Chapter 15
15
MERRICK FLOPPED DOWN on her cot and for a moment did and said nothing. Then she reached for the bottle of Flor de Ca?a rum and drank a deep gulp.
I preferred water for the moment, and though we'd been driving for a considerable time, my heart was still pounding, and I felt my age miserably as I sat there trying to catch my breath.
Finally, when I started to say something about what we'd done and how we'd done it, when I raised my voice in an attempt to put things in some sort of perspective, Merrick gestured for me to be quiet.
Her face was flushed. She sat as if her heart too were giving her the worst, though I knew better, and then she took another sizable drink of her rum.
Her cheeks were blazing as she looked across at me as I sat on my cot facing her. Her face was wet with sweat.
"What did you see?" she asked, "when you looked through it?"
"I saw them!" I said. "I saw a weeping man, a priest, perhaps, perhaps a king, perhaps a nobody, except that he was beautifully dressed. He wore fine bracelets. He wore long robes. He pleaded with me. He was grieving and miserable. He let me know it was a dreadful thing. He let me know the dead of the place weren't gone!"
She sat back, resting on both her arms, her breasts thrust forward, her eyes fixed on the top of the tent.
"And you?" I asked. "What did you see?"
She wanted to answer, but she seemed unable. She sat forward again and reached for her backpack, her eyes moving from side to side, her expression what is aptly called wild.
"Did you see the same thing?" I asked her.
She nodded. Then she opened the backpack and removed the mask so carefully one would have thought it was made of glass. It was now, in the dim daylight of the tent and the gold light of the one lantern, that I perceived how carefully and deeply the features were carved. The lips were thick and long and spread back as if in a scream. The eye ridges gave no surprise to the expression, only a sense of calm.
"Look," she said, putting her fingers through an opening at the top of the forehead, and then pointing out an opening over each ear. "It was strapped to his face with leather, most likely. It wasn't merely laid over his bones. "
"And what do you think it means?"
"That it was his, for looking at spirits. That it was his, and he knew the magic wasn't intended for just anyone; that he knew it was magic that could give harm. "
She turned over the mask and lifted it. She wanted clearly to put it over her face again but something stopped her. At last she stood up and went to the door of the tent. There was an open seam there through which she could peer out and along the mud street to the little plaza, and she seemed to be doing this, holding the mask below her face.
"Go on, do it," I said, "or give it to me and I will. "
Hesitantly she pursued her course. She lifted the mask and held it firm over her face for a long moment, and then jerked it roughly away. She sat down exhausted on the cot, as though the entire little enterprise of only a few precious moments had tapped her strength at the core. Once again, her pupils danced wildly. Then she looked at me, and she grew a little calm.
"What did you see?" I asked. "Spirits of the village?"
"No," she answered. "I saw Honey in the Sunshine. I saw her watching me. I saw Honey. Oh, dear God, I saw Honey. Don't you see what's she done?"
I didn't immediately respond, but of course I saw. I let her speak the words.
"She's led me here, led me to a mask through which I can see her; she's brought me to a means by which she can come through!"
"Listen to me, darling," I said, and I reached out and took her wrist. "Fight this spirit. It has no claim on you any more than any other spirit. Life belongs to those who are alive, Merrick, and life is to be honored over death! You didn't drown Honey in the Sunshine, you have that from her own lips. "
She didn't answer me. She put her elbow on her knee and rested her forehead in her right hand. The mask she held with her left. I think she was staring at it but I couldn't be sure. She began to tremble.
Gently, I took the mask from her. I laid it carefully on my cot. Then I remembered the objects I'd collected before leaving the cave. I reached inside my pocket to retrieve them. They were four perfectly carved little Olmecoid figures, two of bald, somewhat fat, creatures, the other two of lean scowling gods. A shiver passed through me as I looked at these small faces. I could have sworn I heard a chorus of voices for an instant, as though someone had turned up the dial on a piece of amplified music. Then the silence rushed at me as if it were palpable. I broke out in a sweat.
These little creatures, these little gods, had the same luster as the mask.
"We're taking this all back with us," I declared. "And as far as I'm concerned, I want to revisit the cave as soon as I've regained my strength. "
She looked up at me.
"You can't be serious," she said. "You would challenge those spirits?"
