“She couldn’t wait. You know that your mother was never fit for a conventional life.”
“And the fire?” I asked, keeping my voice innocent and curious, all light, no dark shadows for accusations to hide behind.
“Well. Fiona’s nervous habit again. A parlor trick that went a little out of control, that’s all.” Bellanger gave a brusque laugh, as if in spite of himself. “I’m sorry that we didn’t stay for questioning. In our situation, that’s not exactly an option. It felt more important to focus on your mother, and on Fiona.”
“Of course,” I said, offering a sweet smile. “I get it.”
My mother had been fucking kidnapped.
“I never considered the possibility that you’d come after your mother, Josephine,” Bellanger was saying. “I thought you two were … estranged.” A weight on this word that made me inhale, defensive. “But one of our brothers stayed behind to ensure there was no more trouble after Margaret came with us. As Mathias followed you, he understood the pattern. That you were seeking out the others, one by one by one.”
“Mathias? Mathias tried to kill us in our sleep,” Cate said. “Real charmer you’ve got there.”
“You must understand, the people here are deeply protective of Fiona. They worship her, but they see her fragility too. Especially now that she’s with child. Mathias made a well-intentioned mistake. He thought that setting a fire, an act of arson with ordinary causes, might conceal Fiona’s hand in the first fire. Perhaps police would assume the fires were due to some follower of Ricky Peters.”
And it had worked. How much time had we wasted chasing ghosts? Bonnie’s attacker. Ricky Peters. Bobby and Junior. All that time, I could’ve been focused on finding my mother.
Bellanger shifted, cleared his throat. “When I learned that you were contacting the others, I decided that I’d neglected my other daughters long enough. Fiona is precious to me, yes, but the eight of you are still my creations. I was going to reach out to you soon. But here you are already. A welcome surprise.” He smiled, a bright tension caught behind his eyes. There was something cloying and appeasing about the way he offered this to us, a compensating brightness. Bellanger was still stuck back in 1977, assuming that the lightning had only struck in one of our nine bodies. He thought we were the throwaways that had finally led to Fiona’s spark of magic. “You do remind me of your mother, Josephine. Always one step ahead. Such a sharp mind.”
A sudden tug deep in my breastbone, a longing. I’d always imagined what it would be like if we’d stayed at the Homestead; a glimmer of it had sprouted here, in this lonely desert, just waiting for me. “What have you been doing here?” I asked. “Just … working with Fiona?”
“Well, yes. Fiona is the raw material. I’ve taken this girl, an unformed child, crippled by powers she can’t understand, and I’ve helped her grow. Edison didn’t create light—he gave it form, he brought it into people’s homes until we couldn’t function without it. He may as well have invented light. I’m doing the same with Fiona.”
“Her pregnancy,” I said slowly. “Is she—it’s parthenogenetic?” I had to ask if she was a virgin, though both possibilities made me feel sick to my stomach. Beside me, Isabelle stiffened slightly, as if she too were considering the implications.
Bellanger frowned, offended. “You didn’t expect me to abandon my work, did you? You of all people, Josephine, can appreciate the true scope of this accomplishment. You can’t imagine what a special time this is for us, and here you are—you’ve arrived right in the middle of it. I want you to consider something,” Bellanger said. “If Fiona is powerful, coming from an ordinary woman, what will her child be like? Coming from the womb of a goddess.”
Isabelle gave a little gasp next to me. The hairs along the back of my neck and my arms rose.
“Well, it’s been nice chatting with you, Dr. Bellanger, but we’re here for Margaret. We’d like to speak to her now, if you don’t mind,” Cate said, slapping her hands down on her thighs. Her sudden briskness was startling, like laughter inside a church.
“I do mind.” Bellanger finally acknowledged Cate, face chilly and amused, like a parent dealing with a tantruming child. “Catherine, you seem to misunderstand your role here. You’ve come to my private land uninvited and unannounced. You’ve intruded on my property, and now you’re making demands of me?” His eyes moved to each of us in turn, a calculation that seemed swift and automatic. Like he could reach into us by sight alone and measure our dimensions. Know our worth. I stared right back at him.