Explain.
He’s not pushing anymore, so I sit down on the pew and start explaining modern technology aloud to the god in my head, while Edgar Linton watches me from his chair.
25
Heathcliff
I’m not worried about leaving Cathy alone with Edgar Linton. Even if she wasn’t currently possessed by a god and gifted with extra strength, she’d be more than a match for that sap on her worst day. And I taped him up good. He’s not getting out of that chair.
It crosses my mind that maybe I should worry about Cernunnos hurting Edgar. But Cathy seems to be in control for now. If anything did happen to Edgar, I sure wouldn’t cry. But it would be another mess to clean up, and I’m fucking tired of those.
Outside, it’s pale and misty. Early morning. The damp, cool air feels good on my face, against my bare legs.
Everything’s soaked from the rain. The eaves of the church drip slowly and the gravel in the parking lot gleams black. Before coming outside, I grabbed my boots from the women’s bathroom and put them on, but they’re soaked too, and coated with mud. They squish as I walk.
Yanking open the door of Hindley’s truck, I pluck my phone from the cupholder and call up the Coosaw Lockwoods.
Meemaw will answer the phone. She’ll be sitting in the den,in the old brown recliner. On the folding table beside her, there’s always a glass of sweet tea, the TV remote, the cordless phone, and a heavy crystal ashtray with a cigarette propped on the edge. She has smoked a pack a day for years, but no lung cancer. That resilience and her unusually sensitive hearing are extra gifts, along with her necromancy skills.
Other than me, she’s the most powerful necromancer in the clan. But she hasn’t resurrected anyone since she was about sixty-five years old. Said it was getting harder and harder to find the way back out of the Vague.
During one Thanksgiving at the Coosaw Lockwoods’ place, when I was about nine, she grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled me close with a gnarled hand, her smoke-bitter breath in my face. “You listen up, boy. I got my sons all here, my daughters-in-law, my grandchildren, my nieces and nephews, and a couple great-grandchildren, too. All my blood. And none of them—not one”—she poked my chest for emphasis—“have a fraction of the power you got. And you got an extra gift, too, like me. You got that strength. You hide it, but I see it.” Her dry, wrinkled fingertips drifted along my cheek as she muttered confidentially, “That’s why you’re my favorite. You may not be blood, but you’re more like me than any of ’em.”
After that, I loved her, no matter how many times she cuffed my ears or swore at me. I don’t call her often, but I’m always relieved when she answers.Still alive.
She answers this morning, with her usual croaky rebuke. “Heathcliff. You ain’t called me in a coon’s age.”
“Sorry, Meemaw.”
“Damn right you’re sorry. You’re interruptin’ my show.”
“Sorry,” I repeat. “I got a couple questions, Meemaw. Ain’t nobody else got answers but you.”
“That so?” She clears her throat. “Well, go on then.”
“Have you ever heard of someone getting rezzed and then not waking up?”
“Sure. That’s what happens when someone’s been rezzed before, and then they get another tattoo to be rezzed again.”
“I thought no one could be rezzed more than once.”
“Theyshouldn’t,” she says. “Never said theycouldn’t. You rez someone a second time, and they can’t quite grasp life again. They liable to never wake up at all…or if they do, it’ll be for short periods of time. They’ll be up and about awhile, and then they start feeling strange, and they go unconscious again.”
That explains why Ian always came back to the Grange after his excursions.
“You rez somebody twice?” Meemaw asks.
“Yeah. Me and Hindley. I don’t think Hindley knew he’d been rezzed before.”
“That Hindley. Got dirt for brains and beer for blood. But at least he’s still practicing. Most everyone else had to quit. Just couldn’t manage a decent rez no more. Not like in my day. When I was young, I was making money—ooh, you shoulda seen it! That’s how we got this house, this land. And now all these relatives just keep sucking away what I saved up, sucking it dry. They don’t wanna work. Nobody wants to work these days.”
I’m not getting into that conversation with her, so I pivot to my next question. “Meemaw, I remember you told me once about the Gancanagh.”
“The Love-Talker,” she says quietly. “The ruiner of women—and men, too. He’s got the gift of persuasion. Can’t make you do anything right away or control you, exactly—it ain’t so obvious as that. He works on you awhile. Makes you believe things are yourideas when they’re his. Softens you up so everything he tells you seems true, plain as day.”
“Sounds like you knew one.”
She doesn’t answer right away. Probably taking a pull of her cigarette.