"Yes, I'd challenge them. I don't say we take the mask back to the cave to look through. Dear God, I wouldn't dream of such a thing. But I can't leave behind such an unexplored mystery. I have to go back. What I want to do is examine what's there as carefully as I can. Then I think we must contact one of the universities active here and let them know of just what we found. I don't mean to speak of the mask, you understand. At least not until we've made certain that it's ours to keep beyond any dispute. "
It was a tangled question, this matter of universities and digs and claims to antiquities, and I was in no mood for it just then. I felt hot all over. My stomach was heaving, which almost never happens to me. "I've got to see that cave again. God help me, I know why you came back here. I understand everything. I want to go back at least once, maybe twice, how do I know¡ª. " I broke off. The wave of sickness passed.
She was staring at me as if she were in grave and secret distress. She looked as sick as I felt. With both her hands, she clawed at her thick hair and drew it back from her lovely forehead. Her green eyes appeared hot.
"Now, you know," I said, "that we have four men with us that can get this mask out of the country and back to New Orleans with no difficulty. Shall I give it to them now?"
"No, don't do anything with it just yet," she said. She stood up. "I'm going to the church. "
"What for?" I asked her.
"To pray, David!" she said impatiently, glowering down at me. "Don't you believe in anything really?" she demanded. "I'm going into the church to pray. " And on her way she went.
She'd been gone for about twenty minutes when I finally poured myself a glass of the rum. I was so thirsty. It was strange to be thirsty and sick at the same time. Except for the sound of a few chickens or turkeys, I didn't honestly know which, the village was quiet, and no one came to disturb my solitude in the tent.
I stared at the mask, and I realized that my head was aching terribly, that indeed a throbbing had commenced behind my eyes. I didn't think too much about it, as headaches have never been a torment to me, until I realized that the mask was becoming a blur in my sight.
I tried to refocus. I couldn't. Indeed, I felt hot all over, and every tiny insect bite which I'd suffered began to make itself known.
"This is nonsense," I said aloud, "I've had every damned injection known to modern medicine, including several that weren't known when Matthew got his fever. " Then I realized I was talking to myself I poured another good shot of the rum and drank it down straight. It seemed to me, rather vaguely, that I would feel much better if the tent weren't so crowded, and I wished that all the people would leave.
Then I realized that there couldn't be people in the tent with me. No one had come in. I tried to regain a consistent memory of the last few moments, but something had been lost. I turned and looked at the mask again and then I drank some of the rum, which by now tasted marvelous, and I put down the glass and picked up the mask.
It seemed as light as it was precious, and I held it up so that the light sho
ne through it, and it seemed for a moment to be quite definitely alive. A voice was whispering to me rather feverishly as to all manner of small things which I had to worry about, and someone said:
"Others will come when thousands of years have passed. " Only the words I heard were not in a language which I understood. "But I do understand you," I said aloud, and then the whispering voice said something that seemed a curse and an ominous prediction. It had to do with the fact that certain things were best left unexplored.
The tent seemed to be moving. Rather, the place where I was seemed to be moving. I put the mask against my skin and I felt steadier. But the entire world had changed. I had changed.
I was standing on a high pavilion and I could see the beautiful mountains all around me, the lower portions of the slopes covered in deep green forest, and the sky itself was brightly blue.
I looked down and I saw a crowd of thousands surrounding the pavilion. Over on the tops of other pyramids there stood huge masses of people. The people were whispering and shouting and chanting. And there was a small group on my pavilion, all of them faithfully at my side.
"You will call down the rain," said the voice in my ear, "and it will come. But one day, the snow will come instead of the rain, and on that day, you will die. "
"No, that will never happen!" I said. I realized I was growing dizzy. I was going to fall from the pavilion. I turned around and reached out for the hands of my fellows. "Are you priests, tell me, what you are. " I asked. "I'm David and I demand that you tell me, I'm not the person you believe me to be!"
I realized that I was in the cave. I had all but fallen to the thick soft floor. Merrick was shouting at me to get up. Before me stood the weeping spirit.
"The Lonely Spirit, how many times have you called me?" said the tall being sadly. "How many times have you, the magician, reached out for the lonely soul? You have no right to call those between life and death. Leave the mask behind you. The mask is wrong, don't you understand what I'm telling you!"
Merrick cried my name. I felt the mask ripped from my face. I looked up. I was lying down on my cot, and she was standing over me.
