The Family Tree (36 page)

“Why don’t you shut up,” said one of the new pigs.

“Why should I?” demanded Sahir.

“Because if you’d listened to us instead of telling us how important you were, you’d have known about the tunnel. If it hadn’t been for you, we could have gotten away, you idiot.”

After which there was silence. When they arrived at the street before Dora’s place, the new acquisitions slipped out of the vans, a few at a time, and were directed where to go by Soaz or Izzy.

Abby came to find Dora still behind the wheel, still shaking.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. I can’t seem to stop…”

“It wasn’t Jared, Dora. There was no Jared!”

“I know. I just…can’t quite accept it yet.”

Abby carried the bedding material back to the garage. Dora fetched a broom, and they swept the vans as clean as possible. Nassif appeared with a cup of something hot and reviving, and when she and Abby started for the public lot downtown, Dora was in control of herself.

It was almost midnight before they returned, walking the few blocks from the avenue with their heads down, plodding, inexpressibly weary.

Izzy met them at the gate. “Is everything taken care of?”

Dora went over what she’d done, tallying each point. “I called nine-one-one from a public phone downtown. I said I was walking on that street, that I heard a terrible scream, that I saw an open door and a large shape disappearing in the trees. I did not give them a name.” She put her arms around herself, quelling her internal tremors.

Abby replaced them with his own, hugging her close. “Where is everyone?”

“The kapris are in the garage. They ate a few mouthfuls, just enough to settle them. The buck has finally said a word or two, not including ‘thank you.’ Oyk and Irk have taken their tribesmen into the woods. Irk found a den there yesterday, under a rocky place, and they would rather live in the open. The new armakfatid is upstairs with Dzilobommo, as is Sheba with Soaz, and Rosa with her children. Rosa says they will sleep outside, however, as your place is getting very crowded.”

“The pigs?”

“Sahir is upstairs. He’s in a rage, of course, but Nassif got him quiet, finally. The others prefer a place with the kapris and the veebles. They are not accustomed to clothing or to being, what would one say, sanitary minded? They can be, it is merely a matter of turning their attention to the matter, but for now…”

“I understand,” said Dora, gratefully. She’d fleetingly wondered about that while they were making rescue plans. When she’d seen the condition of the pens at Randall Pharmaceuticals, it hadn’t indicated housetraining. “What about Sheba and Rosa?”

“Cats are naturally fastidious,” Izzy remarked. “They always attend, so it is no trouble. Rosa is keeping an eye on her children.”

“Is there room for me up there?” asked Abby in a weary voice.

“We have all made places for ourselves in the outer room,” said Izzy, carefully looking elsewhere. “The inner room is vacant, awaiting you and Dora. We thought, after your labors…”

“Izzy, you’re sweet,” said Dora, leaning forward and kissing him, surprising both herself and him.

D
ora and Abby left the new people with us and took the vans back to the city, and Dzilobommo began a list. Hay, he wrote. And more grain of all kinds. And many more apples and carrots and other root vegetables. The new armakfatid stood very near him, as though she had been lonely for so long she could not believe she had a fellow person to grummel with. Dzilobommo looked at her kindly, put his nose in her ear and licked her face.

Sahir went into the bathroom and got into the shower, yelling at me to come turn on the water. I left, but he stayed in there. After a long time, I went to the doorway and asked him how he felt.

“Dirty,” he snarled. “I stink of barbarians.”

I knew what was bothering him. “Prince Sahir,” I whispered. “No one saw anything but seven naked animals. In this time, all the animals go naked. There is no shame to it.”

It wasn’t precisely true, for Soaz had seen. Izzy had
seen, and from what Izzy said, Sahir had behaved stupidly, and Sahir knew it. He would not be comforted. I scrubbed his back, thinking of his mother, the sultana, and how she had foreseen this time. He had a tusk wound on his rump, and I put medicine on it from Dora’s cabinet. I brought him clean clothing. When he came into the room where the rest of us were, he wore clean trousers and shirt, and his headcloth was white as the snow on the peaks of the Sharbak Mountains.

“You look rested,” said the countess soothingly, fore-bearing to ask him questions. She knew he had been greatly shamed and wished to put it out of his mind.

It was then Izzy suggested we leave the sleeping room for Dora and Abby, when they returned. They would be very weary, Izzy said, and a little privacy would be welcome to them. It was the least we could do, and we arranged ourselves as comfortably as possible and were mostly asleep when they returned. I was awake enough, however, to hear that Dora and Abby fell onto the bed and into sleep without any sweet words or romancing.

