The Witching Hour

  He shook his head. "I don't want to, Rowan," he said.

  She stood silent, drawing into herself, it seemed, her eyes becoming vague and unfocused. She hugged her arms again, the way she always did it seemed when she was upset, as if her interior misery made her cold.

  "Michael," she said again softly, "would you touch something of Deirdre's? Her nightgown. Maybe the bed."

  "I don't want to, Rowan. We said we wouldn't ... "

  She looked down, her hair tumbling over her eyes so that he couldn't see them.

  "Rowan, I can't interpret it. It will just be confusion. I'll see the nurse that helped her dress, or maybe the doctor, or maybe a car that passed when she was sitting out there, watching. I don't know how to use it. Aaron's taught me a little. But I'm still not very good. I'll see something ugly and I'll hate it. And it scares me, Rowan, because she's dead. I touched all kinds of things for people in the beginning. But I can't now. Believe me, I ... I mean when Aaron teaches me ... "

  "What if you saw happiness? What if you saw something beautiful like that woman in London saw, who touched her robe for Aaron?"

  "Did you believe in that, Rowan? They aren't infallible, these people in the Talamasca. They're just people."

  "No, they aren't just people," she said. "They're people like you and me. They have preternatural powers like you and I have preternatural powers."

  Her voice was mild, unchallenging. But he understood what she felt. He stared again at the blessed candles, and then at the broken statue, which he could just see in the shadows behind her on the bathroom floor. Flash of the May procession and the giant statue of the Virgin tilting as it was carried through the streets. Thousands of flowers. And he thought again of Deirdre, Deirdre in the botanical garden, talking in the dark to Aaron. "I want normal life."

  He moved around the bed and went to the old-fashioned dresser. He opened the top drawer. Nightgowns of soft white flannel, whiff of sachet, very sweet. And lighter summer garments of real silk.

  He lifted one of these nightgowns--a thin sleeveless thing sewn with pale pastel flowers. He laid it down in a wrinkled heap on the dresser, and he took off his gloves. For a second he clasped his hands together tightly and then he picked up the garment in both hands. He closed his eyes. "Deirdre," he said, "only Deirdre."

  An enormous place gaped before him. Through the lurid flickering glare he saw hundreds of faces, he heard voices wailing and screaming. An unbearable sound. A man came towards him stepping over the bodies of the others! "No. Stop!" He had dropped the nightgown. He stood there with his closed eyes trying to remember what he'd just glimpsed, though he couldn't bear to be surrounded by it again. Hundreds of people shifting and turning, and someone speaking to him in a rapid ugly mocking voice. "Christ, what was it?" He stared down at his hands. He had heard a drum behind all of it, a marching cadence, a sound he knew.

  Mardi Gras, years ago. Rushing through the winter street with his mother. "Going to see the Mystic Krewe of Comus." Yes, that had been the very drum song. And the glare had been the glare of the flickering reeking flambeaux.

  "I don't understand," he said.

  "What are you saying?"

  "I didn't see anything that made any sense." He looked down angrily at the nightgown. Slowly he reached out for it. "Deirdre, in the last days," he said. "Only Deirdre in the last days." He touched the soft wrinkled cloth very gently. "I'm seeing the view from the porch, the garden," he whispered. Yes, the Queen's Wreath vine, and that is a butterfly climbing the screen, and his hand right there beside her. "Lasher's there, she's glad he's there, and he's right beside her." And if he turned his head and looked up from the rocker he'd see Lasher. He set the nightgown down again. "And it was all sunlight and flowers, and she was ... was all right."

  "Thank you, Michael."

  "I don't want to do it again, Rowan, I'm sorry I can't do it. I don't want to."

  "I understand," she said. She came towards him. "I'm sorry." Her voice was low and sincere and soothing, but her eyes were full of bewilderment. What had he seen that first time around, she wanted to know.

  So did he. But what chance had he of knowing?

  Yet he was here, inside the house, and he had the power, which had been given to him, presumably by them! And he was being a coward with the power, he, Michael Curry, a coward, and he kept saying he meant to do what they wanted him to do.

  Hadn't they wanted him to come here? Didn't they want him to touch things? And she wanted him to. How could she not?

