Free The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk Page A

settling herself on the edge of the bed. “You’ve been talking to the dead again?”
    “How can you tell?”
    “A certain faraway look you get in your eye, a little cloudy, like cataracts.” Madrone smiled and handed Maya her tea. “Any good news from the other side?”
    “The dead are annoyingly cryptic.”
    “They’re probably swamped with new arrivals.”
    Maya sipped her tea. It was the herb they called Mystery Mint, from some spontaneous miscegenation of peppermint and spearmint in the Black Dragon garden. She wished it were good old caffeinated black tea. Twinings English Breakfast: that was what she used to like. With a little milk. They never saw that anymore. She had outlasted Twinings too. Or maybe it still existed, out in some corner of that vast world they no longer moved in. Maybe, in some air-filtered sunless enclave, the Stewards drank it every day.
    “You’re really worried about this new disease, aren’t you?” Maya observed.
    Madrone swirled the tea in her cup, as if looking for her fate in the dregs. Her voice was soft, controlled, but Maya could hear the pain concealed in it. “It just hit me again, about Consuelo.”
    “How did it happen?”
    “Her fever spiked up suddenly, triggered premature labor. She was fine the day before. There was nothing to indicate a problem, no fetal distress, no signs of toxemia. Just that odd low-grade temperature and the slight headache. Like Sandy had, before he fell off the roof.”
    “You think he fell because of the fever?”
    “I know he did. I could feel it, this whatever it is. Like a presence in his blood, a certain color in his aura. I can
feel
it, but I can’t
see
it or get hold of it. We don’t know what it is or how it’s spreading or what to expect. I’m afraid,
madrina.”
    What to say? Maya wondered. Wasn’t she supposed to be old and wise and comforting? When did this highly touted wisdom suddenly descend? Was it like tongues of fire, or the holy dove of the Christians? Would she ever feel its claws digging into her scalp?
    “I wish I could help you,” she said at last. “You carry too many burdens for somebody your age.”
    “I’m twenty-eight. Almost mature.”
    “A baby. A mere child, barely out of diapers. Far too young to do what you do. Why, the
curandera
who tried to train me in Mexico wasn’t allowed to heal anyone except herself until she was thirty. And she couldn’t work on anyone outside her family until she was forty.”
    “That sounds luxuriously sane,” Madrone admitted. “But we don’t live in sane times.”
    “At any rate, you need some time off. Or at least some stimulation besides the company of one crotchety old woman. Have you heard from Sage and Nita and Holybear? When are they coming back?”
    “Not for another few weeks.”
    “They should be down here with you. The house is empty without them.”
    “They can’t leave their trial ponds until their experiments are complete,” Madrone said. “You should be more appreciative of their efforts.”
    “How do I appreciate fifty-seven new breeds of waterborne bacteria?”
    “Bacteria that can neutralize toxins might mean that our descendants could eat shellfish out of the bay again someday. If any of us survive. Which I’m beginning to think is less and less likely.”
    “Everyone’s so gloomy today,” Maya complained. “Even the ghosts are intimating doom.”
    Madrone smiled. “Isn’t that a ghost’s prerogative?”
    “Maybe. But it worries me to see you so down in the mouth.”
    “I just feel bad. About Consuelo, about Sandy. About everybody. I feel like I’ve failed them all.”
    Maya patted her arm. There was nothing to say, really. She herself still felt bad about everyone she’d ever known who’d died, from Sandy back to Cameron Graham Rosenthal, who’d died of AIDS downstairs sixty years ago when the house was still divided into two separate flats. Yes, she still missed him from time to time, missed dressing up with him and