by Rice, Anne
“ ‘So you think of me as a woman,’ she said to me now. ‘Forgive me for reading your mind, it’s a trait I can’t seem to keep in harness. Once one is blessed with such a gift it runs rampant.’
“ ‘Really,’ said Aunt Queen, ‘you mean it’s quite spontaneous? You simply hear people’s thoughts.’
“ ‘Some people more than others,’ she said. ‘Quinn’s thoughts come rather glaringly clear to me. And what a brilliant young man you are.’
“ ‘So people tell me,’ I said. ‘And how is it that the mausoleum on Sugar Devil Island bears your name?’
“ ‘It’s the name of Petronia’s great-great-grandmother, Quinn,’ said Aunt Queen, obviously trying to take the sharp edge off my foray into the conversation. ‘We’ve been talking about this very person, and about the subject of reincarnation. Petronia is a great believer in it, and that it happens over and over in her family, and of a time in ancient Pompeii, she has strange dreams.’
“A terrible sense of foreboding came over me. Ancient Pompeii.
“Goblin was squeezing my hand. The mysterious stranger was looking at me, and I could have sworn I saw Mount Vesuvius above the city as it roared and belched its fatal cloud Heavenward, pitching the city into panic far below. People ran screaming through the narrow streets. The earth moved. The cloud covered the sky. I saw it. Petronia was staring at me. We were there and we were here. Aunt Queen was talking. The rain of ash became a torrent.
“I was dizzy. Yes, dizzy, the fatal symptom.
“ ‘What are your strange dreams of ancient Pompeii?’ asked Nash in his wonderful deep voice.
“ ‘Oh, they’re truly tragic,’ came her low voice in response. ‘I see myself a slave girl in those times, a worker of cameos, the chief among a shop of such craftsmen, and my master has warned us all of the coming eruption, and I run through the streets trying to warn the citizens. Get out of the city. The mountain will bring disaster. But they don’t believe. They don’t heed.’
“I could see it as she spoke. I could see her, with her long full black hair, yet in a male’s tunic, running through the narrow stone streets, banging on doors, grabbing people by the shoulders. ‘Get out, get out now. The mountain’s erupting. It will destroy the city. There’s no time left.’
“I could see the buildings close around her, a little city of plastered walls, and she such a curious tall monstrous beauty. And no one listening. And finally, she took the slaves from their workbench. No. I didn’t just see it. I was there!
“Into sacks they put the cameos. ‘No time for that!’ she said. ‘Run!’ We were all of us—slaves, free men, women screaming, children—running towards the shore. The roar of the mountain was monstrous and deafening. I saw the black cloud spread out over the sky. The day vanished. The night descended. We had climbed into a boat, and we were rowed out fast over the choppy waters of the bay. Crowded boats surrounded us. Again came the voice of the mountain. And then the flicker of fire in the darkness. Pompeii was soon to die.
“She sat in the boat. I was with her. She was crying. Huge rocks were rolling down the mountain. People were running from the huge rocks. Chaos on the heaving shores. The earth shook beneath those who tried to flee in their chariots. She wouldn’t stop sobbing. The other cameo makers looked back in pure fascination. The rain of ash came down upon the city, upon the water. The waters of the bay were black. Boats were rocking. Boats were capsizing. The rowers went faster. We were moving out of the zone of danger. We were crossing the bay to safety. But the horror hovered over us. The mountain bellowed and spewed its deadly poisons. In the boat I held her trembling hand. She sobbed, she sobbed for those who wouldn’t listen, who wouldn’t run when she told them; she sobbed for the lost cameos, the lost treasures. She sobbed for the city fast disappearing in an evil mist of ashes and smoke.
“ ‘I’m not there!’ I told myself. I tried to move my lips and speak aloud, tried to push against this vision, tried to come back from it, tried to know where I was, yet I didn’t want to leave her sobbing in the boat, and all around were the other boats and people wailing and crying and shouting and pointing. My eyes were burning. And the night covered the day, as if forever, and without hope.
“Then came the electric shock of Goblin’s hand. He had slipped his fingers into my left hand as he so often did, and I opened my eyes. I looked at her, and I saw her and heard her low voice running on like a low brook as she spoke to Aunt Queen.
