Lasher

I
N THE BEGINNING
was the voice of Father.

“Emaleth!” whispering close to her mother’s belly while her mother slept. And then singing to her, the long songs of the past. Songs of the Glen of Donnelaith and of the castle, and of where they would sometime come together, and how she would be born knowing all that Father knew. It is our way, he said to her in the fast language, which others could not understand.

To others it sounded like humming, or whistling. It was their secret tongue, for they could hear syllables which ran too fast for the others to grasp. They could sing out to each other. Emaleth could almost do it, almost speak—

“Emaleth, my darling, Emaleth, my daughter, Emaleth, my mate.” Father was waiting for her. She had to grow fast and grow strong for Father. When the time came, Mother had to help her. She had to drink Mother’s milk.

Mother slept. Mother cried. Mother dreamed. Mother was sick. And when Father and Mother quarreled, the world trembled. Emaleth knew dread.

But Father always came after, singing to her, reminding her that the words of his song were too rapid for Mother to comprehend. The melody made Emaleth feel as if the tiny round world in which she lived had expanded and she was floating in a place without limits, pushed hither and thither by Father’s song.

Father said poetry which was beautiful, especially words that rhyme. Rhymes made a thrill pass through Emaleth. She stretched her legs and her arms, and turned her head this way and that, it felt so good, the rhymes.

Mother didn’t talk to Emaleth. Mother wasn’t supposed to know that Emaleth was there. Emaleth was tiny, said Father, but perfectly formed. Emaleth already had her long hair.

But when Mother talked, Emaleth understood her; when
Mother wrote, Emaleth saw the words. Emaleth heard Mother’s frequent whisper. She knew that Mother was afraid. Sometimes she saw Mother’s dreams. She saw the face of Michael. She saw fighting. She saw Father’s face as Mother saw it and it made Mother sad.

Father loved Mother, but Mother made him fiercely angry, and when he struck Mother, Mother suffered, even falling, and Emaleth screamed, or tried to scream. But Father always came after, while Mother slept, and said Emaleth must not fear. That they would come together in the circle of stones at Donnelaith, and then he told stories to her of the old days, when all the beautiful ones had lived on an island, and it was Paradise, before the others and the little people had come.

Sad and sorrowful the weakness of humans and the tragedy of the little people, and is it not better that all be driven from the Earth?

“I tell you the things I know now. And things that were told to me,” he said. And Emaleth saw the circle of stones, and the tall figure of Father as he was now, strumming the strings of the harp. Everyone was dancing. She saw the little people hiding in the shadows, spiteful and angry. She did not like them, she did not want them to steal down into the town. They loathe us instinctively, said Father, of the little people. How can they not? But they do not matter now. They are only a lingering from dreams which failed to come true.

Now is the hour. The hour for Emaleth and Father.

She saw Father in the old days, with his arms outstretched. This was Christmas and the glen was filled with snow. The Scots pines were close. Hymns rose from the people. Emaleth loved the rise and fall of the voices. There was so much she must see and learn later on.

“If we are separated, my beloved, come to the glen at Donnelaith. You can find it. You can do this. People are searching for Mother, people who would divide us. But remember, you will be born into this world knowing all you need to know. Now can you answer me?”

Emaleth tried but she could not.

“Taltos,” he said, and kissed Mother’s belly, “I hear you, darling, I love you.” And while Mother slept Emaleth was happy, because when Mother woke, Mother would cry.

“You think I wouldn’t kill him in an instant?” Father said to Mother. They were fighting about Michael. “I would kill him
just like that. You leave me, and what makes you think that won’t happen?”

Emaleth saw this person, Michael, whom Mother loved and Father did not. Michael lived in New Orleans in a great house. Father wanted to go back to the great house. He wanted to possess it, it was his house, and it made him deeply angry that Michael was there. But he knew he must bide his time. Emaleth had to come to him, tall and strong. There had to be the Beginning. He wanted them to come together in the glen at Donnelaith. Beginning was everything. There was nothing if there was no beginning.

Prosper, my daughter.

Taltos.

No one lived in Donnelaith anymore. But they would live there—Father and Emaleth and their children. Hundreds of children. It would become the shrine of the Beginning. “Our Bethlehem,” he whispered to her. And that would be the beginning of all time.

It was dark. Mother cried against the pillow, Michael, Michael, Michael.

Emaleth knew when the sun rose.

The color of everything brightened, and she saw Mother’s hand high above her, dark and thin and immense, covering the whole world.

T
HE HOUSE WAS
all dark now. The cars were gone, and only one light burned in Michael Curry’s window, in the old room where Cousin Deirdre had died. Mona understood exactly what had happened tonight and had to admit she was glad. She had almost planned it, almost…

She’d told her father she would go back to Metairie with Uncle Ryan and Cousin Jenn and Clancy, but then she hadn’t told Uncle Ryan. And Uncle Ryan was long gone, assuming as everyone would that Mona had gone home to Amelia Street with her father, which of course she had not.

She’d been in the cemetery losing her bet that David wouldn’t do it with her, right there on Mardi Gras Night in front of the Mayfair tomb. David had done it. Not so very great, actually, but for a fifteen-year-old not bad. And Mona had loved it—sneaking away with him, his fear and her excitement, their climbing the whitewashed wall of the cemetery together and creeping through the alleyways of high marble tombs. To lie right down on the gravel path in the dampness and cold, that had been no small part of the dare, but she’d done it, smoothing her skirt under her, so that she could pull down her panties without getting dirty. “Now do it!” she’d said to David, who hadn’t needed any more encouragement, or direct orders, by that time at all. She’d stared past him at the cold cloudy sky, at a single visible star, and then let her eyes move up the wall of little rectangular tombstones to the name: Deirdre Mayfair.

Then David had finished. Just like that.

“You’re not afraid of anything,” he had said after.

“Like I’m supposed to be afraid of you?” She’d sat up, cheated, having not even pretended to enjoy it, overheated and really not much liking her cousin David, but still satisfied that it had been done.