by Rice, Anne
“There came a tender silence, and when I looked up I saw the tears on her cheeks. Beyond her, by the post of her bed, stood Goblin, vivid once more, and he too was weeping and reaching out to me, as if he would like to cradle my head in his left hand.
“ ‘Go away, Goblin!’ I said sharply. ‘I don’t want you here now! Leave me. Go find Lynelle for me! Travel the spirit winds for me, but get away.’
“He flashed brilliant, at his most detailed, his most shining, and his face was full of hurt and insult and pouting lip, and then, snap, no more.
“ ‘If he’s still in this room, I don’t know it,’ I confessed to Aunt Queen. ‘And as for Rebecca, I have to find justice for her. I have to discover, if I can, what they did to her in that house.’
“Aunt Queen wiped her blue eyes with her napkin, and I felt more than a twinge of guilt that I had made her cry. I loved her, suddenly, no matter what she said or did, and I needed her and was so miserable at having been angry with her that I got up, came around, went down on my knees and embraced her and held her fragile form for some seconds in utter quiet.
“Then I looked at her shimmering, ankle-strap spike-heel shoes, and I laughed and I kissed her insteps. I kissed her toes. I gave her right foot an affectionate squeeze with my left hand.
“ ‘Tarquin Blackwood, you’re certifiably insane, cease and desist,’ she declared. ‘Now sit down like a good boy, and pour me another glass of champagne.’
“We had finished one bottle, so I opened another, with the aplomb of a boy who has for years assisted in an elegant bed-and-breakfast hotel, and poured the foaming wine into her tulip glass.
“Of course she then poured out to me her horror at my having thoughts of putting a gun to my head, and I swore to her I would never do it, only think about it, not as long as she lived and Pops lived and Jasmine lived and Big Ramona lived and Lolly lived; and then I rattled off the names of all the farmhands and Shed Men, and I was being perfectly and convincingly sincere.
“ ‘But you see, what I’m trying to say to you,’ I went on, now that we were both calmer and obviously a little drunker, ‘is that spirits and ghosts must come from somewhere, and mine was a blasphemous prayer or a dangerous one and out of the darkness Rebecca came.’
“ ‘Now you’re talking sense, my dear boy,’ she responded.
“ ‘Of course, I know that, Aunt Queen. I’ve always known it. I’ll never forget that she urged me to light the lamps. I’ll never be her pawn again. It can’t happen. I’m too wary, too in control of it when I see these creatures, I swear it, but I do have to find out what they did to her, and she alone can tell me, and that will be where she’s strongest—on Sugar Devil Island in that strange house.’
“ ‘To which you will not go, Tarquin, unless Pops goes with you! Do you understand?’
“I didn’t respond, then I spoke my mind: ‘It’s not good for Pops to go out in the swamp right now. Pops isn’t himself. Pops isn’t hale and hearty; Pops hasn’t been eating for days, and the heat out there, and the mosquitoes—no, I can’t take Pops—.’
“ ‘Who then, Tarquin? For as God is my witness, you shall not go alone.’
“ ‘Aunt Queen,’ I said, ‘nothing’s going to stop me from going out there in the morning. I’d go now, if it wasn’t pitch-dark.’
“She leaned across the table. ‘Tarquin, I forbid it,’ she said. ‘Need I remind you that you’ve described a mausoleum made of gold, and signs of habitation in the Hermitage—a desk and a golden chair! Somebody’s using the island. And why, pray tell, if this tomb is made of gold—.’
“ ‘I don’t know all the answers, but I have to go back out there, and don’t you see, I have to have the freedom to invoke this ghost, and to let her speak to me—.’
“ ‘A ghost that seduced you! A ghost that used her charm and sensuality so palpably that you actually lost your virginity with her? Is this what I’m hearing—and you mean to invoke her?’
“ ‘I have to go, Aunt Queen, and frankly, I think you know that if you were me, you would.’
“ ‘I’d speak to Fr. Kevin first, that’s what I’d do and that’s what I want you to do. Now, we’ll call Father in the morning.’
