The Witching Hour (64 page)

“Are you lying to me or to yourself? You are afraid of the flesh. The Talamasca offered safety to you as convents offer it to nuns. You have always done what is safe … ”

“Was it safe for me to go into Donnelaith, or safe for me to go to Montcleve?”

“No, you were brave in that, true. And brave I suppose to come here. But I speak not of that part of you but the private, secret part of you which might have known love and known passion and shrank from it for fear of it, disliking the very heat. You must realize that sin such as we have committed tonight can only strengthen us and cause us to grow more solitary and willful and cold towards others as if our secrets were shields.”

“But my dearest,” I said, “I do not want to be solitary and willful and cold towards others. I am that enough already when I go into the towns where witches are to be burnt. I want my soul to be in harmony with other souls. And this sin has made of me a monster in my eyes.”

“And so what, then, Petyr?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know. But you are my daughter all right. You think about what you do, that much I give you. You ponder and you consider. But you do not suffer enough!”

“And why should I?” She gave the most innocent laugh. “Why should I!” she cried out, staring right into my face.

And unable to answer that question, sick to death of my guilt, and of this drunkenness, I fell into a deep sleep.

Before dawn I awakened.

The morning sky filled with great pink-tinged clouds, and the roar of the sea was a wondrous sound. Charlotte was nowhere about. I could see that the door to the outside world was shut, and I knew without testing it that it was bolted from the outside. As for the small windows in the walls on either side of me, they were not large enough to allow a child to escape. Slatted shutters covered them now, through which the breeze ran, singing; and the little room was filled with the fresh air of the sea.

Dazed I stared out at the brightening light. I wanted to be back in Amsterdam, though I felt tainted beyond reprieve. And as I tried to rouse myself, to ignore the sickness in my head and belly, I perceived a ghostly shape standing to the left of the open doors, in the shady corner of the room.

For a long time, I considered it, whether it was not some product of the drug I had imbibed, or indeed of the light and
the shadow playing together; but it was not. A man it appeared to be, tall, and dark of hair, and gazing down upon me as I lay there, and wanting to speak or so it seemed.

“Lasher,” I whispered aloud.

“Fool of a man that you should come here,” said the being. But its lips did not move and I did not hear this voice through the ears. “Fool that you should seek to come between me and the witch whom I love, once again.”

“And what did you do with my precious Deborah?”

“You know but you do not know.”

I laughed. “Should I be honored that you pass judgment on me?” I sat up in my bed. “Show yourself more plainly,” I said.

And before my eyes, the shape grew denser and more vivid, and I saw the aspects of a particular man. Thin of nose, dark of eye, and dressed in the very same garments I had spied for but an instant years ago in Scotland, a leather jerkin and coarse-cut breeches, and a homespun shirt of bag sleeves.

Yet even as I surmised these things, it seemed that the nose became plainer, and the dark eyes more vivid, and the leather of the jerkin more plainly leather.

“Who are you, spirit?” I asked. “Tell me your true name, not the name my Deborah gave you.”

A terrible bitter expression came over its face; or no, it was only that the illusion had begun to crumple, and the air was filled with lamentation, a terrible soundless crying. And the thing faded away.

“Come back, spirit!” I declared. “Or more truly, if you love Charlotte, go away! Go back into the chaos from which you came and leave my Charlotte alone.”

And I could have sworn that in a whisper the being spoke again to say, “I am patient, Petyr von Abel. I see very far. I shall drink the wine and eat the meat and know the warmth of the woman when you are no longer even bones.”

“Come back!” I cried. “Tell me the meaning of this! I saw you, Lasher, as clearly as the witch saw you, and I can make you strong.”

But there was only silence. And I fell back upon the pillow, knowing that this was the strongest spirit I have ever beheld. No ghost has ever been stronger, more truly visible. And the words spoken to me by the demon had nothing to do with the will of the witch.

Oh, if only I had my books with me. If only I had had them then.

Once more in my mind’s eye I see the circle of stones at Donnelaith. I tell you there is some reason that the spirit came
from that spot! This is no mean daimon, no familiar, no Ariel ready to bow to Prospero’s wand! So feverish was I finally that I drank the wine again so that it would dull my pain.

