Rice, Anne - The Witching Hour

by Greyspid

  ‘… you understand, we are not going to be knocking on the door day and night, but just to know!…’

  ‘Rowan, our great-grandfathers were born in that house… all the people you see here were…’

  ‘Oh, poor Millie Dear never lived to see the day…’

  ‘… a package of daguerreotypes… Katherine and Darcy, and Julien. You know Julien was always photographed at the front door. I have seven different pictures of him at the front door.’

  The front door?

  More and more Mayfairs streamed in. And there at last was the elderly Fielding - Clay’s son - utterly bald, and with his fine, translucent skin and red-rimmed eyes — and they were bringing him here, to sit beside her.

  No sooner had he eased down in the chair than the young ones began to appear to pay court to him as they had to her.

  Hercules, the Haitian servant, put the tumbler of bourbon in the old man’s hand.

  ‘You got that now, Mr Fielding?’

  ‘Yes, Hercules, no food! I’m sick of food. I’ve eaten enough food for a lifetime.’

  His voice was deep, and ageless the way the old woman’s voice had been.

  ‘And so no more Carlotta,’ he said grimly to Beatrice, who had come to kiss him. ‘And I’m the only old one left.’

  ‘Don’t talk about it, you’re going to be with us forever,’ said Bea, her perfume swirling about them, sweet and floral, and expensive like her brilliant red silk dress.

  ‘I don’t know that you’re all that much older than I am,’ declared Lily Mayfair, sitting beside him, and indeed for a moment she did seem as old as he was, with her wispy luminous white hair and sunken cheeks, and the bony hand she laid on his arm.

  Fielding turned to Rowan. ‘So you’re restoring First Street. You and that man of yours are going to live there. And so far things have gone well?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t they?’ Rowan asked with a gentle smile.

  But she was warmed suddenly by the blessing Fielding gave her as he rested his hand on her own.

  ‘Splendid news, Rowan,’ he said, his low voice gaining resonance now that he had caught his breath after the long odyssey from the front door. ‘Splendid news.’ The whites of his eyes were yellowed, though his false teeth were shining white. ‘All those years, she wouldn’t let anyone touch it,’ he said with a touch of anger. ‘Old witch, that’s what she was.’

  Little gasps rose from the women gathered to the left. Ah, but this was what Rowan wanted. Let the polished surface be broken.

  ‘Granddaddy, for heaven’s sakes.’ It was Gifford at his elbow. She picked up his fallen cane from the grass and hooked it over the back of the chair. He ignored her.

  ‘Well, it’s the truth,’ he said. ‘She let it fall to ruin! It’s a wonder it can be restored at all.’

  ‘Granddaddy,’ said Gifford, almost desperately.

  ‘Oh, let him talk, darling,’ said Lily, with a little palsy to her small head, eyes flickering over Rowan, her thin hand knotted around her drink.

  ‘You think anyone could shut me up,’ said the old man. ‘She said he was the one who wouldn’t let her, she blamed it all on him. She believed in him and used him when she had her reasons.’

  A hush was falling over those around them. It seemed the light died a little as the others pressed in. Rowan was vaguely aware that the dark gray figure of Randall was moving in the corner of her eye.

  ‘Granddaddy, I wish you wouldn’t…" said Gifford.

  Oh, but I wish you would!

  ‘She was the one,’ Fielding said. ‘She wanted it to fall down around her. I wonder sometimes why she didn’t burn it, like that wicked housekeeper in Rebecca. I used to worry that she’d do it. That she’d burn all the old pictures. You see the pictures? You see Julien and his sons standing in front of the doorway?’

  ‘The doorway. You mean the keyhole door at the front of the house?’

  Had Michael heard him? Yes, he was coming towards them, obviously trying to silence Cecilia who whispered nonstop in his ear, oblivious to the dazed expression on his face, and Aaron stood not very far away, under the magnolia, unnoticed, eyes fixed on the group. If only she could put a spell on them so that they didn’t see Aaron.

  But they weren’t noticing anything except each other, Fielding nodding, and Felice speaking up, her silver bracelets jangling as she pointed at Fielding.

  ‘Tell her about it,’ said Felice, ‘I say you should. You want my opinion? Carlotta wanted that house. She wanted to rule in that house. She was mistress of it till the day she died, wasn’t she?’

