The Witching Hour

  Everybody but Michael, and Michael is so easy to deceive.

  But what if she decided that she wouldn't deceive anyone, that she wouldn't play along? Maybe she was searching for the courage to make that decision. Or maybe she was simply resisting. Maybe she was making the demon thing wait the way he had made her wait.

  Whatever the case, she no longer felt that aversion for him, that awful dislike which had followed the incident on the plane. She felt the anger still, but the curiosity and the ever increasing attraction were greater ...

  It was the first really cold day, when Michael came out on the beach and sat down beside her and told her he had to go back. She was enjoying the brisk air, actually, sunbathing in a heavy cotton sweater and long pants, the way she might have done in California on her windy deck.

  "Look, this is what's going down," he said. "Aunt Viv wants her things from San Francisco and you know how old people can be. And, Rowan, there's nobody to close up Liberty Street except me. I have to make some decisions about my old store out there, too. My accountant just called me again about somebody wanting to rent it, and I have to get back there and go through the inventory myself."

  He went on, about selling a couple of pieces of California property, shipping certain things, renting out his house, that sort of thing. And the truth was, he was needed in New Orleans. His new business on Magazine Street needed him. If this thing was going to work ....

  "Truth is, I'd rather fly out there now than later. It's almost December, Rowan. Christmas is coming. You realize it?"

  "Sure, I understand. We'll drive back tonight."

  "But you don't have to, babe. You can stay here in Florida till I come back, or as long as you want."

  "No, I'll come with you," she said. "I'll come up and pack in a little while. Besides, it's time to be leaving. It's warm now but it was really chilly this morning when I first came out."

  He nodded. "Didn't you hate it?"

  She laughed. "Still not as cold as any summer day back in California," she said.

  He nodded. "I have to tell you something. It's going to get even colder. A lot colder. Winter in the South is going to surprise you. They're saying this may be a bad winter all over the southern states. In a way I just love it. First the dizzying heat and then the frost on the windows."

  "I know what you mean." And I love you. I love you more than anyone I've ever loved.

  She sat back in the wooden beach chair as he walked away, and she let her head roll to the side. The Gulf was now a dull silver blaze before her, as often happened when the sun was at its height. She let her left hand fall down into the soft, sugary sand. She pushed her fingers into it, and picked up a handful of it, letting it run through her fingers. "Real," she whispered. "So real."

  But wasn't it just too neat that he had to leave now, and she'd be alone at First Street? Wasn't it just like somebody had arranged things that way? And all this time she thought that she'd been calling the shots.

  "Don't overreach, my friend," she whispered into the cool Gulf breeze. "Don't hurt my love, or I'll never forgive you. See that he comes back to me, safe and sound."

  They didn't leave till the following morning.

  As they drove away, she felt the tiniest stab of excitement. In a flash, she pictured his face again as it had been in the darkened kitchen; she heard the soft resonant flow of his words. A caress. But she couldn't bear to think of that part of it. Only after Michael had arrived safely in California, only when she was alone in the house ...

  Forty-two

  TWELVE O'CLOCK. WHY did that seem the right time? Maybe because Pierce and Clancy had stayed so late, and she had needed this hour of quiet? It was only ten o'clock in California, but Michael had already called, and, worn out after the long flight, he had probably already fallen asleep.

  He'd sounded so excited about the fact that everything looked so unappetizing and he was so eager to come home. Excruciating to miss him so much already, to be lying alone in this large and empty bed.

  But the other waited.

  As the soft chimes of the clock died away, she got up, put on the silk peignoir over her nightgown, and the satin bedroom slippers, and went out and down the long stairs.

  And where do we meet, my demon lover?

  In the parlor amid the giant mirrors, with the draperies drawn over the light from the street? Seemed a better place than most.

  She walked softly over the polished pine floor, her feet sinking into the Chinese carpet as she moved towards the first fireplace. Michael's cigarettes on the table. A half-drunk glass of beer. Ashes from the fire she had made earlier, on this her first bitter cold night in the South.

  Yes, the first of December, and the baby has its little eyelids now inside her, and its ears have started to form.

  No problems at all, said the doctor. Strong healthy parents, disease-free, and her body in excellent condition. Eat sensibly and by the way what do you do for a living?

  Tell lies.

  Today she'd overheard Michael talking to Aaron on the phone. "Just fine. I mean surprisingly well, I guess. Completely peaceful. Except of course for seeing that awful vision of Stella the day of the wedding. But I could have imagined that. I was drunk on all that champagne. [Pause] No. Nothing at all."

  Aaron could see through the lie, couldn't he? Aaron knew. But the trouble with these dark inhuman powers was that you never knew when they were working. They failed you when you most counted upon them. After all the random flashing and decidedly unwelcome insights into the thoughts of others, suddenly the world was filled with wooden faces and flat voices. And you were alone.

  Maybe Aaron was alone. He had found nothing helpful in the old notebooks of Julien's. Nothing in the ledgers in the library, except the predictable economic records of a plantation. He had found nothing in the grimoires and demonologies collected over the years, except the published information on witchcraft which anyone could obtain.

