Merrick

BY THE WATCHERS

AND PASSED DOWN TO HIS ONLY SON,

Mesran

Carefully lifting this page, which was bound as all the others were by three different ties of leather thong, Merrick revealed the first of many pages of magic spells, written in faded but clearly visible and very crowded Latin script. It was as old a book of magic as I have ever beheld, and of course its claim—the claim of its title page—was to the very earliest of all black magic ever known since the time of The Flood.

Indeed, I was more than familiar with the legends surrounding Noah, and his son, Ham, and the even earlier tale, that the Watcher Angels had taught magic to the Daughters of Men when they lay with them, as Genesis so states. Even the angel Memnoch, the seducer of Lestat, had revealed a version of this tale in his own fashion, that is, of being seduced during his earthly wanderings by a Daughter of Man. But of course I knew nothing of Memnoch back then. I wanted to be alone with this book! I wanted to read every syllable of it. I wanted to have our experts test its paper, its ink, as well as peruse its style.

It will come as no surprise to most readers of my narrative that people exist who can tell the age of such a book at a glance. I was not one such person, but I believed firmly that what I held had been copied out in some monastery somewhere in Christendom, somewhere before William the Conqueror had ever come to the English shores. To put it more simply, the book was probably eighth or ninth century. And as I leant over to read the opening page I saw that it claimed to be a "faithful copy" of a much earlier text that had come down, of course, from Noah's son, Ham, himself.

There were so many rich legends surrounding these names. But the marvelous thing was that this text belonged to Merrick and that she was revealing it to us.

"This is my book," she said again. "And I know how to work the charms and spells in it. I know them all."

"But who taught you to read it?" I asked, unable to conceal my enthusiasm.

"Matthew," she answered, "the man who took me and Cold Sandra to South America. He was so excited when he saw this book, and the others. Of course I could already read it a little, and Great Nananne could read every word. Matthew was the best of the men my mother ever brought home. Things were safe and cheerful when Matthew was with us. But we can't talk about these matters now. You have to let me keep my book."

"Amen, you shall," said Aaron quickly. I think he was afraid that I meant to spirit away the text but nothing of the sort was true. I wanted time with it, yes, but only when the child would permit.

As for Merrick's mention of her mother, I had been more than curious. In fact, I felt we should question her on that point immediately, but Aaron shook his head sternly when I started to inquire.

"Come on, let's us go back now," said Merrick. "The body will be laid out." Leaving the precious book in Merrick's upstairs bedroom, back we went to the city of dreams once more. The body had been brought back in a dove-gray casket lined in satin, and set upon a portable bier in the grim front parlor which I described before. By the light of numerous candles—the overhead chandelier was naked and harsh and therefore turned off—the room was almost beautiful, and Great Nananne was now dressed in a fine gown of white silk with tiny pink roses stitched to the collar, a favorite from her own chifforobe.

A beautiful rosary of crystal beads was wound around her clasped fingers, and above her head, against the satin of the lid of the coffin, there hung a gold crucifix. A prie-dieu of red velvet, furnished no doubt by the undertaker, stood beside the coffin, and many came up to kneel there, to make the Sign of the Cross, and to pray. Once again there came hordes of people, and indeed they did tend to break into groups according to race, just as if someone had commanded them to do so, the light of skin clumping together, as well as whites clumped with whites, and blacks with blacks.

Since this time I have seen many situations in the city of New Orleans in which people self-segregate according to color in a most marked way. But then, I didn't know the city. I knew only that the monstrous injustice of Legal Segregation no longer existed, and I marveled at the way color seemed to dominate the separation in this group. On tenterhooks, Aaron and I waited to be questioned about Merrick, and what was to happen to her, but no one spoke a single word. Indeed, people merely embraced Merrick, kissed her and whispered to her, and then went their way. Once more there was a bowl, and money was put in it, but for what I did not know. Probably for Merrick, because surely people knew she had no mother or father there.

Only as we prepared to go to sleep on cots in a rear room (the body would remain exposed all night), which was totally unfurnished otherwise, did Merrick bring in the priest to speak to us, saying to him in very good and rapid French that we were her uncles and she would live with us.

"So that is the story," I thought. We were uncles of Merrick. Merrick was definitely going away to school.

"It's exactly what I meant to recommend to her," said Aaron. "I wonder how she knew it. I thought she would quarrel with me about such a change."

I didn't know what I thought. This sober, serious, and beautiful child disturbed me and attracted me. The whole spectacle made me doubt my mind.

That night, we slept only fitfully. The cots were uncomfortable, the empty room was hot, and people were going and coming and forever whispering in the hall.

Many times I went into the parlor to find Merrick dozing quietly in her chair. The old priest himself went to sleep sometime near morning. I could see out the back door into a yard shrouded in shadow where distant candles or lamps flickered wildly. It was disturbing. I fell asleep while there were still a few stars in the sky. At last, there came the morning, and it was time for the funeral service to begin. The priest appeared in the proper vestments, and with his altar boy, and intoned the prayers which the entire crowd seemed to know. The English language service, for that is what it was, was no less awe inspiring than the old Latin Rite, which had been cast aside. The coffin was closed.

Merrick began to shake all over and then to sob. It was a dreadful thing to behold. She had pushed away her straw hat, and her head was bare. She began to sob louder and louder. Several well-dressed women of color gathered around her and escorted her down the front steps. They rubbed her arms vigorously and wiped her forehead. Her sobs came like hiccups. The women cooed to her and kissed her. At one point Merrick let out a scream.

To see this composed little girl now near hysterics wrenched my heart.

They all but carried her to the funeral service limousine. The coffin came behind her, accompanied by solemn pallbearers to the hearse, and then off to the cemetery we rode, Aaron and I in the Talamasca car, uncomfortably separated from Merrick but resigned that it was for the best.

The sorrowful theatricality was not diminished as the rain came steadily down upon us, and the body of Great Nananne was carried through the wildly overgrown path of St. Louis No. 1 amid high marble tombs with pointed roofs, to be placed in an oven-like vault of a three-story grave.

The mosquitoes were almost unbearable. The weeds seemed alive with invisible insects, and Merrick, at the sight of the coffin being put in its place, screamed again.

Once more the genteel women rubbed her arms and wiped her head, and kissed her cheeks. Then Merrick let out a terrible cry in French.

"Where are you, Cold Sandra, where are you, Honey in the Sunshine? Why didn't you come home!" There were rosary beads aplenty, and people praying aloud, as Merrick leant against the grave, with her right hand on the exposed coffin.

Finally, having spent herself for the moment, she grew quiet and turned and moved decisively, with the help of the women, towards Aaron and me. As the women patted her, she threw her arms around Aaron and buried her head in his neck.

I could see nothing of the young woman in her now. I felt utter compassion for her. I felt the Talamasca must embrace her with every conceivable element of fantasy that she should ever desire.

The priest meanwhile insisted the cemetery attendants bolt the stone into place NOW, which caused some argument, but eventually this did happen, the stone thereby sealing up the little grave slot and the coffin now officially removed from touch or view.

