Rice, Anne - The Witching Hour

by Greyspid

  The water suddenly filled his mouth. The noise was now deafening. At the far end of the pool stood an old man in a tailcoat and white tie, beckoning to him.

  ‘Michael!’ he shouted. ‘Come away at once, man, before it’s too late!’

  A British accent; it was Arthur Langtry. He broke into a rapid swim for the far end. But before he’d taken three strokes, he lost his wind. A sharp pain caught him in the ribs, and he veered for the side.

  As he caught hold of the lip of the pool and pulled himself up again, the night around him was empty and quiet.

  For a second he did nothing. He remained there, panting, trying to control the beating of his heart, and waiting for the pain in his lungs to go away. His eyes moved all the while over the empty patio, over the barren windows, over the emptiness of the lawn.

  Then he tried to climb up and out of the pool. His body felt impossibly heavy, and even in the heat he was cold. He stood there shivering for a moment, then he went into the cabana and picked up one of the soiled towels he used in the day, when he came in here to wash his hands. He towelled dry with it, and went back out and looked again at the empty garden and the darkened house. The freshly painted violet walls were now exactly .the color of the twilight sky.

  His own noisy breathing was the only sound in the quiet. But the pain was gone from his chest, and slowly he forced himself to breathe deeply several times.

  Was he frightened? Was he angry? He honestly didn’t know. He was in a state of shock maybe. He wasn’t sure on that score either. He felt he’d run a four-minute mile again, that was certain, and his head was beginning to hurt. He picked up his clothes and dressed, refusing to hurry, refusing to be driven away.

  Then for a long moment he sat on the curved iron bench, smoking a cigarette and studying things around him, trying to remember exactly what he’d seen. Stella’s last party. Arthur Langtry.

  Another one of Lasher’s tricks?

  Far away, over the lawn, all the way at the front fence, among the camellias, he thought he saw someone moving. He heard steps echoing. But it was only an evening stroller, someone peeping perhaps through the leaves.

  He listened until he could no longer hear the distant footsteps, and he realized he was hearing the click of the riverfront train passing, just the way he’d heard it on Annunciation Street when he was a boy. And that sound again, the sound of a baby crying, that was just a train whistle.

  He rose to his feet, stubbed out the cigarette, and went back into the house.

  ‘You don’t scare me,’ he said, offhandedly. ‘And I don’t believe it was Arthur Langtry.’

  Had someone sighed in the darkness? He turned around. Nothing but the empty dining room around him. Nothing but the high keyhole door to the hallway. He walked on, not bothering to soften his footfalls, letting them echo loudly and obtrusively.

  There was a faint clicking. A door closing? And the sound a window makes when it is raised — a vibration of wood and panes of glass.

  He turned and went up the stairway. He went to the front and then through every empty room. He didn’t bother with the lights. He knew his way around the old furniture, ghostly under its plastic drapery. The pale light from the street lamp floating through the doorways was plenty enough for him.

  Finally he had covered every foot of it. He went back down to the first floor and out the door.

  When he got back to the hotel, he called Aaron from the lobby and asked him to come down to the bar for a drink. It was a pleasant little place, right in the front, small, with a few cozy tables in a dim light, and seldom crowded.

  They took a table in the corner. Swallowing half a beer in record time, he told Aaron what had happened. He described the gray-haired man.

  ‘You know, I don’t even want to tell Rowan,’ he said.

  ‘Why not?’ Aaron asked.

  ‘Because she doesn’t want to know. She doesn’t want to see me upset again. It drives her nuts. She tries to be understanding, but things just don’t affect her the same way. I go crazy. She gets angry.’

  ‘I think you must tell her.’

  ‘She’ll tell me to ignore it, and to go on doing what makes me happy. And sometimes I wonder if we shouldn’t get the hell out of here, Aaron, if somebody shouldn’t…" He stopped.

  ‘What, Michael?’

  ‘Ah, it’s crazy. I’d kill anybody who tried to hurt that house.’