  And now the house was beautifully finished, without dark or unexplored corners. Even the attics were shining clean. She and Michael had gone up to approve the last work, before he left for the airport. Everything in order. Julien's room just a pretty workroom now for Michael, with a drawing table and files for blueprints and the shelves full of his many books.

  She stood in the center of the Chinese carpet. She was facing the fireplace. She had bowed her head and made a little steeple with her hands, and pressed her fingers to her lips. What was she waiting for? Why didn't she say it: Lasher. Slowly she looked up and into the mirror over the mantel.

  Behind her, in the keyhole doorway, watching her, the light from the street all she needed to see him as it shone through the glass on either side of the front door.

  Her heart was pounding, but she didn't move to turn around. She gazed at him through the mirror--calculating, measuring, defining--trying to grasp with all her powers, human and inhuman, what this creature was made of, what this body was.

  "Face me, Rowan." Voice like a kiss in the darkness. Not a command, or a plea. Something intimate like the request from a lover whose heart will be broken if he is refused.

  She turned around. He was standing against the door frame, his arms folded. He wore an old-fashioned dark suit, much like the ones Julien wore in the portraits of the 1890s, with the high white collar and silk tie. A beautiful picture. And in such lovely contrast were his strong hands, like Michael's, and the large, strong features of his face. The hair was streaked with blond, and the skin slightly darker. She thought of Chase, her old policeman lover, when she looked at him.

  "Change what you will," he said gently.

  And before she could respond, she saw the figure altering itself, saw it like a soundless boiling in the shadows, as the hair grew even lighter, more completely blond, and the skin took on the bronzed quality of Chase's skin. She saw the eyes brighten; Chase for one instant, perfectly realized; then another strain of human characteristics infused it, altering it again, until it was the same man who had appeared to
her in the kitchen--possibly the same man who had appeared to all of them over the centuries--except that he was taller, and still had Chase's high dramatic coloring.

  She realized she had moved closer. She was standing only a few feet away. She was not afraid so much as powerfully excited. Her heart was still pounding, but she wasn't trembling. She reached out as she had that night in the kitchen and felt his face.

  Stubble of beard, skin; but it wasn't skin. The keen diagnostic sense told her it was not, and there were no bones inside this body; no internal organs. This was a shell for an energy field.

  "But in time there will be bones, Rowan, in time, all miracles can be performed."

  The lips had barely moved with the words; and the creature was already losing its shape. It had exhausted itself.

  She stared hard at it, striving to hold it, and she saw it grow solid again.

  "Help me smile, beautiful one," said the voice, with no movement of the lips this time. "I would smile on you and your power if I could."

  Now she was trembling. With every fiber of her body she concentrated upon it, upon infusing the facial features with life. She could almost feel the energy flowing from her, feel it gathering the strange material substance and shaping it; it was purer and finer than her conception of electricity. And a great warmth enveloped her as she saw the lips begin to smile.

  Serene, subtle, like the smile of Julien in the photographs. The large green eyes were filled with light. The hands rose and they reached out for her now, and she felt a delicious warmth as they came closer, almost touching the sides of her face.

  Then the image shimmered, and suddenly disintegrated, and the blast of heat was so great she stepped backwards, her arm up to shield her eyes as she turned away.

  The room was seemingly empty. The draperies had moved and they were still dancing soundlessly. And only very gradually did the room grow cold again.

  She felt cold all over suddenly. She felt exhausted. And when she looked at her hand, she realized it was still shaking. She went over to the fireplace, and sank down on her knees.

  Her mind was swimming. For a moment she was almost dizzy and unable to locate herself in relation to what had just happened. Then gradually her head cleared.

  She laid some kindling into the small grate, and put a few sticks and a small log on top of it, then struck a long match and lighted the fire. In a second, the kindling was popping and snapping. She stared down into the flames.

  "You're here, aren't you?" she whispered, staring into the fire as it grew stronger and brighter, tongues of flame licking at the dried bark of the log.

  "Yes, I'm here."

  "Where?"

  "Near you, around you."

  "Where is your voice coming from? Anyone could hear you now. You're actually speaking."

  "You will understand how this is done better than I."

  "Is that what you want of me?"

  He gave a long sigh. She listened. No sound of breathing, merely the sound of a presence. Think of all the times you've known someone else was near you, and it's not because you heard a heartbeat or a footfall or a breath. You heard something softer, more subtle. This is the sound.

  "I love you," he said.

  "Why?"

  "Because you are beautiful to me. Because you can see me. Because you are all the things in a human being which I myself desire. Because you are human and warm and soft. And I know you, and have known the others before you."

  She said nothing. He went on:

  "Because you are Deborah's child, and the child of Suzanne, and Charlotte, and all the others whose names you know. Even if you will not take the emerald which I gave to my Deborah, I love you. I love you without it. I have loved you since the first time I knew of your coming. I see far. I saw you coming from afar. I loved you in probability."

  The fire was blazing strongly now, the delicious aroma comforting her, as the big thick log was engulfed in bright orange flames. But she was in a form of delirium. Even her own breathing seemed slow to her and strange. And she wasn't sure now that the voice was audible, or would be to others if they were here.