And so there, Stefan, you have but the first day of my captivity and wretchedness.

How well I came to know the little house. How well I was to know the cliff beyond from which no path led down to the beach. Even if I had had a seaman’s rope, wrapped about the balustrade, I could not have made that awful descent.

But let me go on with my tale.

It was noon perhaps before Charlotte came to me, and when I saw the mulatto maids enter with her I knew that I had not created them out of my imagination, and only watched them in cold silence as they put fresh flowers about the room. They had my shirt clean and ironed for me and more clothing, of the lighter fabrics worn in these places. And a large tub they brought, sliding it across the sandy earth like a boat, with two heavily muscled male slaves to guard them lest I rush out the door.

This they filled with hot water, and said that I might have a bath whenever I chose.

I took it, hoping to wash away my sins, I guess, and then when I was clean and dressed and my beard and mustache properly trimmed, I sat down and ate the food given me without looking at Charlotte who alone remained.

Finally, putting the plate aside, I asked: “How long do you mean to keep me in this place?”

“Until I have conceived a child by you,” she said. “And I may have a sign of that very soon.”

“Well, you have had your chance,” I said, but even as the words came out, I felt last night’s lust again, and saw myself, as if in a dream, ripping her pretty silk frock from her and tearing loose her breasts again so that I might suckle them savagely as a babe. There came again the delicious idea that she was wicked and therefore I might do anything to her and with her, and I should avail myself of that opportunity as soon as I could.

She knew. Undoubtedly she knew. She came and sat on my lap, and looked into my eyes. A very tender little weight indeed. “Rip the silk if you like,” she said. “You cannot get out of here. So do what you can in your prison.”

I reached for her throat. At once I was thrown back upon the floor. The chair was turned over. Only she had not done it, she had merely moved aside so as not to be hurt.

“Ah, so he is here,” I said with a sigh. I could not see him, but then again I could, a gathering as it were just over me, and then the dispersal as the billowy presence grew broader and thinner
and then disappeared. “Make yourself a man as you did this morning,” I said. “Speak to me as you did this morning, little coward, little spirit!”

All the silver in the place began to rattle. A great ripple ran through the mosquito netting. I laughed. “Stupid little devil,” I said, climbing to my feet and brushing off my clothes. The thing struck me again, but I caught the back of the chair. “Mean little devil,” I said. “And such a coward, too.”

Amazed, she watched all this. I could not tell what it was in her face, suspicion or fear. Then she whispered something under her breath, and I saw the netting hung from the windows move as though the thing had flown out. We were alone.

She turned her face away from me, but I could see her cheeks burning, and see the tears in her eyes. She looked so tender then. I hated myself for wanting her.

“Surely you do not blame me for trying to hurt you,” I said politely to her. “You hold me here against my will.”

“Don’t challenge him again,” she said fearfully, her lip trembling. “I would not have him hurt you.”

“Oh, and cannot the powerful witch restrain him?”

Lost she seemed, clinging to the bedpost, her head bowed. And so beguiling! So seductive! She did not need to be a witch to be a witch.

“You want me,” she said softly. “Take me. And I shall tell you something that will warm your blood better than any drug I can give you.” Here she looked up, her lip trembling as if she would cry.

“What is that?” I said to her.

“That I want you,” she said. “I find you beautiful. I find I ache for you as I lie beside Antoine.”

“Your misfortune, daughter,” I said coldly, but what a lie.

“Is it?”

“Steel yourself. Remember that a man does not have to find a woman beautiful to ravage her. Be as cold as a man. It suits you better, for you hold me here against my will.”

She said nothing for a moment, and then she came towards me and began her seduction again, with soft daughterly kissing, and then her hand seeking me out, and her kisses growing more ardent. And I was just as much a fool as before.

Only my anger would not permit it, so I fought her. “Does your spirit like it?” I asked, looking up and around in the emptiness. “That you let me touch you when he would touch you?”

“Don’t play with him!” she said fearfully.