  ‘She didn’t want anything,’ grumbled Fielding, with a flopping dismissive gesture of his left hand. ‘That was her curse. She only wanted to destroy.’

  ‘What about the doorway?’ asked Rowan.

  ‘Granddaddy, I’m going to take you…"

  ‘You’re not going to take me anywhere, Gifford,’ he said, his voice almost youthful in its determination. ‘Rowan’s moving back into that house. I have things to say to Rowan.’

  ‘In private!’ Gifford declared.

  ‘Let him talk, darling, what’s the harm?’ said Lily. ‘And this is private. We’re all Mayfairs here.’

  ‘It’s a beautiful house, she’ll love it!’ said Magdalene sharply. ‘What are you all trying to do, scare her?’

  Randall stood behind Magdalene, eyebrows raised, lips slightly pursed, all the wrinkles of his saggy old face drawn long and deep, as he looked down at Fielding.

  ‘But what were you going to say?’ asked Rowan.

  ‘It’s just a package of old legends,’ said Ryan, with a faint touch of irritation, though he spoke more slowly, obviously trying to hold it in. ‘Stupid old legends about a doorway and they don’t mean anything.’

  Michael drew up behind Fielding, and Aaron came a little closer. Still they took no notice.

  ‘I want to know, actually,’ said Pierce. He was standing to the left behind Felice and beside Randall. Felice stared intently at Fielding, her head wagging ever so slightly because she was drunk. ‘My great-grandfather was painted in front of the doorway,’ said Pierce. ‘That portrait’s inside. They were always in front of that doorway.’

  ‘And why shouldn’t they stand on the front porch of the house in these pictures?’ asked Ryan. ‘They lived there. We have to remember, before Carlotta it was our great-great-grandfather’s house.’

  ‘That’s it,’ Michael murmured. ‘That’s where I saw the door. In the pictures. God, I should have taken a closer look at those pictures…"

  Ryan glanced at him. Rowan reached out for him, gestured for him to come to her, and Ryan’s eyes followed as Michael came around to the back of Rowan’s chair. Pierce was talking again as Michael slipped down on the grass beside Rowan, so that she could rest her hand on his shoulder. Aaron now stood quite close by.

  ‘But even in the old photos,’ Pierce was saying, ‘they’re in front of the door. Always a keyhole door. Either the front door or one of the doors…’

  ‘Yes, the door,’ said Lily. ‘And the door’s on the grave. The same keyhole doorway carved right above the crypts. And nobody even knows who had it done.’

  ‘Well, it was Julien, of course,’ said Randall in a low stentorian voice. They all paid a quick heed to him. ‘And Julien knew what he was doing, because the doorway had a special meaning for him, and for all of them back then.’

  ‘If you tell her all this craziness,’ said Anne Marie, ‘she isn’t going to…’

  ‘Oh, but I want to know,’ said Rowan. ‘And besides, nothing could prevent us from moving into that house.’

  ‘Don’t be so sure of that,’ said Randall solemnly.

  Lauren threw him a cold disapproving glance. ‘This is no time for scary tales,’ she whispered.

  ‘Do we have to drag up all this dirt!’ cried Gifford. The woman was clearly upset. Rowan could see Pierce’s concern. But he was on the very opposite side of the little gathering from his mother. Ryan was close to her. Ryan took her arm,
and whispered something in her ear.

  She’s going to try to break this up, Rowan thought. ‘What does the doorway mean?’ Rowan asked. ‘Why did they always stand in front of it?’

  ‘I don’t like to talk about it,’ Gifford cried. ‘I don’t see why we have to dig up the past every time we get together. We ought to be thinking about the future.’

  ‘We are talking about the future,’ said Randall. ‘The young woman ought to know certain things.’

  ‘I’d like to know about the door,’ said Rowan.

  ‘Well, go on, all of you, old mossbacks,’ said Felice. ‘If you mean to tell something finally after all these years of acting like the kitten who got the cream…’

  ‘The doorway had to do with the pact and the promise,’ said Fielding. ‘And it was a secret handed down in each generation all the way from the very earliest times.’

  Rowan glanced down at Michael, who sat with knees up and his arms resting on them, merely looking up at Fielding. But even from above, she could see the expression of dread and confusion in his face, the same damned expression that came over him every time he talked of the visions. The expression was so uncharacteristic that he looked like someone else.

