“How far they go back together, I cannot tell you,” she said. “You know more than I do. Did Ben speak of him, do you remember him saying the name, even once?” Farrell was shaking his head, but she went on. “You played games, you used to make up voices, imaginary people; I have seen you do it. There was never a voice that could have been Egil?”
“Lord, no,” Farrell said. “We did silly stuff, bus-ride routines, something to do waiting for the subway at two in the morning. You’re talking about multiple personalities, you’re talking about some kind of possession. It’s not the same thing.”
“What do you know about possession?” Her tone was suddenly so quick and blunt that he was sure he had angered her.
He answered placatingly, “Not much. I’ve never seen any devils come out of people’s mouths, but I did know a Chinese guy in Hawaii who died, and his spirit went into a jeep.” Sia growled softly, and Farrell corrected himself. “Actually, I really knew his nephew, it was his nephew’s jeep. And I met a man back in New York who used to get taken over by Jane Austen twice a week. Mondays and Thursdays, I think it was. He’d call me up at all hours and read me whole chunks of this novel she was writing through him. Really sounded a lot like Jane Austen.”
After a long moment the growl turned into a harsh chuckle, and she said, “I believe you. Those stories are so incredibly stupid that I must believe you completely. But I would be much more interested if your friend had been the one to possess Jane Austen, so that she began to write like him. Did you ever hear of anything like that?”
“No, of course not.” He was strangely disconcerted by the idea; it made him physically giddy to think about it. “You can’t have backward possession, retroactive possession; that’s just silly, it couldn’t work like that. You couldn’t have it…
“Tell Ben,” she said, and it was at that moment that Briseis, sprawled absurdly on her back before the fire, eyes shut tight and one foreleg pointing straight up at the ceiling, began to make the most terrifying sound that Farrell had ever heard an animal make. So high and cold and distant as hardly to be a cry of flesh at all, it was almost visible to Farrell—a petal-thin wire, coated and edged with powdered glass, like the strings of Asian fighting kites, spinning out of the dog’s intestines to haul her, step by agonizedly mincing step, toward the front door, as if the other end were in the grip of the darkness beyond. Her neck was wrenched sideways and back, and she stared unbelievingly at Sia as she howled.
Sia was on her feet before Farrell had finished saying, “Jesus, what the hell?” Facing the door, she uttered a wordless cry of her own, raw and piercing enough to make the living room windows buzz and the old spears murmur hoarsely together in their wicker basket. There was no answer from outside, but Briseis abruptly gasped and toppled over, scrambling up instantly to vanish into the broom closet, where she remained for the next twenty-four hours. Sia never looked after her; rather, she raised her left hand slowly to her breast in a gesture of silent-movie shock and wonder. She stood unsteadily, rocking very slightly.
“You,” she said, softly but very clearly. “Thou.” She shook her head once and said something in a language full of creaking, snapping sounds. In English she added, “You cannot come in here. You still cannot come in.” The doorbell chimed while she was speaking, followed by Aiffe’s unmistakable splintery giggle. “Special delivery. Hey, somebody has to sign for this package.” Something heavy thumped against the door, then slid partway down.
Without moving or turning her head, Sia motioned Farrell to the door. He could hear Aiffe snickering impatiently as he crossed the room and, under that, the little shivery rustle of a desperate voice talking to itself. The words were impossible to distinguish, but Farrell did not need to.
When he opened the door, Ben fell across his feet, curling up convulsively as he did so. The crested helmet was gone, along with the belt-axe and the copper ornaments, and the torn black mantle was as mud-caked as his hair. Farrell crouched beside him, feeling for bruises and worse, relieved to find that the blood drying on Ben’s face came only from a couple of long bramble scratches. Ben opened his eyes, and Farrell drew back momentarily from the helplessly murderous gaze of a mad stranger. Then it went out, as suddenly as whatever held Briseis had released her, and Ben said calmly, “The birds were freezing,” just before he threw up a weak orange trickle over Farrell’s shoes and fainted.
“We found him in the park,” Aiffe said. “Right up by the merry-go-round, you know, the playground. He was climbing around on things and yelling.” Farrell looked up at her as he wiped Ben’s mouth with his handkerchief. She stood directly under the porch light, thumbs hooked into her jeans pockets, all her weight canted onto one flat hip, and a warily mocking grin stuttering across her face like a lit fuse. She was wearing sneakers, a denim vest, and a pale green T-shirt with the legend WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS, HUG YOUR TEDDY. “I think it’s a blood sugar thing,” she offered. “They’re finding out now that a whole lot of people get really weird when their blood sugar drops.”
Farrell said, “You know it’s got nothing to do with his damn sugar content. What did you do, mug him? What did you do to him?”
The grin fizzed a moment longer, then exploded into a fireball of defiant delight. “You can’t talk to me like that anymore. Nobody can.” She took a step toward him, shaking with the violence of her exaltation. “I’m Aiffe, and I can say whatever I want, because I can do whatever I want. And you can’t, so you don’t talk to me like I’m nothing, a baby, a nothing. You just watch your tone, and you just try really, really hard to make friends with me. Because it makes a difference if I’m your friend or not.” Her smile burned more trimphantly with each word, but Farrell saw tears in her eyes.
Behind him Sia said, “Joe, take Ben inside.” Her voice was the small stone voice that Farrell remembered from the afternoon when McManus came drunk to the house. He put his arms clumsily under Ben and half dragged, half rolled him through the doorway. Glancing sideways, he saw Sia’s stumpy legs move past to halt on the threshold, spreading to brace themselves so squarely and precisely that her house slippers did not protrude even an inch over the sill. She spoke again in the language that sounded like wind in the rigging; and from the delicate spring night, Nicholas Bonner’s sweet, sweet laughter answered her.
“Speak English, cookie,” he advised her, shrugging himself out of the porch shadows as he strolled forward. Dressed like Aiffe in jeans and a T-shirt—his was black, with a silversparkling face of Willie Nelson—he looked younger and more vulnerable than she, almost shy. He said thoughtfully, “Now why should I be so quick with any new human tongue, when you can’t ever learn to speak even one quite properly? Why should that be, after all?” There was no mockery in his voice, but a strangely companionable wonder.
Ben stirred and whispered in Farrell’s arms, his whole body abruptly dank with sweat. Sia said, “You learn. I make. I have created languages that were dust in the mouths of skulls before you were born. Have you forgotten? The gift you have was an apology, because you have nothing of your own. Have you forgotten, then?”
“I forget nothing,” Nicholas Bonner said mildly. “I don’t think I can.” He kept his eyes down, letting the thick bronze lashes hide them. Aiffe draped herself against him, preening on his shoulder with the air of a movie gangster’s showgirl mistress. “Nick’s staying at my house,” she announced. “Private tutor, hey, hey.”
Neither Sia nor Nicholas Bonner seemed to have heard her. Sia made a sound in her throat like hard snow underfoot. She said, “In Augsburg. I thought that was the last time.”