  It was clear to her, however, and richly seductive.

  Slowly she sat down on the warm floor beside the hearth and leaned against the marble, which was also warming, and she peered into the shadows beneath the arch in the very center of the room.

  "Your voice is soothing to me, it's beautiful." She sighed.

  "I want it to be beautiful for you. I want to give you pleasure. That you hated me made me sad."

  "When?"

  "When I touched you."

  "Explain it all to me, everything."

  "But there are many possible explanations. You shape the explanation by the question you ask. I can talk to you of my own volition, but what I tell you will have been shaped by what I have been taught through the questions of others over the centuries. It is a construct. If you want a new construct, ask."

  "When did you begin?"

  "I don't know.

  "Who first called you Lasher?"

  "Suzanne."

  "Did you love her?"

  "I love Suzanne."

  "She still exists."

  "She is gone."

  "I'm beginning to see," she said. "There is no physical necessity in your world, and consequently no time. A mind without a body."

  "Precisely. Clever. Smart."

  "One of those words will do."

  "Yes," he said agreeably, "but which one?"

  "You're playing with me."

  "No. I don't play."

  "I want to get to the bottom of this, to understand you, your motives, what you want."

  "I know. I knew before you spoke," he said in the same kind, seductive manner. "But you are clever enough to know that in the realm in which I exist there is no bottom." He paused and then went on slowly as before. "If you prod me to speak to you in complete and sophisticated sentences, and to allow for your persistent misconceptions, mistakes, or crude distinctions, I can do it. But what I say may not be as near to truth as you might like."

  "But how will you do it?"

  "Through what I've learned of human thinking from other humans, of course. What I am saying is, choose--begin at the beginning with me if you want pure truth. You will receive enigmatic and cryptic answers. And they may be useless. But they will be true. Or begin in the middle and you will receive educated and sophisticated answers. Either way, you will know of me what I learn of myself from you."

  "You're a spirit?"

  "What you call a spirit, I am."

  "What would you call yourself?"

  "I do not."

  "I see. In your realm you have no need of a name."

  "No understanding even of a name. But in truth just no name."

  "But you have wants. You want to be human."

  "I do." Something like a sigh followed, eloquent of sadness.

  "Why?"

  "Wouldn't you want to be human if you were me, Rowan?"

  "I don't know, Lasher. I might want to be free."

  "I crave it in pain," said the voice, speaking slowly and sorrowfully. "To feel heat and cold; to know pleasure. To laugh--ah, what would it be to laugh? To dance and sing, and to see clearly through human eyes. To feel things. To exist in necessity and in emotions and in time. To have the satisfaction of ambition, to have distinct dreams and ideas."

  "Ah, yes, I'm understanding it all right."

  "Don't be too sure."

  "You don't see clearly?"

  "Not the same."

  "When you looked through the eyes of the dead man, did you see clearly?"

  "Better, but not clear, and death was on me, hanging on me, around me, and moving fast. Finally I went blind inside."

  "I can imagine. You went into Charlotte's father-in-law while he lived."

  "Yes. He knew I was there. He was weak, but happy to walk, and to lift things with his hands again."

  "Interesting. What we call possession."

  "Correct
. I saw distinct things through his eyes. I saw brilliant colors and smelled flowers and saw birds. I heard birds. I touched Charlotte with a hand. I knew Charlotte."

  "You can't hear things now? You can't see the light of this fire?"

  "I know all about it. But I do not see or hear or feel it the way you do, Rowan. Though when I draw near to you, I can see what you see, I know you and your thoughts."

  She felt a sharp throb of fear. "I'm getting the hang of it."

  "You think you are. But it's bigger and longer."

  "I know. I really do."

  "We know. We are. But from you we have learned to think in a line, and we have learned time. We have also learned ambition. For ambition one must know concepts of past and present and future. One must plan. And I speak only of those of us who want. Those of us who do not want, do not learn, for why should they? But to say 'us' is to approximate. There is no 'us' for me because I am alone and turned away from the others of me and see only you and your kind."

  "I understand. When you were in the dead bodies ... the heads in the attic ... "

  "Yes."

  "Did you change the tissues of those heads?"

  "I did. I changed the eyes to brown. I changed the hair in streaks. This took great heat from me and concentration. Concentration is the key to all I do. I draw together."

  "And in your natural state?"

  "Large, infinite."

  "How did you change the pigment?"

  "Went into the particles of flesh, altered the particles. But your understanding of this is greater than mine. You would use the word mutation. I know no better words, you know scientific words. Concepts."

  "What stopped you from taking over the entire organism?"

  "It was dead. It gradually finished and was heavy and I was blind and dumb. I could not bring the spark of life back to it."

  "I see. In Charlotte's father-in-law, did you change his body?"

  "That I could not do. I did not know to try to do it. And I cannot do it now if I were there then. You see?"

  "Yes, I do. You're constant, yet we're in time. I see. But you are saying that you cannot change living tissue?"

  "Not of that man. Not of Aaron when I am in him."

  "When are you in Aaron?"

  "When he sleeps. That is the only time I can get in."