  He reached out and touched the foot of Deirdre's bed. Flash of midday, nurses, a cleaning woman pushing a tired vacuum, someone complaining, ceaselessly, a whine. It came so fast finally it was blurred; he ran his fingers along the mattress: her white leg like a thing made out of dough, and Jerry Lonigan there, lifting her, saying under his breath to his assistant, Look at this place, will you look at it, and when he touched the walls, her face suddenly, Deirdre, idiot smile, drool on her chin. He touched the door to the bathroom, a white nurse bullying her, telling her to come now, and move her feet, she knew that she could, pain inside Deirdre, pain eating her insides, a man's voice speaking, the cleaning woman coming, going, the flush of the toilet, the hum of the mosquitoes, the sight of a sore on her back, good God, look at it, where she has rubbed against the rocker over the years, a festering sore, caked with baby powder, are you people crazy, and the nurse just holds her on the toilet. I can't ...

  He turned and pushed past Rowan, brushing her hand away as she tried to stop him. He touched the post of the stairs. Flash of a cotton dress passing him, beat of footsteps on the old carpet. Someone screaming, crying.

  "Michael!"

  He ran up the steps after them. The baby was roaring in the cradle. It echoed all the way up the three flights from the parlor.

  Stench of chemicals, rotted filth in those jars. He'd glimpsed it last night, she'd told him about it, but now he had to see it, didn't he? And touch it. Touch Marguerite's filthy jars. He'd smelled it last night when he'd come up to find Townsend's body, only it wasn't the body. His hand on the railing, caught a flash of Rowan with the lamp in her hand. Rowan angry and miserable and trying to escape the old woman, who was beating her with words, viciousness, and then the black woman with her dust mop, and a carpenter putting a pane of glass in this window that looked out over the roof. God, that is an awful smell up here, lady. Just do your job. Deirdre's bedroom, shrill clang of other voices, rising to a peak, then washing away, and another wave coming. And the door, the door straight ahead, someone laughing, a man speaking French, what he's saying, let me hear one distinct word, the stench is behind it.

  But no, first Julien's room, Julien's bed. The laughing grew louder, but a baby's crying was mixed up with it, someone rushing up the stairs just behind him. The door gave him Eugenia again, dusting, complaining about the stench, Carlotta's voice droning on, the words indistinguishable, and then that awful stain there in the darkness where Townsend died, drawing his last breath through the hole in the carpet, and the mantel, wavering flash of Julien! The same man, yes, the same man he'd seen when he held Deirdre's nightgown, yes, you, Julien, staring at him, I see you, and then footsteps running, no, I don't want to see this, but he reached out for the windowsill, grabbed the little cord of the shade, and up it ran, rattling at the top, revealing the dirty windowpanes.

  She flew past him, Antha, through the glass, scuttling out on the roof, terrified, tangle of hair over her wet face, her eye, look at her eye, it's on her cheek, dear God. Sobbing, "Don't hurt me, don't hurt me! Lasher, help me!"

  "Rowan!"

  And Julien, why didn't he do something, why did he stand there crying silently, doing nothing. "You can call on the devil in hell and the saints in heaven, they won't help you," said Carlotta, her voice a snarl as she climbed through the window.

  And Julien helpless. "Kill you, bitch, kill you, you will not ... "

  She's gone, she's fallen, her scream unfurling like a great billowing red flag against the blue s
ky. Julien with his face in his hands. Helpless. Shimmering gone, a ghost witness. The chaos again, Carlotta fading. He clamped his hands on the iron bed, Julien sitting there, wavering yet distinct for an instant, I know you, dark eyes, smiling mouth, white hair, yes, you, don't touch me! "Eh bien, Michel, at last!"

  His hand struck the packing crates lying on the bed, but he couldn't see them. He could see nothing but the light wavering and forming the image of the man sitting there under the covers, and then it was gone, and then it was there. Julien was trying to get out of the bed ... No, get away from me.

  "Michael!"

  He had shoved the boxes off the bed. He was stumbling over the books. The dolls, where were the dolls? In the trunk. Julien said that, didn't he? He said it in French. Laughter, a chorus of laughter. Rustle of skirts around him. Something broke. His knee struck something sharp, but he crawled on towards the trunk. Latches rusted, no problem, throw back the lid.

  Wavering, vanishing, Julien stood there, nodding, pointing down into the trunk.