I remember taking out my handkerchief and wiping my eyes.

Aaron stroked Merrick's long brown hair and told her in French that Great Nananne had lived a marvelous and long life, and that her one deathbed wish—that Merrick be safe—had been fulfilled.

Merrick lifted her head and uttered only one sentence. "Cold Sandra should have come." I remember it because when she said it several of the onlookers shook their heads and exchanged condemnatory glances with one another. I felt rather helpless. I studied the faces of the men and women around me. I saw some of the blackest people of African blood I have ever beheld in America, and some of the lightest as well. I saw people of extraordinary beauty and others who were merely simple. Almost no one was ordinary, as we understand that word. It seemed quite impossible to guess the lineage or racial history of anyone I saw.

But none of these people were close to Merrick. Except for Aaron and for me, she was basically alone. The well-dressed genteel women had done their duty, but they really did not know her. That was plain. And they were happy for her that she had two rich uncles who were there to take her away.

As for the "white Mayfairs" whom Aaron had spotted yesterday, none had appeared. This was "great luck," according to Aaron. If they had known a Mayfair child was friendless in the wide world, they would have insisted upon filling the need. Indeed, I realize now, they had not been at the wake, either. They had done their duty, Merrick had told them something satisfactory, and they had gone their way.

Now it was back towards the old house.

A truck from Oak Haven was already waiting for the transport of Merrick's possessions. Merrick had no intention of leaving her aunt's dwelling without everything that was hers.

Sometime or other before we reached the house, Merrick stopped crying, and a somber expression settled over her features which I have seen many times.

"Cold Sandra doesn't know," she said suddenly without preamble. The car moved sluggishly through the soft rain. "If she knew, she would have come."

"She is your mother?" Aaron asked reverently.

Merrick nodded. "That whats she always said," she answered, and she broke into a fairly playful smile. She shook her head and looked out the car window. "Oh, don't you worry about it, Mr. Lightner," she said. "Cold Sandra didn't really leave me. She went off and just didn't come back."

That seemed to make perfect sense at the moment, perhaps only because I wanted it to make sense, so that Merrick would not be deeply hurt by some more commanding truth.

"When was the last time you saw her?" Aaron ventured.

"When I was ten years old and we came back from South America. When Matthew was still alive. You have to understand Cold Sandra. She was the only one of twelve children who didn't pass."

"Didn't pass?" asked Aaron.

"For white," I said before I could stop myself.

Once again, Merrick smiled.

"Ah, I see," said Aaron.

"She's beautiful," said Merrick, "no one could ever say she wasn't, and she could fix any man she wanted. They never got away."

"Fix?" asked Aaron.

"To fix with a spell," I said under my breath.

Again, Merrick smiled at me.

"Ah, I see," said Aaron again.

"My grandfather, when he saw how tan my mother was, he said that wasn't his child, and my grandmother, she came and dumped Cold Sandra on Great Nananne's doorstep. Her sisters and brothers, they all married white people. 'Course my grandfather was a white man too. Chicago is where they are all are. That man who was Cold Sandra's father, he owned a jazz club up in Chicago. When people like Chicago and New York, they don't want to stay down here anymore. Myself, I didn't like either one."

"You mean you've traveled there?" I asked.

"Oh, yes, I went with Cold Sandra," she said. " 'Course we didn't see those white people. But we did look them up in the book. Cold Sandra wanted to set eyes on her mother, she said, but not to talk to her. And who knows, maybe she did her bad magic. She might have done that to all of them. Cold Sandra was so afraid of flying to Chicago, but she was more afraid of driving up there too. And drowning? She had nightmares about drowning. She wouldn't drive across the Causeway for anything in this world. Afraid of the lake like it was going to get her. She was so afraid of so many things." She broke off. Her face went blank. Then, with a small touch of a frown, she went on:

"I don't remember liking Chicago very much. New York had no trees that I ever saw. I couldn't wait to come back home. Cold Sandra, she loved New Orleans too. She always came back, until the last time."

"Was she a smart woman, your mother?" I asked. "Was she bright the way you are?" This gave her pause for thought.

"She's got no education," said Merrick. "She doesn't read books. I myself, I like to read. When you read you can learn things, you know. I read old magazines that people left lying around. One time I got stacks and stacks of Time magazine from some old house they were tearing down. I read everything I could in those magazines, I mean every one of them; I read about art and science and books and music and politics and every single thing till those magazines were falling apart. I read books from the library, from the grocery store racks; I read the newspaper. I read old prayer books. I've read books of magic. I have many books of magic that I haven't even showed you yet."

She gave a little shrug with her shoulders, looking small and weary but still the child in her puzzlement of all that had happened.

"Cold Sandra wouldn't read anything," she said. "You'd never see Cold Sandra watching the six o'clock news. Great Nananne sent her to the nuns, she always said, but Cold Sandra misbehaved and they were always sending her home. Besides, Cold Sandra was plenty light enough to not like dark people herself, you know. You'd think she knew better, with her own father dumping her, but she did not. Fact is she was the color of an almond, if you see the picture. But she had those light yellow eyes, and that's a dead giveaway, those yellow eyes. She hated it when they started calling her Cold Sandra too."

"How did the nickname come about?" I asked. "Did the children start it?''

We had almost reached our destination. I remember there was so much more I wanted to know about this strange society, so alien to what I knew. At that moment, I felt that my opportunities in Brazil had been largely wasted. The old woman's words had stung me to the heart.

"No, it started right in our house," said Merrick. "That's the worst kind of nickname, I figure. When the neighbors and the children heard it, they said 'Your own Nananne calls you Cold Sandra.' But it stuck on account of the things she did. She used all the magic to fix people, like I said. She put the Evil Eye on people. I saw her skin a black cat once and I never want to see that again."

I must have flinched because a tiny smile settled on her lips for a moment. Then she went on.

"By the time I was six years old, she started calling herself Cold Sandra. She'd say to me, 'Merrick, you come here to Cold Sandra.' I'd jump in her lap."

There was a slight break in her voice as she continued.

"She was nothing like Great Nananne," Merrick said. "And she smoked all the time and she drank, and she was always restless, and when she drank she was mean. When Cold Sandra came home after being gone for a long time, Great Nananne would say, 'What's in your cold heart this time, Cold Sandra? What lies are you going to tell?'

"Great Nananne used to say there was no time for black magic in this world. You could do all you had to do with good magic. Then Matthew came, and Cold Sandra was the happiest she'd ever been."

"Matthew," I said coaxingly, "the man who gave you the parchment book."

"He didn't give me that book, Mr. Talbot, he taught me to read it," she answered. "That book we already had. That book came from Great-Oncle Vervain, who was a terrible Voodoo Man. They called him Dr. Vervain from one end of the city to the other. Everybody wanted his spells. That old man gave me lots of things before he passed on. He was Great Nananne's older brother. He was the first person I ever saw just up and die. He was sitting at the dining room table with the newspaper in his hand."

