Blood Canticle

by Rice, Anne

  "Where is she?" asked Rowan, meaning Mona, who else?

  "She wants to stay here," I said. "You know, it's simple." I crossed in front of her and sat down in a chair with its back to the floor lamp, putting myself in a bit of shadow, and so I could see everyone, even my nemesis. "She doesn't want to die at Mayfair Medical. She managed to drive the limousine all the way over here. You know Mona. And she's with Quinn upstairs. I want you to trust us. Leave her with us. We'll take care of her. We can call Aunt Queen's old nurse to help us."

  Rowan was staring at me as if I'd lost my mind.

  "Do you realize how difficult it's going to be?" she asked. She sighed and a great weariness showed itself

  in her, but only for an instant. "Do you realize how difficult it can get?"

  "You've brought the oxygen and morphine, haven't you?" I glanced over my shoulder in the direction of

  the ambulance out front. "Leave them. Cindy, the nurse, will know how to use them."

  Rowan raised her eyebrows. Same weariness again, but her strength was greater. She was trying to figure

  me out. Absolutely nothing about me frightened her or repelled her. I found her beautiful. There was a

  limitless intelligence behind her eyes.

  "Quinn can't possibly understand what he's taking on," she said gently. "I don't want him to be hurt. I

  don't want her to die in pain. Do you follow me?"

  "Of course I do," I said. "Trust me that we'll call you when it's time."

  She bowed her head, but only for a second.

  "No, no, you don't understand," she said, the husky voice so expressive of concern. "There's no

  reasonable explanation for her being still alive right now."

  "It's her will," I countered. I'm telling you the truth, there is no reason to be concerned for her. "She's

  resting, free of pain," I said.

  "That's impossible," Rowan whispered.

  Something flickered in her expression.

  "Who are you?" she asked, that deep voice underscoring her seriousness.

  I was the one being spellbound. I couldn't break loose of her. I felt the chills again. The room was too

  dim. I wanted to tell Jasmine to turn up the chandelier.

  "My name doesn't matter," I said, but it was hard for me to speak.

  What was it about this woman? Why was her strip down beauty so provocative and threatening? I wanted to see into her soul but she was far too clever to let it happen. Yet I sensed secrets in her, a trove of them, and I felt an electric connection to the monster child that Mona had revealed to me when I made her, and other things.

  I knew suddenly this woman was hiding something dreadful to her own conscience, that the dominant note of her character was this concealment and this conscience, and a great striving rooted in her brilliance and her guilt. I wanted it, whatever she was hiding, just to know it for a moment, just to know it in warmth with her. I would have given anything-.

  She looked away from me. I had unwittingly stared her down and lost her, and she was fumbling silently, and I almost saw it: a power over life and death.

  Fr. Kevin spoke up:

  "I have to see Mona before we go," he said. "I must talk to Quinn, about the exorcism. I used to see Goblin, you understand. I'm concerned for both of them. You have to tell Mona we're here-."

  He had taken a chair opposite me and I hadn't even noticed. "Perhaps we should both see her," he said to Rowan. "Then we can decide what to do." His was a gentle voice, perfect for a priest, humble yet totally unaffected.

  I locked eyes with him, and it seemed for an instant I caught hold of shared secrets, things that they all knew, these Mayfairs, things they couldn't tell, things so profoundly connected to their wealth and their roots that they could never be outgrown or expurgated or overcome. With Fr. Kevin it was doubly hard because he was the confessor of this family, bound by that sacred oath, and also he'd been told things he could scarce believe and it had profoundly changed him.

  But he too knew how to lock his mind. And again, all I got when I probed him was that aching memory of my own childhood schooling, of my wanting so badly to be good. An echo of my own mental voice coming back on me. I hated it. Away with it! It struck me, sharp and hard, that I had been given so many chances to save my soul that my entire life had been constructed around these chances! That was my nature-going from temptation after temptation, not to sin, but to be redeemed.

  I'd never seen my life that way before.

  Had that long-ago boy, Lestat, fought hard enough, he could have become a monk.

  "Accursed!" whispered the ghost.

  "That's not possible," I said.

  "Not possible to see her!" Rowan said. "You can't be serious."

  I heard a soft laughter. I turned around in the chair.

  To my far right the ghost was laughing. "Now what are you going to do, Lestat?" he asked.

  "What is it?" asked Rowan. "What are you seeing?"

  "Nothing," I insisted. "You can't see her. I promised her. No one would come up. For God's sakes, let her

  alone." I threw all my conviction behind it. I suddenly felt desperate. "Let her die the way she wants, for

  the love of Heaven. Let her go!" She glared at me, glared at this display of emotion. An immense inner suffering was suddenly visible in her face, as if she could no longer conceal it, or as if my own outburst, muted as it had been, had ignited the dim fire inside of her.

  "He's right," said Fr. Kevin. "But you understand, we have to stay here."

  "And it's not going to be very long," said Rowan. "We'll wait quietly. If you don't want us in the house . .

  ."

  "No, no, of course you're welcome," I said."Mon Dieu!"

  Again came the ghostly laughter.

