The Witching Hour by Anne Rice
Applause rose all around her, and looking up she was amazed to see that they were all Dutchmen here, gathered at Leiden; even she wore the big black hat and the gorgeous thick sleeves, and this was a painting by Rembrandt, of course, The Anatomy Lesson, and that is why the body looked so perfectly neat, though it hardly explained why she could see through it.
"Ah, but you have the gift, my child, you are a witch," said Lemle.
"That's right," said Rembrandt. Such a sweet old man. He sat in the corner, his head to one side, his russet hair wispy now in old age.
"Don't let Petyr hear you," she said.
"Rowan, take the emerald off," Petyr said. He stood at the foot of the table. "Take it off, Rowan, it's around your neck. Remove it!"
The emerald?
She opened her eyes. The dream lost its vibrancy like a taut veil of silk suddenly torn free and furling. The darkness was alive around her.
Very slowly the familiar objects came to light. The closet doors, the table by the bed, Michael, her beloved Michael, sleeping beside her.
She felt the coldness against her naked breast, she felt the thing caught in her hair, and she knew what it was.
"Oh God!" She covered her mouth with her left hand but not before that little scream had escaped, her right hand snatching the thing off her neck as if it had been a loathsome insect.
She sat up, hunched over, staring at it in the palm of her hand. Like a clot of green blood. Her breath caught in her throat, and she saw that she had broken the old chain, and her hand was shaking uncontrollably.
Had Michael heard her cry out? He didn't move even as she leaned against him.
"Lasher!" she whispered, her eyes moving up as if she could find him in the shadows. "Do you want to make me hate you!" Her words were a hiss. For one second the fabric of the dream was clear again, as if the veil had once more been lowered. All the doctors were leaving the table.
"Done, Rowan. Magnificent, Rowan."
"A new era, Rowan."
"Very simply miraculous, my dear," said Lemle.
"Cast it away, Rowan," said Petyr.
She flung the emerald over the foot of the bed. Somewhere in the small hallway it struck the carpet, with a dull impotent little sound.
She put her hands to her face, and then feverishly, she felt of her neck, felt of her breasts as if the damnable thing had left some layer of dust or grime on her.
"Hate you for this," she whispered again in the dark. "Is that what you want?"
Far off it seemed she heard a sigh, a rustling. Through the far hallway door, she could just barely make out the curtains in the living room against the light of the street, and they moved as if ruffled by a low draft, and that was the sound she heard, wasn't it?
That and the slow measured song of Michael's breathing. She felt foolish for having flung the stone away. She sat with her hands over her mouth, knees up, staring into the shadows.
"Well, didn't you believe the old tales? Why are you shaking like this? Just one of his tricks, and no more difficult for him than making the dance of the wind in the trees. Or making that iris move in the garden. Move. It did more than move, though, didn't it? It actually ... And then she remembered those roses, those strange large roses on the hall table. She had never asked Pierce where they had come from. Never asked Gerald.
Why are you so frightened?
She got up, put on her robe, and walked barefoot into the hall, Michael sleeping on, undisturbed, in the bed behind her.
She picked up the jewel and wound the two strands of broken chain around it carefully. Seemed dreadful to have broken those fragile antique links.
"But you were stupid to do this," she whispered. "I'll never put it on now, not of my own free will."
With a low creak of the springs, Michael turned over in the bed. Had he whispered something? Her name maybe?
She crept silently back into the bedroom, and dropping to her knees, found her purse in the corner of the closet and put the necklace into the side zipper pocket.
She wasn't shaking now. But her fear had alchemized perfectly to rage. And she knew she couldn't sleep any more.
Sitting alone in the living room as the sun rose, she thought of all the old portraits at the house, the ones she'd been going through, and wiping clean, and preparing to hang, the very old ones she could identify which no one else in the family could. Charlotte with her blond hair, so deeply faded beneath the lacquer that she seemed a ghost. And Jeanne Louise, with her twin brother standing behind her. And gray-haired Marie Claudette with the little painting of Riverbend on the wall above her.