“ ‘Father!’ I scoffed. ‘He just said his first Mass. He’s a kid!’
“And I was exaggerating but I was right that Fr. Kevin Mayfair was young, meaning around thirty-five or so, and though I liked him enormously, I didn’t think of him with the same respect I felt for the old gray-haired priests of the pre–Vatican II days who said Mass with so much more flair.
“She rose from the table in such a little huff that she knocked over her chair backwards and then went striding in her dazzling high heels to her dressing table where she rummaged through her top drawer.
“Then she turned and I saw a rosary swinging in the light. ‘This isn’t blessed, but it will have to do for now,’ she said. ‘I want you to put this around your neck, under your shirt, over your shirt, on your bare chest, I don’t care, but you’re to wear it from now on.’
“I didn’t bother to put up a fight. The rosary was small with perfectly round gold beads, and I didn’t mind having it, though it did disappear under my shirt.
“ ‘Aunt Queen,’ I went on, ‘Fr. Kevin isn’t going to believe all this about Rebecca and her ghost any more than the sheriff will believe it. So why should we call him? After Mass he always laughs when he asks me about Goblin. I think he’s seen me speaking to Goblin in church. No, I know I don’t want to talk to Fr. Kevin. Just forget about that.’
“Aunt Queen was in no mood to give up. She’d told me that first thing in the morning she was heading for her favorite goldsmith in the French Quarter to get a gold crucifix on a chain for me, and then she’d head for the rectory at St. Mary’s Assumption Church to have Fr. Kevin bless the crucifix, and then she would discuss the entire matter with Fr. Kevin and find out what he thought.
“ ‘And meantime,’ she asked, ‘what do we do about these earrings and this cameo brooch?’
“ ‘We’re to save them. We have to. The DNA in this tissue can’t be that degraded. We have to find out if she was the one who really died out there. That’s what Rebecca wants of me; she wants recognition; she wants to be known.’
“ ‘And she wanted you to burn down this house, Quinn.’
“ ‘She’ll never persuade me to do anything like that again,’ I insisted. ‘I’m wise to her.’
“ ‘But you care about what she wants,’ said Aunt Queen, her tongue just a little bit thick from the champagne.
“ ‘It’s justice, Aunt Queen,’ I said. ‘It’s justice that I, a descendant of Manfred, have to carry out. Maybe it won’t amount to much—say, just putting her cameos into the case in the living room with a special card explaining they belonged to a famous love of Manfred Blackwood. Maybe that will allow her spirit to rest. But for now, don’t worry anymore about me. I’ll do what I have to do, and I’ll do what’s best.’
“By that time I had pushed her past all patience, and after two more glasses of champagne I was humoring her, concealing my silent secret schemes.
“I loved her. I love her totally now. But I knew, knew for the first time that I had to deceive her, had in some way to protect her from protecting me.
“Of course I was going out to the island, and of course I was going to invoke Rebecca, but just how and when I wasn’t so sure.”
13
“I woke up very early, dressed in my hunting jeans and vest, and while Big Ramona still slept I sat down at my computer and wrote a letter to this strange invader of Sugar Devil Island, which went, sort of, as follows:
Dear Trespasser,
This communication is from Tarquin Blackwood and is to notify you that my family owns this island and this house, and that you must take your books and your furnishings and leave these premises without further delay.
The family has plans for this island and will be proceeding just as soon as you have vacated the Hermitage.
I
f you have any need to communicate with me, I reside at Blackwood Manor, and will be more than happy to talk with you by letter, by fax, or by phone, or in person—howsoever you desire,
Yours sincerely,
Tarquin Blackwood,
better known as Quinn
“Then, after supplying the relevant numbers for fax and phone, I hit the print button and, making four copies of the eviction notice, signed all of them and folded them and put them into my inside fishing-vest pocket.
“Then, I crept into Pops’ room, and, not finding him thereabouts—he had probably gotten up at five a.m. and was already at work in the flower beds—I took his thirty-eight pistol, made sure it was loaded, put that into my pocket and then, stopping quickly in the kitchen pantry, got a card of thumbtacks, which were always in there, you know, for the family bulletin board, and I headed to the pier.
