Being a Green Mother (21 page)

The mouth opened. The tongue flipped, and abruptly they were out.

“Hey!” Jezebel exclaimed.

Orb looked at her, startled. “But I thought you were staying in!”

“That’s what
I
thought!” the succubus replied.

“Jonah spat us all out,” the guitarist said.

Orb turned to face the fish. “Jonah, she wasn’t supposed to—” But she broke off, for Jonah was gone.

“Where are we?” the guitarist asked.

“Why, at the auditorium for—” Orb broke off again. For that was not where they were. Instead they stood before the city hospital.

“Jonah got the wrong address!” the guitarist cried. “He never did that before!”

“Did he?” Jezebel asked. “Then why did he spit me out? You have to watch these demonic types; I know. I think he wanted to clear us all out of him.”

“I can’t believe that!” Orb said, flustered. “All he had to do was make known his wish, and we would have left.”

“Listen, we can’t worry ’bout that right now,” the guitarist said. “We got a show to make!”

“But the hospital is all the way across the city from the engagement hall!” Orb said, upset. “The program is set to begin now; we can’t possibly get there on time.”

“What about me?” Jezebel asked. “You know what’s going to happen within my hour?”

Orb put her hands to her head. “I don’t know what to
do
!”

“Call the hall, call a taxi,” the guitarist said. “I’ll do it.”

But there was no phone on the street, and no taxis in sight, and the blustering wind was buffeting them. “Inside, there must be a phone,” Orb said.

They piled into the hospital. But they had entered by a side door, and there was no desk and no phone. They moved down an endlessly long series of halls.

A white-gowned doctor emerged from a side hall, almost colliding with the guitarist. “Ah, there you are!” the doctor said. “Not a moment too soon! We ran out an hour ago, and our replacement can’t get through till tomorrow.”

“This is a misunderstanding,” Orb said quickly. “We don’t belong here; we’re just looking for a phone.”

“You don’t have the medication?” the doctor asked, appalled. “The message said an entertainment group was bringing it. We have terminal patients in pain; we don’t know how we’re going to tide them through the night! Listen.”

They listened. Now they heard a low groaning that seemed to come from several rooms, punctuated by a sudden scream. “They are beyond ordinary drugs,” the doctor said. “The pain reaches through and it doesn’t stop.”

The guitarist swallowed. “Could you use spelled H?”

The doctor looked at him with renewed hope. “You
are
the courier!”

The guitarist brought out his packet. “Guess so.”

The doctor took it eagerly, weighing it by heft. “This is potent?”

“Strongest H on the market.”

“Excellent! This amount should tide us through the night. What’s the charge?”

The guitarist gulped again. “No charge. It’s—you know, gray market.”

The doctor nodded. “We certainly appreciate this! A dozen patients will bless you, sir!” He hurried off.

“You gave away your H?” Orb asked, still hardly believing it.

“Well, it’s, you know, good for killing pain, when the legal stuff don’t work.”

“But how will you get through?”

“It was them or me, and what am I worth?”

“About what I am,” Jezebel said glumly. “Damn, I hate what I’m going to do!”

Orb made as if to tear her hair. “Why did Jonah do this to us? Everything we have had is going to fall apart tonight!”

Jezebel looked at her. “You know, when you sing, your magic touches everyone near. I wonder—if Jonah can do it—”

“Yeah!” the guitarist agreed as if grasping at a straw. “You make us more than we are! Maybe if you sing now—”

Suddenly Orb remembered her experience in the Llano Estacado. That feeling of wholeness, of power. Was it possible?

“Take my hands,” she said.

They took her hands, standing there in the hospital hall. Orb sang the song that came to her, heedless whether it was relevant.

The magic came, spreading through her body slowly, as if encountering resistance. She fixed the image of the plain in her mind, seeing it as the valley of the fate of those with desperate compulsions. She walked that valley, not by herself, but with and for those who could not otherwise get through it.

