Lasher (66 page)

I saw finally the futility of all these gestures, that witchcraft is but a matter of focus—that one can apply one’s fierce and immeasurable energies to an act of choice. I would come back! I would come back. I sang it out to the walls.

Come back.

Beware the watchers in that hour!

Yes, come back in that hour!

Michael, remember now all the verses I’ve told you.

Remember. See what they say! Michael, I tell you I would not be here if the battle were over. The hour we speak of is yet to come. You have used love, yes, you have done that and it was not enough. But there are other tools you can use. Remember the poem, “crude and cruel.” Do not hesitate when you see it. Do not let the goodness hold you back.

Why else have I been allowed to come here? Why else have I been allowed once more to hear that waltz beneath this roof? In a moment you must play it for me, Michael, my waltz, my little Victrola. Play it when I am not here.

But let me tell you now of the last few nights I remember. I’m growing tired. I can see the finish of these words, but not the finish of the story. That is yours to tell. Let me give the few words left. And remember your promise. Play the music for me, Michael. Play it, for whether I go to heaven or hell is not yet known by either of us, and perhaps never will be known.

It was a week after, that I gave the little Victrola to Evelyn. I had taken advantage of an afternoon when no one was about, sending Richard up to fetch her, and tell her to come as soon as she could. I had the boys bring up for me a large Victrola from the dining room, a sizable music box with a fine tone.

And then, when Evie and I were alone, I told her to take the little Victrola up home and keep it and never let it out of her hands till after Mary Beth was gone. I didn’t even want Richard to know she’d taken it, for fear he would blab to Mary
Beth if she put the screws to him. I told Evie, “You take it, and sing as you walk out with it, sing and sing.”

That way, I thought, if Lasher were to observe her taking away this mysterious little toy, he would in befuddlement not attach any meaning to what he saw. I had to remember: the monster could read my thoughts.

I was desperate.

No sooner had Evie gone, her high singing voice dying away in the stairwell, than I wound the big new Victrola and called Lasher to me. Perhaps he would not heed her at all.

When he appeared, I appealed to him:

“Lasher, protect always that poor little Evie,” I said. “Protect her from the others, for my sake, will you protect that child.”

He listened as best he could with the music entrancing him. Invisible, he blundered about the room, knocking things from the mantel, rattling the framed pictures. Fine with me. It was proof that he was there!

“Very well, Julien,” he sang suddenly, appearing in the midst of a jolly dance, feet striking the boards with some semblance of weight and sound. What a smile. What a dazzle. How I wished for an instant that I had loved him.

And by that time, I thought, surely Evie is all the way home.

Weeks passed.

Evie’s liberation was now a fact. Richard often took her driving, along with Stella. Tobias took her regularly with him to Mass.

Evie came to me when she wanted, by the front door. But there were still nights when she chose the trellis, seeking me as if she were a fearless little goddess, and whipping my blood, with her courage and her own passion, to an obscene and delirious heat. We lay together for hours, kissing, touching one another. What a wonder that in my dotage I should be a skilled lover for one so young. I told her secrets, but only a few.

The gods had granted me that final pride.

“Julien, I love you,” said the crafty Lasher when he was about, hoping I would play the big Victrola, because he had come to love it so. “Why would anyone harm Evelyn? What is she to us? I see the future. I see far. We have what we require.”

When Mary Beth came home one afternoon, I sat her down beside me and vowed to her that I had told that little girl nothing
of importance and that they must look out for her as the years passed.

Tears came into Mary Beth’s eyes, one of the few times I ever saw them.

“Julien, how you misunderstand me and everything that I have done. All these years, I’ve striven to bring us together, to make us strong in number and in influence. To make us happy! Do you think I would hurt a child that has your blood? Cortland’s daughter? Oh, Julien, you break my heart. Trust in me, that I know what I do, that I have done everything right for our family. Trust in me, please. Julien, don’t die in agitation and fear. Don’t let this happen to you. Don’t let the last hours be ugly with fear. I’ll sit with you night and day if I have to. Die calm. We are the Mayfair family…a million leagues from where we were at Riverbend so long ago. Trust that we shall prevail.”

