The Witching Hour

  I wrote further about the power of daimons. That they can create illusions for us; that they can enter bodies as in possession; that they can move objects; that they can appear to us, though whence they gather their bodies we do not know.

  As for Lasher, it was my belief that his body was made of matter and held together by his power, but this could only be done by him for a short spell.

  I did further describe how the daimon had appeared to me, and the strange words he said to me, and how I had puzzled over them, and how she must be aware that this thing might be the ghost of some long dead person--earthbound and vengeful, for all the ancients believed that the spirits of those who died in youth, or by violence, might become vengeful daimons, whereas the spirits of the good go out of this world.

  Whatever else I wrote--and there was much--I no longer now remember, for I was utterly given over to drunkenness, and perhaps what I placed into her tender hands the next day was no more than a sorry scrawl. But many things I did attempt to explain to her, over her protests, though she claimed I had said them all before.

  As for Lasher's words to me that morning, his strange prediction, she only smiled at this, and told me whenever I did mention it, that Lasher took his speech from us in fragments and much that he said did not make sense.

  "That is only partly true," I warned her. "He is unaccustomed to language, but not to thinking. That is your mistake."

  More and more as the days passed, I gave myself over to the rum and to sleeping. I would open my eyes only to see if she was there.

  And just when I was maddened by her absence, nay, ready to beat her in a rage, she would appear without fail. Beautiful, yielding, soft in my arms, the embodiment of all poetry, the very face I would endlessly paint were I Rembrandt, the very body the Succubus would take to win me to the Devil complete and entire.

  I was satiated in all ways, yet always craving for more. I did crawl from bed now and then to watch the sea. And I woke often to see and study the falling of the rain.

  For the rain in this place was most warm and gentle, and I loved the song of it on the rooftop, and the sheet of it, catching the light as the breeze carried it at an angle past the doors.

  Many thoughts came to me, Stefan, thoughts nourished by loneliness and warmth and the singing of the birds in the distance and the sweet fresh air from the waves roaring gently on the beach below.

  In my little prison, I knew what I had wasted in life, but it is so simple and sad to put it into words. At times I fancied myself mad Lear on the moors, putting the flowers in his hair, having become king of nothing but the wilderness.

  For I, in this savage place, had become so simplified, the grateful scholar of the rain and of the sea.

  At last one afternoon late when the light was just dying, I was wakened by the savory aroma of a hot supper, and I knew that I had been drunk for a full day round the clock, and that she had not come.

  I devoured the supper, as liquor never stops my hunger, and then I dressed in fresh clothes, and sat to thinking of what had become of me, and trying to calculate how long I had been in this place.

  I thought it was twelve days.

  I resolved then that no matter how despondent I became, I would drink nothing further. That I must be released or go mad.

  And feeling disgust for all my weakness, I put on my boots, which I had not touched in all this time, and the new coat brought to me long ago by Charlotte, and went to the balustrade to look out over the sea. I thought, surely she will kill me rather than let me go. But it must be known one way or the other. This I can no longer endure.

  Many hours passed; I drank nothing. Then Charlotte came. She was weary from her long day of riding and tending to the plantation, and when she saw that I was dressed, when she saw that I wore my boots and my coat, she sank down into the chair and wept.

  I said nothing, for surely it was her decision whether or not I should leave this place, not mine.

  Then she said: "I have conceived; I am with child."

  Again, I made no answer. But I knew it. I knew that it was the reason she had been away for so long.

  Finally when she would do nothing but sit there, dejected, and sad, with her head down, crying, I said:

  "Charlotte, let me go."

  At last she said that I must swear to her to leave the island at once. And that I must not tell anyone what I knew of her or her mother or of anything that had passed between us.

  "Charlotte," I said, "I will go home to Amsterdam on the first Dutch ship I can find in the harbor, and you will see me no more."

  "But you must swear to tell no one--not even your brethren in the Talamasca."