“ ‘These strange dreams,’ she said, ‘they lead me to believe I once lived there, knew the people, suffered, died. I was as I am now, part male, part female; I loved nothing so much as making cameos. I was committed to it with a fascination that was total. I don’t know how those who have no fascination live.’
“My heart beat wildly inside of me, but I couldn’t shake the dizziness. I looked at Nash. I saw that his eyes were filmed over. Even Aunt Queen appeared dazed and wide-eyed as she stared at this being, this tall big-breasted creature with her raiment of long black hair.
“I shuddered. I would shake off this languor, this spell. I wouldn’t be imprisoned by it, no. I did the most impulsive thing. I reached out, with Goblin’s hand tucked over mine, and I motioned to clasp the hand of Petronia, and she, seeing this, accepted my hand and then pulled her hand back sharply, as sharply as if she’d been stung by a bee, all from Goblin’s touch.
“I heard Goblin’s secret laughter. ‘Evil, Quinn,’ he said to me. ‘Evil!’
“Petronia’s eyes searched for him but couldn’t see him.
“I glanced at Goblin and saw him fully realized and saw him afraid. And then he said to me words that explained everything and nothing.
“ ‘Not alive.’
“What I had felt was even more baffling—a spirit thing like Goblin, electric, powerful, ready to form a current through Goblin to me. I couldn’t grasp the principles of it really. But it was supercharged and terrifying. And the rage came back to me. How dare this being play with me? How dare he play with us all?
“Meantime, her voice was moving on in a hushed manner: ‘And so I took up the art of making them because I loved them, and knowing of your love, I had to bring these few to you to keep with your others. It’s been a long time since I visited the island, and of course the story came down to me of how my great-great-grandmother had wanted to be buried there, though it never did come to pass.’
“ ‘No, it never did, did it?’ I said. ‘And last night you caught me outside in a choke hold and you told me what you wanted done with the Hermitage, didn’t you? And before that, you broke into my very room and dragged me from my bed!’
“I stood up, comfortably towering over her, as she looked up at me, smiling.
“ ‘I saw you dump those bodies,’ I said. ‘I know you did it. And you come here to be received by the person dearest to me in all the world!’
“ ‘Quinn, darling,’ cried Aunt Queen, ‘have you lost your mind!’
“ ‘Aunt Queen, this is the very person! I tell you this is the mysterious stranger. This is the one!’
“Nash was on his feet too and attempting to take me by the shoulders and turn me aside, and very slowly Petronia rose to her full height of over six feet, and with every inch over six feet grew out of femininity and into manhood, looking at me quietly with a gloating satisfaction in her pretty smile.
“Aunt Queen was frantic.
“Nash was begging me to be quiet.
“ ‘Deny it, I dare you,’ I said. ‘Say you didn’t come into my very room and drag me from my bed.’
“ ‘Mrs. McQueen,’ he answered. ‘I did not come into this house at any time before tonight.’
“ ‘ “My honored Lord, you know right well you did,” ’ I flashed on him from Ophelia in Hamlet. ‘You came into my room. You accosted me outside. You made threats. You know you did. You come here to torment me. That has to be the reason. You play with me. It’s a game that amuses you. It began with those bodies, dumped in the moonlight, when you knew I stood on the isl
and and saw you there.’
“ ‘Quinn, silence!’ Aunt Queen declared. Never had I heard such a cry from her, such a total command. ‘I won’t have it,’ she said. She was shaking.
“ ‘Let me take my leave quietly,’ said Petronia. She took Aunt Queen’s hand.
“ ‘I am so sorry,’ Aunt Queen said. ‘So dreadfully, dreadfully sorry.’
“ ‘You’ve been very gracious to me,’ she said in the same feminized voice. ‘I’ll never forget it.’
“He turned his pretty face to me, and I saw the woman in him, and then he was gone, with straight shoulders and big long strides, gorgeous hair flying, and I heard the heavy vibration of the big front door.
“All those around me were shocked. Cindy, the nurse, was full of concern. Nash didn’t know what he should do or for whom to do it. And I sat down, knowing I was drunk and that I was going to be sick, and Aunt Queen stared at me with blazing anger and disappointment in her eyes. Jasmine was shaking her head.
“Finally, sinking down into her armchair, Aunt Queen spoke:
“ ‘Do you honestly expect anyone to believe the things you are saying?’