I had more questions on the tip of my tongue.

In all of this long unfolding tale there had been no mention of that other name which Great Nananne had uttered: Honey in the Sunshine.

But we had arrived at the old house. The afternoon sun was quite strong but the rain had thinned away.

8

I WAS SURPRISED to see so many people standing about. Indeed they were everywhere, and a very subdued but attentive lot. I observed at once that not one, but two small paneled trucks had come from the Motherhouse, and that there stood guard a small group of Talamasca acolytes, ready to pack up the house.

I greeted these youngsters of the Order, thanking them in advance for their care and discretion, and told them to wait quietly until they were given the signal to begin their work.

As we went up the stairs and walked through the house, I saw, where the windows permitted me to see anything, that people were loitering in the alleyways, and as we came into the backyard, I noticed many persons gathered far off to the right and to the left beyond the heavy growth of the low-limbed oaks. I could see no fences anywhere. And I do not believe there were any at that time.

All was dimness beneath a canopy of luxuriant leaf, and we were surrounded by the sound of softly dripping water. Wild red hyacinth grew where the sun could penetrate the precious gloom. I saw thin yew trees, the species so sacred to the dead and to the magician. And I saw many lilies lost in the choking grass. It could not have been more lulling and dreamy had it been a purposeful Japanese garden.

As my eyes became accustomed to the light, I realized that we were standing on a flagstone patio of sorts, punctuated by several twisted yet flowering trees, and much cracked and overwhelmed by slippery shining moss. Before us stood a huge open shed with a central pillar holding its corrugated tin roof.

The pillar was brightly painted red to the midpoint and green to the top, and it rose from a huge altar stone quite appropriately heavily stained. Beyond in the darkness stood the inevitable altar, with saints even more numerous and magnificent than those in Great Nananne's bedroom.

There were banks upon banks of lighted candles.

It was, I knew from my studies, a common Voodoo configurationthe central pillar and the stone. One could find it all over the island of Haiti. And this weedy flagstone spot was what a Haitian Voodoo doctor might have called his peristyle. Cast to the side, among the close and straggling yew trees, I saw two iron tables, small and rectangular in shape, and a large pot or cauldron, as I suppose it is properly called, resting upon a brazier with tripod legs. The cauldron and the deep brazier disturbed me somewhat, possibly more than anything else. The cauldron seemed an evil thing. A humming sound distracted me somewhat, because I was afraid that it came from bees. I have a very great fear of bees, and like many members of the Talamasca, I fear some secret regarding bees which has to do with our origins, but there is not room enough to explain here.

Allow me to continue by saying only that I quickly realized that the sound came from hummingbirds in this vast overgrown place, and when I stood quite still beside Merrick, I fancied I saw them hovering as they do, near the fiercely sprawling flower-covered vines of the shed roof.

"Oncle Vervain loved them," said Merrick to me in a hushed voice. "He put out the feeders for them. He knew them by their colors and he called them beautiful names."

"I love them, too, child," I said. "In Brazil they had a beautiful name in Portuguese, 'the kisser of flowers,' " I said.

"Yes, Oncle Vervain knew those things," she told me. "Oncle Vervain had been all over South America. Oncle Vervain could see the ghosts in the middle air all around him all the time."

She left off with these words. But I had the distinct feeling that it was going to be very difficult for her to say farewell to this, her home. As for her use of the phrase "ghosts in the middle air," I was suitably impressed, as I had been by so much else. Of course we would keep this house for her, of that I'd make certain. We'd have the place entirely restored if she so wished.

She looked about herself, her eyes lingering on the iron pot on its tripod.

"Oncle Vervain could boll the cauldron," she said softly. "He put coals under it. I can still remember the smell of the smoke. Great Nananne would sit on the back steps to watch him. Everybody else was afraid." She went forward now and into the shed, and stood before the saints, staring at the many offerings and glittering candles. She made the Sign of the Cross quickly and laid her right two fingers on the naked foot of the tall and beautiful Virgin.

What were we to do?

Aaron and I stood a little behind her, and at her shoulders, like two rather confused guardian angels. There was fresh food in the dishes on the altar. I smelled sweet perfume and rum. Obviously some of those people crowded about in the shrubbery had brought these mysterious offerings. But I shrank back when I realized that one of the curious objects heaped there in seeming disarray was in fact a human hand.

It was cut right before the wrist bone, and it had dried into a dreadful clench of sorts, but that was not the full horror. It was overrun with ants, who had made a little massacre of the entire feast.

When I realized that the loathsome insects were everywhere, I felt a peculiar horror that only ants can bring. Merrick, much to my amazement, picked up this hand rather daintily in her thumb and forefinger, and shook off the hoodlum ants with several small fierce gestures.

I heard nothing from the audience in the crowd beyond, but it seemed to me that they pressed closer. The humming of the birds was becoming hypnotic, and again there came a low hiss of rain.

Nothing penetrated the canopy. Nothing struck the tin of the roof.

"What do you want us to do with these things?" asked Aaron gently. "You don't want anything left, as I understand it."

"We're going to take it down," said Merrick, "if it's all right with you. It's past its time. This house should be closed up now, if you will keep your promises to me. I want to go with you."

"Yes, we'll have everything dismantled."

She suddenly looked at the shriveled hand which she held in her own. The ants were crawling onto her skin.

"Put it down, child," I said suddenly, startling myself.

She gave it a wring or two again and then did what I said. "It must come with us, everything must," she said. "Some day, I'll take out all these things and I'll see what they are." She brushed off the unwelcome ants. Her dismissive tone filled me with relief, I must confess it.

"Absolutely," said Aaron. He turned and gave a signal to the Talamasca acolytes who had come as far as the edge of the patio behind us. "They will begin packing everything," he told Merrick.

"There's one thing in this backyard that I have to take myself," she said, glancing at me and then at Aaron. She seemed not purposefully or playfully mysterious as much as troubled.

She backed away from us and moved slowly towards one of the gnarled fruit trees that sprang up in the very middle of the patio flagstones. She dipped her head as she moved under the low green branches, and lifted her arms almost as if she was trying to embrace the tree.

In a moment, I saw her purpose. I should have guessed it. A huge snake had descended, coiling itself about her arms and her shoulders. It was a constrictor.

I felt a helpless shudder and a total revulsion. Not even my years in the Amazon had made me a patient liker of snakes. Quite to the contrary. But I knew what they felt like; I knew that eerie silky weight, and the strange current of feeling they sent through one's skin as they moved very rapidly to encoil one's arms.

I could feel these things as I watched her.

Meanwhile, out of the overgrown tangle of green there came low whispers from those who watched her as well. This is what they had gathered to see. This was the moment. The snake was a Voodoo god, of course. I knew it. But I was still amazed.

"It's definitely harmless," Aaron said to me hastily. As if he knew! "We'll have to feed it a rat or two, I suppose, but to us, it's quite—."