  "They know," I said. "And I shall tell them all that has taken place. They are my father and my mother."

  "Petyr," she said. "Haven't you the good sense even to lie to me?"

  "Charlotte," I said. "Either let me go or kill me now."

  Again, she wept, but I felt cold towards her, cold towards myself. I would not look at her, lest my passion be aroused again.

  At last she dried her eyes. "I have made him swear that he will never harm you. He knows that I shall withdraw all love and trust from him if he disobeys my command."

  "You have made a pact with the wind," I said.

  "But he protests that you will tell our secrets."

  "That I shall."

  "Petyr, give me your pledge! Give it to me so that he can hear."

  I considered this, for I wanted so to be free of this place, and to live, and to believe that both were still possible, and finally I said:

  "Charlotte, I will never do you harm. My brothers and sisters in the Talamasca are not priests or judges. Nor are they witches. What they know of you is secret in the true sense."

  She looked at me with sad tear-filled eyes, and then she came to me, and kissed me, and though I tried to make of myself a wooden statue, I could not do it.

  "Once more, Petyr, once more, from your heart," she said, her voice full of sorrow, and longing. "And then you may leave me forever, and I will never look into your eyes again until I look some day into the eyes of our child."

  I fell to kissing her again, for I believed her that she would let me go. I believed her that she did love me; and I believed for that last hour as we lay together, that perhaps there were no laws for us, as she had said, and that there was a love between us which perhaps no one else would ever understand.

  "I love you, Charlotte," I whispered to her as she lay beside me, and I kissed her forehead. But she would not answer. She would not look at me.

  And as I dressed once more, she turned her face into the pillow and cried.

  Going to the door, I discovered that it had never been bolted behind her, and I wondered how many times that had been the case.

  But it did not matter now. What mattered was that I go, if that damnable spirit would not stop me, and that I not look back, or speak to her again, or catch the scent of her sweetness, or think about the soft touch of her lips or her hand.

  And on this account I asked her for no horse or coach to take me into Port-au-Prince, but resolved that I should simply leave without a word.

  It had been an hour's ride out and so I fancied that it not being yet midnight I should easily make the city by dawn. Oh, Stefan, thanks be to God, I did not know what that journey would be! Would I have ever had the courage to set out!

  But let me break my story here, to say that for twelve hours I have been scribbling. And now it is midnight once more, and the thing is near.

  For that reason I shall shut up in my iron box this and all the other pages I have written, so that at least this much of my tale will reach you, if what I write from here on is lost.

  I love you, my dear friend, and I do not expect your forgiveness. Only keep my record. Keep it, for this story is not finished and may not be for many a generation. I have that from the spirit's own voice.

  Yours in the Talamasca,

  Petyr van Abel

  Port-au-Prince
r />   Sixteen

  THE FILE ON THE MAYFAIR WITCHES

  PART IV

  Stefan,

  After a bit of refreshment, I begin again. The thing is here. Only a moment ago, it made itself visible, in its manly guise, an inch from me, as is its wont, and then caused my candle to go out, though it had no breath of its own with which to do it.

  I had to go downstairs to procure another light. Coming back I found my windows open and flapping in the breeze, and had to bolt them again. My ink was spilt. But I have more ink. The covers had been snatched from the bed, and my books had been scattered about.

  Thank God the iron box is on its way to you. Enough said, for perhaps the thing can read.

  It makes the sound of wings flapping in this close space, and then laughter.

  I wonder if far away in her bedroom at Maye Faire Charlotte sleeps, and that is why I am the victim of these tricks.

  Only the bawdy houses and taverns are open; all the rest of the little colonial city is quiet.

  But let me relate the events of last night as fast as I can ...

  ... I started out upon the road on foot. The moon was high; the path was clear before me with all its twists and turns, rising and falling gently here and there over what we would scarce call hills.

