The Witching Hour

by Anne Rice

  Scott was on the verge of ordering me to leave when I pulled rank. I was older than he was. I had declined the appointment as director. Hence he'd received it. I was not going to be ordered off this case.

  "Well, this is like offering a bromide to a person who's burning to death, but don't drive back to New Orleans. Take the train."

  That was a surprisingly welcome suggestion. No dark dismal shoulderless roads through the Louisiana swampland. But a nice cheerful, crowded train.

  The following day, I left a note for Deirdre that I would be at the Royal Court in New Orleans. I drove the rental car to Dallas and took the train back to New Orleans from there. It was only an eight-hour trip, and I was able to write in my diary the entire way.

  At length I considered what had happened. The girl had renounced her history and her psychic powers. Her aunt had reared her to reject the spirit, Lasher. But for years she'd been losing the battle, quite obviously. But what if we gave her our assistance? Might the hereditary chain be broken? Might the spirit depart the family like a spirit fleeing a burning house which it has haunted for years?

  Even as I wrote out these thoughts, I was dogged by my remembrance of the apparition. The thing was so powerful! It was more seemingly incarnate and powerful than any such phantom I had ever beheld. Yet it had been a fragmentary image.

  In my experience only the ghosts of people who have very recently died appear with such seeming substance. For example, the ghost of a pilot killed in action may appear on the very day of his death in his sister's parlor, and she will say after, "Why, he was so real. I could see the mud on his shoes!"

  Ghosts of the long departed almost never had such density or vividness.

  And discarnate entities? They could possess bodies of the living and of the dead, yes, but appear on their own with such solidity and such intensity?

  This thing liked to appear, didn't it? Of course it did. That was why so many people saw it. It liked to have a body if only for a split second. So it didn't just speak with a soundless voice to the witch, or make an image which existed entirely in her mind. No, it made itself somehow material so that others saw it and even heard it. And with great effort--perhaps very great effort, it could make itself appear to cry or smile.

  So what was the agenda of this being? To gain strength so that it might make appearances of greater and greater duration and perfection? And above all what was the meaning of the curse, which in Petyr's letter had read: "I shall drink the wine and eat the meat and know the warmth of the woman when you are no longer even bones"?

  Lastly, why was it not tormenting me or enticing me now? Had it used the energy of Deirdre to make this appearance, or my energy? (I had seen very few spirits in my life. I was not a strong medium. In fact, at that point, I had never seen an apparition which could not have been explained as some sort of illusion created by light and shadow, or an overactive mind.)

  Perhaps foolishly I had the feeling that as long as I was away from Deirdre it couldn't do me harm. What had happened with Petyr van Abel had to do with his powers of mediumship and how the thing manipulated them. I had very little of that sort of power.

  But it would be a very bad mistake to underestimate the being. I needed to be on guard from here on out.

  I arrived in New Orleans at eight in the evening, and strange unpleasant little things began to happen at once. I was nearly run down by a taxi outside Union Station. Then the taxi which took me to my hotel nearly collided with another car as we pulled up to the curb.

  In the small lobby of the Royal Court, a drunken tourist bumped into me and then tried to start a brawl. Fortunately, his wife diverted him, apologizing repeatedly, as the bellhops assisted her in getting the man upstairs. But my shoulder was bruised from this small incident. I was shaken from the close calls in the cab.

  Imagination, I thought. Yet as I climbed the stairs to my first-floor room, a weak portion of the old wooden railing came loose in my hands. I almost lost my balance. The bellhop was immediately apologetic. An hour later, as I was noting all these things in my diary, a fire broke out on the third floor of the hotel.

  I stood in the cramped French Quarter street with other uncomfortable guests for the better part of an hour before it was determined that the small blaze had been put out without smoke or water damage to any other rooms. "What was the cause?" I asked. An embarrassed employee murmured something about rubbish in a storage closet, and assured me that everything was all right.

  For a long time, I considered the situation. Really, all this might have been coincidence. I was unharmed, and so was everyone else involved in these little incidents, and what was required of me now was a stalwart frame of mind. I resolved to move just a little bit more slowly through the world, to look around myself with greater care, and to try to remain conscious of all that was going on around me at all times.