"Good God, I'm sick," I told her. "I'm very sick. Get me the shaman. No, there's no time for the shaman. We must set out for the airport now. "
"Quiet, be quiet, lie still," said Merrick. But her face was dark with fear. I heard her thoughts clearly. It's happening all over again, Just as it happened to Matthew. It's happening to David. I myself have some deep immunity, but it's happening to David.
I grew very quiet within myself. I'll fight it, I resolved, and I let my head roll to one side on the pillow, hoping that the pillow would be cool against my cheek. Though I heard Merrick crying out for the men to come to the tent immediately, I saw another person sitting on her cot.
It was a tall lean man with brown skin and a narrow face, and arms covered with jade bracelets. He had a high forehead and shoulderlength black hair. He was looking at me in a quiet manner. I saw the dark red of his long gown, and the gleam of his toenail in the light.
"It's you again," I said. "You think you're going to kill me. You think you can reach out from your ancient grave to take my life?"
"I don't want to kill you," he whispered, with little or no change in his placid expression. "Give back the mask for your own sake and for hers. "
"No," I said. "You must realize I can't do it. I can't leave such a mystery. I can't simply turn my back. You had your time and now is my time, and I'm taking the mask back with me. She's taking it with her, really. But even if she surrendered, I would do it on my own. "
I went on pleading with him, in a low reasonable voice, that he should understand. I said, "Life belongs to those who are alive. " But by then the tent was truly crowded with the men who had come with us. Someone had asked me to keep a thermometer under my tongue. And Merrick was saying, "I can't get a pulse. "
Of the journey to Guatemala City, I remember nothing.
As for the hospital, it might have been a medical facility anywhere in the world.
Repeatedly I turned my head and I found myself alone with the bronzeskinned man with the oval face and the jade bracelets, though more often than not he did not speak. When I tried to speak, others answered, and the man simply melted as another world seemed to supplant that which I'd left behind.
When I was fully conscious, which wasn't often, I seemed convinced that people in Guatemala would know more of the tropical illness from which I suffered. I wasn't afraid. I knew from the expression of my bronzeskinned visitor that I wasn't dying. And I do not remember being transferred to a hospital in New Orleans at all.
The visitor never appeared after the return to New Orleans.
By that time I was on the mend, and when days did begin to connect with one another, I was running only a low grade temperature, and the "toxin" was completely gone. Soon I no longer required intravenous nourishment. My strength was coming back.
My case was nothing exceptional. It had to do with a species of amphibian which I must have encountered in the brush. Even touching this creature can be fatal. My contact must have been indirect.
Merrick and the others were not afflicted, that was soon made clear to me, and I was much relieved, though in my state of confusion, I had to confess I had not thought of them as I should.
Merrick spent a great deal of time with me, but Aaron was almost always there as well. As soon as I would start to address an important question to Merrick, a nurse or a doctor came into the room. At other times I was confused as to the order of events and didn't want to reveal that confusion. And occasionally, very occasionally, I would wake in the night, convinced I'd been back in the jungles in my dreams.
At last, though I was still technically sick, I was brought by ambulance to Oak Haven and moved into the upstairs left front room.
This is one of the more gracious and lovely bedrooms in the house, and, in my robe and slippers, I was walking out on the front porch by the evening of that day. It was winter, but wondrously green all around me, and the breeze off the river was welcome.
At last, after two days of "small talk," which was threatening to drive me out of my mind, Merrick came to my room alone. She wore a nightgown and robe and she appeared exhausted. Her rich brown hair was held back from her temples by two amber combs. I could see the relief in her face as she looked at me.
I was in bed, with pillows propped and a book on the Maya people open in my lap.
"I thought you were going to die," she said plainly. "I prayed for you in a way I've never prayed before. "
"Do you think God heard your prayers?" I asked. Then I realized she hadn't mentioned praying to God at all. "Tell me," I asked, "was I ever in real danger?"
She seemed shocked by the question. Then she fell quiet, as though debating what she might say. I already had part of my answer, purely from her reaction to the question, so I waited patiently until she meant to speak.
"There were times in Guatemala," she said, "when they told me you were not likely to make it much longer. I sent them away, insofar as they'd listen, and I put the mask over my face. I could see your spirit just above your body; I could see it struggling to rise and free itself from your body. I could see it stretched over you, the double of you, rising, and I put out my hand and I pressed on it, and made it go back into its place. "
I felt a dreadful overwhelming love for her.
"Thank God you did it," I said.
