‘Finish this,’ Sylvia said flatly.
‘I want to ask him some more questions,’ said George.
‘He’s making things up as he goes along. It’s obvious!’
George spoke to Edgar. ‘You wanted to see Peony, didn’t you?’
‘I’m always wanting to see Peony, but that weren’t why we come.’
‘Did you tell Tony about her?’
Edgar’s mouth worked, as if tasting some sourness. ‘I don’t recall.’
Sylvia threw up her hands. ‘Can’t we have done with this?’
George stood and pulled her aside, out of Edgar’s hearing. ‘Lying or not, he can’t harm us. He’s simple.’
‘You say he’s simple, I say it’s an act. But be that as it may, suppose another Tony happens along – do you think he won’t tell him about Peony? He wants her back, can’t you see that?’
‘We survived Tony, we’ll survive the next one.’
‘We barely survived! You may be willing to put yourself at risk for no good reason, but not me.’
George glanced at Edgar – he was picking at his heel.
‘This is the man you blamed for Peony’s condition,’ said Sylvia. ‘I’m not wrong about that, am I?’
‘I think we need to step back a moment,’ George said. ‘We don’t always have to react straightaway.’
‘You great fucking idiot!’ Sylvia looked as though she wanted to spit. ‘All this time out here, after everything we’ve been through, and you still don’t know who you are . . . or where you are. You just killed a man in self-defense. Held him under the water until his lungs burst because he threatened us. Now you’re reluctant to finish the job. I guess you’d rather pretend you’re a moral sort. That you’re too sensitive to be a killer. You need time to contemplate the idea, to fit it into your philosophy of life. Well, maybe that’ll make you feel better, but feeling better won’t change the fact that there’s no place for morality here. If truth be told, there’s no place for it in Morningshade, either. Nor anywhere, really.’
‘You’re being ridiculous. I keep telling you Edgar’s not a threat.’
‘Everyone’s a threat! There’s no law here except Griaule’s. If he wasn’t flying around all hours, frightening everybody, people would be braver, they’d explore their surroundings. And if that were the case, like as not Peony and I would be slaving away on our backs day and night, and you’d be dead. We’re fortunate the people camped close to us were cowards.’ She prodded his chest with a finger. ‘Sooner or later Edgar’s bound to tell his story to someone more adept at killing than you. Someone who’s not hampered by morality. Then we’ll find out how moral you are.’
Edgar started to mumble. The wind tailed off – George could hear the rush of the stream. The sound fatigued him and filled him with melancholy.
‘You want him dead?’ He offered her the knife. ‘I’ve shed enough blood this evening.’
Her face closed down, armored by a blank expression. George expected her to back away from his challenge, but after a pause, as he was about to say, ‘What are you waiting for?’ she seized the knife and went toward Edgar with a decisive step. At the last instant he turned his head, grinning at her, and she drove the knife into the side of his neck, giving a truncated cry as she struck. The force of the blow knocked Edgar onto his side, tearing the hilt from her grasp, and she fell back, as if shocked by the result. He made a mewling noise and pressed his fingers to the steel protruding from his neck; dark blood jumped between them, spattering his pale shoulder. He seemed to be straining at something, trying to preserve a critical balance, perhaps torn between the desire to yank out the blade and the thought that such an action would be the end of him. His legs kicked out, briefly causing it to appear that he was running in place. Then the straining aspect ebbed from his limbs and he lay staring at the base of the creosote bush. Off in the night, the dragon screamed.
From then on, certain illusions went by the board, the illusion that they were a family foremost among them. George and Sylvia stopped having sex, a decision that was mutual albeit unspoken, and there was an overall diminution of pleasantries; yet these things seemed to indicate a larger change, one whose most profound symptom was an atmosphere of dejection, if not outright defeat. It was as if the spark that gave them life had been dampened. Occasionally that spark sputtered and sparked, providing a bright moment, as on the night when Sylvia told a story she’d written and memorized, one of several she related, all set in Ali’s Eternal Reward, concerning a girl of the brothel and her romance with a man who was the spitting image of the Sinistral from a deck of fortune-telling cards. Peony was entranced by the story and George offered extravagant praise that brought a smile to Sylvia’s face; but that flare of good feeling quickly faded and they were as before – three damaged people with no palpable bond to shield them against the oppressions of heaven and the disappointments of the world.