"Never mind," I said with a smile, letting him off the hook. I could see he was quite uncomfortable. And then to tease him a little, and to fend off the deep melancholy of the place, I said, "You know of course the rodents must be alive." He was appropriately horrified and gave me a reproving glance, as if to say, you needn't have told me that! But he was far too polite to say a word.

Merrick was talking to the snake in a low voice in French.

She made her way back to the altar, and there found a black iron box with barred windows on all sides—I know no other words for it—which she opened with one hand, the hinges of its lid creaking loudly; and into this box she let the serpent slowly and gracefully settle itself, which fortunately for all of us, it did.

"Well, we'll see what stalwart gentlemen want to carry the snake," Aaron said to the closest of the assistants who stood speechless, watching.

Meanwhile, the crowd had begun to break up and slip away. There was much rustling in the trees. Leaves fell all around us. Somewhere, unseen in the lush garden, the birds continued to hover, beating the air with their tiny busy wings. Merrick stood for a long moment looking up, as though she'd found a chink in the rooftop of foliage.

"I'll never be coming back here, I don't think," she said softly to both of us or to no one.

"Why do you say that, child?" I asked. "You can do as you like, you can come every day if you wish. There are so many things we must talk over together."

"It's ruined, this whole place," she said, "and besides, if Cold Sandra ever comes back, I don't want her to find me." She looked at me in a level manner. "You see, she is my mother and she could take me away, and I don't want that ever to happen.."

"It won't happen," I responded, though no one on earth could give the child such a guarantee against a mother's love, and Merrick knew it. I could only do my best to see that we did what Merrick wanted.

"Now, come," she said, "there are some things up in the attic that only I want to move." The attic was in fact the second story of the house, a very deep sloped roof affair, as I have described, with four dormer windows, one for each point of the compass, assuming the house was correctly oriented. I had no idea whether it was or not.

We made our way up by a narrow back stairs that doubled once upon itself and then entered a place of such delicious woody fragrances that I was caught off guard. It had a snugness and a cleanness about it, despite the dust. Merrick turned on a grim electric bulb and we soon found ourselves amid suitcases, ancient trunks, and leather-bound packing cases. It was vintage luggage. An antiques dealer would have loved it. And I, having seen one book of magic, was very much ready for more.

Merrick had but one suitcase that mattered above all else, she explained, and she set this down on the dusty rafters beneath the dangling light.

It was a canvas bag with leathered patched corners. She opened it with ease, as it wasn't locked, and stared down at a series of loosely wrapped cloth bundles. Once again, white sheeting had been used for these items, or perhaps to put it more simply, cotton pillowcases past their time.

It was obvious that the contents of this case were of very special importance, but how special I could not have guessed. I was astonished now as Merrick, whispering a little prayer, an Ave, if I'm correct, lifted one bundle and moved back the cloth to reveal a startling object—a long green axe blade, heavily incised with figures on both sides. It was easily two feet in length and quite heavy, though Merrick held it easily. And Aaron and I both could see the likeness of a face in profile carved deeply into the stone.

"Pure jade," said Aaron reverently.

It had been highly polished, this object, and the face in profile wore an elaborate and beautifully realized headdress, which if I'm not mistaken, involved both plumage and ears of corn.

The carved portrait or ritual image, whichever it might be, was as large as a human face. As Merrick turned the object, I saw that a full figure was etched into the other side. There was a small hole near the narrow tapering end of the object, perhaps to allow suspension from a belt.

"My God," said Aaron under his breath. "It's Olmec, isn't it? It must be priceless."

"Olmec, if I have any guess," I answered. "Never have I seen such a large and exquisitely decorated object outside of a museum."

Merrick showed no surprise.

"Don't say things you don't mean, Mr. Talbot," she said gently. "You have some like this in your own vault." She locked her eyes on me for a long dreamy moment.

I could scarcely breathe. How could she know such a thing? But then I told myself she might have learnt such information from Aaron. Only, a glance at him let me know I was quite wrong.

"Not as beautiful, Merrick," I answered her quite truthfully. "And ours are fragments, as well." When she gave me no reply, when she merely stood there holding the gleaming axe blade with both hands out before her, as if she liked to look at the light on it, I went on.

"It's worth a fortune, child," I said, "and I never expected to see such a thing in this place." She thought for a long second, and then gave me a solemn forgiving nod.

"In my opinion," I went on, struggling to redeem myself, "it comes from the oldest known civilization in Central America. And I can feel my heart thumping as I look at it."

"Maybe even older than Olmec," she said, looking up at me again. Her wide gaze swept lazily over Aaron. The gold light of the bulb spilled down upon her and the elaborately dressed figure. "That's what Matthew said after we took it from the cave beyond the waterfall. That's what Oncle Vervain said when he told me where to look." I looked down again on the splendid face of shining green stone with its blank eyes and flattened nose.

"You don't need me to tell you," I said, "that it's all very likely so. The Olmec come from nowhere, or so the textbooks tell us."

She nodded.

"Oncle Vervain was born from one of those Indians who knew the deepest magic. Colored man and red woman made Oncle Vervain and Great Nananne, and Cold Sandra's mother was Great Nananne's grandchild, so it's inside of me." I couldn't speak. There weren't any words to express my trust or my wonder.

Merrick set the axe blade to one side, on top of the many bundles, and reached for another with equal care. This was a smaller, longer bundle, and when she unwrapped it, I was again too breathless for words. It was a tall figure, richly carved, and obviously a god or king, I could not say which. As with the axe blade, the size alone was impressive, not to mention the gloss of the stone.

"Nobody knows," the child said, speaking to my thoughts very directly. "Only, you see this scepter, it's magic. If he's a king, he's a priest and god too."

Humbled, I studied the detailed carving. The long narrow figure wore a handsome headdress which came low over his fierce, wide eyes, and down to his shoulders all around. On his naked chest was a disc suspended from the radial collar about his shoulders and neck.

As for the scepter, he seemed about to be striking the open palm of his left hand with it, as though preparing to do violence with it when his enemy or victim approached. It was chilling in its menace and beautiful in its sincerity and intricacy. It was polished and seemed to glow, as did the mask.

"Shall I stand him up or lay him down?" Merrick asked, looking at me. "I don't play with these creatures. No, I would never do such a thing. I can feel the magic in them. I've conjured with them. I don't play. Let me cover him once more so he can be quiet."

Having rewrapped the idol, she reached for yet a third bundle. I could not calculate the number that remained in the closely packed case.

I could see that Aaron was speechless. One did not have to be an expert in Mesoamerican antiquities to realize what these artifacts were.

As for Merrick, she began to talk as she unwrapped this third wonder…

"We went down there, and followed the map that Oncle Vervain had given us. And Cold Sandra kept praying to Oncle Vervain to tell us where to go. It was Matthew and Cold Sandra and me. Cold Sandra kept saying, 'Aren't you happy now, you never went to school? You're always complaining. Well, you're getting to go on a great adventure.' And to tell the truth, that's what it was."

