Song of Susannah

“Science or magic?” Susa

Mia flushed a little at that, but when she turned to Susa

“So what? Do you think that changes anything? You stole it, with the help of some filthy magician.”

Mia shook her head vehemently, her hair a storm around her face.

“No?” Susa

“Because…because…” Mia’s eyes, Susa

It was a good answer, Susa

“Mia, they’re lying to you about your chap.”

“You don’t know that, so don’t be hateful!”

“Ido know it.” And she did. But there wasn’t proof, gods damn it! How did you prove a feeling, even one as strong as this?

“Flagg—Walter, if you like that better—he promised you seven years. Sayre says you can have five. What if they hand you a card, GOOD FOR THREE YEARS OF CHILD-REARING WITH STAMP, when you get to this Dixie Pig? Go

“That won’t happen! You’re as nasty as the other one! Shut up!”

“You got a nerve callingme nasty! Can’t wait to give birth to a child supposed to murder his Daddy.”

“I don’t care!”

“You’re all confused, girl, between what you want to happen and whatwill happen. How do you know they aren’t go

“Shut…up!”

“Kind of a super-food? Finish the job all at once?”

“Shutup, I said,shut UP! ”

“Point is, you don’t know. You don’t know anything. You just the babysitter, just the au pair. You know they lie, you know they trick and never treat, and yet you go on. And you wantme to shut up.”

“Yes!Yes! ”

“I won’t,” Susa

All right, they had made it back to all-out fury after all. Mia’s face twisted into something both horrible and unhappy. In Mia’s eyes, Susa

“I’llshut you up,” Mia said, and suddenly Fedic’s main street tore open, just as the allure had. Behind it was a kind of bulging darkness. But not empty. Oh no, not empty, Susa

They fell toward it. Miapropelled them toward it. Susa

in the DIXIE PIG, In the year of—

Before this a

She pulled back and saw BANGO SKANK AWAITS THE KING! It was the graffito written on the inside of the toilet stall’s door. Her life was haunted by doors—had been, it seemed, ever since the door of her cell had clanged closed behind her in Oxford, Mississippi—but this one was shut. Good. She was coming to believe that shut doors presented fewer problems. Soon enough this one would open and the problems would start again.

Mia:I told you all I know. Now are you going to help me get to the Dixie Pig, or do I have to do it on my own? I can if I have to, especially with the turtle to help me.

Susa

Although how much or how little help Mia got from her sort of depended on what time it was right now. How long had they been in here? Her legs felt completely numb from the knees down—her butt, too—and she thought that was a good sign, but under these fluorescent lights, Susa

What does it matter to you?Mia asked, suspicious.What does it matter to you what time it is?

Susa

The baby. You know that what I did will keep it from coming only for so long, don’t you?

Of course I do. That’s why I want to get moving.

All right. Let’s see the cash our old pal Mats left us.

Mia took out the little wad of bills and looked at them uncomprehendingly.

Take the one that says Jackson.

I…Embarrassment.I can’t read.

Let mecome forward. I’llread it.

No!

All right, all right, calm down. It’s the guy with the long white hair combed back kind of like Elvis.

I don’t know this Elvis—

Never mind, it’s that one right on top. Good. Now put the rest of the cash back in your pocket, nice and safe. Hold the twenty in the palm of your hand. Okay, we’re blowing this pop-stand.

What’s a pop-stand?

Mia, shut up.

When they re-entered the lobby—walking slowly, on legs that tingled with pins and needles—Susa

The lobby was busy but no longer frantic. The beautiful Eurasian girl who’d checked her/them in was gone, her shift finished. Under the canopy, two new men in green monkeysuits were whistling up cabs for folks, many of whom were wearing tuxedos or long sparkly dresses.

Going out to parties,Susa

Susa

No. We’ll get a cab on the corner.

Do you say so?

Oh, quit with the suspicion. You’re taking your kid to either its death or yours, I’m sure of that, but I recognize your intention to do well and I’ll keep my promise. Yes, I do say so.

All right.

Without another word—certainly none of apology—Mia left the hotel, turned right, and began walking back toward Second Avenue, 2 Hammarskjöld Plaza, and the beautiful song of the rose.

On the corner of Second and Forty-sixth, a metal waggon of faded red was parked at the curb. The curb was yellow at this point, and a man in a blue suit—a Guard o’ the Watch, by his sidearm—seemed to be discussing that fact with a tall, white-bearded man.

Inside of her, Mia felt a flurry of startled movement.

Susa

That man!

The Guard o’ the Watch? Him?

No, the one with the beard! He looks almost exactly like Henchick! Henchick of the Ma

Mia neither saw nor cared. She gathered that although parking waggons along the yellow curb was forbidden, and the man with the beard seemed to understand this, he still would not move. He went on setting up easels and then putting pictures on them. Mia sensed this was an old argument between the two men.