I had thought that Dora and Abby were mates, but the more I saw them together, the more I thought not. Not yet, at any rate. Sometimes in her face I saw confusion, flicking like fish behind her eyes: “What is this? What am I feeling? What can I do about it?” I saw him looking at her with an expression much less equivocal. If she would, he certainly would. I thought she cared for him, but worried at the feeling, as a kanna worries at a bone, not content until he has shattered it.

In the morning, Abby left early, and when Dora came sleepily from her room, she greeted us all, and bowed to the new armakfatid and to Sheba, who had spent the night curled up next to Soaz. While she was having her coffee, the phone rang, and she answered it, once again speaking to the Dionne person. When she put the instrument away, she said, “He’ll be bringing the archpriest here, tonight around suppertime. The archpriest will have to be told everything. Could one of you tell the story, so he has it from the horse’s mouth?”

Then, seeing our expressions, she said, “No, not from the horse’s mouth, forget I said that, from one of you.”

“Nassif will do it,” said Sahir. “She tells stories well.”

I opened my mouth to object, but then closed it again. It was what I did well, so why should I not do it? Izzy would talk forever and would say everything except the story itself; the countess would be too diplomatic; Blanche too dry; Soaz too disapproving. I could be a horse-mouth if one was wanted.

“Also,” said Dora, “since you are worshipers of Cory—”

“Korè,” said Izzy, correcting her pronunciation. “Kohr-RAY.”

“Since you are worshipers,” she went on, “is there some prayer or ritual you could do to convince this man you are…coreligionists?”

Izzy said he would think of something. Dora had a bite of breakfast, took the list Dzilobommo had prepared and shook her head. “We’re feeding an army.” She sounded depressed. Or perhaps she was just very tired.

I went to remind her. “Please, take some of the gems to pay for our food.”

“I won’t have time to market jewels today, Nassif. Maybe tomorrow. Before I leave, let’s see if the news is reporting on what happened last night.”

She turned on the TV and found the story we all had expected: the death of a man, killed by a big animal or animals in the basement of his home, where, seemingly, he had not lived for some time. Police, so the teller said, had searched the woods around the house but had found nothing.

Dora turned it off and sat for a moment with her head down.

Anything else?” asked Izzy.

“I was just thinking what we have to do before I can…take a rest.”

“Perhaps we could help you more?”

“No. I’ll manage.” She gave a short, almost mirthless laugh.

“What?” asked Izzy.

“I was thinking about the archpriest, when you tell him you made a tree talk,” she answered with a fierce grin. “Be ready to show off, Izzy. Before we’re through, I’ve got a hunch you’ll have to prove it.”

And then she was gone, out and away, catching the bus to town, where she would return the vans and shop for foodstuffs, which she said she would bring early in the day, if she could. I kept forgetting that Dora had a job, that she was not free to go and do as she liked. In Tavor, not many people had jobs. People had businesses or they worked on farms or they made things, like pottery or cloth, but few of them had jobs that began at one hour and ended at another hour, during which time one’s life was not one’s own. If one wanted a person like that, one had a slave.

I rallied our people and the guests, and we cleaned the house. As a former slave, I knew more about this than the others did, so I found myself directing matters. Dora had explained the machine which cleaned the floor, though it did not do it as well as I could do it on hands and knees in not much more time. Another machine washed the dishes, and another the clothes. We washed everything, the sheets, the blankets, all the plates. We put everything back as it had been when we arrived, including the scattered books onto the shelves. Dzilobommo, with the new armakfatid watching him from a high stool, set about preparing a luncheon, and I cleaned up after him, as I had done in the kitchens in the palace.

After lunch, Soaz and Sheba went out into the woods to find Oyk and Irk and their friends, and the onchiki went downstairs to meet the new people they had not met last night. Rosa had made herself a place in the corner of the garage downstairs. She had put Dora’s sleeping bag in it, and several large cartons on top, so it was like a cave. If winter came, she said, it would serve as a place for hibernation. I felt she and her chil
dren should be far away by the time for hibernation. The kapris had gone out into the woods to browse, leaving the lower door open and staying within sight of the house, so they could take cover at need. With the three ersuns, the pheledas, the six new scuini, the four new kanni, an equal number of kapris and the one armakfatid, there were nineteen new people plus the twelve of us, plus three veebles: thirty-six counting Abby and Dora. We were indeed feeding an army.

The problem we had feared, that the bear and the big cat would eat the others, was unfounded. If they were not hungry, they said, they would not kill. If they had a choice, they would never kill speaking people. If they were starving, they could not say what they would do. Well. Neither could I.