She repeated my words from the jungle village.
"Life belongs to those who are alive. "
"You remember me saying it?" I asked her, or rather I expressed to her my gratitude.
"You said it often," she replied. "You thought you were talking to someone, the someone we'd both seen in the mouth of the cave before we'd made our escape. You thought you were engaged in a debate with him. And then one morning, very early, when I woke up in the chair and found you conscious, you told me you'd won. "
"What are we
going to do with the mask?" I asked. "I see myself becoming enthralled with it. I see myself testing it on others, but in secret. I see myself becoming its unwholesome slave. "
"We won't let that happen," she said. "Besides, others aren't affected in the same way. "
"How do you know?" I asked.
"The men in the tent, when you were getting sicker and sicker, they picked it up, they thought it was a curio, of course. One of them thought we'd bought it from the village people. He was the first to look through it. He saw nothing. Then another one of the men did the same thing. So forth and so on. "
"What about here in New Orleans?"
"Aaron saw nothing through it," she said. And then in something of a sad voice she added: "I didn't tell him all that happened. That's for you to do, if you wish. "
"And you?" I pressed. "What do you see when you look through the mask now?"
She shook her head. She looked off a bit, desperately biting into her lip, and then she looked at me.
"I see Honey when I look through it. Almost always. I see Honey in the Sunshine, and that's all. I see her in the oaks outside of the Motherhouse. I see her in the garden. I see her whenever I look through the mask. The world is as it is around her. But she's always there. " There was a passage of time and then she confessed:
"I believe it was all Honey's doing. Honey goaded me with nightmares. Oncle Vervain was never really there. It was always Honey in the Sunshine, greedy for life, and how can I blame her? She sent us back there to get the mask so that she could come through. I've vowed I won't let her do it. I mean, I won't let her grow stronger and stronger through me. I won't be used and destroyed by her. It's like you said. Life belongs to those who are alive. "
"Would it do no good to speak to her? Would it do no good to tell her that she's dead?"
"She knows," said Merrick sadly. "She's a powerful and crafty spirit. If you tell me as Superior General that you want to attempt an exorcism, and that you want me to communicate with her, I'll do it¡ªbut on my own, never, never will I give in to her. She's too clever. She's too strong. "
"I'll never ask you to do such a thing," I said quickly. "Come, sit beside me here. Let me hold you. I'm too weak to do you any harm. "
Now that I look back on these things, I'm not sure why I didn't tell Merrick all about the spirit with the oval face and how he had continued to appear to me throughout my illness, and especially when I was close to death. Perhaps we had exchanged confidences about my visions when I was feverish. I only know that we did not discuss them in detail when we took stock of the whole event.
As for my personal reaction to the spirit, I was afraid of him. I had robbed a place that was precious to him. I had done it fiercely and selfishly, and though the illness had burnt away much of my desire to explore the mystery of the cave, I feared the spirit's return.
As a matter of fact, I did see this spirit again.
It was many years later. It was on the night in Barbados when Lestat came to see me, and decided to make me a vampire against my will.
As you well know, I was no longer the elder David. It was after our dreadful ordeal with the Body Thief. I felt invincible in my new young body and I had no thought to ask Lestat for eternal life. When it was clear that he meant to force me, I fought him with all I had.
At some point in this vain attempt to save myself from the vampiric blood, I called on God, the angels, anyone who might help me. I called on my orisha, Oxal¨¢, in the old Portuguese Candomble tongue.
I don't know if my prayers were heard by my orisha, but the room was suddenly assailed by small spirits, none of whom could frighten or hinder Lestat in any way. And as he drained my blood to the very point of death, it was the bronzeskinned spirit of the cave whom I glimpsed as my eyes closed.
It seemed to me, as I was losing the battle to live, let alone the battle to be mortal, that I saw the cave spirit standing near me with his arms out, and I saw pain in his face.
The figure was wavering, yet fully realized. I saw the bracelets on his arms. I saw his long red robe. I saw the tears on his cheeks.
It was only an instant. The world of solid things and spiritual things flickered and went out.
I fell into a stupor. I remember nothing until the moment when Lestat's supernatural blood flooded my mouth. By then, I saw only Lestat and I knew my soul was entering on yet another adventure, one which would carry me forward beyond my most appalling dreams.
I never saw the cave spirit again.
But let me finish my tale of Merrick. There is not a great deal more to be said.
