Listen stopped struggling. “Did I kill her?” she wailed. “I didn’t mean to.”
Mbongeni began wailing too. “Lissen . . . Lissen . . . muh muh muh muh muh.”
“He’s learned to say my name! He won’t forget me! Please, please, please let me stay!”
Matt didn’t bother to argue. He dragged Listen after him, and the cries of “Lissen . . . Lissen . . . muh muh muh muh muh” died away in the distance. Cienfuegos had the hovercraft at the hospital door. Mirasol’s body, wrapped in a white sheet, lay on the floor. Sor Artemesia had put more flowers on the shroud, and she sat by a window saying her beads.
Listen shrank away from the body. “She’s not dead. I don’t believe it. She’s not a rabbit.”
“Don’t be afraid of death, child,” Sor Artemesia said, beckoning to her. “It is when the soul is released to find its true home. Mirasol is not here. She is in heaven and far happier than she ever was on earth. She’s with her father now.” The nun put aside her rosary and took the child into her arms. “Here. We’ll look at trees as we fly.”
The hovercraft took off. Cienfuegos went around the Chiricahua Mountains by a southerly route, passing the ruins of a town called Douglas. A great battle must have been fought there, because the ground was scorched black and hardly a trace of buildings was left. Matt saw an ancient road going west, with the remains of cars scattered at the side.
They passed over the ruins of Nogales and crossed a valley filled with deserted farms. “This would be a good place to plant new crops,” said Cienfuegos. “The water table has risen and the soil is good.”
Matt listened without interest.
“That’s Kitt Peak,” the jefe said, skirting the highest mountain. At the top were two observatories, smaller versions of the ones in the Sky Village. “This is one of the first places El Patrón captured, and it gave him the idea for the Scorpion Star.” But nothing could rouse Matt. He was numb. Colors, sounds, and voices withdrew to a gray background in his mind. He couldn’t even think of Mirasol.
They landed at Ajo, and eejits carried Mirasol’s body, completely shrouded, to the large veranda in front of the hacienda. They laid her on a couch. Matt sat down next to her. A peacock wandered onto the veranda and gave a harsh cry.
Celia, Daft Donald, Mr. Ortega, and the boys came out, and Sor Artemesia cautioned them to keep their distance. She herself went up to Matt and said, “Mi patrón, please let me help. I think you have never arranged a funeral before.”
Matt looked up. “I don’t know what to do,” he said, dazed. “I don’t want her to be disposed of as though she were an animal.” He looked through the wide portico of the veranda to the distant fields. There were thousands and thousands of bodies out there. Cienfuegos had told him once that he had flown over the sand dunes of Yuma on a full moon night. By day you couldn’t see it, but by night the bones of Illegals showed up like a ghostly army sleeping on the earth.
“We need a coffin,” Sor Artemesia said. “A beautiful one. Perhaps one of the eejit carpenters could make it. The children’s choir could sing, and I will say the appropriate words. A priest would be better, but unfortunately we don’t have one.”
“El Patrón had a collection of Egyptian mummy cases,” said Matt. “Some of them are very beautiful.”
That very evening a procession of eejits dressed in white robes and adorned with flowers carried the coffin of an Egyptian queen. It had been buried thousands of years before in the hot sands of the North African desert. The queen’s likeness was carved on the lid. She wore a crown of gold and lapis lazuli. Her body was sheathed in white linen, and her arms were covered with carnelian bracelets. In her hand was a sacred blue lotus.
They came to the Alacrán mausoleum, a building as large as a house and covered with so many plaster cherubs it looked like a flock of chickens. Behind them came bodyguards carrying torches. Celia and the other servants, the boys, and Listen came next. Last of all walked the eejit children. They hummed the theme from Pavane for a Dead Princess, and the old choirmaster walked at their side to be sure they did it right.
Matt and Sor Artemesia met them at the mausoleum. On either side of the glass doors were what looked like chests of drawers. The name of a departed Alacrán was inscribed on each long drawer, but there were several that hadn’t been used yet. One was pulled out, and here the eejits deposited Mirasol’s body in the Egyptian queen’s coffin. Sor Artemesia performed the funeral ceremony, and two burly bodyguards slid the drawer closed.