  ‘I never heard them speak of any promise,’ said Cecilia. ‘Or pact, or any doorway, for that matter.’

  Peter Mayfair now joined them, bald as Fielding, and with the same sharp eyes. In fact, all of them were gathering in a circle, three and four deep. Isaac and Wheatfield crowded in behind Pierce.

  ‘That’s because they didn’t speak of it,’ said Peter in a quavering and slightly theatrical voice. ‘It was their secret, and they didn’t want anyone to know.’

  ‘But who do you mean, they?’ asked Ryan. ‘Are you talking about my grandfather?’ His voice was slightly slurred from his drinking. He took a hasty swallow. ‘You are talking about Cortland, aren’t you?’

  ‘I don’t want to… ’ whispered Gifford, but Ryan gestured for her to be silent.

  Fielding also motioned for Gifford to be quiet. In fact, the glance he threw her was vicious.

  ‘Cortland was one of them, of course,’ said Fielding, looking up at bald-headed Peter, ’and everybody knew he was.’

  ‘Oh, that’s a dreadful thing to say,’ said Magdalene angrily. ‘I loved Cortland.’

  ‘Many of us loved Cortland,’ said Peter angrily. ‘I would have done anything for Cortland, but Cortland was one of them. He was. And so was your father, Ryan. Big Pierce was one of them as long as Stella was living, and so was Randall’s father. Isn’t that so?’

  Randall gave a weary nod, taking a slow sip of his bourbon, the dark’faced servant going unnoticed as he refilled Randall’s glass and quietly poured splashes of golden bourbon in others.

  ‘What do you mean, one of them?’ Pierce demanded. ‘I’ve been hearing this all my life, one of them, not one of them, what does it mean?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Ryan. ‘They had a club, a social club.’

  The hell they did,’ said Randall.

  ‘That all died with Stella,’ said Magdalene. ‘My mother was close to Stella, she went to those parties, there were no thirteen witches! That was all bunk.’

  ‘Thirteen witches?’ asked Rowan. She could feel the tenseness in Michael. Through a small break in the circle she could see Aaron, who had turned his back to the tree and was looking up at the sky as if he couldn’t hear them, but she knew that he could.

  ‘Part of the legend,’ said Fielding, coldly, firmly, as if to distinguish himself from those around him, ’part of the story of the doorway and the pact.’

  ‘What was the story?’ asked Rowan.

  ‘That they would all be saved by the doorway and the thirteen witches,’ said Fielding, looking up once more at Peter. ‘That was the story, and that was the promise.’

  Randall shook his head. ‘It was a riddle. Stella never knew for sure what it meant.’

  ‘Saved?’ asked young Wheatfield. ‘You mean like a Christian being saved?’

  ‘Saved! Hallelujah!’ said Margaret Ann, and downed her drink, spilling a few drops of it on her dress. ‘The Mayfairs are going to heaven. I knew with all this money, somebody would work something out!’

  ‘You’re drunk, Margaret Ann,’ whispered Cecilia. ‘And so ami!’

  They touched their glasses in a toast.

  ‘Stella was trying to get together the thirteen witches at those parties?’ asked Rowan.

  ‘Yes,’ said Fielding. ‘That was exactly what she was trying to do. She called herself a witch, and so did Mary Beth, her mother, she never made any bones about it, she said she had the power, and she could see the man.’

  ‘I’m not going to allow this… ’ said Gifford, her voice rising hysterically.

  ‘Why? Why is it so scary?’ asked Rowan softly. ‘Why isn’t it just old legends? And who is the man!’

  Silence. They were all studying her, each waiting perhaps for the other to speak. Lauren looked almost angry as she stared at Rowan. Lily looked faintly suspicious. They knew she was deceiving them.

  ‘You know it’s not old legends,’ said Fielding under his breath.

  ‘Because they believed it!’ said Gifford, her chin raised, her lip trembling. ‘Because people have done bad things in the name of believing this old foolishness.’

  ‘But what bad things?’ asked Rowan. ‘You mean what Carlotta did to my mother?’

  ‘I mean the things that Cortland did,’ said Gifford. She was shaking now, clearly on the edge of hysterics. ‘That’s what I mean.’ She glared at Ryan, and then at her son, Pierce, and then back at Rowan. ‘And yes, Carlotta too. They all betrayed your mother. Oh, there are so many things you don’t know.’

