fluttered and circled the broken patio until they surrounded her, a silent rain of butterflies.
“No!” she cried, and stamped her bare foot upon the earth, so hard that the lunula shuddered upon her breast. “I did not call you, it is not time yet—”
“Oh, but it is,” someone said in a low voice behind her.
Angelica whirled. “No,” she hissed.
In the shadows stood another figure—a tall woman with dark hair and deep-set eyes. Butterflies formed a halo above her, and momentarily lit upon her shoulders before wafting off once more. She was cloaked in purple and her face, though reserved, even sorrowing, was beautiful, as beautiful as Angelica’s own.
“Well-met, Angelica,” the woman said. She waved her hand, so lazily that a butterfly did not move from where it rested upon one finger like a topaz ring. “It’s been too long.” And though she did not smile, there seemed to be faint mockery, even laughter, in her voice.
“We have not met,” said Angelica. But the wind that had not chilled her before, did so now.
“Oh no?”
The figure remained unmoving as Angelica took a step backward, her fingers covering the lunula. “Where have you come from?” she demanded.
The woman laughed softly, then recited,
Angelica’s fingers tightened upon the lunula. “You’re lying,” she said in a shaking voice. “I do not know you.”
“No?” the woman replied.
“No!’” shrieked Angelica. “Why are you here, you can’t be here—”
“The boy,” the woman said simply. She slid her hands into the folds of her robe. “You’re not to harm him.”
“The boy is mine!”
The woman shook her head, just once. Her eyes glinted. “And mine.”
“No,” said Angelica. “Not yours. Never, never yours.”
“A warning, Angelica,” the dark-haired woman said in a low voice. “Don’t hurt him.”
Angelica laughed harshly. “You have no power here, sister,” she said. She lifted her hands to the sky and glared. “Go, before my Mistress loses patience with you!”
“You should be more careful whom you bed, Angelica.” The woman’s voice was low and threatening. “Not everyone wants to embrace an asp—”
“Go!” screamed Angelica. Rage made a sibylline mask of her face, and her hair fell about her cheeks in tangled coils. “You—”
But the dark-haired woman was already gone. Only, on the ground where her bare feet had stood, a sheaf of flowers trembled, and stained the desert air with the scent of hyacinths.
CHAPTER 20
Threnody and Breakdown
HANDSOME BROWN LET US off in front of Dr. Dvorkin’s house, solemnly accepting the wad of bills Dylan pressed into his hand. “It’s good to see you, my man,” he said in his basso voice, and toasted us with a pint of Hennessy. “Take good care of the lady. Always take good care of the lady.” Cab Number 393 lumbered off into the darkness, trailing the strains of Idris Mohammed.
Ninth Street was deserted, the streetlights casting their glow over the crepe myrtles and magnolias, the heaps of fallen petals that had drifted up against the curbstones. We stepped from the street and opened the wrought-iron gate that led into Dr. Dvorkin’s front yard, the little lawn overgrown with myrtle and ivy and a single huge magnolia. The air was so warm and sweet it was like drowning to stand there and breathe it; but I could hardly breathe at all, my heart was pounding so fast, my mouth seemed filled with something thick and sweet and strong, honey wine or Handsome Brown’s cognac. From the hidden garden echoed the burbling song of a mockingbird, so achingly beautiful it brought tears to my eyes.
“Sweeney.” Dylan drew me to him, his long hair warm against my cheek. “What is it, Sweeney? You’re crying—”
He held me gently against his chest, the two of us leaning against the magnolia. For all that his words were soft I could feel his heart pounding like my own. “Nothing,” I whispered. I laughed, wiping my eyes. “It’s just—god, I must be drunk or something, it’s just all so beautiful, and—”
My voice caught. A warm breeze stirred the leaves of the magnolia. From its waxy blossoms scent poured like rain. “I’m—I’m just so happy,” I said, and began to sob.
“Happy?” Dylan’s voice was perplexed, and when I looked up his eyes were burning, flecked with gold from the streetlamps. Panic lanced through me: what was I saying? I tried to move away, but Dylan’s arms tightened around my waist. “Happy? I’ll show you happy—”
He kissed me again, pushing me against the tree, his hands stroking my face as I grabbed him and pulled him tight against me. I didn’t care where we were, I didn’t care who might see or hear. I couldn’t hear anything, except for his heart and breath and the mockingbird singing blissfully somewhere in the green darkness. I thought I would faint: my head was roaring but all I could feel was Dylan’s mouth and the taste of him, and everything about us hot and sweet and liquid.