  The night passed without any further mishap, though I slept very uneasily and woke often. And the following morning after breakfast, I called our investigative detectives in London, asked them to hire a Texas investigator and to find out as discreetly as possible what he could about Deirdre Mayfair.

  I then sat down and wrote a long letter to Cortland. I explained who I was, what the Talamasca was, and how we had followed the history of the Mayfair family since the seventeenth century during which one of our representatives had rescued Deborah Mayfair from serious jeopardy in her native Donnelaith. I explained about the Rembrandt of Deborah in Amsterdam. I went on to explain that we were interested in Deborah's descendants because they seemed to possess genuine psychic powers, manifesting in every generation, and we were desirous of making contact with the family, with a view to sharing our records with those who were interested, and in offering information to Deirdre Mayfair, who seemed to be a person deeply burdened by her ability to see a spirit who in former times was called Lasher and might still be called Lasher to this day.

  "Our representative, Petyr van Abel, first glimpsed this spirit in Donnelaith in the 1600s. It has been seen countless times since in the vicinity of your home on First Street. I have only just seen it in another location, with my own eyes."

  I then copied out the identical letter to Carlotta Mayfair, and after much consideration, put down the address and phone number of my hotel. After all, what was the point of hiding behind a post office box?

  I drove up to First Street, placed Carlotta's letter in the mailbox, and then drove out to Metairie, where I put Cortland's letter through the slot in his door. After that, I found I was overcome by foreboding, and though I went back to my hotel, I did not go up to my room. Rather I told the desk I would be in the first-floor bar, and there I remained all evening, slowly savoring a good sample of Kentucky sipping whiskey and writing in my diary about the whole affair.

  The bar was small and quiet, and opened onto a charming courtyard, and though I sat with my back to this view, facing the lobby doors for reasons I cannot quite explain, I enjoyed the little place. The feeling of foreboding was slowly melting away.

  At about eight o'clock, I looked up from my diary to realize that someone was standing very near my table. It was Cortland.

  I had only just completed my narrative of the Mayfair file, as indicated. I had studied countless photographs of Cortland. But it was not a photograph of Cortland which came to mind as our eyes met.

  The tall, black-haired man smiling down at me was the image of Julien Mayfair, who had died in 1914. The differences seemed unimportant. It was Julien with larger eyes, darker hair, and perhaps a more generous mouth. But Julien nevertheless. And quite suddenly the smile appeared grotesque. A mask.

  I made a mental note of these odd thoughts, even as I invited the man to sit down.

  He was wearing a linen suit, much like my own, with a pale lemon-colored shirt and pale tie.

  Thank God it's not Carlotta, I thought, at which point he said: "I don't think you will hear from my cousin Carlotta. But I think it's time you and I had a talk." Very pleasant and completely ins
incere voice. Deeply southern but in a unique New Orleans way. The gleam in the dark eyes was charming and faintly awful.

  This man either hated me or regarded me as a damnable nuisance. He turned and signaled the bartender. "Another drink for Mr. Lightner, please, and a sherry for me."

  He sat opposite me across the little marble table, his long legs crossed and turned to one side. "You don't mind if I smoke, do you, Mr. Lightner? Thank you." He withdrew a beautiful gold cigarette case from his pocket, laid it down, offered me a cigarette, and when I refused, lit one for himself. Again his cheerful demeanor struck me as entirely contrived. I wondered how it might appear to a normal person.

  "I'm so glad you've come, Mr. Mayfair," I said.

  "Oh, do call me Cortland," he said. "There are so many Mr. Mayfairs, after all."

  I felt danger emanating from him, and made a conscious effort to veil my thoughts.

  "If you will call me Aaron," I said, "I shall call you Cortland with pleasure."

  He gave a little nod. Then he threw an offhanded smile at the young woman who set down our drinks, and at once he took a sip of his sherry.

