"Damn, damn, damn." Ben slammed his fist into the wall of Ruthie's trailer. The inconsolable Libby had just left. Ruthie had hustled Gabriel out some time before; he'd taken the family's three kittens with him, deciding on his own that Libby's outburst was not for their tender ears.
"She's half out o' her mind over this," Ben raged, "an' it's all my fault! It never occurred to me Sofie might have some other way o' hurtin' her, besides tellin' her 'bout the sex." He flopped on the bed, tearing at his hair in frustration. "Preggers with Jonesy's kid. My God!"
"I don't approve o' your part in this," Ruthie said stiffly. "But I gather you didn't actually tell Lib to slice Sofie's hand with a razor."
"N-no. But I got this fear in my mind..." He hesitated, then said, "Truth is, I was wonderin' 'bout the blood. An' I ain't sure I understand all my powers. I'm afraid I really might o' willed Libby to do it, caused her to do it."
Shocked, Ruthie muttered an oath.
He couldn't look at her.
"So...does Sofie's not havin' blue blood prove she ain't an Avatar?" she demanded. "Your blood warn't always blue, was it?"
"No, it warn't blue till I killed Management an' became a Prophet." Sighing, he explained, "I wondered for a while if there might be separate women's Houses, that us men never knew about. If Sofie might o' become Prophet on Appy's death.
"Now I know that ain't so. She'd have blue blood. An' if she's an Avatar in one o' the Houses I know of, she ain't Light, or she'd be my Prince - uh, Princess -"
"How could that be?" Ruthie asked. "She's a couple years older'n you."
"Older, yeah. But she could still be an extra generation removed from the first pair o' Avatars. It'd be like them parents that keep havin' kids, an' wind up with some younger than their grandchildren. A niece can be older than her uncle. Anyway, I've accepted the idea of a woman bein' an Avatar, so if Sofie was my Princess, I'd sense it. She ain't.
"That means she must be a Dark Avatar. An' Justin pretty much has to be her pa, but they may not know it. She woulda become Prophet when I killed him, so I'd expect her to have blue blood. But someone, prob'ly Sofie herself, brung him back to life. God knows how that changes things.
"Could be," he continued thoughtfully, talking more to himself than to Ruthie, "that a new Prophet's blood don't change till the former Prophet's body ascends or descends. That only one of a House can be on this Earth with blue blood in their veins.
"Justin came back to life, an' Sofie never got the blue blood. But even so, an' even if he's still a Prophet, she might be one too - stronger, more powerful, than an Avatar who ain't a Prophet."
Ruthie reminded him she was there by asking, "Couldn't the red blood mean she ain't an Avatar at all?"
"I wish it did," he said wearily. "But I keep pickin' up some kind o'...energy from your mirror, where Lodz wrote 'Sofie is the Omega.' By now I'm sure that's important.
"She did let slip that she has visions o' the future." Agitated as she was, Libby had given him a full report. "She'd 'seen' her hand cut. An' that was a good thought Lib had, 'bout her takin' too long to say the readings she does ain't real. She has at least the powers Appy had. An' she feels a need to hide 'em!"
They sat for a few minutes in morose silence. Then Ruthie suggested, "Any chance this kid ain't Jonesy's? She's gotta be pregnant by someone, or she wouldn't o' gone out on a limb by tellin' Libby. But could it be Crowe or one o' his henchmen? A rape, maybe?"
Ben shook his head. "I don't think so. If she knew she was pregnant from a rape, she prob'ly woulda found a way to abort it before now.
"An' her story 'bout havin' sex with Jonesy rings true." That was the point that carried the most weight with him. "It accounts for the time that passed between his goin' to save her, an' her catchin' up with us. An' her sayin' she knew he was married made her look bad. If she was willin' to tell another lie, it woulda been easy to claim he'd never told her 'bout the marriage.
"So if she had sex with him, an' she's pregnant now, why doubt he's the father? I just never thought o' the possibility. If I'd let well enough alone, she woulda had an abortion an' Libby never woulda known!" He buried his face in his hands.
"She coulda been lyin' 'bout the abortion plan, just to make Libby feel worse. Or you, if she suspected Libby was workin' for you." There was a decided chill in Ruthie's voice. "I still can't believe what you did, Ben! You knew Sofie might be a Dark Avatar, meanin' she could be the one killed seventeen thousand people - an' you asked a young girl to spy on her? What in blazes were you thinkin' of? Did you want Libby to wind up as dead as her husband?"
"I'm sorry," he moaned. "I figured that if Sofie wanted to do anythin' bad to her, she'd want to hurt her, an' enjoy seein' her suffer. An' I thought the only ammunition she had was the story that in fact, Lib already knew. Shows how bright I am.
"But I didn't tell you what I was doin'," he acknowledged with a sigh. "First time since we got together that I've gone behind your back, deceived you. I guess that means that deep down, I was ashamed. I knew it was wrong."
Ruthie said quietly, "Shit. There ain't no rule sayin' you gotta tell me everythin' you do! But..."
The pause was so long that Ben turned to stare at her, puzzled.
At last, without meeting his eyes, she continued, "If we're bein' honest...I've been deceivin' you lately, too. Keepin' somethin' from you, that you got a right to know."
The first thought that came into his head was Oh my God, she's in love with someone else.
Thirty-four years his senior, Ruthie could plausibly have been his grandmother. But he saw her as the most beautiful, desirable woman with Carnivale. During the months when he'd spurned her - in a misguided attempt to protect her - she'd lost interest in her appearance, lost weight, and begun to look old. But since they'd become a couple, she'd blossomed.