The cloth fell away from the long sharp pointed pick in her hands. It was all of a piece of green jade, and its handle bore the distinct feathers of the hummingbird and two small deeply carved eyes. I had seen its type before in museums, but never such a fine example. And now I understood Oncle Vervain's love of the birds in the yard beyond.

"Yes, sir," said Merrick. "He said those birds were magic. He was the one to put the feeders out. I told you. Who's going to fill the feeders when I leave this place behind?"

"We'll care for the place," said Aaron in his comforting fashion. But I could see he was greatly concerned about Merrick. She went on talking.

"The Aztecs believed in hummingbirds. They hover in the air like magic. They turn this way and that and make another color. There's a legend that Aztec warriors became hummingbirds when they died. Oncle Vervain said magicians need to know everything. Oncle Vervain said our kind were all magicians, that we came four thousand years before the Aztecs. He told me about the paintings on the cave wall."

"And you know where this cave is?" Aaron asked her. He was quick to clarify his meaning. "Darling, you must tell no one. Men lose common sense over secrets such as these."

"I have Oncle Vervain's pages," Merrick answered in the same dreamy voice. She laid the sharp blade of this knife back down on the bed of cotton parcels. Offhandedly, she laid bare a fourth object, a small squat idol as beautifully carved as the one already revealed. Her hand went back to the perforator with its round, hummingbird handle. "They used this to draw blood in their magic. That's what Oncle Vervain told me I would find, a thing for drawing blood; that's what Matthew said this was."

"This suitcase is filled with such objects, isn't it?" I asked. "These are by no means the most significant of the lot?" I glanced about. "What else is hidden in this attic?"

She shrugged. For the first time she looked hot and uncomfortable under the low roof.

"Come on," she said politely, "let's us pack up the suitcase and go down to the kitchen. Tell your people not to open all those boxes, just to move them to where they will be safe. I'll make you some good coffee. I make the best coffee. I make better coffee than Cold Sandra or Great Nananne. Mr. Talbot, you're about to faint from the heat, and Mr. Lightner, you're too worried. No one's going to break into this house any time ever, and your house has guards all over night and day." She rewrapped the axe blade, the idol, and the perforator carefully, then closed the suitcase and snapped its two rusted locks. Now, and only now, did I see the withered old cardboard tag on it listing an airport in Mexico, and the stamps that indicated the suitcase had traveled many miles beyond that.

I held my questions until we had come down into the cooler air of the kitchen. I realized that what she'd said about my failing in the heat above had been perfectly true. I was almost ill.

She set the suitcase down, took off her white pantyhose and her shoes, and turned on a rusted round fan above the refrigerator, which oscillated drowsily, and set to work to make the coffee, as she had said. Aaron rummaged for sugar, and in the old "ice box," as she called it, found the pitcher of cream still fresh and quite cold. That didn't much matter to Merrick, however, because it was milk she wanted for coffee and she heated it to just below a boil.

"This is the way to do it," she told us both.

At last we were settled at a round oak table, whose white painted surface had been wiped quite clean. The café au lait was strong and delicious. Five years among the Undead can't kill the memory. Nothing ever will. I piled the sugar into it, just as she did, and I drank it in deep gulps, believing thoroughly that it was a restorative, and then I sat back in the creaky wooden chair.

All around me, the kitchen was in good order, though a relic of former times. Even the refrigerator was some sort of antique with a humming motor on top of it, beneath the creaking fan. The shelves over the stove and along the walls were covered by glass doors, and I could see all the accouterments of a place where people regularly take their meals. The floor was old linoleum and very clean.

Suddenly, I remembered the suitcase. I jumped and looked about. It was right beside Merrick on the empty chair. When I looked at Merrick I saw tears in her eyes.

"What is it, darling?" I asked. "Tell me and I'll do my level best to make it right."

"It's just the house and everything that ever happened, Mr. Talbot," she answered. "Matthew died in this house." This was the answer to a rather momentous question, and one which I had not dared to voice. I can't say I was relieved to hear it, but I couldn't help but wonder who might lay claim to the treasures which Merrick regarded as her own.

"Don't you worry about Cold Sandra," said Merrick, directly to me. "If she was going to come back for these things, she would have come back a long time ago. There was never enough money in the world for Cold Sandra. Matthew really loved her, but he had plenty of money, and that made all the difference in the world."

"How did he die, darling?" I asked.

"Of a fever from those jungle places. And he'd made us all get all our shots too. I don't like needles. We got shots for every disease you can imagine. Yet still he came back sick. Some time afterwards, when Cold Sandra was screaming and hollering and throwing things, she said that the Indians down there in the jungles had put a curse on him, that he never should have gone up the waterfall to the cave. But Great Nananne said it was too strong a fever. He died over there, in the back room."

She pointed to the hallway that separated us from the room in which Aaron and I had spent our uncomfortable night.

"After he was gone and she went away, I took out the furniture. It's in the front bedroom next to Great Nananne's. That's where I've slept ever since."

"I can imagine why," said Aaron comfortingly. "It must have been dreadful for you to lose them both."

"Now Matthew was always good to us all," she continued, "I wish he had been my father, lot of good it would do me now. He was in the hospital and out of it, and then the doctors stopped coming because he was drunk all the time and shouted at them, and then he just choked out his last."

"And had Cold Sandra already gone?" Aaron asked gently. He had laid his hand on the table beside her own.

"She was out all the time at the barroom down on the corner, and after they threw her out of that one, she went to the one on the big street. The night he started to go, I ran down two blocks and over there to get her, and banged on the back screen door for her to come out. She was too drunk to walk.

"She was sitting there with this handsome white man, and he was just in love with her, you know, adoring her. I could see it. And she was so drunk she couldn't stand up. And then it hit me. She didn't want to see Matthew go. She was afraid to be at his side when it happened. She wasn't being hard-hearted. She was just really scared. So I came running back.

"Great Nananne was washing his face and giving him his Scotch, that's what he drank all the time, he wouldn't have any other kind of drink, and he was choking and choking, and we just sat by him till sometime about dawn, the choking stopped, and his breathing got very steady, so steady you could have set a clock by it, just up and down, up and down.

"It was a real relief that he wasn't choking. But Great Nananne shook her head to mean no good. Then his breathing got so low you couldn't see or hear it. His chest stopped moving. And Great Nananne told me he was dead." She paused long enough to drink the rest of her coffee, then she stood up, pushing the chair back carelessly, and took the pot from the stove and gave us all some more of the heavy brew to drink.

She sat down again and ran her tongue along her lip, a habit with her. She seemed a child in all these gestures, perhaps because of the convent-school way in which she sat up straight in her chair and folded her arms.

"You know, it's nice having you listen to this," she said looking from me to Aaron. "I never told anyone all about it. Just the little things. He left Cold Sandra plenty of money.

"She came home around noon the next day and demanded to know where they'd taken him, and started screaming and throwing things and saying we never should have called for the morgue to take him away.