“ ‘It’s all true,’ I said. ‘How in the world could you believe her instead of me? What did she tell you—that she was man and woman, so much of each that she was neither one? You believe that? And that she believes in reincarnation? You believe that? That she made the cameos she gave you? You believe that? And that the mausoleum on the island was made for her great-great-grandmother. You believe that? I’m telling you, she came at me. Or he came to me. And he has the strength of a man, that I can vouch for. And he does read minds and that’s dangerous. And all the rest I’ve said—all along—is true.’
“Aunt Queen couldn’t look at me. Cindy brought her a hot toddy. It sort of sat there in the cup. Aunt Queen asked:
“ ‘Where were you tonight?’
“ ‘I had dinner with the Mayfairs,’ I said. ‘I went over at two p.m.’ I stopped. But what was the point of holding back? I had to tell Aunt Queen everything, didn’t I? She had to know the full measure of what I felt. And so I blurted it out:
“ ‘I saw a ghost while I was there. I spoke with him. I talked with him for twenty minutes or more without knowing he was a ghost. It was the ghost of Julien Mayfair, and he told me he had conjugal knowledge of Grandfather William’s wife, and I’m descended from him.’
“Aunt Queen sighed. ‘You are stark raving mad.’
“ ‘Not raving,’ I said. ‘I became a bit heated, yes, at the effrontery of that creature, but not raving, not really raving. That’s a far worse state, wouldn’t you say?’
“ ‘What do I do?’ she asked.
“ ‘Let me call Stirling Oliver. Maybe he can vouch for my sanity. He sees Goblin. He was at dinner tonight. I must see him and talk to him. I must tell him my feelings as regards that creature! I must talk to him. I don’t feel safe. I don’t feel anyone is safe from that creature. He’ll help you to understand.’
“ ‘And you think I’m the one,’ she asked, ‘who needs the understanding?’
“ ‘I don’t know, Aunt Queen. I want to kill that creature, that’s all I can say. And there’s something very vile and awful about the being. It isn’t merely that it’s a hermaphrodite, that I could well endure and find fascinating. It’s something else. Goblin senses it. Goblin calls it evil. I tell you the creature frightens me. You must understand, at least that I believe what I’m saying even if you do not.’
“She wouldn’t look at me.
“I went into the bathroom. I was sick. After a while I was able to drink a paper cup of water. And then I came out. They were all there, in the same state of shock as when I left them. I apologized to everyone.
“ ‘But you have to see it,’ I said, ‘from my point of view. You have to understand what my experience of this creature was. And then I come home and find him with my Aunt Queen.’
“Nash made the kind suggestion that perhaps I ought to go to bed. I looked very tired indeed. I agreed to it immediately, but I couldn’t let it go without stating that the stranger, alias Petronia, was no great respecter of my being in or out of bed.
“But when I bent down to kiss Aunt Queen, she was loving to me, and I was as tender with her as ever, and I told her that I had really told the truth.
“ ‘We will call Mr. Oliver,’ she said. ‘We’ll ask him to come here tomorrow. And we’ll talk to him. How would that be?’
“ ‘I love you so much,’ I whispered. ‘And there’s so much I want to tell you about Mona.’
“ ‘Tomorrow, my darling,’ she said.
“I could hardly drag myself up the stairs. And as soon as I had the comfort of the soft flannel nightshirt I was dreaming of Mona, with my arm around Big Ramona, and thoughts of talking to Nash running randomly through my mind. Every now and then I’d wake with a start, fearing Petronia was on me, strange evil Petronia, bent on hurting me, bent on destroying me, but it was only drunken imagination and finally I went into a deep comforting sleep.”
33
“It was about nine a.m. when I called Stirling, and, unable to contain myself, spilled out all of the story of recent events, as I invited him to dinner to discuss them in greater detail. Perhaps I wanted him to know this was a loaded invitation. I thought it only fair.
“He surprised me. He insisted that we meet for lunch. He asked if it wouldn’t be too inconvenient if we gathered at twelve noon. I went down to see Aunt Queen immediately. And finding her already awake, sitting up in her chaise lounge, watching a movie, saying her Rosary and eating strawberry ice cream, I was happy to have her agreement to lunch right away.
