Part 24 (2/2)

She stroked Punchita's udders. ”Hey, big t.i.ts. Ay mami. Where'd you get them big t.i.ts. You find them under a bush?” She worked, thinking of Auberon asleep in his bed, and George asleep in his; she alone awake, and all unknown. Found under a bush: a foundling. Saved from the City, taken within these walls, and put to work. In the stories, the foundling always turns out to be some high type person left for dead or something by mistake; a princess no one knows. Princess: that's what George always called her. Hey Princess. A lost princess, enchanted and robbed of her memory of being a princess; a goat-girl, but if you tore off the dirty goat-girl clothes, there would be the sign, the jewel, the birthmark, the silver ring, everybody amazed, everybody laughing. Quick streams of milk rang against the bucket, and then hissed in rising foam, left, right, left, right, calming and bemusing her. And then come into her kingdom, after all the work: grateful for the humble shelter, and humbled herself to have found true love there: so all you guys get to be free, and get gold. And the hand of the princess. She leaned her head against Punchita's hairy warm flank, and her thoughts turned into milk, to wet leaves, baby animals, snails' sh.e.l.ls, faun's feet.

”Some princess,” Punchita said. ”Lots of labor there.”

”Whudjoo say?” Sylvie said, looking up, but Punchita only turned her long face to Sylvie, and went on chewing her endless gum.

Brownie's House Out into the yard, with a jar of fresh milk and a new-laid brown egg she had taken from under a hen who nested in the exploded sofa which stood still in the living room of the goats' apartment. She crossed the humpy vegetable patch to a building on the other side, a building clad in brown vines, with tall sad blind windows and stairs that led up to no door. Behind and below the stairs a tiny damp areaway led to the bas.e.m.e.nt; miscellaneous broken boards and gray slats were nailed up over its entrance and windows; you could peek in, but could see nothing in the darkness. Hearing Sylvie's approach, there swarmed out from within the bas.e.m.e.nt several mewling cats, some of the Farm's cat troops, George said sometimes that at his Farm they grew mostly bricks and raised mostly cats. A big, flat-headed, one-eyed thug was king down there; he didn't deign to appear. But a delicate calico did, hugely pregnant the last time Sylvie had seen her. Not now, though; skinny, depleted, with flaccid stomach and big pink t.i.tties. ”You got kittens, you?” Sylvie said in reproach. ”And didn't tell n.o.body? You!” She stroked her, and poured milk for them, and, hunkering down, peered through the slats. ”Wish I could see,” she said. ”Kitties.”

They roamed around her for a time as she looked in, but she could see only a pair of big yellow eyes: the old guy's? Or Brownie's? ”Hi, Brownie,” she said, for that was Brownie's house too, she knew, though no one had ever seen him in it. Leave him alone, George always said, he gets along okay. But Sylvie always said h.e.l.lo. She sealed the jar of milk, half-full, and with the egg put it just inside the bas.e.m.e.nt, on a ledge there. ”Okay, Brownie,” she said. ”I'm going. Thanks.”

That was a ruse, in a way, for she waited, hoping to catch a glimpse. Another cat appeared. But Brownie stayed within. She rose then, and stretching, started back toward the Folding Bedroom. Morning had come to the Farm, foggy and soft, not so cold after all. She stopped a moment, in the center of the high-walled City garden, feeling sweetly blessed. Princess. Hmp. Under her dirty goat-girl clothes were only yesterday's underwear. Soon she's have to think about getting a job, making some plans, getting her story under way again. But for this moment, in love and safe, ch.o.r.es done, she felt she needn't go anywhere at all, or do anything else, and her story would unfold anyway, clearly and happily.

And endlessly. She knew, for a moment, that her story was endless: more endless than any kid's fairy-tale, more endless than ”A World Elsewhere” and all its complications. Endless. Somehow. She strode across the Farm, hugging herself, breathing in the farm's rich animal and vegetable exhalations, and smiling.

From deep within his house, Brownie watched her go, smiling too. He took, with his long hands and without a sound, the jar of milk and the egg from the shelf where Sylvie had put them; he drew them within his house, he drank the milk, he sucked the egg, he blessed his queen with all his heart.