  The rusted hinges broke completely as the lid slammed back into the old plaster and fell loose. What was that rustling, like taffeta all around him, feet scraping the floor around him, figures looming over him, like flashes of light through shutters, here and then gone, let me breathe, let me see. It was like the rustle of the nuns' skirts when he was in school and they came thundering down the hallway to hit the boys, to make the boys get back in line, rustling of beads and cloth and petticoats ...

  But there are the dolls.

  Look, the dolls! Don't hurt them, they are so old and so fragile, with their dumb scribble scratch faces looking at you, and look, that one, with the button eyes, and the braids of gray, in her tiny little perfect man clothes of tweed to the very trousers. God, bones inside!

  He held it. Mary Beth! The flapping gores of her skirts came against him; if he looked up he'd see her looking down; he did see her, there was no limit to what he could see, he could see the backs of their heads as they closed in on him, but nothing would hold steady even for an instant. It was all gossamer, and solid for one second and then nothing, the room full of dusty nothing and crowded to overflowing. Rowan came through as if through the tear in a fabric, grabbing him by the arm, and in a glimmering flash he saw Charlotte, knew it was Charlotte. Had he touched the doll? He looked down, they were all higgledy piggledy and so fragile on the layer of cheesecloth.

  But where is Deborah? Deborah, you have got to tell me ... He folded back the cloth, tumbling the newer dolls on each other, were they crying, somebody was crying, no, that was the baby screaming in the cradle, or Antha on the roof. Or both of them. Flash of Julien again, talking rapidly in French, down on one knee beside him, I can't understand you. One millimeter of a second, and gone. You're driving me crazy, what good am I to you or to anyone if I am crazy?

  Get these skirts away from me! It was so much like the nuns.

  "Michael!"

  He groped under the cloth--where?--easy to tell for there lay the oldest, a mere stick thing of bones and one over from it, the blond hair of Charlotte, and that meant that the frail little thing between them was his Deborah. Tiny beetles raced from beneath it as he touched it. Its hair was disintegrating, oh, God, it's falling apart, even the bones are turning to dust. And in horror, he drew back. He had left the print of his finger in its bone face. The blast of a fire caught him, he could smell it; her body all crumpled up like a wax thing on top of the pyre, and that voice in French ordering him to do something, but what?

  "Deborah," he said, touching it again, touching its little ragged dress of velvet. "Deborah!" It was so old his breath was going to blow it away Stella laughed. Stella was holding it. "Talk to me," she said with her eyes squeezed shut, the young man beside her laughing. "You don't really think this is going to work!"

  What do you want of me?

  The skirts pushed closer around him, mingling voices in French and English. He tried to catch Julien this time. It was like trying to catch a thought, a memory, something flitting through your mind when you listened to music. His hand lay on the little Deborah doll, crushing it down into the trunk, the blond hair doll tumbling against him. I'm destroying them.

  "Deborah!"

  Nothing, nothing.

  What have I done that you won't tell me!

  Rowan was calling him. Shaking him; he almost hit her.

  "Stop it!" he shouted. "They're all here, in this house! Don't you see? They're waiting, they're ... they're ... there's a name for it, they're hovering ... earthbound!"

  How strong she was. She wouldn't stop. She pulled him to his feet. "Let me go." He saw them everywhere he looked, as if they were woven into a veil that was moving in the wind.

  "Michael, stop it, it's enough, stop ... "

  Have to get out of here. He grabbed for the door frame. When he looked back at the bed he saw only the packing crates. He stared at the books. He had not touched the books. The sweat was pouring down his face, his clothes, look at his clothes, he ran his naked hands over his shirt, trembling, flash of Rowan, shimmer of them all around him again, only he couldn't see their faces and he was tired of looking for their faces, tired of the draining zapping feelings running through him, "I can't do this, goddamn it!" he shouted. This was like being underwater, even the voices he heard as he clamped his hands to his ears were like wavering hollow voices under water. And the stench, not possible to avoid it. The stench from the jars that were waiting, the jars ...

  Is this what you wanted of me, to come back here and to touch things and to know and to find out? Deborah, where are you?

  Were they laughing at him? Flash of Eugenia with her dust mop. Not you! Go away. I want to see the dead not the living. And that was Julien's laughter, wasn't it? Someone was definitely crying, a baby crying in a cradle, and a dull low voice cursing in English, kill you, kill you, kill you.