After a week of convalescence in the New Orleans Motherhouse, I dressed in my usual tweed suit and came downstairs for breakfast, with the other members assembled there.
Later, Merrick and I walked in the garden, which was filled with lush beautiful darkleafed camillias, which thrive in the winter, even through light frost. I saw blossoms of pink and red and white which I never forgot. Giant green elephant ear and purple flowering orchid plants were growing everywhere. How beautiful Louisiana can be in winter. How verdant and vigorous and remote.
"I've put the mask into the vault, in a sealed box, under my name," Merrick told me. "I suggest we leave it there. "
"Absolutely," I said. "But you must promise me, that if you ever change your mind about the mask, you'll call me before you take even the simplest steps. "
"I don't want to see Honey anymore!" she said under her breath. "I told you. She wants to use me, and that I won't allow. I was ten years old when she was murdered. I'm tired, oh so tired of grieving for Honey. You'll never have to worry. I won't touch the mask again if I can help it, believe me. "
Insofar as I ever knew, Merrick was faithful to her vow.
After we completed a detailed letter regarding our expedition, for a university of our choice, we sealed the records and the mask permanently, along with the idols, the perforator that Merrick had used in her magic, all of Michael's original papers, and the remnants of Oncle Vervain's map. All was kept in storage at Oak Haven, with access only allowed to Merrick or to me.
In the spring, I got a call from America, from Aaron, telling me that investigators in the area of Lafayette, Louisiana, had found the wreck of Cold Sandra's car.
Apparently Merrick had led them to a portion of the swamp where the vehicle had been submerged years before. Enough remained of the corpses to ascertain that two women had been in the vehicle at the time that it sank. The skull bones of both showed severe and potentially lifethreatening fractures. But no one could determine whether or not either victim had survived the blows long enough to be drowned.
Cold Sandra was identified by the remnants of a plastic purse and the random objects inside of it, most particularly a gold pocket watch in a small leather pouch. Merrick had recognized the pocket watch immediately, and the inscription had born her out.
"To my beloved son, Vervain, from 'your Father, Alexias Andre Mayfair, 1910. "
As for Honey in the Sunshine, the remaining bones supported the identification of a sixteenyearold girl. No more could be known.
Immediately I packed a bag. On the telephone, I told Merrick I was on my way.
"Don't come, David," she said calmly. "It's all over. They've both been buried in the family grave in the St. Louis Cemetery. There's no more to be done. I'm going back to Cairo to work, just as soon as you give me leave. "
"My darling, you can go immediately. But surely you must stop in London. "
"Wouldn't think of going on without seeing you," she said. She was about to ring off when I stopped her.
"Merrick, the gold pocket watch is yours now. Clean it. Repair it. Keep it. No one can deny it to you now. "
There was a disturbing silence on the other end.
"I told you, David, Oncle Vervain always said I didn't need it," she replied. "He said it ticked for Cold Sandra and Honey. Not for me. "
I found those words a little frightening.
"Honor their
memories, Merrick, and honor your wishes," I insisted. "But life, and its treasures, belong to those who are alive. "
A week later, we had lunch together. She looked as fresh and inviting as ever, her brown hair drawn back in the leather barrette that I'd come to love.
"I didn't use the mask to find those bodies," she explained at once. "I want you to know that. " She continued on. "I went out to Lafayette and I went on instinct and prayers. We dredged in several areas before we got lucky. Or you might say Great Nananne helped me find the bodies. Great Nananne knew how much I wanted to find them. As for Honey, I can still feel her near me. Sometimes I feel so sad for her, sometimes I get weak¡ª. "
"No, you're talking about a spirit," I interjected, "and a spirit is not necessarily the person you knew or loved. "
After that, she spoke of nothing but her work in Egypt. She was happy to be headed back there. There had been some new discoveries in the desert, due to aerial photography, and she had a meeting scheduled which might lead to her seeing a new, previously undocumented tomb.
It was marvelous to see her in such fine form. As I paid the check, she brought out Oncle Vervain's gold pocket watch.
"I almost forgot about this," she said. It was quite well polished and it opened at the touch of her finger with an audible snap. "It can't really be repaired, of course," she explained as she held it lovingly. "But I like having it. See? Its hands are fixed at ten minutes before eight. "
"Do you think it has some connection," I asked gingerly, "I mean, to the time that they met their deaths?"