  "Your hospitality is wretched!" said Oncle Julien. "Jasmine has not even offered them a cracker and glass

  of water. I am appalled."

  I was bitterly amused by that, and I doubted the truth of it. I found myself worrying about it and became

  incensed! And at the same time I heard something, something nobody in the room could hear, except

  perhaps the laughing ghost. It was the sound of Mona crying, nay, sobbing. I had to go back to Mona.

  All right, Lestat, be a monster. Throw the most interesting woman you've ever met out of the house.

  "Listen to me, both of you," I said, fixing Rowan in my gaze, and then flashing on Fr. Kevin. "I want you

  to go home. Mona's as psychic as you are. It distresses her dreadfully that you're down here. She senses it. She feels it. It adds to her pain." (All this was true, wasn't it?) "I gotta go back up there now and comfort her. Please leave. That's what she wants. That's what gave her the strength to drive here. Now I promise you I will contact you when it's all over. Please go."

  I rose, and I took Rowan's arm and all but lifted her out of the chair.

  "You are a perfect lout," said the ghost, disgustedly.

  Fr. Kevin was on his feet.

  Rowan stared at me, transfixed. I guided her into the hallway and to the front door, and the priest

  followed.Trust in me. Trust that it's what Mona wants.

  Could they hear Mona's sobs now?

  Without taking my eyes off Rowan's eyes, I opened the front door. Blast of summer heat, scent of

  flowers. "You go now," I said.

  "But the oxygen, the morphine," said Rowan. Whiskey voice, they called it. It was so seductive. And behind her delicate probing frown was this conflict, this unadmitted and sinful power. What was it? We stood on the front porch, like dwarves underneath the columns. The purple light was suddenly

  soothing and the moment lost its proportions. It was like eternal dusk here in the country. I could hear the birds of the night, the distant unquiet waters of the swamp.

  Fr. Kevin instructed the orderlies. They brought in the supplies.

  I couldn't break away from this woman. What had I been saying to her? The ghost was laughing. I w
as

  getting confused.

  What is your secret?

  I felt a physical push, as though she had stretched out her two hands and laid them on my chest and tried

  to move me back from where I stood. I saw the ghost over her shoulder. It came from her, the push. It had

  to come from her.

  Her face was engraved with a hostile beauty.

  She tossed her hair just slightly, let it stroke her cheeks.

  She narrowed her eyes. "Take care of Mona for me," she said. "I love her with all my heart. You cannot

  know what it means to me that I failed with her-that all my gifts, all my resources-." "Of course. I know how you love her," I said. "I love her and I hardly know her." This was babble. This woman was suffering. Was I suffering? The ghost was accusing me. A tall man right behind her but she had no sense of him.

  What was it that was slipping out of her conscious to me? Something so very dreadful that it had shaped her entire existence; and she felt it keenly at this moment. I have taken life.

  I shuddered. Her eyes wouldn't let me move.

  I have taken life again and again.

  The orderlies swept by with more equipment. Cool air flooded out of the open front door. Jasmine was there. The ghost stood firm. It seemed to me that the curve of the limbs of the pecan trees marching down the gravel drive meant something, a secret communication from the Lord of the Universe, but what?

  "Come to me," I said to Rowan. A life founded upon suffering, upon reparation. I couldn't bear it, I had to touch it, enclose it, save it.

  I took her in my arms, Dear God Forgive Me, kissing her cheeks and then her mouth. Don't fear for Mona.

  "You don't understand," she whispered. In a scalding moment I saw the hospital room, a torture cell of machines and pulsing numbers, glistening plastic bags feeding into dangling tubes, and Mona sobbing, sobbing the way she was now, and Rowan standing in the doorway.Almost used the power, almost killed-.

  "I see, I do," I said. "And it was not the right time and she wanted to come to Quinn," I whispered the words in her ear.

  "Yes," she said, her own tears rising, "and I frightened her. You see. She knew what I meant to do, she knew I had the power, it would have showed up as a stroke on the autopsy, just a stroke, but she knew! I almost. . . . I terrified her. And. . . ."

  I held her so tight. I drew in my breath.

  I kissed her tears. I wished I was a saint. I wished I was the priest who stood by the car waiting for her, pretending not to see our kissing. What was kissing? Mortal kissing? I kissed her mouth again. Mortal loving and all the while the thundering desire for the link of the blood, not her death, no, Dear God, no, just the link of the blood, the knowing. Who was this Rowan Mayfair! My head swam.

  And the ghost beyond her glared as though he'd harrow Hell to bring its forces against me.

  "How could you tell when was the right moment?" I answered. "And the thing to cling to is that you didn't do it. And now she has her time with Quinn." Oh, such deceitful euphemisms for one who detests all euphemisms, and with reason. I kissed her hard and eagerly and felt her body soften, felt her lock to me for one precious instant, and then the flash of icy coldness as she pulled away.

  She hurried down the steps, her heels barely making a sound. Fr. Kevin was holding the door of the car open for her. The ambulance was already backing up. She turned and looked at me and then she waved at me.

  Such a tender, unexpected gesture. I felt my heart grow huge, and its beating too much for me.

