The Witching Hour

  I was undecided as to whether I should press the matter with Cortland. Same old questions that always plague us at such junctures--what were my obligations, my goals? I left the message finally that I had a great deal of information about the Mayfair family, going back to the 1600s, and would welcome an interview. I never received a response.

  The following week, I learned from Juliette Milton that Deirdre had just left for Texas Woman's University in Denton, Texas, where Rhonda Mayfair's husband, Ellis Clement, taught English to small classes of well-bred girls. Carlotta was absolutely against it; it had been done without her permission, and Carlotta was not speaking to Cortland.

  Cortland had driven Deirdre to Texas, and remained long enough to see that she was comfortable in the home of Rhonda Mayfair and Ellis Clement, and then came home.

  It was not difficult for us to ascertain that Deirdre had been admitted as a "special student," educated at home. She had been assigned a private room in the freshman dormitory, and was registered for a full schedule of routine course work.

  I arrived in Denton two days later. Texas Woman's University was a lovely little school situated on low rolling green hills with vine-covered brick buildings, and neatly tended lawns. It was quite impossible to believe that it was a state institution.

  At the age of thirty-six, with prematurely gray hair and addicted to well-tailored linen suits, I found it effortlessly easy to roam about the campus probably passing for a faculty member to anyone who took notice. I stopped on benches for long periods to write in my notebook. I browsed in the small open library. I wandered the halls of the old buildings, exchanging pleasantries with a few elderly women teachers and with fresh-faced young women in blouses and pleated skirts.

  I caught my first glimpse of Deirdre unexpectedly on the second day after my arrival. She came out of the freshman dormitory, a modest Georgian-style building, and walked for about an hour around the campus--a lovely young woman with long loose black hair, strolling idly up and down small winding paths beneath old trees. She wore the usual cotton blouse and skirt.

  Seeing her at last overwhelmed me with confusion. I was glimpsing a great celebrity. And as I followed her, at a remove, I suffered unanticipated agonies over what I was doing. Should I leave this woman alone? Should I tell her what I knew of her early history? What right had I to be here?

  In silence, I watched her return to her dormitory. The following morning, I followed her to the first of her classes, and then afterwards into a large basement canteen area where she drank coffee alone at a small table and put nickels into the jukebox over and over to play one selection repeatedly--a mournful Gershwin tune sung by Nina Simone.

  It seemed to me she was enjoying her freedom. She read for a while, then sat looking around her. I found myself utterly unable to move from the chair and go towards her. I dreaded frightening her. How terrible to discover that one is being followed. I left before she did and went back to my little downtown hotel.

  That afternoon, I again wandered the campus, and as soon as I approached her dormitory, she appeared. This time she wore a white cotton dress with short sleeves and a beautifully fitted bodice, and a rather loose billowy skirt.

  Once again, she appeared to be walking aimlessly; however this time she took an unexpected turn towards the back of the campus, so to speak, away from the groomed lawns and the traffic, and I soon found myself following her into a large, deeply neglected botanical garden--a place so shadowy and wild and overgrown that I became fearful for her as she proceeded, way ahead of me, along the uneven path.

  At last the large stands of bamboo blotted out all signs of the distant dormitories, and all noise from the even more distant streets. The air felt heavy as it feels in New Orleans, yet slightly more dry.

  I came down a small walkway over a little bridge, and looked up to see Deirdre facing me as she stood quite still beneath a large flowering tree. She lifted her right hand and beckoned for me to come closer. Were my eyes deceiving me? No. She was staring straight at me.

  "Mr. Lightner," she said, "what is it you want?" Her voice was low, and faintly tremulous. She seemed neither angry nor afraid. I was unable to answer her. I realized suddenly she was wearing the Mayfair emerald around her neck. It must have been under her dress when she came out of the dormitory. Now it was plainly in view.

  A tiny alarm sounded inside me. I struggled to say something simple and honest and thoughtful. Instead, I said, "I've been following you, Deirdre."

  "Yes," she said, "I know."