“Would Stirling come to Blackwood Manor? Of course.
“As Blackwood Manor was booked solid, we set up the small table in Aunt Queen’s room, and her bed was dressed in its finest satin along with a broad collection of her red-cheeked boudoir dolls, all got up in the flapper attire that Aunt Queen herself so much adored.
“Stirling arrived promptly at five minutes before twelve, though his flowers, a huge vase of pink roses, arrived before him, and we gathered in Aunt Queen’s room for Jasmine’s finest veal scallopini and pasta and white wine. Nash, who offered several times to absent himself, joined us, and to my amazement Aunt Queen started right in with the ‘strange tale’ of Petronia and how she or he—it varied during the story because at times Aunt Queen had seen Petronia differently—had arrived at Blackwood Manor with the gift of the cameos, which were then produced for Stirling’s inspection.
“Now this was the first time that I had seen these priceless pieces myself, and priceless they were. Because they were not cameos in the sense that we think of them, that is, ornaments carved from contrasting strata of shell or stone. They were portraits carved from gems, and in this case the gems were large amethysts and emeralds of Brazilian origin, and whereas amethysts are no longer very expensive gems, due to the discovery of such a supply of them in the New World, emeralds are expensive. And the carving of these small heads, each obviously of a particular Roman deity, was excellent if not absolutely magnificent.
“They were four in number, these gifts, and Aunt Queen had of course been incredibly grateful for this tribute, and then I had come home and pitched the gathering into confusion, as she was sure I was willing to explain.
“I did explain. I started at the beginning. I explained everything. I ate veal and pasta and guzzled white wine, forgetting to blot my lips before drinking and thereby going through two and three wineglasses before remembering, but I was passionately pouring out my tale, beginning with Rebecca and her visions and how they had driven me to the island, and what I had seen there in the moonlight, and how things had spun out from there, and how in a rage I had burnt the trespasser’s books, and how he or she had come at me, and on it went. I left out nothing.
“Jasmine brought plate after plate of veal and pasta for me. I was happy to devour it.
“ ‘So there you see it,’ I said. ‘And then you have Go
blin saying “Evil, Quinn,” in my ear, and then that shock when I take Petronia’s hand, that feeling of something like electricity that reaches out for Goblin and travels through Goblin to me! And this thing, this being, this creature, this interloper who threatens me, he can’t see Goblin but he knows that Goblin is there. He knows Goblin can send showering glass at him, and for all his speed and strength, he doesn’t want to be cut.’
“At last I came to a halt. I knew Aunt Queen and Nash were watching me. I knew they were watching Stirling as well.
“ ‘No,’ said Stirling quietly. He had finished his meal in spite of many many pauses in which he had stared at me with rapt attention. ‘It doesn’t want to be cut.’
“ ‘Do you say “it,” on account of her ambiguous sexuality?’ asked Nash politely. There was some subtle tension between Nash and Stirling. I couldn’t figure it.
“ ‘No, I don’t think so,’ said Stirling. ‘I hope not. But who knows? Let me say, she does not want to be cut.’
“ ‘Do you believe my nephew?’ Aunt Queen asked. ‘Does all of this make any sense to you?’ She was very kind in her tone. She sat to my right and pressed my shoulder softly as she spoke. ‘My nephew is prepared for what you have to say.’
“ ‘Yes, I am prepared,’ I said. ‘I know you to be a frank and truthful person. Michael and Rowan respect you. Mona respects you. I know what I see in you. Tell me what you believe.’
“ ‘Very well,’ said Stirling. He took another swallow of his wine and set the glass aside. ‘Let me advise you first as if you were my son. Go away now. Take the trip with your Aunt Queen that she wants you to take. No, don’t be upset with me. Let me explain. Mona Mayfair is sick. But she may get sicker. The time to leave Mona is now. You will obviously write to her, call her, stay in touch with her. And when and if she takes the turn for the worse, perhaps with your aunt’s permission you can come home.’
“ ‘Oh, absolutely,’ said Aunt Queen. ‘I think that’s a very sensible way of looking at it, and we can ascertain from Dr. Winn Mayfair whether or not he agrees. We can talk to Dr. Rowan Mayfair. And of course, Quinn, you’ll speak to Mona herself.’