She could have any man she wants, he told himself. An' I still ain't the one she deserves.
Bracing himself for bad news, he said, "You can tell me anythin', Ruthie. It's okay. I'll understand."
She made a face. "Well, at least I ain't put anyone's life in danger! But I didn't tell you 'bout somethin' Samson's been doin', that I know you won't approve of."
Somethin' Samson's been doin'? That's all it is?
He realized she was staring at him, and wiped what he knew was a stupid grin off his face. "Uh, Samson. Has he been makin' money off my healin', somehow?"
"No, no," she assured him. "Nothin' like that. But he didn't tell you the truth about the reason he wanted you to keep your beard."
"My beard?" Now he was hopelessly confused. "What the hell does my beard have to do with anythin'?"
"He said he thought it was a good idea for you to look mature, right? But he really thinks the beard makes you look sort o' Biblical. Or rather, the way art has made people think them folks in the Bible looked."
"Oh, shit." He suddenly remembered what Libby had said, after catching her first glimpse of him with the kitten on his shoulder. "He wants the rubes to think I look like Jesus?"
But Ruthie was shaking her head. "No, not Jesus. He just wants your looks to suggest someone from that time period. He's started a rumor..."
"What?"
She sighed. "He gave you the name Benjamin St. John, right? There's a legend that Saint John - the Apostle, the one s'posed to have wrote the Gospel - never died. That Jesus promised he'd live till the Second Coming. So Samson's planted the idea that while you can't admit it, you really are this two-thousand-year-old Apostle."
Ben let out a string of very un-Apostolic oaths.
When he'd wound down, Ruthie said quietly, "I think it's a good idea, Ben. That's why I ain't told you till now.
"If the press pokes into your background, they ain't gonna find a believable past for Benjamin St. John, right? An' you can't afford to let 'em learn who you really are - a fugitive wanted for murder.
"With this scheme o' Samson's, some folks will think you got a murky past 'cause you really are Saint John. An' the ones too smart to believe that will think your background's been covered up for the sake o' the Saint John hoax. A harmless, non-criminal explanation."
He did some more swearing.
But at last he said, "Dammit, I know you're right. I ain't never gonna claim I am this saint, though!"
"No one's askin' you to."
They lapsed into companionable silence.
As one, they heaved weary sighs.
He reached for her hand and clung to it, as night descended on Carnivale.
x
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x
Sofie was still nude as she stood in the pitch darkness outside her tent, alternately stroking the kitten snuggled in the crook of one arm, and her own belly.
She really had been feeling lonely and vulnerable. And she really had regretted the grief she'd caused Libby in the past. (Though she still would have murdered Jonesy, if she had it to do over. He was in her way.)
She'd been furious, outraged, when Libby turned on her. But all that really mattered was that she had won. She'd left the other woman crushed, devastated.
The kitten purred, and Sofie, smiling, mimicked a purr in response.
Yes, triumph was sweet. So sweet that she couldn't wish the events of that night to have played out in any other way.
So I guess I am going to have this baby, she reflected. Maybe it was fate.
She hadn't made a decision on seeking an abortion, but she'd been considering it. She'd never wanted to be a mother. And she was apprehensive about the sort of offspring who'd be born to two supernaturally gifted parents.
For the child in her womb was, of course, Ben's.
She hadn't known she was pregnant when she returned to Carnivale. Three weeks later, when she did know, she skillfully misled Ben. She assured him that her period had started two days after they made love, so she'd never had a moment's concern about it. Then, much later in the conversation, she lied about having had sex with Jonesy. Made Ben, as he thought, pull the admission out of her! Solely to lay the basis for a claim, if she did decide to go through with the pregnancy, that Jonesy was the father.
Her master stroke, as she saw it, was another "admission": that she'd known Jonesy was married when they made love. How could Ben suspect her of making up a story that included a detail - which she could easily have kept to herself - that reflected so badly on her?
She thought now that on some level, she'd always meant to have the baby. She might be uneasy, but she was also tingling with anticipation.
I just have to hope for a full-term pregnancy...and then, a small enough newborn that I can pretend it's premature.
After it's born, will there be more changes in me?
By now she'd realized that if Justin was something called a "Prophet," and she was destined to become one upon his death, it should have happened while he was dead - however briefly.
Is blue blood a mark of Prophets? Does Ben have it?
Is mine still red - for now - only because I was already pregnant when Ben killed Justin, and a change in my blood would have harmed the child inside me?
I can afford to wait a few months to find out.
The kitten nuzzled against, of all things, her breast, and she gave it a reproving tap on the nose. As she drifted back into the tent, she was crooning softly to two "babies": the one pulling her hair, and the one who had yet to stir even in her womb.
x
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x
Ben woke at first light, to the sound of urgent knocking on the door. Ruthie rolled over, murmuring, "Mmm?"
"I'll get it," he told her. "It's still early. You go back to sleep."
He padded over to the door, opened it - and gasped. Libby had looked bad the night before, but the ashen-faced apparition he saw now was barely recognizable. Instinctively putting an arm around her for support, he said rather than asked, "Somethin' else has happened."
She nodded, choking out a barely audible "Yeah." Then she pulled herself together and mustered a bitter smile. "I got more information for you! On that matter o' how Sofie uses her powers.
"My puppy was in our tent all night, not three feet from me. An' I warn't sleepin' much, after all that happened. I'm sure no one coulda come in without wakin' me.
"But this mornin'..." She swallowed hard, and forced herself to go on. "This mornin', the puppy was dead. Daddy says his neck got broke."
x
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The End