  ‘Tell her. Just tell her simply and quietly what happened. Don’t give her the reaction which will upset her, unless of course she asks for it. But don’t keep any secrets, Michael, especially not a secret like that.’

  He was quiet for a long time. Aaron had almost finished his drink.

  ‘Aaron, the power she has. It there any way to test it, or work with it, or learn what it can do?’

  Aaron nodded. ‘Yes, but she feels she’s worked with it all her life in her healing. And she’s right. As for the negative potential, she doesn’t want to develop it; she wants to rein it incompletely.’

  ‘Yes, but you’d think she’d want to play with it once in a while, in a laboratory situation.’

  ‘In time, perhaps. Right now I think she’s focused completely upon the idea of the medical center. As you said, she wants to be with the family and realize these plans. And I have to admit this Mayfair Medical is a magnificent conception. I think Mayfair and Mayfair are impressed, though they’re reluctant to say so.’ Aaron finished his wine. ‘What about you?’ Aaron gestured to Michael’s hands.

  ‘Oh, it’s getting better. I take the gloves off more and more often. I don’t know…’

  ‘And when you were swimming?’

  ‘Well, I took them off, I guess. God, I didn’t even think about it. I… You don’t think it had to do with that, do you?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. But I think you’re very right to assume it might not have been Langtry. It’s no more than a feeling perhaps, but I don’t think Langtry would try to come through in that way. But do tell Rowan. You want Rowan to be perfectly honest with you in return, don’t you? Tell her the whole thing.’

  He knew Aaron was right. He was dressed for dinner and waiting in the living room of the suite when Rowan came in. He fixed her a club soda with ice, and explained the whole incident as briefly and concisely as he could.

  At once, he saw the anxiety in her face. It was almost a disappointment, that something ugly and dark and awful had once again blighted her stubborn sense that everything was going well. She seemed incapable of saying anything. She merely sat on the couch, beside the heap of packages she’d brought home with her. She did not touch the drink.

  ‘I think it was one of his tricks,’ said Michael. ‘That was my feeling. The lily, that was some kind of trick. I think we should just go right on.’

  That’s what she wanted to hear, wasn’t it?

  ‘Yes, that’s exactly what we should do,’ she said, with slight irritation. ‘Did it… shake you up?’ she asked. ‘I think I might have gone crazy seeing something like that.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘It was shocking. But it was sort of fascinating. I guess it made me angry. I kind of… well, had one of those attacks, sort of…"

  ‘Oh, Christ, Michael.’

  ‘No, no! Sit back down, Dr Mayfair. I’m fine. It’s just that when these things happen, there’s an exertion, an overall systemic reaction or something. I don’t know. Maybe VTIV scared and I don’t know it. That’s probably what it is. One time when I was a kid, I was riding the roller coaster at Pontchartrain Beach. We got right to the top and I figured, well, I won’t brace myself for once. I’ll just go down the big dip completely relaxed. Well, the strangest thing happened. I felt these cramps in my stomach and my chest. Painful! It was like my body tensed for me, without permission. It was sort of like that. In fact, it was exactly like that.’

  She was really losing it. She sat there with her arms folded, and her lips pressed together, and she was losing it. Finally in a low voice she said, ‘People die of heart attacks on roll
er coasters. Just the way they die from other forms of stress.’

  ‘I’m not going to die.’

  ‘What makes you so sure?’

  ‘Because I’ve done it before,’ he said. ‘And I know it’s not time.’

  She gave a little bitter laugh. ‘Very funny,’ she said.

  ‘I’m completely serious.’

  ‘Don’t go over there anymore alone. Don’t give it any opportunity to do this to you.’

  ‘Bullshit, Rowan! I’m not scared of that damned thing. Besides, I like going over there. And…’

  ‘And what?’

  ‘The thing is going to show itself sooner or later.’

  ‘And what makes you so sure it was Lasher?’ she asked in a quiet voice. Her face had gone suddenly smooth. ‘What if it was Langtry, and Langtry wants you to leave me?’

  ‘That doesn’t compute.’

  ‘Of course it computes.’