But somebody else could walk it
with
them, and that was what she was doing. They walked for themselves, but buttressed
by her song, that was spreading slowly to their bodies. It was not the Llano, but it suggested it, as the magic suggested that of Jonah, stabilizing them. She became a conduit for a hint of the enormous power she sought, the power to put a hold on a curse. The walk of life itself, through lonesome territory, but
not
alone. Sustained by the strength of friendship and commitment.

Orb became aware that the song was over when they disengaged their hands. “It’s backing off!” the guitarist said. “I think I can fight it, now!”

“Yes,” Jezebel agreed. “Not as far off as it is in Jonah, but distanced just enough.”

Orb wasn’t sure what she had accomplished, or whether they had merely convinced themselves that she had helped. She decided not to question it. Certainly something had passed through her.

They resumed their walk down the hall. Now they came to a desk. “Ah, you must be the entertainers,” a nurse said. “That ward’s about to burst at the seams! We promised them their kind of music, but with this weather we were afraid you wouldn’t get through. Right this way.”

“Their kind of music?” Orb asked. “What is that?”

“They call it ‘rusty iron’,” the nurse said. “It’s horrible.” She paused, glancing back at them. “Uh, no offense, of course. To each his own peculiar taste.”

“You know that kind?” Orb asked the guitarist.

“Some,” he admitted. “But listen, that stuff is bad! We used to try it once in a while, before we got with you, but, well, that’s part of what got our other singer out of her head. You have to be insane to go for it.”

“Here we are,” the nurse said. “The psycho ward. Go right in.”

“Suddenly it makes sense!” Jezebel said.

“Wait!” Orb protested. “We can’t do this! We—”

“You have to,” the nurse said, looking harried. “They’ll riot if we renege now! We had to promise—”

“You don’t understand,” Orb said. “I’m the only one here with an instrument, and I have no knowledge of—”

“
You
don’t understand,” the nurse said. “The season and the storm have brought the inmates to the point where any trifling thing can set them off. We’re shorthanded for the
same reason. Once things get out of control, there will be absolute mayhem!” She unlocked the door and drew it open.

The sound hit them like the roar of ocean breakers. It was bedlam. Patients were running around, some in dishabille, some screaming unintelligibly, some banging against the furniture. Harried aides were trying to attend to the needs of individuals, but it was evident that they were so tired that they were hardly better off than the patients. This might once have been an orderly ward; now it was at the verge of chaos.

“They’re here!” the nurse screamed. “Find your places!”

The effect was magical. “Rusty iron!” a patient cried jubilantly, and suddenly every person was scrambling for his chair. This was evidently intended to be a social setting, with comfortable chairs and television and assorted board games, cards, and books; the cards and books were scattered across the floor, and the television screen was filled with an interference signal, appropriately. Live entertainment was what was required.

“We’ve got to do it, somehow,” the guitarist said. “But you know I can’t sing a note, and without my strings—”

“I’m not part of this at all,” Jezebel reminded them. “Cooking’s the only mundane skill I ever tackled.”

“But I couldn’t possibly do this—this rusty iron,” Orb said. “The best I can do is support someone else who performs it. All I can do alone is my kind of song.”

“Do what you have to do!” an aide cried urgently. “Maybe they’ll buy it!”

“A skit!” the guitarist said. “Like Danny-Boy and Lou-Mae! We could act the parts, and you sing.”

“Let’s get it going!” a patient exclaimed, banging his fist against the wall beside him. There was a clamor of agreement.

“Anything!” the nurse hissed.

“I’m no actress,” Jezebel protested. “At night I only do one thing well and I’m damned if I’ll do that here.”

“Come on,” the guitarist said, taking the succubus by the arm. “You can do this much. Just stand here and look at me, and I’ll look at you, and Orb will sing, and we’ll just follow when we hear. With her magic it can work!”

“Get it on!” the patient cried. He began to stamp his feet on the floor. This was quickly echoed by the others.

“Shut up, you freaks!” the guitarist yelled. “How can we
do anything with all this noise, and no amp system? Get it quiet; then we’ll perform!”