  "It's enough, stop, don't ... "

  "No, it isn't. The jars are there. It is not enough. Let me do it, once and for all, with all of it."

  He pushed her aside, amazed again at the strength with which she tried to stop him, and shoved open the door to the room of the jars. If only they would shut up, if only that baby would stop crying, and the old woman cursing, and that voice in French ... "I can't ... "

  The jars.

  A gust of air came up the stairway and moved the sluggish stench for an instant. He was standing with his hands over his ears looking at the jars. He took a deep breath, but the stench went into his lungs. Rowan was watching him. Is this what you want me to touch? And they wanted to come back, like a great sloppy veil again closing around him, but he wouldn't let them. He sharpened his focus. The jars only. He took another breath.

  The smell was enough to kill you, but it can't. It can't really hurt you. Look. And now in the swimming ugly light, he put his hand on the dingy glass, and through his splayed fingers saw an eye looking at him. "Christ," it's a human head, but what was he getting from the jar itself, through his tortured fingers, nothing, nothing but images so faint they were like the thing inside, a cloud surrounding him, in which the visual and the audial were blended and ever dissolving, and trying to be solid and breaking apart again. The jar was there, shining.

  These were his fingers scratching at the wax seal.

  And the beautiful flesh and blood woman in the door was Rowan.

  He broke the seal open, and plunged his hand into the liquid, while the fumes from it went up his nose like poison gas. He gagged, but that didn't stop him. He grabbed the head inside by the hair though it fell away in his fingers, slipped like seaweed.

  The head was slimy and falling to pieces. Chunks of it rose against the glass, pushing against his wrist. But he had a hold of it, his thumb sinking into the putrid cheek. He drew it up out of the jar, knocking the jar on the floor so that the stinking liquid splattered on him. He held the head--dim flash of the head speaking, the head laughing, the features mobile though the head was dead, and the hair was brown hair, the eyes b
loodshot but brown, and blood seeping from the dead mouth that talked.

  Aye, Michael, flesh and blood when you are nothing but bones.

  The whole man sat on the bed, naked, and dead, yet alive with Lasher in him, the arms thrashing and the mouth opening. And beside him Marguerite, with her hag hair and her hands on his shoulders, her big wide taffeta skirts out like a circle of red light around her, holding the dead thing, just as Rowan was trying to hold him now.

  The head slipped out of his hands. It slid in the muck on the floor. He went down on his knees. God! He was sick. He was going to vomit. He felt the convulsion, and the pain in a circle around his ribs. Vomit. I can't help it. He turned towards the corner, tried to crawl away ... It poured out of him.

  Rowan held him by the shoulder. When you're this sick you don't give a damn who's, touching you, but again, he saw the dead thing on the bed. He tried to tell her. His mouth was sour and full of vomit. God. Look at his hands. The mess was all over the floor, on his clothes.

  But he got to his feet, his fingers slipping off the doorknob. Pushing Julien out of the way, and Mary Beth, and then Rowan, and groping for the fallen head, squashed fruit on the floor, breaking apart like a melon.

  "Lasher," he said to her, wiping at his mouth. "Lasher, in that head, in the body of that head."

  And the others? Look at them, filled with heads. Look at them! He snatched at another, smashed it against the wood of the shelf, so that the greenish remains slid down soft and rotten, like a giant greenish egg yoke onto the floor, oozing off the skull that emerged dark and shrunken as he caught it and held it, the face just dripping away.

  Aye, Michael, when you are nothing but bones, like the bones you hold in your hands.

  "Is this flesh?" he cried. "Is this flesh!" He kicked the rotten head on the floor. He threw down the skull and kicked the skull. Like rubber. "You aren't going to get her, not for this, not for anything."

  "Michael!"

  He was sick again, but he wasn't going to let it come. His hand caught the edges of the shelf. Flash of Eugenia.

  "Sure hate the smell of this attic, Miss Carl." "You leave it, Eugenia."

  He turned around and wiping both his hands on his coat, wiping them furiously, he said to Rowan, "He came into the dead bodies. He possessed them. He looked through their eyes and he spoke through their vocal cords, and used them, but he couldn't make them come alive again, he couldn't make the cells begin to multiply again. And she saved the heads. He came into the heads, long after the bodies were gone, and he looked through the eyes."