"'And what did you think we were going to do with him?' Great Nananne asked. 'You don't think they have a law in this town about dead bodies? You think we can just take him out and bury him in the backyard?' Turned out his people in Boston came and got him, and soon as Cold Sandra saw that check, you know, the money he'd left her, she was out of this house and gone.

"Of course I didn't know it was going to be the last time I ever saw her. All I knew was that she had packed up some of her clothes in a new red leather suitcase, and she was dressed like a model from a magazine, in a white silk suit. Her hair was pulled back to a bun on the back of her head. She was so beautiful she didn't need any makeup, but she had put some dark-violet eye shadow above her eyelashes and a dark color, like violet, too, I think, on her lips. I knew that dark violet meant trouble. She looked so beautiful.

"She kissed me and she gave me a bottle of Chanel No. 22 perfume. She said that was for me. She told me she'd be coming back for me. She told me she was going out to buy a car, she was driving out of here. She said, 'If I can just get across that spillway without drowning, I can get out of this town.' "

Merrick broke off for a moment, her eyebrows knitted, her mouth slightly open. Then she began again.

"'The hell you'll come back for her.' That's what Great Nananne told her. 'You've never done anything except run wild and let that child run wild, well, she's staying here with me, and you go to Hell.'" Once again, she stopped. Her girlish face grew quiet. I was afraid she was going to cry. I think that she swallowed the tears very deliberately. Then she spoke again, clearing her throat a little. I could hardly make out the words.

"Think she went to Chicago," she said.

Aaron waited respectfully while the silence filled the old kitchen. I picked up my coffee and drank deeply again, savoring the taste of it, as much out of respect for her as for the pleasure.

"You're ours, darling," I said.

"Oh, I know, Mr. Talbot," she answered in a small voice, and, without moving the focus of her eyes from some distant point, she lifted her right hand and laid it on mine. I never forgot the gesture. It was as if she was comforting me. Then she spoke. "Well, Great Nananne knows now. She knows whether my mother is alive or dead."

"Yes, she knows," I answered, avowing my belief before I could think the better of it. "And whatever she knows, she's at peace."

There was a quiet interval in which I became painfully conscious of Merrick's suffering, and of the noises of the Talamasca acolytes who were moving every object in the place. I heard the grinding noise of the large statues being dragged or pushed. I heard the sound of packing tape being stretched and torn.

"I loved that man, Matthew," said Merrick softly. "I really loved him. He taught me how to read the Book of Magic. He taught me how to read all the books that Oncle Vervain had left. He liked to look at the pictures I showed you. He was an interesting man."

There was another long pause. Something in the atmosphere of the house disturbed me. I was confused by what I was feeling. It had nothing to do with normal noises or activity. And it seemed imperative suddenly that I conceal this disturbance from Merrick, that such a thing, whatever it was, not trouble her at this time. It was as if someone altogether new and different had entered the house, and one could hear that person's stealthy movements. It was the sense of a coherent presence. I wiped it from my mind, never for a moment fearing it, and keeping my eyes on Merrick, when, in a daze of sorts, she began to speak rather rapidly and tonelessly again.

"Up in Boston, Matthew had studied history and science. He knew all about Mexico and the jungles. He told me the story of the Olmec. When we were in Mexico City he took me to the museum. He was going to see to it that I went to school. He wasn't afraid in those jungles. He thought those shots protected us. He wouldn't let us drink the water, you know, all of that. And he was rich, like I told you, and he would have never tried to steal these things from Cold Sandra or me."

Her eyes remained steady.

I could still feel this distinct entity within the house, and I realized that she did not feel it. Aaron did not know it was there, either. But it was there. And it was not far from where we sat. With all my soul I listened to Merrick.

"Oncle Vervain left lots of things. I'll show you. Oncle Vervain said we had our roots in the jungle land down there, and in Haiti before our people ever came up here. He said we weren't like American black people, though he never said the word 'black,' he always said colored. He thought it was polite to say colored. Cold Sandra used to laugh at him. Oncle Vervain was a powerful magician, and before him there had been his grandfather, and Oncle Vervain told tales of what the Old Man could do."

I realized her soft speech was becoming more rapid. The history was pouring out from her.

"The Old Man, that's all I ever called him. He was a Voodoo man in the Civil War. He went back to Haiti to learn things and when he came back to this town they said he took it by storm. Of course, they talk about Marie Laveau, but they talk of the Old Man too. Sometimes I can feel them near me, Oncle Vervain and the Old Man, as well as Lucy Nancy Marie Mayfair, who's in the photograph, and another one, a Voodoo queen whom they called Pretty Justine. They said everybody was afraid of Pretty Justine."

"What do you want for yourself, Merrick," I asked her suddenly, desperate to stop the ever increasing speed of her words.

She looked at me sharply, and then she smiled. "I want to be educated, Mr. Talbot. I want to go to school."

"Ah, how marvelous," I whispered.

"I told Mr. Lightner," she continued, "and he said you could do it. I want to be in a high-quality school where they teach me Greek and Latin and which fork to use for my salad or my fish. I want to know all about magic, the way Matthew did, telling me things out of the Bible, and reading over those old books and saying what was tried and true. Matthew never had to make a living. I expect I will have to make a living. But I want to be educated, and I think you know what I mean." She fixed her gaze on me. Her eyes were dry and clear, and it was then perhaps more than at any other time that I noticed their beautiful coloration of which I've spoken before. She went on talking, her voice a little slower now, and calmer and almost sweet.

"Mr. Lightner says all your members are educated people. That's what he told me right before you came. I can see those manners in the people at the Motherhouse and I hear the way they talk. Mr. Lightner says it's the tradition of the Talamasca. You educate your members, because it's a lifelong thing to be a member, and you all live under the same roof."

I smiled. It was true. Very true. "Yes," I said, "we do this with all who come to us, insofar as they are willing and able to absorb it, and we'll give it to you."

Merrick leant forward and kissed me on the cheek.

I was quite startled by this affection, and at a loss as to the proper thing to do. I spoke from the heart.

"Darling, we'll give you everything. We have so much to share, it would be our duty if it weren't ... if it weren't such a pleasure for us to do."

Something invisible was suddenly gone from the house. I felt it as if a being had snapped its fingers and simply disappeared. Merrick showed no consciousness of this.

"And what will I do for you in exchange?" she asked in a calm sure voice. "You can't give me everything for nothing, Mr. Talbot. Tell me what you want from me."

"Teach us what you know about magic," I answered, "and grow up to be happy, to be strong, and never to be afraid."

9

IT WAS GROWING DARK when we left the house.

Before leaving New Orleans, we dined together at Galatoire's, a venerable old New Orleans restaurant where I found the food to be delicious, but Merrick was by this time so exhausted that she turned quite pale and fell sound asleep in her chair.

The transformation in her was remarkable. She murmured that Aaron and I must care for the Olmec treasures. "Look at them but be careful," she said, as a matter of fact. And then came the sudden slumber which left her pliant but unconscious, as far as I could see.

