02 Lasher by Anne Rice

Author:Anne Rice
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Witches
ISBN: 9780345397812
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 1995-07-31T07:00:00+00:00

Fifteen

THE WORLD SHOOK with Father’s song and Father’s laughter. Father said, in his fast high-pitched voice, “Emaleth, be strong; take what you must; Mother may try to harm you. Fight, Emaleth, fight to be with me. Think of the glen and the sunshine and of all our children.”

Emaleth saw children—thousands and thousands of people like Father, and like Emaleth herself, for she did see herself now, her own long fingers, and long limbs, and hair swimming in the water of the world that was Mother. The world that was already too small for her.

How Father laughed. She saw him dance; she saw him dance as Mother saw him. His song to her was long and beautiful.

Flowers were in the room. Lots and lots of flowers. The scent was everywhere mingled with the scent of Father. Mother cried and cried and Father tied her hands to the bed. Mother kicked him and Father cursed; and there was thunder in heaven.

Father, please, please, be kind to Mother.

“I will. I’m going now, child.” He gave her the secret message. “And I’ll come back with food for your mother, food that will make you grow strong; and when the time comes, Emaleth, fight to be born, fight anything which tries to oppose you.”

It made her sad to think of fighting. Whom was she to fight? Surely not Mother! Emaleth was Mother. Emaleth’s heart was tied to Mother’s heart. When Mother felt pain, Emaleth felt it, as if someone had pushed her through the wall of the world that was Mother.

Only a moment ago Emaleth could have sworn that Mother knew she was there! That for one instant Mother understood that she had Emaleth inside her, but then the quarreling had come again, between Father and Mother.

And now as the door shut, and Father’s scent was gone away, and the flowers shifted and nodded and pulsed in the twilight room, Emaleth heard Mother crying.

Don’t cry, Mother, please. You make me sad when you cry. All the world is nothing but sadness.

Can you really hear me, my darling?

Mother did know she was there! Emaleth turned and twisted in her tiny constricted world, and pushed at the roof, and heard Mother sigh: Yes, Mother, say my name as Father says it. Emaleth. Call my name!

Emaleth.

Then Mother began to talk to her in earnest. Listen to me, baby girl, I’m in trouble. I am weak and sick. I’m starved. You are inside of me, and thank God, you take what you must have from my teeth, from my bones, from my blood. But I’m weak. He’s tied me up again. You must begin to help me. What am I to do to save both of us?

Mother, he loves us. He loves you and he loves me. He wants to fill the world with our children.

Mother moaned in the silence. “Emaleth, be still,” she said. “I am sick.”

And Mother twisted in pain on the bed, her ankles bound apart, her wrists bound apart, the scent of the flowers sickening her.

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