We spent some time rehearsing what we would do when the priest of Korè came. In Tavor, the Korèsans worshiped openly, and both Sahir and Soaz could describe the rites. Izzy taught us a hymn as it was sung at the Temple of Korè near Giber. He had not been there. Obviously, a Bubblian prince could not travel to Giber, but he had learned the hymn from non-Bubblians who had been there. I rehearsed my story. The countess told us how we were to arrange ourselves in accordance with protocol.

Midafternoon, Izzy shouted a warning, and we all hid, for a vehicle had come to the street. It was only Dora, who had borrowed Phil’s car to bring the hay and other things. She went away again, saying she would return in a few hours.

Late in the afternoon, we turned on the TV and heard once again that Jared Gerber had been killed by a large animal in the basement of his home. Persons were warned not to leave their doors open. Also, said the speaker, evidence had been found linking Jared Gerber to the murders of scientists earlier in the year.

“I am pleased I killed him,” said Rosa, licking her jaws.

“You didn’t kill him,” said Izzy in the strained voice
he had been using all day. “All you did was make his body unsuitable for habitation. The Woput is not dead.”

This stopped us for a time, and we all looked at one another fearfully while Izzy explained the Woput had simply moved on. “It must have something to do with the way he came here in the first place. He’s able to exist, at least momentarily, in a disembodied state.”

“Why didn’t you say so before?” demanded the countess.

“I thought Dora needed a respite,” he said. “She’s looking terribly tired. I was going to tell her later.”

“Well, if he’s moved into some other body, he doesn’t know where we are,” said Sahir sulkily. “So we’re safe for the time being.”

“Of course he knows where we are,” said Izzy. “Or he knows how to find out. He saw Dora; he called her by name; he has been here; he has sent a visitation here, night after night. He knows that she knows where we are. The fact he is in a new body now will not stop him for long.” Izzy stopped for a moment, as though wanting to say something more, but evidently changed his mind. All he said was, “Next time he comes, it will be with something more lethal than a blade.”

Though Izzy and Soaz had told us all the events of the evening, we had not thought of the implications. Even the countess had not understood what the death of Jared Gerber meant. Not for the first time, I thought Izzy might be smarter than the rest of us.

After that, it seemed wisest to stay close to the house.

D
ora started the day pretending surprise at the news of Jared’s death and feigning concern about his being killed by a beast.

Phil was put in charge of collecting evidence at Jared’s place, without Dora, who might presumably have a conflict of interest. Dora told Phil that Jared had often said some weird things about scientists, that since he worked at the same place as the victim, Williams, perhaps Phil should keep his eyes open for any connection to the three deaths, including any weapon that might have been used. He gave her a funny look when he left, and an even funnier one when he came back with the blades and some notebooks.

At which point, Dora continued her pretence by feigning shock when Phil told her Jared did seem to be implicated in Winston’s murder, and Chamberlain’s, and maybe others as well. Finally, she spent some time counterfeiting sadness to Mrs. Gerber, whom she phoned to offer condolences. The only feeling which actually
touched her was her own weariness and sorrow for Momma Gerber. It was sad to think the woman had not had a son for almost thirty years and had not had the wit to know the difference. Motherhood, so Grandma used to say, can be both blind and stupid. But then, wifehood could be the same.

The lieutenant conferred with someone higher up about tracking the beast responsible for Jared’s death, but the matter ended up referred to the animal control officers, who recognized bear footprints well enough, but were unable to track that same bear—understandable, since it had departed in a van. Dora took part in the intermittent discussions that went on, shaking her head, foreseeing dire consequences, and being reminded of other, irrelevant cases by her colleagues. She did not have to pretend to weariness and depression, which those who did not know her well read as grief.

Midafternoon, Dora borrowed Phil’s car and made a hurried three-point shopping trip. The house was impeccably clean when she arrived home with the supplies. Even the garage had been swept and neatened, with cartons and tools piled neatly to make individual spaces for each tribal group. When everything had been unloaded, she went back to the car, pursued by Nassif.

“Dora, you need to know,” she whispered.

“What do I need to know, Nassif?”

“The Woput isn’t dead. The Jared body is dead, but the Woput’s still alive. And Izzy says he knows where we all are.”

Dora was staggered. Despite her absolute certainty that Izzy was right, the
all right, of course, what else
clarity of the notion, it had not crossed her mind until that moment that the being who had occupied Jared Gerber could still be alive.

“Izzy says when Woput comes, he’ll have something worse than a knife,” Nassif murmured.