  He was a compellingly attractive person. His black hair was lustrous, and there was a touch of thin mustache, dappled with gray, above his lip. It seemed the lines in his face were an embellishment. I thought of Llewellyn and his descriptions of Julien, which I had heard only a few days before. But I had to put all this out of my mind completely. I was in danger. That was the overriding intuition and the man's subdued charm was part of it. He thought himself very attractive and very clever. And both of these things he was.

  I stared at the fresh bourbon and water. And was suddenly struck by the position of his hand on his gold cigarette case only an inch from the glass. I knew, absolutely knew, this man meant to do me harm. How unexpected. I had thought it was Carlotta all along.

  "Oh, excuse me," he said with a sudden look of surprise as though he had just remembered something. "A medicine I have to take, that is, if I can find it." He felt of his pockets, then drew something out of his coat. A small bottle of tablets. "What a nuisance," he said, shaking his head. "Have you enjoyed your stay in New Orleans?" He turned and asked for a glass of water. "Of course you've been to Texas to see my niece, I know that. But you've been touring the city as well, no doubt. What do you think of this garden here?" He pointed to the courtyard behind him. "Quite a story about that garden. Did they tell you?"

  I turned in my chair and glanced over my shoulder at the garden. I saw the uneven flagstones, a weathered fountain, and beyond, in the shadows, a man standing before the fanlight door. Tall thin man, with the light behind him. Faceless. Motionless. The chill which ran down my back was almost delicious. I continued to look at the man, and slowly the figure melted completely away.

  I waited for a draft of warm air, but I felt nothing. Perhaps I was too far from the being. Or perhaps I was altogether wrong about who or what it had been.

  It seemed an age passed. Then, as I turned around, Cortland said, "A woman committed suicide in that little garden. They say that the fountain turns red with her blood once a year."

  "Charming," I said under my breath. I watched him lift his glass of water and drink half the contents. Was he swallowing his tablets? The little bottle had disappeared. I glanced at my bourbon and water. I would not have touched it for anything in this world. I looked absently at my pen, lying there beside my diary, and then placed it in my pocket. I was so utterly absorbed in everything that I saw and heard that I felt not the slightest urge to speak a word.

  "Well, then, Mr. Lightner, let's get to the point." Again that smile, that radiant smile.

  "Of course," I said. What was I feeling? I was curiously excited. I was sitting here with Julien's son, Cortland, and he had just slipped a drug, no doubt lethal, into my drink. He thought he was going to get away with this. The whole dark history glittered suddenly in my mind. I was in it. I wasn't reading about it in England. I was here.

  Perhaps I smiled at him. I knew that a crushing misery would follow this curious peak of emotion. The damned son of a bitch was trying to kill me.

  "I've looked into this matter, the Talamasca, etcetera," he said in a bright, artificial voice. "There's nothing we can do about you people. We can't force you to disclose your information about our family because apparently it's entirely private, and not intended for publication or for any malicious use. We can't force you to stop collecting it either as long as you break no laws."

  "Yes, I suppose that's all true."

  "However we can make you and your representatives uncomfortable, very uncomfortable; and we can make it legally impossible for you to come within so many feet of us and our property. But that would be costly to us, and wouldn't really stop you, at least not if you are what you say you are."

  He paused, took a draw off his thin dark cigarette, and glanced at the bourbon and water. "Did I order the wrong drink for you, Mr. Lightner?"

  "You didn't order any drink," I said. "The waiter brought another of what I had been drinking all afternoon. I should have stopped you. I've had quite enough."

  His eyes hardened for a moment as he looked at me. In fact, his mask of a smile vanished completely. And in a moment of blankness and lack of contrivance he looked almost young.

  "You shouldn't have made that trip to Texas, Mr. Lightner," he said coldly. "You should never have upset my niece."

  "I agree with you. I shouldn't have upset her. I was concerned about her. I wanted to offer my help."

  "That's very presumptuous of you, you and your London friends." Touch of anger. Or was it simply annoyance that I wasn't going to drink the bourbon. I looked at him for a long moment, my mind emptying itself until there was no sound intruding, no movement, no color--only his face there, and a small voice in my head telling me what I wanted to know.