All of them wore the emerald. So many paintings of that one jewel. She closed her eyes and dozed on the velvet couch, wishing for coffee, yet too sleepy to make it. She'd been dreaming before this happened, but what was it all about--something to do with the hospital and an operation, and now she couldn't remember. Lemle there. Lemle whom she hated so much ....
And that dark-mouthed iris that Lasher had made ....
Yes, I know your tricks. You made it swell and break from its stem, didn't you? Oh, nobody really understands how much power you have. To make whole leaves sprout from the stem of a dead rose. Where do you get your handsome form when you appear, and why won't you do it for me? Are you afraid I'll scatter you to the four winds, and you'll never have the strength to gather yourself together?
She was dreaming again, wasn't she? Imagine, a flower changing like that iris, altering before her eyes, the cells actually multiplying and mutating ...
Unless it was just a trick. A trick like putting the necklace on her in her sleep. But wasn't everything a trick?
"Well, boys and girls," said Lark once as they stood over the bed of a comatose and dying man, "we've done all our tricks, haven't we?"
What would have happened if she had tried a couple of her own? Like telling the cells of that dying man to multiply, to mutate, to restructure, and seal off the bruised tissue. But she hadn't known. She still didn't know how far she could go.
Yes, dreaming. Everyone walking through the halls at Leiden. You know what they did to Michael Servetus in Calvinist Geneva, when he accurately described the circulation of the blood in 1553, they burnt him at the stake, and all his heretical books with him. Be careful, Dr. van Abel.
I am not a witch.
Of course, none of us are. It's a matter of constantly reevaluating our concept of natural principles.
Nothing natural about those roses.
And now the air in here, moving the way it was, catching the curtains and making them dance, stirring the papers on the coffee table in front of her, even lifting the tendrils of her hair, and cooling her. Your tricks. She didn't want this dream anymore. Do the patients at Leiden always get up and walk away after the anatomy lesson?
But you won't dare show yourself, will you?
She met Ryan at ten o'clock and told him all about the plans for the marriage, trying to make it matter-of-fact and definite, so as to invite as few questions as possible.
"And one thing I wish you could do for me," she said. She took the emerald necklace out of her purse. "Could you put this in some sort of vault? Just lock it away, where no one can possibly get at it."
"Of course, I can keep it here at the office," he said, "but Rowan, there are several things I ought to explain to you. This legacy is very old--you have to have a little patience now. The rules and rubrics, so to speak, are quaint and bizarre, but nevertheless explicit. I'm afraid you're required to wear the emerald at the wedding."
"You don't mean this."
"You understand, of course, these small requirements are probably quite vulnerable to contest or revision in a court of law, but the point of following them to the letter is--and has always been--to avoid even the remotest possibility of anyone ever challenging the inheritance at any point in its history, and with a personal fortune of this size and this ... "
And on and on he went in familiar lawyerly fashion, but she understood. Lasher had won this round.
Her anger was cold and dark and isolating just as it had always been at its worst. She gazed off, out the office window, not even seeing the soft cloud-filled sky, or the deep winding gash of the river below it.
"I'll have this gold chain repaired," Ryan said. "Seems to be broken."
It was one o'clock when she reached First Street with lunch in a little brown sack--two sandwiches and a couple of bottles of Dutch beer. Michael was all excited. They'd found a treasure trove of old New Orleans red bricks under the earth on the back lot. Beautiful bricks, the kind they couldn't make anymore. They could now build the new gateposts with the perfect material. And they'd also found a stash of old blueprints in the attic.
"They look like the original plans," he said. "They may have been drawn by Darcy himself. Come on. I left them up there. They're so fragile."
She went with him up the stairs. How fresh it all looked with the new paint; even Deirdre's room was lovely now, the way it should have always been.