“He can’t get it from Jared’s place,” Dora whispered. “There’ve been cops and reporters all over the place since early this morning. He’ll have to take some time
to find out whose body he’s in. I imagine it happened more or less at random, so that body may not have access to the things Woput might need.” She stopped. Something she had just said bothered her, but she couldn’t focus on it. There were other things to do at the moment. “I thought we had a little time. We don’t. We have no time at all. As soon as we talk to Harry Dionne’s father, we have to start finding places for all of you!”

Rubbing her forehead fretfully, she took herself away once more, returning about six by her regular bus-bike route. Abby showed up half an hour later to be given the news.

“There’s no end to this, is there? How do we kill the damn thing?”

“Drive a stake through its heart,” Dora said, half hysterically. “Shoot it with a silver bullet.”

“I’m thinking about it,” said Izzy. “I will think of something.”

“Think of it in a hurry,” snarled the countess. “I, like Dora, am growing impatient with these troubles. They swarm around us, like gnats!”

It was beginning to get dark before they heard the distant clamor that became decipherable as it neared: Drums. Panpipes. Lyres.

“Places everyone,” said the countess in an imperious voice as Dora went down the stairs and out the driveway, Abby close behind.

Music trickled at them as they stood at the curb. “I remember this,” said Dora, almost fretfully.

“What do you remember, Dora?”

“The music. Lately, everything’s been punctuated by music. Do you know that Kurasawa film, the one about dreams?”

“I’ve seen it. Short episodes, isn’t it?”

“One of them is about a village of watermills. And at the end there’s a procession, actually it’s a funeral procession, and it has this same kind of music. Solemn
joyous, all at once.” She hummed, rising and falling on her toes.

He took her hand. “Shhh. I see them.”

A dozen robed figures: slender women lifting sistra to make a soft jangle, then pause, then jangle; others tootling on pan pipes, breathy, repetitive phrases. The musicians wore white; they were crowned with flowers. Then came a dozen young men, carrying torches that flared fitfully in the dusk, the flames seeming to rise and fall to the sound of the pipes. Smoke rose from swinging censers, blowing toward them in aromatic clouds to the
tap tap
of tambours. In the midst of this noise and array walked the archpriest, just as Harry had described him, bearded, robed, crowned in oak leaves and holding a scepter of holly. Beside him, his face frozen into imperturbability, walked Harry himself.

With sudden insight, Dora realized that facial expression had been hard won. Poor Harry. Think of all the explanations he would have had to make when he was a kid. And since. Think of the family gatherings. With an apologetic glance in his direction, Dora bowed, not so deeply as to seem overawed, but deeply enough to be polite.

“Dora Henry,” said Harry. “His Worthiness, the Archpriest Vorn Dionne.”

“Sir,” said Dora, bowing slightly again. “If you and your son would be so kind as to accompany me to my house, just a few feet, your entourage can await you here.”

“Our business cannot be done here?” murmured the archpriest, in a basso so deep it made the air tremble.

“We have things to show Your…Excellency. They are private things, matters to do with Korè, for your eyes and those of your son.”

“If they are to do with Korè, they are not for this son,” said Vorn, making a small, dismissive wave at Harry. “He is not of priestly caste.”

“As Your Excellency wishes.” Dora threw another apologetic glance at Harry, receiving a shrug in return.
“So what,” it said. “I’m used to it. I’ll wait.”

Dora led the way. Vorn followed without enthusiasm, his very gait expressing doubt. I am here, his footsteps said, but I do not believe you know anything worthy of my notice. They went through the gate and shut it behind them. Assembled outside the door to Dora’s house were Rosa and her cubs, the kapris, the kanni, plus Sheba and Soaz.

“His Worthiness, Archpriest of Korè,” said Dora in a ringing tone, feeling herself rise to the occasion.

“Worthiness,” said the assembled multitude, bowing. “Hail Korè. Korè Eaeü.”

The archpriest staggered. Abby caught him, offering an arm. Vorn drew himself up and away from Dora.

“What is this? Trickery?”

“No trickery,” said Dora, giving him a direct look. “Please, come in.”

The others were assembled upstairs, the scuini, the armakfatidi, the onchiki, Blanche, Izzy and Nassif. They began singing when the downstairs door opened, accompanying themselves as when Dora had heard them first, on the mandolin and harp, on the slide whistle and the drum. It was a hymn to Korè they sang, one Izzy had set to a tune they already knew.

One of the leather chairs had been moved near the top of the stairs and the archpriest sank dazedly onto it. The song ended. Lucy Low put down her harp, Izzy his mandolin, and they and Vorn stared at one another.

“Well?” Vorn said at last in a voice that trembled only slightly. “Will someone explain—”

“I will,” said Nassif, standing forth. “Once upon a time…”