  She turned her back to me, beckoning for me to follow, and went down a narrow overgrown set of steps to a near secret place where cement benches formed a circle, all but hidden from the main path. The bamboo was crackling faintly in the breeze. The smell of the nearby pond was rank. But the spot had an undeniable beauty to it.

  She settled on the bench, her dress a shining whiteness in the shadows, the emerald flashing against her breast.

  Danger, Lightner, I said to myself. You are in danger.

  "Mr. Lightner," she said, looking up as I sat opposite, "just tell me what you want!"

  "Deirdre, I know many things," I said. "Things about you and your mother, and your mother's mother, and about her mother before her. History, secrets, gossip, genealogies ... all sorts of things really. In a house in Amsterdam there is a portrait of a woman, your ancestor. Her name was Deborah. She was the one who bought that emerald from a jeweler in Holland hundreds of years ago."

  None of this seemed to surprise her. She was studying me, obviously scanning for lies and ill intentions. I myself was unaccountably shaken. I was talking to Deirdre Mayfair. I was sitting with Deirdre Mayfair at last.

  "Deirdre," I said, "tell me if you want to know what I know. Do you want to see the letters of a man who loved your ancestor, Deborah? Do you want to hear how she died in France, and how her daughter came across the sea to Saint-Domingue? On the day she died, Lasher brought a storm to the village ... "

  I stopped. It was as if the words had dried up in my mouth. Her face had undergone a shocking change. For a moment I thought it was rage that had overwhelmed her. Then I realized it was some consuming inner struggle.

  "Mr. Lightner," she whispered, "I don't want to know. I want to forget what I do know. I came here to get away."

  "Ah." I said nothing for a moment.

  I could feel her growing more calm. I was the one at a loss, quite completely. Then she said:

  "Mr. Lightner"--her voice very steady yet infused with emotion--"my aunt says that you study us because you believe we are special people. That you would help the evil in us, out of curiosity, if you could. No, don't misunderstand me. She means that by talking about the evil, you would feed it. By studying it, you would give it more life." Her soft blue eyes pleaded for my understanding. How remarkably poised she seemed; how surprisingly calm.

  "I understand your aunt's point of view," I said. In fact, I was amazed. Amazed that Carlotta Mayfair knew who we were, or understood even that much of our purpose. And then I thought of Stuart. Stuart must have spoken to her. There was the proof of it. This, and a thousand other thoughts were crowding my brain.

  "It's like the spiritualists, Mr. Lightner," Deirdre said in the same polite sympathetic manner. "They want to speak with the spirits of dead ancestors; and in spite of all their good intentions, they merely strengthen demons about whom they understand nothing ... "

  "Yes, I know what you're saying, believe me I know. I wanted only to give you the information, to let you know that if you ... "

  "But you see, I don't want it. I want to put the past behind me." Her voice faltered slightly. "I want never to go home again."

  "Very well then," I said. "I understand perfectly. But will you do this for me? Memorize my name. Take this card from me. Memorize the phone numbers on it. Call me if ever you need me."

  She took the card from me. She studied it for a length of time and then slipped it into her pocket.

  I found myself looking at her in silen
ce, looking into her large innocent blue eyes, and trying not to dwell upon the beauty of her young body, her exquisitely molded breasts in the cotton dress. Her face seemed full of sadness to me in the shadows.

  "He's the devil, Mr. Lightner," she whispered. "He really is."

  "Then why are you wearing the emerald, my dear?" I asked her impulsively.

  A smile came over her face. She reached for it. closing her right hand around it, and then pulled hard on it so the chain broke. "For one very definite reason, Mr. Lightner. It was the simplest way to bring it here, and I mean to give it to you." She reached out and dropped it in my hand.

  I looked down at it, scarce believing that I was holding the thing Off the top of my head, I said, "He'll kill me, you know. He'll kill me and he'll take it back."

  "No, he can't do that!" she said. She stared at me blankly, in shock.

  "Of course he can," I said. But I was ashamed that I'd made such a statement. "Deirdre, let me tell you what I know about this spirit. Let me tell you what I know about others who see such things. You are not alone in this. You needn't fight it alone."