"I don't think so," she said with a light shrug. "I don't think Cold Sandra ever remembered to wind it. I think she carried it in her purse for sentimental reasons. It's a wonder she didn't pawn it. She pawned other things. " She put it back into her purse and gave me a reassuring smile.
I took the long drive with her out to the airport and walked her to the plane.
Everything was calm until the final moments. We were two civilized human beings, saying goodbye, who meant to see each other soon again.
Then something broke inside me. It was sweet and terrible and too immense for me. I took her in my arms.
"My darling, my love," I said to her, feeling the fool dreadfully, and wanting her youth and her devotion with my whole soul. She was utterly unresisting, giving way to kisses that broke my heart.
"There never will be anyone else," she whispered in my ear.
I remember pushing her aside and holding her by her shoulders, and then I turned, without so much as a backwards glance, and I walked swiftly away.
What was I doing to this young woman? I had just passed my seventieth birthday. And she had not yet reached her twentyfifth.
But on the long drive back to the Motherhouse, I realized that, try as I might I could not plunge myself into the requisite state of guilt.
I had loved Merrick the way I had once loved Joshua, the young boy who had thought me the most marvelous lover in the world. I had loved her through temptation and through giving in to that temptation, and nothing would ever make me deny that love to myself, to her, or to God.
For all the remaining years that I knew her, Merrick remained in Egypt, going home via London to New Orleans perhaps twice a year.
Once I dared to ask her boldly why she was not interested in Maya lore.
I think the question irritated her. She didn't like to think of those jungles, let alone speak of them. She thought I ought to know that, but she answered me in a civil manner nevertheless.
She explained clearly that she met with too many obstacles in studying Mesoamerica, in particular the question of the dialects, of which she knew nothing, and of archaeological experience in the field, of which she had none. Her learning had led her to Egypt, where she knew the writing, knew the story, knew the history. It was where she meant to stay.
"Magic is the same everywhere," she said more than often. But that didn't deter her from making it her life's work.
There is one more piece to the puzzle of Merrick which I possess.
While Merrick was working in Egypt that year after our trip to the jungles, Aaron wrote me a strange missive which I'll never forget.
He told me that the license plates of the car found in the swamp had led the authorities to the usedcar salesman who had murdered his young customers Cold Sandra and Honey. Indeed, the man was a drifter with a long criminal record, and it had not been difficult to trace him at all. Belligerent and somewhat cruel by nature, the miscreant had gone back several times over the years to work at the very car lot where he'd met his victims, and his identity was well known to any number of people who could connect him to the car found in the swamps.
A confession to the crimes was not long in coming, though the man was judged to be insane.
"The authorities have advised me that the fellow is terrified," wrote Aaron. "He insists that he is being hounded by a spirit, and that he would do anything to expiate his guilt. He begs for drugs to render him unconscious. I do believe he will be placed in a mental hospital, in spite of the clear viciousness of the crimes. "
Naturally, Merrick was advised of the whole affair. Aaron sent her a pack of newspaper clippings, as well as what court records he could obtain.
But much to my great relief, Merrick did not wish to go back to Louisiana at that time.
"There is no need for me to confront this person," she wrote to me. "I'm sure, from all that Aaron's told me, that justice has been done. "
Less than two weeks later, Aaron advised me by letter that the murderer of Cold Sandra and Honey had died by his own hand.
I called Aaron at once:
"Have you told Merrick?" I asked.
After a long pause, Aaron said, quite calmly:
"I suspect that Merrick knows. "
"Why on earth do you say that?" I asked immediately. I was always too impatient with Aaron's reticence. However, this time he was not to keep me in the dark.
"The spirit who haunted this fellow," said Aaron, "was a tall woman with brown hair and green eyes. Now that does not square with our pictures of Cold Sandra or Honey in the Sunshine, does it?"
I answered no, that it did not.
"Well, he's dead now, poor fool," said Aaron. "And maybe Merrick can continue her work in peace. "
That is exactly what Merrick did: continue her work in peace.
And now:
Now, after all these years, I have come back to her, asking her to raise the soul of the Dead Child Claudia for Louis, and for me.
I have asked her in so many words to use her magic, which might surely mean using the mask, which I know to be in her possession at Oak Haven, as it had always been, the mask which could let her see spirits between life and death.
I have done that, I who know what she has suffered, and what a good and happy person she could be, and is.