Aaron and I all but carried her to the car—she could walk in her sleep if propelled—and much as I wanted to talk with Aaron I didn't dare risk it, though Merrick slept between us, quite soundly, during the entire ride home. When we reached the Motherhouse, that good female member of the Order whom I've mentioned before, and will now for the sake of this account call Mary, helped us to carry Merrick up to her room and lay her on the bed. Now, I remarked a little while ago that I wanted the Talamasca to envelop her in fantasy, to give her everything that she should desire.

Let me explain that we had already begun this process by creating an upstairs corner bedroom for her, which we believed to be a young woman's dream. The fruit-wood bed, its posts and canopy decorated with carved flowers and trimmed in fancy lace, the dressing table with its little satin bench and huge round mirror, its small fancy twin lamps and myriad bottles, all of this was part of the fantasy, along with a pair of frilly boudoir dolls, as they are called, which had to be moved aside to lay down the poor darling on her pillow for the night.

And lest you believe we were misogynist imbeciles, allow me to explain that one wall of the room, the wall that was not punctuated by floor-length windows to the porch, was filled with a fine general assortment of books. There was also a corner table and chairs for reading, many other pretty lamps here and there, and a bathroom filled with perfumed soaps, varicolored shampoos, and countless bottles of scented cologne and oil. In fact, Merrick herself had bought any number of products scented with Chanel No. 22, a particularly wonderful scent.

By now, as we left her fast asleep and in the gentle care of Mary, I believe that Aaron and I both had fallen in love with her, completely in a parental sense, and I meant to allow nothing in the Talamasca to distract me from her case. Of course Aaron, not being the Superior General of the Order, would have the luxury of remaining here with her long after I had been forced back to my desk in London. And I envied him that he would have the pleasure of watching this child meet her first tutors and pick out her own school.

As for the Olmec treasures, we took them now to the small Louisiana vault for safekeeping, and once inside, after some debate, opened the suitcase and examined what was there.

The cache was quite remarkable. There were close to forty idols, at least twelve of the perforator knives, numerous axe blades, and many smaller blade-shaped objects which we commonly call celts. Every single item was exquisite in its own right. There was also a handwritten inventory, apparently the work of the mysterious and doomed Matthew, listing each item and its size. The note was appended:

There are many more treasures within this tunnel, but they must wait for later excavation. I am already sick and must return home as soon as possible. Honey and Sandra are highly argumentative on this point. They want to take everything out of the cave. But I am getting weaker even as I write. As for Merrick, my illness is scaring her. I need to take her home. It is worth noting while I have the strength in my right hand that nothing else scares any of my ladies, not the jungles, not the villages, not the Indians. I have to go back.

It was more than poignant, these words of the dead man, and my curiosity about "Honey" was all the more strong. We were in the process of wrapping everything and restoring it to its old order, when there came a knock on the outside door of the room in which the vault is situated.

"Come quickly," Mary said through the door. "She's become hysterical. I don't know what to do." Up the stairs we headed, and before we'd reached the second floor we could hear her desperate sobs. She sat on the bed, still in her navy blue dress from the funeral, her feet bare again, and her hair in tangles, sobbing over and over again that Great Nananne was dead.

It was all entirely understandable, but Aaron had a near magical effect upon people in such states, and he soon quieted her with his words, while Mary assisted when she could.

Merrick then asked through her tears if she could please have a glass of rum.

Of course no one was in favor of this remedy, but on the other hand, as Aaron judiciously pointed out, the liquor would quiet her, and she would go to sleep.

Several bottles were found in the bar downstairs, and Merrick was given a glass of the rum, but asked for more.

"This is a sip," she said through her tears, "I need a glassful." She looked so perfectly unhappy and distraught that we couldn't deny her. At last, after imbibing, her sobs became softer.

"What am I going to do, where will I go?" she asked piteously, and once again we made our assurances, though her grief was something which I felt she had to express with tears.

As for doubts about her future, that was a different matter. I sent Mary out of the room. I sat down on the bed beside Merrick.

"My dear, listen to me," I said to her. "You're rich in your own right. Those books of Oncle Vervain's. They're worth enormous amounts of money. Universities and museums would bid on them at auction. As for the Olmec treasures, I cannot calculate their worth. Of course you don't want to part with these things, and we don't want you to do it, but rest assured you are secure, even without us."

This seemed to quiet her somewhat.

Finally, after she had cried softly against my chest for the better part of an hour, she put her arms around Aaron, laid her head on his shoulder, and said that if she knew we were in the house, that we would not leave it, then she could go to sleep.

"We'll be waiting for you downstairs in the morning," I told her. "We want you to make that coffee for us. We've been fools, drinking the wrong coffee. We refuse to have breakfast without you. Now you must sleep." She gave me a grateful and kindly smile, even though the tears were still spilling onto her cheeks. Then, asking no one's permission, she went to the frilly dressing table, where the bottle of rum stood quite incongruously among the other fancy little bottles, and took a good slug of the drink.

As we rose to go, Mary answered my call with a nightgown ready for Merrick, and I took the bottle of rum, nodded to Merrick to make certain that she had seen me do it, so there would be some civil pretense of her permission, and Aaron and I retired to the library below.

I don't remember how long we talked.

Possibly it was an hour. We discussed tutors, schools, programs of education, what Merrick should do.

"Of course there can be no question of asking her to display her psychic powers to us," Aaron said firmly, as though I was going to overrule him. "But they're considerable. I've sensed it all day and yesterday as well."

"Ah, but there's another matter," I said, and I was about to broach the subject of the weird "disturbance" which I had felt in Great Nananne's house while we had sat in the kitchen. But something stopped me from speaking. I realized that I sensed the same presence now, under our Motherhouse roof.

"What's the matter, man?" asked Aaron, who knew my every facial expression and who could probably read my mind if he really chose to do it.

"Nothing," I said, and then, instinctively, and perhaps selfishly, with some desire to be heroic, I added, "I want you to stay where you are."

I rose and went through the open doors of the library out into the hallway.

From above, from the upstairs rear of the house, there came a sardonic and ringing laugh. It was a woman's laugh, there was no doubt about it, only I could not attach it to Mary or to the female members of the Order who were then living in the house. Indeed Mary was the only one in the main building. The others had gone to sleep some time ago in the "slave quarters" and cottages which made up part of the outbuildings some distance from the rear doors of the house. Once again, I heard the laugh. It seemed an answer to my very query.

Aaron appeared at my shoulder. "That's Merrick," he said warily.

This time, I didn't tell him to remain behind. He followed me as I went up the stairs. The door to Merrick's room was open, and the lights were on, causing a brilliant glow to spill into the long broad center hallway.

"Well, come on in," said a womanish voice as I hesitated, and when I did, I was quite alarmed by what I saw. In a haze of cigarette smoke, there was a young woman sitting in a highly seductive posture at the dressing table, her youthful and fastripening body clothed only in a scant white cotton petticoat, its thin cloth hardly disguising her full breasts and pink nipples, or the dark shadow between her legs.

Of course it was Merrick, but then it wasn't Merrick at all.