  ‘Look. Let’s drop it. I only want to be straight with you, to tell you everything that happens, not to hold back on something like that. And I don’t want you to hold back either.’

  ‘Don’t go over there again,’ she said, her face clouding. ‘Not alone, not at night, not asking for trouble.’

  He made some little derisive noise.

  But she had risen and stalked out of the room. He’d never seen her behave in quite that manner. In a moment she reappeared, with her black leather bag in hand.

  ‘Open your shirt, would you please?’ she asked. She was removing her stethoscope.

  ‘What! What is this? You gotta be kidding.’

  She stood in front of him, holding the stethoscope and staring at the ceiling. Then she looked down at him, and smiled. ‘We’re going to play doctor, OK? Now open your shirt?’

  ‘Only if you open your shirt too.’

  ‘I will immediately afterwards. In fact, you can listen to my heart too if you want.’

  ‘Well, if you put it that way. Christ, Rowan, this thing is cold.’

  ‘I only warm it in my hands for children, Michael.’

  ‘Well, hell, don’t you think big brave guys like me feel hot and cold?’

  ‘Stop trying to make me laugh. Take a slow deep breath.’

  He did what she asked. ‘So what do you hear in there?’

  She stood up, gathered the stethoscope in one hand, and put it back in the bag. She sat beside him and pressed her fingers to his wrist.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘You seem fine. I don’t hear any murmur. I don’t pick up any congenital problems, or any dysfunction or weakness of any kind.’

  ‘That’s good old Michael Curry!’ he said. ‘What does your sixth sense tell you?’

  She reached over and placed her hands on his neck, slipping her fingers down inside his open collar and gently caressing the flesh. It was so gentle and so unlike her regular touch that it brought chills up all over his back, and it stirred the passion in him to a quick, surprising little bonfire.

  He was one step from being a pure animal now as he sat there, and surely she must have felt it. But her face was like a mask; her eyes were glassy and she was so still, staring at him, her hands still holding him, that he almost became alarmed.

  ‘Rowan?’ he whispered.

  Slowly she withdrew her hands. She seemed to be herself again, and she let her fingers drop playfully and with madden-ing gentleness into his lap. She scratched at the bulge in his jeans.

  ‘So what does your sixth sense tell you?’ he asked again, resisting the urge to rip her clothing to pieces on the spot.

  ‘That you’re the most handsome, seductive man I’ve ever been in bed with,’ she said languidly. ‘That falling in love with you was an amazingly intelligent idea. That our first child will be incredibly handsome and beautiful and strong.’

  ‘Are you teasing me? You didn’t really see that?’

  ‘No, but it’s going to happen,’ she said. She laid her head on his shoulder. ‘Wonderful things are going to happen,’ she said as he folded her against him. ‘Because we’re going to make them happen. Let’s go in there now and make something wonderful happen between the sheets.’

  By the end of the week, Mayfair and Mayfair held its first serious conference devoted entirely to the creation of the medical center. In consultation with Rowan, it was decided to authorize several coordinated studies as to the feasibility, the optimum size of the center, and the best possible New Orleans location.

  Ryan scheduled fact-gathering trips for Anne Marie and Pierce to several major hospitals in Houston, New York, and Cambridge. Meetings were being arranged at the local level to discuss the possibility of affiliation with universities or existing institutions in town.

  Rowan was hard at work reading technical histories of the American hospital. For hours she talked long distance to Larkin, her old boss, and other doctors around the country, asking for suggestions and ideas.

  It was becoming obvious to her that her most grandiose dream could be realized with only a fraction of her capital, if capital was even involved at all. At least that is how Lauren and Ryan Mayfair interpreted her dreams; and it was best to allow things to proceed on that basis.

  ‘But what if some day every penny of that money could be flowing into medicine,’ said Rowan privately to Michael, ’going into the creation of vaccines and antibiotics, operating rooms and hospital beds?’