“Let me add that I also had my rifle, my hunting knife and the kitchen knife, and I thought I was completely ready until I found Jasmine in her bare feet down at the landing by the pirogue, smoking a cigarette.
“ ‘All right, you crazy boy, I know where you’re going, and your Pops says to let you alone. So I put that cooler of drinks for you in the boat. And there’s a couple of sandwiches in there too, wrapped in foil.’
“ ‘Oh, I love you for that,’ I said, and I kissed her, feeling an awareness of her as a woman suddenly, a thing which caught my brain rather like a power surge, and most definitely a surprise. I’ll never forget it, the way that kiss ignited something. And I think I very boastfully squeezed her arm.
“Whatever, I don’t think it ignited anything for her. And as I went to push off, she called out:
“ ‘Tarquin Blackwood, are you an imbecile?’
“ ‘No ma’am,’ I said sarcastically, ‘you expect me to change my mind?’
“ ‘How you’re going to get people to believe what you saw out there if you don’t take pictures of it, genius!’ She reached into her apron pocket and took out a small flash camera—the kind you can buy nowadays anywhere, in which the film is already loaded and ready to go.
“ ‘Oh, thank God you thought of it!’ I said.
“ ‘You can say that prayer again, Little Boss. Don’t forget to press the button for the flash.’
“I wanted to kiss her again, but I was already drifting away.
“As for Goblin, he came after me, vivid and yet transparent, pleading with me not to go, saying, ‘Bad, Quinn, bad,’ over and over, and once again I told him in polite terms to leave me alone. He vanished then, but I suspect he was with me as I went on.
“In fact, I figured that he had to be; because where else could Goblin go? I was thinking a lot of late as to where Goblin was and where Goblin wasn’t, and I was more than impatient with him, as I’ve said.
“Back to the swamp:
“There was a mist crawling over the water, and at first the swamp looked inviting and beautiful, harmonious and embracing—the stuff of poetry and photograph captions—but within a very short time it was the evil bog of mosquitoes and chain-girded cypress trees with arrows carved into their bark. The rustling of creatures in the dark waters and the sight of more than one alligator gave me the creeps.
“The dizziness returned, which alarmed me considerably, and the voices came once more, too low for me to really understand what they said. What was I overhearing? Did these ghosts quarrel with each other forever? Is that what Rebecca had meant when she said things don’t move in a straight line?
“You can’t do it, you have to let me go.…
“Why wasn’t this ghostly discourse loud enough for me to be sure of every word?
“ ‘I’m coming, Rebecca,’ I said aloud. ‘You be straight with me, now, Rebecca. I know your tricks, and yet I’m coming. You be straight.’
“On and on I went through this dense green hell of tormented gray trees and anguished vines, of rattling leaf and fetid water, feeling ever fainter and probing deeply with the pole and propelling myself forward as fast as I could.
“I’m begging you, God help me.…
“I knew it was Rebecca crying, Rebecca pleading, but with whom? Then came the inevitable sinister laughter and a man’s voice speaking rapidly and angrily. Was it Manfred?
“A gator shot past me, his big slimy back visible for only a moment, and the pirogue rocked dangerously and then righted itself clumsily and on I went. I trembled, thinking about the gator, and I hated myself for it. I went on.
“Each time the dizziness came over me really heavily I slowed my pace, for fear of falling, and the high green thick of the swamp swallowed me treacherously, as I tried to make out what was being said:… Loved you, always loved you, you promised, in Naples, forever, in the ruins … And there came the deep voice, and the laughter rippling through it all.
“Were there three of them? Were there more?
“At last the weathered hulk of the Hermitage loomed in front of me, and the pirogue struck the bank amid the wild blackberries, and I was nearly knocked out of the boat. I quickly secured it to the nearest tree—a thing I had not done last time—laid the pole in it in intelligent fashion and then proceeded to explore the island once more.
“There had been gators on the island. I heard the plash as they went back into the swamp. What was I going to do if I encountered a mean gator? Well, it had never happened, and maybe it never would. I had no real fear of them, because they aren’t generally vicious and they don’t want trouble; nevertheless, this was the first time I had been in their august company without Pops or another man to take command.