  "Oh God," she whispered. She closed her eyes for an instant. "He can't do that," she said again, but there was no conviction. "I don't believe he can do something like that."

  "I'll take my chances with him," I said. "I'll take the emerald. Some people have weapons of their own, so to speak. I can help you understand your weapons. Does your aunt do this? Tell me what you want of me."

  "That you go away," she said miserably. "That you ... that you ... never speak to me about these things again."

  "Deirdre, can he make you see him when you don't want him to come?"

  "I want you to stop it, Mr. Lightner. If I don't think of him, if I don't speak of him"--she raised her hands to her temples--"if I refuse to look at him, maybe .... "

  "What do you want? For yourself."

  "Life, Mr. Lightner. Normal life. You can't imagine what the words mean to me! Normal life. Life like they have, the girls over there in the dormitory, life with teddy bears and boyfriends and kissing in the back of cars. Just life!"

  She was now so upset that I was fast becoming upset. And all this was so unforgivably dangerous. And yet she'd put this thing in my hand! I felt of it, rubbing my thumb across it. It was so cold, so hard.

  "I'm sorry, Deirdre, I'm so sorry I disturbed you. I'm so sorry ... "

  "Mr. Lightner, can't you make him go away! Can't you people do that? My aunt says no, only the priest can do it, but the priest doesn't believe in him, Mr. Lightner. And you can't exorcise a demon when you have no faith."

  "He doesn't show himself to the priest, does he, Deirdre?"

  "No," she said bitterly with a trace of a smile. "What good would if do if he did? He's no lowly spirit who can be driven off with holy water and Hail Marys. He makes fools of them."

  She had begun to cry. She reached for the emerald and pulled it by its chain from my fingers, and then flung it as far as she could through the underbrush. I heard it strike water, with a dull short sound. She was shaking violently. "It'll come back," she said. "It will come back! It always comes back."

  "Maybe you can exorcise him!" I said. "You and only you."

  "Oh, yes, that's what she says, that's what she always said. 'Don't look at him, don't speak to him, don't let him touch you!' But he always comes back. He doesn't ask my permission! And ... "

  "Yes."

  "When I'm lonely, when I'm miserable ... "

  "He's there."

  "Yes, he's there."

  This girl was in agony. Something had to be done!

  "And what if he does come, Deirdre? What I am saying is, what if you do not fight him, and you let him come, let him be visible. What then?"

  Stunned and hurt she looked at me. "You don't know what you're saying."

  "I know it's driving you mad to fight him. What happens if you don't fight him?"

  "I die," she answered. "And the world dies around me, and there's only him." She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

  How long she has lived with this misery, I thought. And how strong she is, and so helpless and so afraid.

  "Yes, Mr. Lightner, that's true," she said. "I am afraid. But I am not going to die. I'm going to fight him. And I'm going to win. You're going to leave me. You're never going to come near me again. And I'm never going to say his name again, or look at him, or invite him to come. And he'll leave me. He'll go away. He'll find someone else to see him. Someone ... to love."

  "Does he love you, Deirdre?"

  "Yes," she whispered. It was growing dark. I could no longer see her features clearly.

  "What does he want, Deirdre?" I asked.

  "You know what he wants!" she answered. "He wants me, Mr. Lightner. The same thing you want! Because I make him come through."

  She took a little knot of handkerchief out of her pocket and wiped at her nose. "He told me you were coming," she said. "He said something strange, something I can't remember. It was like a curse, what he said. It was 'I shall eat the meat and drink the wine and have the woman when he is moldering in the grave.' "

  "I've heard those words before," I answered.

  "I want you to go away," she said. "You're a nice man. I like you. I don't want him to hurt you. I'll tell him that he mustn't--" She stopped, confused.

  "Deirdre, I believe I can help you ... "

  "No!"

  "I can help you fight him if that's your decision. I know people in England who ... "

  "No!"

