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“It hurts,” Orsay admitted. She felt bad admitting it. All these anxious, hopeful, desperate faces turned toward her. And all she had to do was endure the pain in order to ease their fears.
“See! They come despite Astrid’s lies.”
“Astrid?” Orsay frowned. She’d heard Nerezza saying something about Astrid before. But most of Orsay’s thoughts were elsewhere. She was only partly aware of what went on around her in this world. Since that day when she had touched the Darkness she had felt as if the whole world was just a little bleached of color, the sounds muffled. The things she touched she seemed to touch through gauze bandages.
“Yes, Astrid the Genius is telling these lies about you. She is the font of lies.”
Orsay shook her head. “You must be wrong. Astrid? She’s a very honest girl.”
“It’s definitely Astrid. She’s using Taylor and Howard and a few others. Lies travel quickly. By now everyone has heard. And yet, look how many have come.”
“Maybe I should stop doing this,” Orsay said.
“You can’t let lies bother you, Prophetess. We have nothing to fear from Astrid, the genius who never sees what’s right under her nose.”
Nerezza smiled her mysterious smile, then seemed to shake herself out of a daydream. Before Orsay could ask her what she meant, Nerezza said, “Let’s let the Siren sing.”
Orsay had only heard Jill sing twice. Both times had been like mystical religious experiences. It didn’t matter what the song was, really, although some songs almost made you feel like you should do more than just stand there listening.
“Jill,” Nerezza said. “Get ready.” Then, in a louder voice, she addressed those on the beach. “Everyone. We have a really special experience for you. Inspired by the Prophetess, our little Jill has a song for you. I think you’ll all really enjoy it.”
Jill sang the first lines of a song that Orsay didn’t recognize.
Hushaby, don’t you cry,
go to sleep little baby…
The world closed in around Orsay like a soft, warm blanket. Her own mother, her real mother, had never been the kind for singing lullabies. But in her mind it was a different mother, the mother she’d wished she had.
When you awake, you shall have
all the pretty little ponies…
And now Orsay could see, in her mind’s eye, the blacks and the bays, the dapples and grays, all dancing through her imagination. And with them a life she had never had, a world she’d never known, a mother who would sing…
Hushaby…
Jill fell silent. Orsay blinked, a sleepwalker waking. She saw her followers, the children, all so close together now, they seemed almost to meld into one. They had shuffled ever closer to Jill and now pressed against the rock.
But their eyes were not on Jill, or even on Orsay. They were on that angel-decorated sunset and their own mother’s faces.
“Now it’s time,” Nerezza said to Orsay.
“Okay,” Orsay said. “Yes.”
She pressed her hand against the barrier. The electric jolt burned her fingertips. The pain was still stunning, even after so many times. She had to fight the compelling urge to pull back.
But she pressed her hand against the barrier, and the pain fired every nerve in her hand, traveled up her arm, searing, burning.
Orsay closed her eyes.
“It’s…is there…is Mary here?”
A voice gasped.
Orsay opened her tear-filled eyes and saw Mary Terrafino toward the back. Poor Mary, so burdened.
Mary, so terribly thin now. Starvation made so much worse by anorexia.