  ‘Shhhh, Gifford, too much to drink,’ whispered Lily.

  ‘Go inside, Gifford,’ said Randall.

  Ryan took his wife by the arm, bending to whisper in her ear. Pierce left his place and came around to assist. Together they drew Gifford away from the group.

  Felice was whispering anxiously to Magdalene, and someone on the edge of the circle was trying to gather up all the children and get them to come away. A little girl in a pinafore was saying, ‘I want to know…"

  ‘I want to know,’ said Rowan. ‘What did they do?’

  ‘Yes, tell us about Stella,’ said Beatrice, glancing uneasily at Gifford, who was now crying against Ryan’s shoulder as he tried to lead her further away.

  ‘They believed in Black Magic, that’s what they did,’ said Fielding, ’and they believed in the thirteen witches and the doorway, but they never figured out how to make it all work.’

  ‘Well, what did they think it meant?’ asked Beatrice. ‘I think all this is fascinating. Do tell.’

  ‘And you’ll tell it to the whole country club,’ said Randall, ’just the way you always have.’

  ‘And why shouldn’t I?’ said Beatrice. ‘Is somebody going to come burn one of us at the stake!’

  Gifford was being forced into the house by Ryan. Pierce closed the French doors behind them.

  ‘No, I want to know,’ said Beatrice, stepping forward and folding her arms. ‘Stella didn’t know the meaning? Well, who did?’

  ‘Julien,’ said Peter. ‘My grandfather. He knew. He knew and he told Mary Beth. He left it in writing, but Mary Beth destroyed the written record, and she told it to Stella but Stella never really understood.’

  ‘Stella never paid attention to anything,’ said Fielding.

  ‘No, never to anything at all,’ said Lily sadly. ‘Poor Stella. She thought it was all parties, and bootleg liquor and her crazy friends.’

  ‘She didn’t believe it all really,’ said Fielding. ‘That was the problem right there. She wanted to play with it. And when something went wrong, she became afraid, and drowned her fears in her bootleg champagne. She saw things that would have convinced anyone, but still she didn’t believe in the doorway or the promise or the thirteen witches until it was too late and Julien and Mary Beth were both gone.’

/>   ‘So she broke the chain of information?’ Rowan asked. ‘That’s what you’re saying. They’d given her secrets along with the necklace and everything else?’

  ‘The necklace was never all that important,’ said Lily, ‘Car-lotta made a big fuss about the necklace. It’s just that you can’t take the necklace away… well, you’re not supposed to take the necklace from the one who inherits it. It’s your necklace and Carlotta had the idea that if she locked up the necklace, she’d put an end to all the strange goings-on, and she made that another one of her useless little battles.’

  ‘And Carlotta knew,’ said Peter, glancing a little contemptuously at Fielding. ‘She knew what the doorway and the thirteen witches meant.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ It was Lauren speaking from a slight distance. ‘Carlotta certainly never talked of anything like that.’

  ‘Of course not, why would she?’ said Peter. ‘I know because Stella told my mother. Carlotta knew and Carlotta wouldn’t help her. Stella was trying to fulfill the old prophecy. And it had nothing to do, by the way, with salvation or hallelujahs. That wasn’t the point at all.’

  ‘Says who?’ demanded Fielding.

  ‘Says I, that’s who.’

  ‘Well, what do you know about it?’ asked Randall softly with a little touch of sarcasm in his voice. ‘Cortland himself told me that when they brought the thirteen witches together, the doorway would open between the worlds.’

  ‘Between the worlds!’ Peter scoffed. ‘And what has that got to do with salvation I’d like to know? Cortland didn’t know anything. Any more than Stella. With Cortland it was all after the fact. If Cortland had known he would have helped Stella. Cortland was there. So was I.’

  ‘There when?’ asked Fielding scornfully.

  ‘You don’t mean Stella’s parties,’ asked Lily.

  ‘Stella was trying to discover the meaning when she held the parties,’ said Peter. ‘And I was there.’

  ‘I never knew that,’ said Magdalene. ‘I never knew you went.’

  ‘How could you have been there?’ asked Margaret Ann. ‘That was a hundred years ago.’

  ‘Oh, no it wasn’t. It was 1928, and I was there,’ said Peter. ‘I was twelve years old when I went, and my father was furious with my mother for allowing it, but I was there. And so was Lauren. Lauren was four years old.’