“Ah, for all his touching of you, caressing of you, kissing of you, he cannot get you with child, can he? He is not the incubus
of the demonologies who can steal the seed from sleeping men. And so he suffers me to live until I get you with child!”

“He will not hurt you, Petyr, for I will not allow it. I have forbidden it!”

Her cheeks grew red again as she looked at me, and now she searched the emptiness around her.

“Keep that thought in your mind, daughter, for he can read what you think, remember. And he may tell you that he does what you wish, but he does what he wishes. He came to me this morning; he taunted me.”

“Don’t lie to me, Petyr.”

“I never lie, Charlotte. He came.” And I described to her the full apparition, and I confessed his strange words. “Now, what can that mean, my pretty? You think he has no will of his own? You are a fool, Charlotte. Lie with him instead of me!” I laughed at her, and seeing the pain in her eyes, I laughed more. “I should like to see it, you and your daimon. Lie there and call him to come now.”

She struck me. I laughed all the more, the sting feeling sweet to me, suddenly, and again she slapped me, and again, and then I had what I wanted, which was the rage to take hold of her by her wrists and hurl her onto the bed. And there I tore loose her dress and the ribbons binding her hair. With the fine clothes her maids had put on me, she was just as rough, and we were together in it as hot as before.

Finally it was over three times, and as I lay in half sleep, she left me in silence, with only the roar of the sea to keep me company.

By late afternoon, I knew that I could not get out of the house, for I had tried. I had tried to batter down the door, using the one chair in the place to help me. I had tried to climb around the edges of the walls. I had tried to fit through the small windows. All in vain. This place had been carefully made as a prison. I tried even to get up on the roof, but that too had been studied and provided for. The slope was impossibly steep, and the tiles slippery, and the climb far too long and too great. And as twilight came, a supper was brought to me, being put, plate by plate, through one of the small windows, which after a long hesitation, I did take, more out of boredom and near madness than hunger.

And as the sun sank in the sea, I sat by the balustrade, drinking wine and looking at it, and looking at the dark blue of the waves, as they broke with their white foam upon the clean beach below.

No one ever came or went there on the beach in all my captivity
I suspect that it is a spot which could be reached only by sea. And anyone reaching it would have died there, for there was no way up the cliff, as I have said.

But it was most beautiful to look at. And getting drunker and drunker I fell into watching the colors of the sea and the light change, as if in a spell.

When the sun had vanished, a great fiery layer lay upon the horizon from end to end of the world. That lasted perhaps an hour and then the sky was but a pale pink and at last a deep blue, blue as the sea.

I resolved, naturally, that I should not touch Charlotte again, no matter what the provocation, and that finding me useless to her she would soon allow me to go. But I suspected that she would indeed kill me, or that the spirit would kill me. And that she could not stop him, I did not doubt.

I do not know when I fell to sleep. Or how late it was when I awoke and saw that Charlotte had come, and was seated inside by the candle. I roused myself to pour another glass of wine, for I was now completely taken up with drinking, and conceived an insupportable thirst within minutes of the last drink.

I said nothing to her, but I was frightened by the beauty she held for me, and that at the very first sight of her, my body had quickened and wanted her, and expected the old games to begin. I gave myself stern lectures in silence; but my body is no schoolboy.

It laughed in my face, so to speak. And I shall never forget the expression on her face as she looked at me, and looked into my heart.

I went to her, as she came to me. And this affection humiliated us both.

Finally when we were finished with it again, and sitting quietly, she began to talk to me.

“There are no laws for me,” she said. “Men and women are not merely cursed with weaknesses. Some of us are cursed with virtues as well. And my virtue is strength. I can rule those around me. I knew it when I was a child. I ruled my brothers, and when my mother was accused, I begged to remain in Montcleve, for I felt certain I could turn their testimony to her side.

“But she would not allow it, and she I never could rule. I rule my husband and have from our first meeting. I rule the house so skillfully that the other planters remark upon it, and come to me for advice. One might say that I rule the parish, as I am the richest planter in it, and I could rule the colony perhaps if I chose.