Nights passed. I lay awake, no longer needing sleep.

I knew by this time that Evelyn carried my child. God gives no quarter to old men! We burn; we father. What a dreadful circumstance! But the girl herself did not seem to know. I did not tell her.

I could only trust to Cortland, whom I called to myself and lectured incessantly. I knew the feathers would fly, as they say, as soon as everyone knew Evelyn was pregnant. I could only trust to the edicts and pronouncements I had issued, ad nauseam, that the child must be protected no matter what happened as the years passed.

A night came on, peaceful, warm. It must have been midsummer when I died! Surely it was. The crape myrtles were full of pink blossoms. Surely I have not imagined such a thing.

And I had sent everyone away from me. I knew it was coming. I lay quiet on a heap of pillows looking out at the clouds above the crape myrtle.

I wanted to go back and back to Riverbend, I wanted to sit with Marie Claudette, I wanted to know, honestly,
to know
who had been that young man who kidnapped slaves and brought them to Marguerite’s chambers for her wild experiments? Who had been that thoughtless knave?

I lay there, and then a most dreadful truth seized me. A little truth, really. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t lift myself up. I could not make my arms obey. Death was stealing over me like a winter chill. It was freezing me.

And then, as if there were a God for raconteurs and lechers, there appeared Evelyn above the edge of the roof, her white hands on the green vines.

Up she came and across the porch top and I could hear her voice through the thick glass, “Open the window, Oncle Julien! It’s Evie, open to me.”

I couldn’t move. I stared at her, my eyes brimming. “Oh darling,” I whispered in my heart.

And then Evie called on her witches’ gifts, and with her hands and her gifts she sent the window rattling upward. She reached inside and took me by my shoulders, so frail and small I must have been by then. She brought me forward and kissed me.

“Oh darling, yes, yes…”

And beyond her, spreading out over the whole sky, the storm gathered. I heard the first raindrops strike the porch roof beneath her. I felt them on my face. I saw the trees begin to move in their fury. And I heard the wind, wailing as if
he
were wailing, lashing the trees and crying in his grief as he had on the death of my mother, and on the death of her mother.

Yes, it was a storm for the death of the witch, and I was the witch. And it was my death and my storm.

T
HEY STOOD IN
the mist, forming a vague circle. What was that low grinding sound? Was it thunder? They were the most dangerous people he had seen. Ignorance, poverty, that was their heritage, and everywhere he saw the common imperfections of the poor and the untended, the hunchback, the man with the club foot, the child whose arms were too short, and all the others, thin-faced, coarse, misshapen and frightening, in their gray and brown garments, to behold. The grinding noise went on and on, too monotonous for thunder. Could they hear it?

The sky above pressed down upon them, down upon the entire grassy floor of the glen. The stones did have carvings, the old man in Edinburgh had told Julien the truth. The stones were enormous, and they were all together in the circle.

He sat up. He was dizzy. He said, “I don’t belong here. This is a dream. I have to go back where I belong. I can’t wake up here. But I don’t know how to get back there.” The grinding sound was driving him mad. It was so low, so insistent. Did they hear it? Maybe it was some awful rumble from the earth itself, but probably not. Anything could happen here. Anything could happen. The important thing was to get out.

“We would like to help you,” said one of the men, a tall man with flowing gray hair. He stepped forward, out of the little circular gathering. He wore black breeches and his mouth was invisible beneath his gray mustache. Only a bit of lip showed as the deep baritone voice came from him. “But we do not know who you are or what you are doing here. We do not know where you come from. Or how to send you home.”

This was English, modern English. This was all wrong. A dream.

What is that rumbling? That grinding. I know that sound. He wanted to reach out and stop it. I know that sound. The stone nearest to him must have been some twenty feet
high, jagged, like a crude knife rising from the earth, and on it were warriors in rows, with their spears and their shields. “The Picts,” he said.

They stared at him as if they did not understand him. “If we leave you here,” said the gray-haired man, “the little people may come. The little people are full of hatred. The little people will take you away. They’ll try to make a giant with you, and reclaim the world. You have the blood in you, you see.”