“I stood listening. I could hear nothing but the mournful, broken cry of the birds. And that humming, that humming of bees and mosquitoes which I connected to the slime of sweat that now covered my skin.
“The house looked as empty as it had before. But that didn’t mean a whole lot.
“Nevertheless, the mausoleum—or whatever it was—drew me, and I went back to it, studying it more carefully than I had the first time.
“No door of any kind, of that I was certain. So what in the name of God did it contain?
“As for the procession of figures graven in the gold, I was certain now they were Roman and that they were grieving; that the women were weeping and the men hammering on their foreheads with clenched fists.
“On an end panel which contained only a trio of weeping children there appeared some background engraving on a different plane from the figures—details that I hadn’t noticed before at all.
“With my fingers I traced in one corner the image of a mountain, and the mountain had a high cone and was erupting, and above it streamed right and left a great heavy cloud. Far to the right, and somewhat below the position of the mountain, was the image of a small walled city, drawn in tiny detail, and it seemed more than obvious that the evil cloud from the erupting mountain was a threat to the little town.
“ ‘Volcano. Ancient Rome. A city. People in mourning.’ It had to be Mount Vesuvius, this mountain, and the city had to be the fabled city of Pompeii.
“Even I who had traveled almost nowhere in my life knew the full story of the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79 and how it had buried Herculaneum and Pompeii. Only in the eighteenth century had they been officially rediscovered, and if there was anywhere I wanted to travel—outside of Ruby River Parish—it was to the ruins of Pompeii.
“The tragedy of those buried cities had always enthralled me and sometimes in a painful way. Years ago I’d seen photographs of plaster casts made of those poor Romans struggling to escape the cinder rain falling on Pompeii and they had made me cry.
“Of course Pompeii and Herculaneum were on the Bay of Naples, and Manfred had taken Rebecca to Naples. Vesuvius loomed over Naples, and Rebecca had cried, ‘Remember Naples’ when Manfred had been beating her, when he had carried her or dragged her out of the house.
“Again, the dizziness came and there rose the simmer of voices. I tipped forward until my forehead touched the gold carving. I was aware of the
perfume of flowers. Was that wisteria? My senses were scrambled. I was dry-mouthed and sweating. And I heard Rebecca sobbing, What they did to me, Quinn, what they did.
“With a supreme act of will, I threw off the dizziness. I was on my knees. And as I looked up I realized there was an inscription running in a band along the top of the gold plates, just beneath the granite roof of the tomb, an inscription I hadn’t seen for the glare of the vagrant sun on the gold.
“I went round the mausoleum twice. The words were in Latin, and I couldn’t translate, but I could pick out the name Petronia, and the words for sleep and for death.
“I cursed myself that I didn’t have any paper with me, except my letters to the trespasser, so that I could copy this down. Then I realized I had four copies of my letter, for posting in four places, and all I needed to do was sacrifice one copy. So, taking out my pen, I scribbled down the entire inscription, circling the monument twice to make sure I had the words correct.
“By now I was thirsting and I went back to the pirogue, picked up the small plastic cooler that Jasmine had packed for me and went up the stairs into the house.
“All was the same as I had found it yesterday. I crept up the staircase and stared again at the iron chains. I noted with a faint twinge of horror that the fifth chain with the hook was somewhat shorter than the other chains but I didn’t know what it meant. There were hooks in the wall also. I hadn’t noticed those before either, and in the morass of blackish tarlike substance I thought I saw more of the shape of human bones.
“I took out the camera, and with trembling hands I snapped two pictures, and then I backed up and took a couple more. What would it show? I wasn’t certain. All I could do was snap another two close-ups and hope that someone believed in what I saw.
“I knelt down and I touched what looked like the remnants of human hair. A jarring chill ran through me, and I heard the dreamlike laughter again, and then a scream that was so guttural it was almost a groan. It came again, a cry of pure agony, and I drew back, absolutely unable to come close again to the remains.