Rice, Anne - The Witching Hour

by Greyspid

  He had told her briefly, and a little self-deprecatingly, about his own world, answering her questions, warmed by her seeming interest. ‘Working class,’ he had said. How curious she had been. What was it like back there in the South? He’d talked about the big families, the big funerals, the narrow little shotgun house with its linoleum floors, the four o’clocks in the postage stamp of a garden. Had it seemed quaint to her? Maybe it did to him too now, though it hurt to think of it, because he wanted to go home so badly. ‘It isn’t just them, and the visions and all. I want to go back there, I want to walk on Annunciation Street too…’

  ‘Is that the name of the street where you grew up? That’s so beautiful.’

  He didn’t tell her about the weeds in the gutters, the men sitting on the steps with their cans of beer, the smell of boiled cabbage that never went away, the riverfront trains rattling the windows.

  Talking about his life here had been a little easier - explaining about Elizabeth and Judith, and the abortion that had destroyed his life with Judith; explaining about the last few years, and their curious emptiness, and the feeling of waiting for something, though he did not know what it was. He told about houses and how he loved them; about the kinds that existed in San Francisco, the big Queen Annes and the Italianates, the bed-and-breakfast hotel he had wanted so badly to do on Union Street, and then he had slipped into talking about the houses he really loved, the houses back there in New Orleans. He understood about ghosts in houses, because houses were more than habitats, and it was no wonder they could steal your soul.

  It was an easy exchange, deepening their knowledge of each other, and amplifying the intimacy they’d already felt. He had liked what she said about going out to sea; about being alone on the bridge with the coffee in her hand, the wind howling past the wheelhouse. He didn’t like it, but he liked to hear her tell about it. He liked the look in her gray eyes; he liked the simplicity of her easy, languid gestures.

  He had even gone into his crazy talk about the movies, and the recurrent images of vengeful babies and children, and the way he felt when he perceived such themes - as though everything around him was talking to him. Maybe one step from the madhouse, but he wondered if some of the people in the madhouse were there because they took the patterns they perceived too literally? What did she think? And death, well, he had a lot of thoughts about death, but first and foremost, this thought had recently struck him, even before the accident, that the death of another person is perhaps the only genuine supernatural event we ever experience.

  ‘I’m not talking about doctors now. I’m talking about ordinary people in the modern world. What I’m saying is, when you look down at that body, and you realize all the life has gone out of it, and you can scream at it, and slap it around, and try to sit it up, and do every trick in the book to it, but it’s dead, absolutely unequivocally dead…"

  ‘I know what you’re saying.’

  ‘And you have to remember, for most of us we see that maybe once or twice in twenty years. Maybe never. Why, California in this day and age is a whole civilization of people who never witness a death. They never even see a dead body! Why, they think when they hear somebody’s dead that he forgot to eat his health foods, or hadn’t been jogging the way he should have been…"

  She had laughed softly under her breath. ‘Every goddamned death’s a murder. Why do you think they come after us doctors with their lawyers?’

  ‘Exactly, but it’s deeper even than that. They don’t believe they’re going to die! And when somebody else dies, it’s behind closed doors, and the coffin’s closed, if the poor slob had the bad taste to even want a coffin and a funeral, which of course he shouldn’t have wanted. Better a memorial service in some toney place with sushi and white wine and people refusing to even say out loud why they are there! Why, I have been to California memorial services where nobody even mentioned the dead guy! But if you really see it… and you’re not a doctor, or a nurse, or an undertaker… well, it’s a first-class supernatural event, and just probably the only supernatural event you ever get to see.’

  ‘Well, let me tell you about one other supernatural event,’ she’d said, smiling. ‘It’s when you’ve got one of those dead bodies lying on the deck of your boat, and you’re slapping it around and talking to it, and suddenly the eyes do open, and the guy’s alive.’

  She had smiled so beautifully at him then. He had started kissing her, and that was how that particular segment of the conversation had come to an end. But the point was, he hadn’t lost her with his crazy rambling. She had never once tuned out on him.