  I waited, then said softly, "If you ever need my help, call me." She didn't answer. I could feel her utter exhaustion. Her near despair. I told her where I was staying in Denton, that I would be there until tomorrow, and that if I didn't hear from her I would go. I felt an utter failure, but I could not hurt her any more! I gazed off into the whispering bamboo. It was getting darker and darker. And there were no lights in this rank garden.

  "But your aunt is wrong about us," I said, unsure of her attention. I stared up at the little bit of sky above which was now quite white. "We want to tell you what we know. We want to give you what we have. It's true we care about you because you are a special person, but we care far more about you than we care about him. You could come to our house in London. Stay there as long as you like. We'll introduce you to others who've seen such things, battled them. We'll help you. And who knows, perhaps we can somehow make him go away. And any time you want to go, we'll help you to go." (She didn't answer.) "You know I'm speaking the truth," I said. "And I know that you know."

  I looked at her, quite afraid to see the pain in her face. She was staring at me exactly the way she had been before, her eyes sad and glazed with tears, and her hands limp in her lap. And directly behind her, he stood, not even an inch from her, brilliantly realized, staring with his brown eyes at me.

  I cried out before I could stop myself. Like a fool, I leapt to my feet.

  "What is it!" she cried. She was terrified. She sprang up off the bench and threw herself in my arms. "Tell me! What is it?"

  He was gone. A gust of heated breeze moved the towering shoots of bamboo. Nothing but shadows there. Nothing but the rank closeness of the garden. And a gradual drop in temperature. As if the door to a furnace room had been swung shut.

  I closed my eyes, holding her as firmly as I could, trying not to shake right out of my shoes, and to comfort her, while I memorized what I had seen. A malicious young man, smiling coldly as he stood behind her, clothes prim and dark and without detail as if the entire energy of the being were absorbed in the lustrous eyes and the white teeth and the gleaming skin. Otherwise he had been the man whom so many others had described.

  She was now quite hysterical. Her hand was clamped over her mouth, and she was swallowing her sobs. She pushed away from me roughly. And ran up the small overgrown stairs to the path.

  "Deirdre!" I called out. But she was already out of sight in the darkness. I glimpsed a smear of white through the distant trees, and then I did
not even hear her footfall any longer.

  I was alone in the old botanical garden, and it was dark, and I was mortally afraid for the first time in my life. I was so afraid that I became angry. I started to follow her, or rather the path she had taken, and I forced myself not to run, but to take one firm step after another until at last I saw the distant lights of the dormitories, and the service road behind them, and heard the traffic, and felt once again that I was safe.

  Entering the freshman dormitory, I inquired of the gray-haired woman at the desk as to whether Deirdre Mayfair had just come in. She had. Safe and sound, I thought.

  "It's supper now, sir. You can leave a message if you like."

  "Yes, of course, I'll call her later." I took out a small plain envelope, wrote Deirdre's name on it, then wrote a note explaining once more that I was at the hotel if she wished to contact me, and placing my card in the envelope with the note, I sealed the envelope and gave it to the woman for delivery, and went out.

  Without mishap I reached the hotel, went to my room, and rang London. It was an hour before my call could be put through, during which time I lay there on the bed, with the phone beside me, and all I could think was, I've seen him. I've seen "the man." I've seen "the man" for myself. I've seen what Petyr saw and what Arthur saw. I've seen Lasher with my own eyes.

  Scott Reynolds, our director, was calm but adamant when I finally made the connection.

  "Get the hell out of there. Come home."

  "Take a deep breath, Scott. I haven't come this far to be frightened off by a spirit we have studied from afar for three hundred years."

  "This is how you use your own judgment, Aaron? You who know the history of the Mayfair Witches from beginning to end? The thing isn't trying to frighten you. It's trying to entice you. It wants you to torment the girl with your inquiries. It's losing her, and you're its hope of getting her back. The aunt, whatever else she may be, is on to the truth. You make that girl talk to you about what she's been through and you'll give that spirit the energy it wants."

  "I'm not trying to make her do anything, Scott. But I don't think she is winning her battle. I'm going back to New Orleans. I want to be near at hand."