  I walked fast, with great vigor, all but giddy with my freedom, and the realization that the spirit had not stopped me, and that I was smelling the sweet air around me, and thinking that I might make Port-au-Prince well before dawn.

  I am alive, I thought; I am out of my prison; and perhaps I shall live to reach the Motherhouse again!

  With each step I believed it all the more, and wondered at it, for during my captivity I had given up all hope of such a thing.

  Again and again, however, my mind was overtaken by thoughts of Charlotte, as though a spell had fallen over me, and I remembered her in the bed where I had left her, and I weakened, thinking even that I was a fool to leave such beauty and such excitement, for indeed I loved her; I loved her madly! And what would it mean, I wondered, were I to remain and become her lover, and see the birth of one child after another, and live in luxury as she had suggested to me? That I should within a matter of hours be separated from her forever was more than I could endure.

  So I would not think on it. I drove the thoughts from my mind whenever I became aware that they had once more stolen in.

  On and on I walked. Now and then I spied a light over the darkened fields on either side of me. And once a rider passed, thundering along the road, as if driven on an important mission. He did not even see me. And I continued alone, with only the moon and the stars for witnesses, and plotted out my letter to you and how I would describe what had taken place.

  I had been on my way perhaps three-quarters of an hour when I saw a man at some distance ahead of me, merely standing and watching me approach, so it seemed. And what was so remarkable was that he was a Dutchman, which I saw by his enormous black hat.

  Now, my hat I had left behind me. I had worn it as always when I had come to Maye Faire, but had not seen it from the time I gave it up to the slaves before supper on my first night.

  And now as I saw this tall man ahead of me I thought of it, and lamented it, and wondered also who was this Dutchman standing by the side of the road, facing me and staring at me, it seemed, a shadowy thing with blond hair and a blond beard.

  I slowed my pace, for as I approached, the figure did not move, and the closer I came to it, the more I perceived the strangeness of it, that a man should stand alone in this darkness, so idly, and then it came to me that I was being foolish, for it was only another man there, and so why should it make me feel all the more undefended in the dark of night?

  But no sooner had that thought occurred to me, when I drew close enough to see the man's face. And in the same instant as I beheld that this was my own double standing there, the creature leapt out at me, drawing up not one inch from me as my own voice issued from his lips.

  "Ah, Petyr, but you have forgot your hat!" he cried, and gave forth a terrible laugh.

  I fell backwards onto the road, my heart roaring in my chest.

  Over me, he bent like a vulture. "Oh, come on, Petyr, pick up your hat for you have let it drop in the dust!"

  "Get away from me!" I screamed in my terror, and turning away, I covered my head. Like a miserable crab, I scrambled to escape the thing. Then rising, I rushed at him, as a bull might have done it, only to find myself charging the empty air.

  Nothing on this road but my miserable self and my black hat lying crushed in the dirt.

  Shaking like a child, I took it up and brushed it off.

  "Damn you, spirit!" I cried. "I know your tricks."

  "Do you?" a voice spoke to me, and this time it was a woman speaking. I spun around to see the creature! And there beheld my Deborah, as she had been in girlhood, but for a flash.

  "It isn't she," I declared. "You liar from hell!"

  But Stefan, that one glimpse of her was a sword passing through me. For I had caught her girlish smile and her flashing eye. A sob rose in my throat. "Damn you, spirit," I whispered. I searched the blackness for her. I would have seen her, real or illusion. And I felt the fool.

  The night was quiet. But I did not trust it. Only slowly did I stop my shaking, and put on my hat.

  I walked on, but nothing as fast as before. Everywhere I looked, I thought I beheld a face and figure, only to discover that it was a trick of the darkness--the banana trees shifting in the breeze, or those giant red flowers drowsing on their weak stems as they hung over the fences bordering the road.

  I resolved to look straight ahead. But then I heard a footfall behind me; I heard the breathing of another man. Steady came the feet, out of step with my own walking; and as I resolved to ignore it, I felt the hot breath of the creature on my very neck.