  "Yes, it is presumptuous, isn't it?" I said. "But you see, it was our representative Petyr van Abel who was the father of Charlotte Mayfair, born in France in 1664. When he later journeyed to Saint-Domingue to see his daughter, he was imprisoned by her. And before your spirit, Lasher, drove him to his death on a lonely road outside of Port-au-Prince, he coupled with his own daughter Charlotte, and thereby became the father of her daughter, Jeanne Louise. That means he was grandfather of Angelique and the great-grandfather of Marie Claudette, who built Riverbend, and created the legacy which you administer for Deirdre now. Do you follow my tale?"

  Clearly he was utterly incapable of a response. He sat still looking at me, the cigarette smoking in his hand. I caught no emanation of malice or anger. Watching him keenly, I went on:

  "Your ancestors are the descendants of our representative, Petyr van Abel. We are linked, the Mayfair Witches and the Talamasca. And then there are other matters which bring us together after all these years. Stuart Townsend, our representative who disappeared here in New Orleans after he visited Stella in 1929. Do you remember Stuart Townsend? The case of his disappearance was never solved."

  "You are mad, Mr. Lightner," he said with no perceptible change of expression. He drew on his cigarette and crushed it out though it was not half spent.

  "That spirit of yours, Lasher--he killed Petyr van Abel," I said calmly. "Was it Lasher whom I saw only a moment ago? Over there?" I gestured to the distant garden. "He is driving your niece out of her mind, isn't he?" I asked.

  A remarkable change had now come over Cortland. His face, beautifully framed by his dark hair, looked totally innocent in its bewilderment.

  "You're perfectly serious, aren't you?" he asked. These were the first honest words he'd spoken since he came into the bar.

  "Of course I am," I said. "Why would I try to deceive people who can read other people's thoughts? That would be stupid, wouldn't it?" I looked at the glass. "Rather like you expecting me to drink this bourbon and succumb to the drug you put into it, the way Stuart Townsend did, or Cornell Mayfair after that."

  He tried to shroud his shock behind a blank, dull look. "You are making
a very serious accusation," he said under his breath.

  "All this time, I thought it was Carlotta. It was never Carlotta, was it? It was you."

  "Who cares what you think!" he whispered. "How dare you say such things to me." Then he checked his anger. He shifted slightly in his chair, his eyes holding me as he opened the cigarette case and withdrew another cigarette. His whole demeanor changed suddenly to one of honest inquiry. "What the hell do you want, Mr. Lightner!" he asked, dropping his voice earnestly. "Seriously now, sir, what do you want?"

  I reflected for a moment. I had been asking myself this very question for weeks on end. What did I mean to accomplish when I went to New Orleans? What did we, and what did I, really want?

  "We want to know you!" I said, rather surprised myself to hear it come out. "To know you because we know so much about you and yet we don't know anything at all. We want to tell you what we know about you--all the bits and pieces of information we've collected, what we know about the deep past! We want to tell you all we know about the whole mystery of who you are and what he is. And we wish you would talk to us. We wish you would trust us and let us in! And lastly, we want to reach out to Deirdre Mayfair and say, 'There are others like you, others who see spirits. We know you're suffering, and we can help you. You aren't alone.' "

  He studied me, eyes seemingly open, his face quite beyond dissembling. Then pulling back and glancing away, he tapped off the ash of his cigarette and motioned for another drink.

  "Why don't you drink the bourbon?" I asked. "I haven't touched it." Again, I had surprised myself. But I let the question stand.

  He looked at me. "I don't like bourbon," he said. "Thank you."

  "What did you put in it?" I asked.

  He shrank back into his thoughts. He appeared just a little miserable. He watched as the boy set down his drink. Sherry as before, in a crystal glass.

  "This is true," he asked, looking up at me, "what you wrote in your letter, about the portrait of Deborah Mayfair in Amsterdam?"

  I nodded. "We have portraits of Charlotte, Jeanne Louise, Angelique, Marie Claudette, Marguerite, Katherine, Mary Beth, Julien, Stella, Antha, and Deirdre ... "