"Nothing's the matter, is it?" he asked.
Wouldn't he know? she thought. Wouldn't he have to sense it? And to think she had to wear the damned thing at the wedding. Her great dream of the Mayfair Medical Center, and everything else would go right out the window if she didn't. He'd go crazy when she told him. And she couldn't bear to see the scared look in his eyes again. She couldn't bear to see him agitated and weak, that was the truth of it.
"No, nothing's wrong," she said. "I was just downtown all morning with the lawyers again, and I missed you." She threw her arms around him, nuzzling her head under his chin. "I really really missed you."
Thirty-eight
NO ONE SEEMED the least surprised at the news. Aaron drank a toast with them over breakfast, and then went back to work in the library at First Street, where at Rowan's invitation he was cataloging the rare books.
Smooth-talking Ryan of the cold blue eyes came by Tuesday afternoon, to shake Michael's hand. In a few words of pleasant conversation, he made it clear that he was impressed with Michael's accomplishments, which could only mean of course that Michael had been investigated, through the regular financial channels, just as if he were bidding on a job.
"It's all sort of annoying, I'm sure," Ryan admitted finally, "investigating the fiancee of the designee of the Mayfair legacy, but you see, I don't have much choice in the matter ... "
"I don't mind," Michael said with a little laugh. "Anything you couldn't find out and you wanna know, just ask."
"Well, for starters, how did you ever do so well without committing a crime?"
Michael laughed off the flattery. "When you see this house in a couple of months," he said, "you'll understand." But he wasn't fool enough to think his modest fortune had impressed this man. What were a couple of million in blue chip securities compared to the Mayfair legacy? No, this was a little talk about the geography of New Orleans--that he had come from the other side of Magazine Street, and that he still had the Irish Channel in his voice. But Michael had been too long out west to worry about something like that.
They walked together over the newly clipped grass. The new boxwood--small and trim--was now in place throughout the garden. It was possible to see the flower beds as they had been laid out a century before--to see the little Greek statues placed at the four corners of the yard.
Indeed, the entire classical plan was reemerging. The long octagonal shape of the lawn was the same as the long octagonal shape of the pool. The perfectly square flagstones were set in a diamond pattern against the limestone balustrades which broke the patio into distinct rectangles and marked off paths which met at right angles, framing both garden and house. Old trellises had been righted so that they once again defined the gateways. And as the black paint went up on the cast-iron lace railings, it brought to life their ornate and repetitive design of curlicues and rosettes.
Yes, patterns--everywhere he looked he discerned patterns-struggling against the sprawling crepe myrtle and the glossy-leafed camellias, and the antique rose as it fought its way up the trellis, and against the sweet little four o'clocks which fought for light in the brightest patches of unhindered sun.
Beatrice, very dramatic in a great pink hat and large square silver-rimmed glasses, met with Rowan at two o'clock to discuss the wedding. Rowan had set the date for Saturday a week. "Less than a fortnight!" Beatrice declared with alarm. No, everything had to be done right. Didn't Rowan understand what the marriage would mean to the family? People would want to come from Atlanta and New York.
It couldn't be done before the last of October. And surely Rowan would want the renovations of the house to be complete. It meant so much to everyone to see the house.
All right, said Rowan, she guessed she and Michael could wait that long, especially if it meant they could spend their wedding night in the house, and the reception could be held here.
Definitely, said Michael; that would give him almost eight solid weeks to get things in shape. Certainly the main floor could be finished and the front bedroom upstairs.
"It would be a double celebration, then, wouldn't it?" said Bea. "Your wedding, and the reopening of the house. Darlings, you will make everyone so very happy."
And yes, every Mayfair in creation must be invited. Now Beatrice went to her list of caterers. The house could hold a thousand if tents were arranged over the pool and over the lawn. No, not to worry. And the children could swim, couldn't they?
Yes, it would be like old times, it would be like the days of Mary Beth. Would Rowan like to have some old photographs of the last parties given before Stella died?