  The renovations were going so smoothly that Michael had time to look at a couple of other properties. By mid-September, he’d acquired a big deep dusty shop on Magazine Street for the new Great Expectations, just a few blocks from First Street and from where he’d been born. It was in a vintage building with a flat above and an iron gallery that covered the sidewalk. Another one of those perfect moments.

  Yes, it was all going beautifully and it was so much fun. The parlor was almost finished. Several of Julien’s Chinese rugs and fine French armchairs had been returned to it. And the grandfather clock was working once again.

  Of course the family besieged them to leave their digs at the Pontchartrain and come to this or that house until the wedding. But they were too comfortable there in the big suite over St Charles Avenue. They loved the Caribbean Room, and the staff of the small elegant hotel; they even loved the paneled elevator with the flowers painted on the ceiling, and the little coffee shop where they sometimes had breakfast.

  Also Aaron was still occupying the suite upstairs, and they had both become extremely fond of him. A day wasn’t a day without coffee or a drink or at least a chat with Aaron. And if he was suffering any more of those accidents now, he didn’t say so.

  The last weeks of September were cooler. And many an evening they remained at First Street, after the workers had gone, having their wine at the iron table, and watching the sun set beyond the trees.

  The very last light caught in the high attic windows which faced south, turning the panes to gold.

  So quietly grand. The bougainvillea gave forth its purple blooms in dazzling profusion, and each newly finished room or bit of painted ironwork excited them, and filled them with dreams of what was to come.

  Meantime Beatrice and Lily Mayfair had talked Rowan into a white dress wedding at St Mary’s Assumption Church. Apparently the legacy stipulated a Catholic ceremony. And the trappings were considered to be absolutely indispensable for the happiness and satisfaction of the whole clan. Rowan seemed pleased when she finally gave in.

  And Michael was secretly elated.

  It thrilled him more than he dared to admit. He had never hoped for anything so graceful or traditional in his life. And of course it was the woman’s decision, and he hadn’t wanted to pressure Rowan in any way. But ah, to think of it, a formal white dress wedding in the old church where he’d served Mass.

  As the days grew even cooler, as they moved into a beautiful and balmy October, Michael suddenly realized how close they were to their first Christmas together, and that they would spend it in the new house. Think of the tree they could have in that enormous par
lor. It would be marvelous, and Aunt Viv was finally settling in at the new condominium. She was still fussing for her personal things, and he was promising to fly to San Francisco any day now to get them, but he knew she liked it here. And she liked the Mayfairs.

  Yes, Christmas, the way he had always imagined it ought to be. In a magnificent house, with a splendid tree, and a fire going in the marble fireplace.

  Christmas.

  Inevitably, the memory of Lasher in the church came back to him. Lasher’s unmistakable presence, mingled with the smell of the pine needles and the candles, and the vision of the plaster Baby Jesus, smiling in the manger.

  Why had Lasher looked so lovingly at Michael on that long-ago day when he’d appeared in the sanctuary by the crib?

  Why all of it? That was the question finally.

  And maybe Michael would never know. Maybe, just maybe, he had somehow completed the purpose for which his life had been given back to him. Maybe it had never been anything more than to return here, to love Rowan, and that they should be happy together in the house.

  But he knew it couldn’t be that simple. Just didn’t make sense that way. It would be a miracle if this lasted forever. Just a miracle, the way the creation of Mayfair Medical was a miracle, and that Rowan wanted a baby was a miracle, and that the house would soon be theirs was a miracle… and like seeing a ghost was a miracle — a ghost beaming at you from the sanctuary of a church, or from under a bare crepe myrtle tree on a cold night.

  THIRTY-NINE

  ALL RIGHT, here we go again, thought Rowan. It was what? The fifth gathering in honor of the engaged couple? There had been Lily’s tea, and Beatrice’s lunch, and Cecilia’s little dinner at Antoine’s. And Lauren’s little party downtown in that lovely old house on Esplanade Avenue.

  And this time it was Metairie - Cortland’s house, as they still called it though it had been the home of Gifford and Ryan, and their youngest son, Pierce, for years. And the clear October day was perfect for a garden party of some two hundred.