  "Damn you!" I cried again, spinning round, only to see a perfect horror looming over me, the monstrous image of myself once more but with nothing but a naked and blazing skull for my face.

  Flames leapt from the empty eye sockets beneath the blond hair and the great Dutch hat.

  "Go to hell!" I screamed and shoved it with all my might as it fell forward on me, the fire scorching me. And where I had been certain there would be nothing, was a solid chest.

  Growling like a monster myself, I fought it, forcing it to stagger backwards, and only then did it vanish, with a great blast of warmth.

  I found I had fallen without even realizing it. I was on my knees and had torn my breeches. I could think of nothing but the flaming skull I had just beheld. Once more my body shook stupidly and uncontrollably. And the night was darker as the moon was no longer high, and God only knew how long I must walk on this road until I reached Port-au-Prince.

  "All right, evil one," I said, "I shall not believe my eyes no matter what they reveal to me."

  And without further hesitation, I turned back to the right direction, and began to run. I ran, with my eyes down, until I was out of breath. And slowing to a walk, went on doggedly in the same manner, looking only at the dust beneath my feet.

  It was only a little while before I saw feet next to mine, naked, bleeding, but I paid no mind to them for I knew they could not be real. I smelled flesh burning but I took no note of it, for I knew it could not be real.

  "I know your game," I said. "You have pledged not to hurt me, and so you go by the letter of the pledge. You would drive me mad, would you?" And then remembering the rules of the ancients, that I was but strengthening it by talking to it, I stopped talking and fell to saying the old prayers.

  "May all the forces of goodness protect me, may the higher spirits protect me, may no harm come to me; may the white light shine upon me, and keep me from this thing."

  The feet that had walked along with me were gone now, and so was the stench of burning flesh. But far ahead I heard an eerie noise. It was the sound of wood splintering, aye, of many pieces of wood splintering, and perhaps of things being ripped up from the e
arth.

  This is no illusion, I thought. The thing has uprooted the very trees and will now hurl them down in my path.

  On I walked, confident that I should dodge such dangers, and remembering that it was playing games with me, and I must not fall into its trap. But then I saw the bridge ahead of me, and I realized that I had come to the little river, and the sounds I heard were coming from the graveyard! The thing was breaking open the graves!

  A terror seized me which was far worse than any I had felt before. We all have our private fears, Stefan. A man can fight tigers, yet shrink from the sight of a beetle; another can cut his way through an enemy regiment, yet not remain with a dead body in a closed-up room.

  For me, the places of the dead have always held terror; and now to know what the spirit meant to do, and that I must cross the bridge and pass through the graveyard held me petrified and dripping with sweat. And to hear ever more loudly the ripping and the tearing; to see the trees above the graves swaying, I did not know how I should ever move again.

  But to remain here was folly. I forced myself to move, drawing closer, step by step to the bridge. Then I beheld the ravaged graveyard, I saw the coffins torn up from the soft wet earth. I saw the things climbing out of them, or rather pulled from them, for they were lifeless, surely they were lifeless, and he moved them as he would move puppets!

  "Petyr, run!" I cried, and tried to obey my own command.

  I crossed the bridge in an instant, but I could see them coming up the banks on both sides. I heard them! I heard the rotted coffins breaking under their feet. Illusion, trickery, I told myself once more, but as the first of these horrid cadavers came into my path, I screamed like a frightened woman, "Get away from me!" and then found myself unable to touch the putrid arms that flailed at me, merely stumbling away from this assault, only to fall against another such rotted corpse, and at last to collapse upon my knees.

  I prayed, Stefan. I cried out loud to the spirit of my father and to Roemer Franz, please help me! These things had now surrounded me and were pushing against me, and the stench was unbearable, for some of them were newly buried, and others but half decomposed, and others reeked purely of the earth itself.