The stamping subsided. Quiet came to the ward.

“Okay, Orb,” the guitarist said. “Make it come to life.”

Orb had her harp in place, her fingers poised. She was ready—except that her mind had suddenly gone blank. “I—can’t think of any song!” she whispered, horrified.

“Any of the ones we do!” he whispered back. “Maybe they’ll buy it!”

But Orb’s mind remained blank; she could not remember any of their regular numbers. She seemed to have been struck by a kind of stage fright that depleted her entire store of music. Too much had happened; Jonah had undermined her security by stranding them like this, and her effort of song and will to stabilize her two companions had seemed to have used up her magic. She was powerless.

“Believe me, if all these—” the nurse said, her gaze scanning the assembled patients nervously. Already the feet were preparing to resume their stomping. From there it would surely lead to worse things, for these were not sane people.

Believe me, if all these
— Orb thought, as if reading the words on a sheet of music.

Then her fingers moved on the strings of the harp, and she began to sing.

Orb heard herself with new horror. She was launching into one of the oldest and staidest of the mundane favorites, totally alien to the craving of this audience! Yet it was all she had, suggested by the chance words of the nurse. All she could do was throw herself into it and hope that the magic helped.

But the patients weren’t stamping; they were listening, perhaps in amazement at the irrelevance of this effort. The guitarist was gazing at the succubus as if she were the most innocent of lovely young maidens, and she was gazing back at him as if it were true. How long could this hold?

She continued singing, aware of the audience as if apart
from herself. Their astonishment was turning to something else as the song progressed; every pair of eyes were fixed on the two standing figures, who continued to look only at each other. They seemed impossibly young, untried, unsure, yet loving.

It ended, but no one moved. The audience seemed locked in stasis, looking at the pair on stage, who continued to gaze at each other. It was as it had been the first time they acted out “Danny Boy,” but more general; every face was a sunflower. The guitarist looked devoted and handsome, animated by his loyalty to his love; Jezebel looked radiant, as if she had never before received such a look, and was animated by it.

Jezebel turned. Now Orb saw her eyes. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. Then, silently, she collapsed.

Startled, the guitarist grabbed, catching her before she struck the floor.

Then the monstrous nose of Jonah came through the wall. The mouth opened. The guitarist picked Jezebel up in his arms and stepped in. Orb scrambled up with her harp and followed. The audience remained frozen.

Jonah closed his mouth and swam strongly on through the hospital, passing rooms and people as if they were illusions, and emerging from the upper level. The fish was on his way—somewhere.

The guitarist carried Jezebel on down the throat and to her chamber, where he set her carefully on her bed-region. “Is she all right?” he asked worriedly.

Orb knelt down and checked the woman as well as she could. “I think so. She’s not mortal, you know; I don’t think she can be killed. She must have fainted. But I can’t think why.”

“Look at her face,” he said. “She was crying …”

“I didn’t think that demons could cry,” Orb said.

“She just looked at me when you sang, and the tears
started.” He shook his head. “God, she’s beautiful! I guess I love her.”

“But she’s a succubus!” Orb protested. “She’s a century old!”

“I’m going to kiss her.”

Somewhat dazed, Orb backed away. The guitarist knelt down beside the unconscious woman, leaned over, and kissed her on the lips.

Jezebel stirred. Her arms came up to embrace the young man, then stiffened. “No!” she said. “I have no right!”

“No right?” the guitarist asked.

“To play such a role. I am not, was never, never can be—oh!” She turned her face to the side, the tears flowing again.

The guitarist looked at Orb, baffled. “What does she mean?”

Now Orb understood. “The song—took her. But she’s a demoness, sullied by a century of her nature. She believes she has no right to pretend to be what you saw in her.”

“I
know
what she is!” he said. “Look at what
I
am! God, when you sang—”

“I think demons
can
weep—when they experience true emotion,” Orb said, working it out. “She may never have experienced it before, and it overwhelmed her.”