  Why did this other thing have to be happening? Why did this feel like stolen time?

  Now he lay on the rug, thinking how much he liked her and how much her sadness and her aloneness disturbed him, and how much he didn’t want to leave her, and that nevertheless, he had to go.

  His head was remarkably clear. He had not been this long without a drink all summer. And he rather liked the feeling of thinking clearly. She had just refilled the coffee for him, and it tasted good. But he’d put back on the gloves, because he was getting all those random stupid images off everything - Graham, Ellie, and men, lots of different men, handsome men, and all Rowan’s men, that was abundantly clear. He wished it wasn’t.

  The sun was burning through the eastern windows and skylights. He could hear her working in the kitchen. He figured he ought to get up and help her no matter what she’d said, but she’d been pretty convincing on the subject: ‘I like to cook, it’s like surgery. Stay exactly where you are.’

  He was thinking that she was the first thing in all these weeks that really mattered to him, that took his mind off the accident and off himself. And it was such a relief to be thinking of someone other than himself. In fact, when he considered it with this new clarity, he realized he’d been able to concentrate well since he’d been here, concentrate on their conversation and their lovemaking and their knowing of each other; and that was something altogether new, because in all these weeks, his lack of concentration - his inability to read more than a page of a book, or follow more than a few moments of a film - had left him continuously agitated. It had been as bad as the lack of sleep.

  He realized that he had never had his knowledge of a human being commence at such a pitch, and plunge so deep so fast. It was like what was supposed to happen with sex, but seldom if ever did. He had entirely lost sight of the fact that she was the woman who’d rescued him; that is, a strong sense of her character had obliterated that vague impersonal excitement he’d felt on first meeting her, and now he was making mad fantasies about her in his head.

  How could he continue to know her and maybe even get to love her, and have her, and do this other thing he had to do? And he still had to do this other thing. He still had to go home and he had to determine the purpose.

  As for her having been born down south, it had nothing to do with it. His head was full of too many images from his past, and the sense of destiny that united these images was too strong for it to have come from some random reminder of his home through her. Besides, on the deck of the boat last night, he’d caught nothing of that. Knowing her, yes, that was there, but even that was suspect, he still believed, because there was no profound recognition, no ‘Ah yes,’ when she told him her story. Only positive fascination. Nothing scientific about this power of his; might be physical, yes, and measurable finally, and even controllable through some numbing drug, but it wasn’t scientific. It was more like art or music.

  But the point was, he had to leave, and he didn’t want to. And it made him sad suddenly, sad and almost desperate, as if they were somehow doomed, he and she.

  All these weeks, if only he could have seen her, been with her. And the oddest thought occurred to him. If only that awful accident hadn’t happened, and he had found her in some simple ordinary place, and they had begun to talk. But she was part and parcel of what had happened, her strangeness and her strength were part of it. All alone out there in that big awful
cruiser right at the moment when darkness fell. "Who the hell else would have been there? Who the hell else could have gotten him out of the water? Why, he could easily believe what she said about determination, about her powers.

  When she’d been describing the rescue to him in more detail, she had said a strange thing. She had said that a person loses consciousness almost immediately in very cold water. Yet she had been pitched right into it, and she hadn’t lost consciousness. She had said only, ‘I don’t know how I reached the ladder, I honestly don’t.’

  ‘Do you think it was that power?’ he asked.

  She had reflected for a moment. Then she had said, ‘Yes, and no. I mean maybe it was just luck.’

  ‘Well, it was luck for me, all right,’ he’d responded, and he had felt an extraordinary sense of well-being when he said it, and he wasn’t so sure why.

  Maybe she knew because she said, ‘We’re frightened of what makes us different.’ And he had agreed.