  No, you poor darling. You didn't kill her. I did it. I killed her. I'm guilty. And she's sobbing again. And the ghost knows.

  NONE OF THE MORTALS in the house could hear Mona sobbing. The walls were too thick.

  Meantime, the middle of the dining room table was being draped and set for supper, and Jasmine wanted to know if Quinn and I would join Tommy and Nash; I told her No, we couldn't leave Mona, which she already knew.

  I told her to please call Cindy, the Nurse, though she probably wasn't needed, and to put the oxygen tank and the medicine out of the way. (Actually, this lovely lady spells her name Cyndy, so we will start spelling it this way from here on.)

  I went into the living room. I tried to clear my head. The simple perfume of Rowan on my hands paralyzed me. I had to get straight.

  Snap to a tender affection for everybody in the house. Go to Mona.

  What was all this succumbing to a human witch! The entire Mayfair family was full of troublemakers! Mayfair design and Mayfair will were quickening my pulse. I think I even cursed Merrick, that she had planned to immolate herself last night on that altar, that she'd somehow found a way to save her immortal soul, and left me to my own usual damnation.

  And then there was the ghost. The Mayfair ghost had returned to his corner. He stood there giving me the most malevolent look I've ever seen on any creature, vampire or human.

  I took his measure: a male, aged sixty perhaps, short curly hair, snow white; eyes gray or black; excellent facial features and regal bearing, though why the age of sixty I couldn't figure unless he'd felt most especially powerful at that earthly time of life, because I knew for a fact that he'd died long before Mona and could therefore haunt in any guise he chose.

  These thoughts didn't bait him. There was something so intrinsically menacing in his stillness that I couldn't bear it.

  "All right, then, be quiet," I said firmly. I detested the quaver in my voice. "Why the Hell are you haunting me? You think I can undo what I've done? I can't. Nobody can. You want her to die, haunt her, not me."

  No change in him.

  And no way could I trivialize and diminish the woman who'd just waved to me before stepping into the car, salt of her tears still on my lips to be licked. So why keep trying? What had befallen me?

  Big Ramona, who happened to glance in from the hall, drying her hands on her apron, said, "And now we have another madman talking to himself, and right by the desk that Grandpa William used to go to all the time for no reason. Now that was a ghost that Quinn used to see, and me and Jasmine too."

  "What desk, where?" I stammered. "Who is Grandpa William?" But I knew that story. And I saw the desk. And Quinn had seen the ghost over and over pointing to the desk, and they had searched it over and over, year in and year out, and found nothing.

  Snap back, you idiot!

  Upstairs Quinn tried tenderly and desperately to comfort Mona.

  Tommy and the ever distinguished Nash came down for their dinner and passed, without noticing me, into the dining room across the way, their low conversation uninterrupted throughout, and seated themselves.

  I went to the cameo case near the piano. That meant walking away from the ghost who was to my far right, but it made no difference. His eyes followed me.

  This case was where Aunt Queen's cameos were displayed, and it was never locked. I opened the glass top-it was hinged like the cover of a book-and I picked up an oval cameo with a tiny display of Poseidon and his consort in a chariot pulled by sea horses, with a god to lead them over billowing waves, all of this spectacular progress intricately wrought. Cool.

  I slipped the cameo into my pocket and went upstairs.

  I found Mona lying on the bed, crying dreadfully among the flowers, with a desperate Quinn standing by the far side of the bed, leaning over her and trying to comfort her. Quinn was more frightened than I've

  ever seen him. I made a quick gesture to let him know everything was working well.

  The ghost wasn't in the room. I could neither feel him nor see him. Cagey. So he doesn't want to be seen

  by Mona?

  Mona was naked, Lady Godiva hair everywhere, her body shimmering and fine as she lay sobbing among

  the poetic blooms; and the neat stack of Aunt Queen's white garments had fallen and was scattered all

  over the floor.

  For a moment I felt a deep stab of horror, a horror I deserved and couldn't escape, and which I didn't

  intend to confide
to either Quinn or Mona as long as we all lived, no matter how many years or decades

  that might be; a horror of what whim and will can do and had done. But as usual with grand moral

  realizations, there was no time for it.

  I looked at Quinn-my Little Brother, my pupil.

  He'd been made by monsters he'd loathed and it had never occurred to him to weep in their presence.

  What Mona was doing was entirely predictable.

  I lay down on the bed right beside her, and when I lifted her hair back and looked into her eyes, she went

  utterly silent.

  "What the Hell's the matter with you?" I demanded.

  A pause in which her loveliness struck me with all the subtilty of an avalanche.

  "Well, nothing," she said, "if you're going to put it like that."

  "For the love of God, Lestat," said Quinn, "don't be cruel to her. Surely you know what she's going

  through."

  "I'm not being cruel," I said. (Who, me, cruel?) I kept my tight focus on her. "Are you afraid of me?" I

  asked.

  "No," she said. Her eyebrows puckered. The blood tears stained her cheeks. "It's only that I know so well

  that I should have died," she said.

  "Then sing a requiem," I said. "Let me supply some words: 'O heat, dry up my brains! Tears seven-times

  salt, burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!' "

  She laughed.