A Banquet She undressed as quickly as she had dressed, leaving only her panties, as Auberon, awaking, watched from within the bedclothes; then she hurried, making small cries, to climb in with him, climb down into warmth, warmth she deserved (she felt) as no other did, warmth where she ought always to be. Auberon retreated, laughing, from her cold hands and feet that sought him, sought his sleep-soft and helpless flesh, but then surrendered; she pressed her cold nose into the crook of his neck to warm it, moaning like a dove, as his hands took hold of her panties' elastic.

At Edgewood, Sophie laid one card on another, knight of wands on queen of cups.

Later Sylvie said: ”Do you have thoughts?”

”Hm?” said Auberon. His nakedness draped in his overcoat, he was building a fire.

”Thoughts,” Sylvie said. ”Then. I mean during then. I have lots, almost like a story.”

He saw what she meant, and laughed. ”Oh, thoughts,” he said. ”Then. Sure. Crazy thoughts.” He built the fire hurriedly, heedlessly throwing in most of the wood left in the woodbox. He wanted it hot in the Folding Bedroom, hot enough to draw Sylvie out from the blankets she sheltered beneath. He wanted to see her.

”Like now,” she said. ”This time. I was wandering.”

”Yes,” he said, for he had been too.

”Children,” she said. ”Babies, or baby animals. Dozens, all sizes and colors.”

”Yes,” he said. He'd seen them too, ”Lilac,” he said.

”Who?”

He blushed, and stabbed the fire with a golf club that was kept there for that purpose. ”A friend,” he said. ”A little girl. An imaginary friend.”

Sylvie said nothing, only wandered in thought, still not quite returned. Then, ”Who again?” she said.

Auberon explained.

At Edgewood, Sophie turned down a trump, the Knot. She was looking, not having chosen to look but once again looking, for a lost child of George Mouse's and her fate, but couldn't find them. Instead she found, and the more she looked the more she went on finding, another girl, and not lost; not lost now, but searching. Past her the kings and queens marched, rank on rank, speaking each his message: I am Hope, I am Regret, I am Idleness, I am Unlooked-for Love. Armed and mounted, solemn and minatory, they went on progress through the dark wood of the trumps; but apart from them, unseen by them, glimpsed only by Sophie, moving brightly amid dark dangers, a princess none of them knew. But where was Lilac? She turned down the next card: it was the Banquet.

”So whatever happened to her?” Sylvie asked. The fire was hot, and the room warming.

”Just what I told you,” Auberon said, parting the skirts of his coat to warm his b.u.t.tocks. ”I never saw her again after that day, at the picnic a”

”Not her,” Sylvie said. ”Not the made-up one. The real one. The baby.”

”Oh.” He seemed to have been propelled forward several centuries since his arrival in the City; trying to remember Edgewood at all now was an effort, but to search in childhood was to dig up Troy. ”You know, I don't really know. I mean I don't think I was ever told the whole story.”

”Well, what happened, though.” She moved luxuriously within the sheets, warming too. ”I mean did she die?”

”I don't think so,” Auberon said, shocked at this notion. For a moment he saw the whole story through Sylvie's eyes, and it seemed grotesque. How could his family have lost a baby? Or if it hadn't been lost, if the explanation were simple (adoption, death even) then how could it be that he didn't know it? In Sylvie's family history there were several lost babies, in Homes or fostered; all were minutely remembered, all mourned. If he had been capable just then of any emotion other than that directed toward Sylvie and his plans for her in the next moments, he would have felt anger at his ignorance. Well, it didn't matter. ”It doesn't matter,” he said, glad to know it didn't. ”I give up on it all.”

She yawned hugely, and tried to speak at the same time, and laughed. ”I said so you're not going back?”

”No.”

”Even after you find your fortune?”

He didn't say I've found it, though it was true; he'd known it since they'd become lovers. Become lovers: like a wizardry, like frogs become princes.

”You don't want me to go back?” he said, doffing the overcoat and climbing on the bed.

”I'd follow you,” she said. ”I would.”

”Warm?” he said, drawing down the quilt that covered her.

”Hey,” she said. ”Ay, que grande.”

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