"We'll gather all the photographs for the reception," said Rowan. "It can be a reunion. We'll put out the photographs for everyone to enjoy."
"It's going to be marvelous."
Suddenly Beatrice reached out and took Michael's hand.
"May I ask you a question, darling? Now that you're one of the family? Why in the world do you wear these horrible gloves?"
"I see things when I touch people," he said before he could stop himself.
Her large gray eyes brightened. "Oh, that's most intriguing. Did you know Julien had that power? That's what they always told me. And Mary Beth too. Oh, darling, please let me." She began to roll the leather back, her long pink almond-shaped fingernails lightly scraping his skin as she did it. "Please? May I? You don't mind?" She ripped the glove off and held it up with a triumphant yet innocent smile.
He did nothing. He remained passive, his hand open, fingers slightly curled. He watched as she laid her hand on his, and then squeezed his hand firmly. In a flash the random images crowded into his head. The miscellany came and went so fast he caught none of it--merely the atmosphere, the wholesomeness, the equivalent of sunshine and fresh air, and the very distinct register of Innocent. Not one of them.
"What did you see?" she asked.
He saw her lips stop moving before the words came clear.
"Nothing," he said as he drew back. "It's considered to be the absolute confirmation of goodness, and good fortune. Nothing. No misery, no sadness, no illness, nothing at all." And in a way, that had been perfectly true.
"Oh, you are a darling," she said, blank-faced and sincere, and then swooped in to kiss him. "Where did you ever find such a person?" she asked Rowan. And without waiting for an answer, she said, "I like you both! And that's better than loving you, for that's expected, you know. But liking you, what a curious surprise. You really are the most adorable couple, you with your blue eyes, Michael, and Rowan with that scrumptious butterscotch voice! I could kiss you on your eyes every time you smile at me--and don't do it now, how dare you?--and I could kiss her on her throat every time she utters a word! A single solitary word!"
"May I kiss you on the cheek, Beatrice?" he asked tenderly.
"Cousin Beatrice to you, you gorgeous hunk of man," she said with a little theatrical pat of her heaving bosom. "Do it!" She shut h
Rowan was merely smiling at them both in a vague, bemused fashion. And now it was time for Beatrice to take her downtown to Ryan's office. Interminable legal matters. How horrible. Off they went.
He realized the black leather glove had fallen to the grass. He picked it up, and put it on.
Not one of them ...
But who had been speaking? Who had been digesting and relaying that information? Maybe he was simply getting better at it, learning to ask the questions, as Aaron had tried to teach him to do.
Truth was, he hadn't paid much attention to that aspect of the lessons. He mainly wanted to shut the power off. Whatever the case, there had, for the first time since the debacle of the jars, been a clear and distinct message. In fact, it was infinitely more concise and authoritative than the majority of the awful signals he'd received that day. It had been as clear as Lasher's prophecy in its own way.
He looked up slowly. Surely there was someone on the side porch, in the deep shade, watching him. But he saw nothing. Only the painters at work on the cast iron. The porch looked splendid now that the old screen had been stripped away and the makeshift wooden railings removed. It was a bridge between the long double parlor and the beautiful lawn.
And here we will be married, he thought dreamily. And as if to answer the great crepe myrtles caught the breeze, dancing, their light pink blossoms moving gracefully against the blue sky.
When he got back to the hotel that afternoon, there was an envelope waiting for him from Aaron. He tore it open even before he reached the suite. Once the door was soundly shut on the world, he pulled out the thick glossy color photograph and held it to the light.
A lovely dark-haired woman gazed out at him from the divine gloom spun by Rembrandt--alive, smiling the very same smile he had only just seen on Rowan's lips. The Mayfair emerald gleamed in this masterly twilight. So painfully real the illusion, that he had the feeling the cardboard on which it was printed might melt and leave the face floating, gossamer as a ghost, in the air.