  ‘But lots of people have these powers,’ she said. ‘We don’t know what they are, or how to measure them; but surely they are part of what goes on between human beings. I see it in the hospital. There are doctors who know things, and they can’t tell you how. There are nurses who are the same way. I imagine there are lawyers who know infallibly when someone is guilty, or that the jury is going to vote for or against; and they can’t tell you how they know.

  ‘The fact is, for all we learn about ourselves, for all we codify and classify and define, the mysteries remain immense. Take the research into genetics. So much is inherited by a human being — shyness is inherited, the liking for a particular brand of soap may be inherited, the liking for particular given names. But what else is inherited? What invisible powers come down to you? That’s why it’s so frustrating to me that I don’t really know my family. I don’t know the first thing about them. Ellie was a third cousin once removed or something like that. Why, hell, that’s hardly a cousin…"

  Yes, he had agreed with all that. He talked a little about his father and his grandfather, and how he was more like them than he cared to admit. ‘But you have to believe you can change your heredity,’ he said. ‘You have to believe that you can work magic on the ingredients. If you can’t there’s no hope.’

  ‘Of course you can,’ she’d replied. ‘You’ve done it, haven’t you? I want to believe I’ve done it. This may sound insane, but I believe that we ought to…"

  Tell me…’

  ‘We ought to aim to be perfect,’ she said quietly. ‘I mean, why not?’

  He had laughed but not in ridicule. He had thought of something one of his friends once said to him. The friend had been listening to Michael rattle on one night about history, and how nobody understood it or where we were headed because we didn’t know history, and the friend had said, ‘You are a peculiar talker, Michael,’ explaining that the phrase was from Orpheus Descending, a Tennessee Williams play. He had treasured the compliment. He hoped she would too.

  ‘You’re a peculiar talker, Rowan,’ he had said, and he had explained it as his friend explained it to him.

  That had made her laugh, really break up. ‘Maybe that’s why I’m so quiet,’ she said. T don’t even want to get started. I think you’ve said it. I’m a peculiar talker and that’s why I don’t talk at all.’

  He took a drag off the cigarette now, thinking it all over. It would be lovely to stay with her. If only the feeling would leave him, that he had to go home.

  ‘Put another log on the fire,’ she said, interrupting his reverie. ‘Breakfast is ready.’

  She laid it out on the dining table near the windows. Scram-bled eggs, yogurt, fresh sliced oranges sparkling in the sun, bacon and sausage, and hot muffins just out of the oven.

  She poured the coffee and the orange juice for them both. And for five minutes solid, without a word, he just ate. He had never been so hungry. For a long moment he stared at the coffee. No, he didn’t want a beer, and he wasn’t going to drink one. He drank the coffee, and she refilled the cup.

  ‘That was simply wonderful,’ he said.

  ‘Stick around,’ she said, ’and I’ll cook you dinner, and breakfast tomorrow morning too.’

  He couldn’t answer. He studied her for a moment, trying not to see just loveliness and the object of his considerable desire, but what she looked like. A true blonde, he thought, smooth all over, with almost no down on her face or her arms. And lovely dark ashen eyebrows, and dark eyelashes which made her eyes seem all the more gray. A face like a nun, she had, actually. Not a touch of makeup on it, and her long full mouth had a virginal look to it somehow, like the mouths of little girls before they’ve worn lipstick. He wished he could just sit here with her forever…

  ‘But you are going to leave anyway,’ she said.

  He nodded. ‘Have to,’ he said.

  She was thoughtful. ‘What about the visions?’ she asked. ‘Do you want to talk about them?’

  He hesitated. ‘Every time I try to describe them, it ends in frustration,’ he explained, ’and also, well, it turns people off.’

  ‘It won’t turn me off,’ she said. She seemed quite composed now, her arms folded, her hair prettily mussed, the coffee steaming in front of her. She was more like the resolute and forceful woman he’d first met last night.

  He believed what she said. Nevertheless, he had seen the look of incredulity and then indifference in so many faces. He sat back in the chair, staring out for a moment. Every sailing ship in the world was on the bay. And he could see the gulls flying over the harbor of Sausalito like tiny bits of paper.