A sharp ringing sound carried over the blowing grass, suddenly, beneath the great span of boiling gray clouds. It came again, that same familiar peal. It was louder than the low grinding noise that ran on, uninterrupted, beneath it.

“I know what that is!” he said to them. He tried to stand, but then he fell down again into the damp grass. How they stared at his clothes. How different theirs were.

“This is the wrong time! Do you hear that sound? That sound is a telephone. It’s trying to bring me back.”

The tall man drew closer. His bare knees were filthy, his long legs streaked with dirt. Rather like a man who has been splashed with dirty water, and has let it dry on his skin. His clothing was matted with dirt.

“I’ve never seen the little people for myself,” he said. “But I know they are something to fear. We cannot leave you here.”

“Get away from me,” he said. “I’m getting out of here. This is a dream and you ought to leave it. Don’t wait around. Just go. I have things to do! Important things that must be done!”

And this time he rose full to his feet, and was thrown backwards and felt the floorboards beneath his hands. Again the telephone rang. Again and again. He tried to open his eyes.

Then it stopped. No, I have to wake up, he thought. I have to get up. Don’t stop ringing. He brought his knees up close to his chest and managed to get up on all fours. The grinding noise. The Victrola. The heavy arm with its crude little needle caught at the end of the record, grinding, grinding, looking for a new way to begin.

Light in the two windows. His windows. And there the Victrola under Antha’s window, the little letters
VICTOR
printed in gold on the wooden lid, which was propped open.

Someone was coming up the stairs.

“Yes!” He climbed to his feet. His room. The drafting board, his chair. The shelves filled with his books.
Victorian
Architecture. The History of the Frame House in America
. My books.

There was a knocking at the door.

“Mr. Mike, are you in there? Mr. Mike, Mr. Ryan is on the phone!”

“Come in, Henri, come in here.” Would Henri hear his fear? Would he know?

The doorknob turned as if it were alive. The light fell in from the landing, Henri’s face so dark with the little chandelier behind him that Michael couldn’t see it.

“Mr. Mike, it’s good news and bad news. She’s alive, they’ve found her in St. Martinville, Louisiana, but she’s sick, real sick, they say she can’t move or speak.”

“Christ, they’ve found her. They know for sure it’s Rowan!”

He hurried past Henri and down the stairs. Henri came behind him, talking steadily, hand out to steady Michael when he almost fell.

“Mr. Ryan’s on his way over here. Coroner called from St. Martinville. She had papers in her purse. She fits the description. They say it’s Dr. Mayfair, for sure.”

Eugenia was standing in his bedroom holding the phone in her hand.

“Yes, sir, we’ve found him.”

Michael took the receiver.

“Ryan?”

“She’s on her way in now,” came the cool voice on the other end. “The ambulance is taking her straight to Mercy Hospital. She’ll be there in about an hour, if they use the siren all the way. Michael, it doesn’t look good. They can’t get any response from her. They’re describing a coma. We’re trying to reach her friend Dr. Larkin, at the Pontchartrain. But there’s no answer.”

“What do I do? Where do I go?” He wanted to get on I-10 and drive north till he saw the oncoming ambulance, then swing around, cutting across the grass, and follow it in. An hour! “Henri, get me my jacket. Find my wallet. Down in the library. I left my keys and my wallet on the floor.”

“Mercy Hospital,” said Ryan. “They’re ready for her. The Mayfair Floor. We’ll meet you there. You haven’t seen Dr. Larkin, have you?”

Michael had on his jacket within seconds. He drank the glass of orange juice Eugenia pushed at him, as she reminded
him in no uncertain terms that he had had no supper, that it was eleven o’clock at night.

“Henri, go bring the car around. Hurry.”

Rowan alive. Rowan would be at Mercy Hospital in less than an hour. Rowan coming home. Goddamnit to hell, I knew it, knew she would come back, but not like this!

He hurried down to the front hall, taking his keys from Eugenia, and his wallet and stuffing it in his pocket. Money clip. Didn’t need it. Mayfair Floor. Where he himself had lain after the heart attack, hooked to machines and listening to them, like the grinding of that Victrola. And she was going to be there.