  ‘I know the whole experience took a long time,’ he said,' that time itself was impossible to factor into it.’ He glanced at her. ‘You know what I mean,’ he said. ‘Like in the old days when people would be lured by the Little People. You know, they’d go off and spend one day with the Little People, but when they came back to their villages they discovered they’d been gone for fifty years.’

  She laughed under her breath. ‘Is that an Irish story?’

  ‘Yeah, from an old Irish nun, I heard that one,’ he said. ‘She used to tell us the damnedest things. She used to tell us there were witches in the Garden District in New Orleans, and that they’d get us if we went walking in those streets… ’ And think how dark those streets were, how darkly beautiful, like the lines from ‘Ode to a Nightingale,’ ‘Darkling I listen… ’ ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ’my mind wandered.’

  She waited.

  ‘There were many people in the visions,’ he said, ’but what I remember most distinctly is a dark-haired woman. I can’t see this woman now, but I know that she was as familiar to me as someone I’d known all my life. I knew her name, everything about her. And I know now that I knew about you. I knew your name. But I don’t know if that was in the middle of it, or just at the end, you know, before I was rescued, when maybe I knew somehow that the boat was coming and you were there.’ Yes, that was a real puzzle, he thought.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I think I could have come back and lived even if I had refused to do what they wanted me to do. But I wanted the mission, so to speak, I wanted to fulfill the purpose. And it seemed… it seemed that everything they wanted of me, everything they revealed, well, it was all connected with my past life, who I’d been. It was all-encompassing. Do you follow me?’

  ‘There was a reason they chose you.’

  ‘Yes, that’s it exactly. I was the one for this, because of who I was. Now, make no mistake. I know this is nuthouse talk again; I’m so damned good at it. This is the talk of schizophrenics who hear voices telling them to save the world, I’m aware of that. There’s an old saying about me among my friends.’

  ‘What is it?’

  He adjusted his glasses and flashed his best smile at her. ‘Michael isn’t as stupid as he looks.’

  She laughed in the loveliest way. ‘You don’t look stupid,’ she said. ‘You just look too good to be true.’ She tapped the ash off her cigarette. ‘You know how
good-looking you are. I don’t have to tell you. What else can you recall?’

  He hesitated, positively electrified by that last compliment. Wasn’t it time to go to bed again? No, it wasn’t. It was almost time to catch a plane.

  ‘Something about a doorway,’ he said, ‘I could swear it. But again, I can’t see these things now. It’s getting thinner all the time. But I know there was a number involved in it. And there was a jewel. A beautiful jewel. I can’t even call this recollection now. It’s more like faith. But I believe all those things were mixed up with it. And then it’s all mixed up with going home, with this sense of having to do something tremendously important, and New Orleans is part of it, and this street where I used to walk when I was a kid.’

  ‘A street?’

  ‘First Street. It’s a beautiful stretch, from Magazine Street, near where I grew up, to St Charles Avenue, about five blocks or so, and it’s an old part of town they call the Garden District.’

  ‘Where the witches live,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, yes, right, the witches of the Garden District,’ he said, smiling. ‘At least according to Sister Bridget Marie.’

  ‘Is it a gloomy witchy place, this neighborhood?’ she asked.

  ‘No, not really,’ he said. ‘But is like a dark bit of forest in the middle of the city. Big trees, trees you wouldn’t believe. There’s nothing comparable to it here. Maybe nowhere in America. And the houses are town houses, you know, close to the sidewalks, but they’re so large, and they’re not attached, they have gardens around them. And there’s this one house, this house I used to pass all the time, a really high narrow house. I used to stop and look at it, at the iron railings. There’s a rose pattern in the railings. Well, I keep seeing it now — since the accident — and I keep thinking I have to go back, you know, it’s so urgent. Like even now I’m sitting here, but I feel guilty that I’m not on the plane.’