With her right hand she put the cigarette to her lips and drew on it, deeply, with the casual air of an accustomed smoker, and let her breath out with ease.

Her eyebrows were raised as she looked at me, and her lips were drawn back in a beautiful sneer. Indeed, the expression was so alien to the Merrick I had come to know that it was very simply terrifying all to itself. One couldn't imagine a skilled actress so successfully altering her features. As for the voice which came out of the body, it was sultry and low.

"Good cigarettes, Mr. Talbot. Rothmans, aren't they?" The right hand toyed with the little box which she had taken from my room. The woman's voice continued, cold, utterly without feeling, and with a faint tone of mockery. "Matthew used to smoke Rothmans, Mr. Talbot. He went to the French Quarter to buy them. You don't find them at the comer store. Smoked them right up until he died."

"Who are you?" I asked.

Aaron said nothing. He relinquished command to me at this moment completely, but he stood his ground.

"Don't be so hasty, Mr. Talbot," came the hard-toned answer. "Ask me a few questions." She gave more of her weight to the left elbow on the dressing table, and the petticoat gaped to reveal more of her full breasts. Her eyes positively sparkled in the light of the dressing table lamps. It seemed her lids and eyebrows were governed exclusively by a new personality. She was not even Merrick's twin.

"Cold Sandra?" I asked.

A burst of laughter came out of her that was ominous and shocking. She tossed her black hair and drew on the cigarette again.

"She never told you one word about me, did she?" she asked, and once again came that sneer, beautiful yet full of venom. "She was always jealous. I hated her from the day she was born."

"Honey in the Sunshine," I said calmly.

She nodded, grinning at me, letting go of the smoke.

"That's a name that's always been good enough for me. And there she goes, leaving me out of the story. Well, don't you think I'll settle for so little, Mr. Talbot. Or should I call you David? I think you look like a David, you know, righteous and clean living and all of that." She crushed out the cigarette right into the tabletop. And with one hand now, she took another, and lighted it with the gold lighter which I had also left in my room.

She turned the lighter over now, the cigarette dangling from her lip, and through the little coil of smoke she read the inscription. "To David, my Savior, from Joshua." Her eyes flashed on my face, and she smiled. The words she'd read cut deep into me, but I would have none of it. I merely stared at her. This would take a little time.

"You're damned right," she said, "it's going to take time. Don't you think I want some of what she's getting. But let's talk about this here, Joshua, he was your lover, wasn't he? You were lovers with him and he died." The pain I felt was exquisite, and for all my claim to enlightenment and self-knowledge, I was mortified that these words were spoken in Aaron's presence. Joshua had been young, and one of us.

She laughed a low, carnal laugh. "Course you can do women, too, if they're young enough, can't you?" she asked viciously.

"Where do you come from, Honey in the Sunshine?" I demanded.

"Don't call her by name," Aaron whispered.

"Oh, that's good advice, but it don't matter. I'm staying right where I am. Now let's talk about you and that boy, Joshua. Seems he was mighty young when you—."

"Stop it," I said sharply.

"Don't talk to it, David," said Aaron under his breath. "Don't address it. Every time you talk to it, you give it strength." A high pealing laughter erupted from the little woman at the dressing table. She shook her head and turned her body to face us completely, the hem of the slip riding up on her naked thighs.

"I'd say he was eighteen maybe," she said, looking at me with blazing eyes as she took the cigarette off her lip. "But you didn't know for sure, did you, David? You just knew you had to have him."

"Get out of Merrick," I said. "You don't belong in Merrick."

"Merrick's my sister!" she flashed. "I'll do what I want with her. She drove me crazy from the cradle, always reading my mind, telling me what I thought, telling me I made my own trouble, always blaming everything on me!" She scowled at me and leant forward. I could see her nipples.

"You give yourself away for what you are," I said. "Or is it what you were?" Suddenly she rose from the dressing table, and the left hand, free of the cigarette, swept all the bottles and the lamp off the right side of the table, with one fine blow.

There was a roar of shattered glass. The lamp went out with a loud spark. Two or more of the bottles were broken. The carpet was littered with sharp fragments. The room was filled with a powerful perfume. She stood before us, her hand on her hip, the cigarette held high. She looked down at the bottles.

"Yeah, she likes those things!" she said.

Her posture became ever more suggestive, mocking. "And you do like what you see, don't you, David? She's just young enough for you. She's got some of the little boy left in her, don't she? Great Nananne knew you and what you wanted. And I know you too."

Her face was full of anger and very beautiful.

"You killed Joshua, didn't you?" she said in a low voice, eyes suddenly narrow, as if she was peering into my soul. "You let him go on that climb in the Himalayas—." She pronounced the word as I would have said it. "And you knew it was dangerous but you loved him so much, you couldn't say no."

I could say nothing. The pain in me was too intense. I tried to banish all thoughts of Joshua. I tried not to think of the day when they had brought his body back to London. I tried to focus on the girl before me.

"Merrick," I said with all the strength I could muster, "Merrick, drive her out."

"You want me, and so do you, Aaron," she continued, the grin making her checks supple, her face flushing. "Either one of you'd tack me to that mattress if you thought you could."

I said nothing.

"Merrick," said Aaron loudly. "Cast her out. She means you no good, darling, cast her out!"

"You know what Joshua was thinking about you when he fell off that cliff?" she said.

"Stop it!" I cried.

"He was hating you for sending him, hating you for saying yes, he could go!"

"Liar!" I said. "Get out of Merrick."

"Don't you shout at me, Mister," she blazed back. She glanced down at the broken glass and tapped her ashes into it.

"Now let's just see about fixing her good."

She took a step forward, right into the mess of broken glass and overturned bottles that lay between us. I advanced on the figure.

"Stay back."

I seized her by the shoulders and forced her backwards. But it took all of my strength. Her skin was moist with sweat, and she squirmed out of my grasp.

"You don't think I can walk on glass in bare feet? " she said right in my face as she struggled to resist me. "You stupid old man," she went on, "now why would I want to cut Merrick's foot?" I took hold of her, crushing the glass under my shoes.

"You're dead, aren't you, Honey in the Sunshine? You're dead, and you know it, and this is all the life you can get!" For one moment the beautiful face went blank. The girl appeared to be Merrick. Then the eyebrows were raised again. The lids assumed their languid expression, making the eyes glitter.

"I'm here and I'm staying here."

"You're in the grave, Honey in the Sunshine," I answered. "That is, the body you want is in the grave, and all you've got is a vagrant spirit, now isn't that so!"

A look of fear flittered across her expression, and then the face hardened once more, as she freed herself from my hands.

"You know nothing about me, Mister," she said. She was baffled, as spirits often are. She couldn't keep the cocky expression on Merrick's face. Indeed, the whole body shuddered suddenly. The true Merrick was struggling.

"Come back, Merrick, throw her off, Merrick," I said. I stepped forward once again. She moved back and towards the foot of the high bed. She turned the cigarette in her hand. She meant to jab me with it.

"You bet your life I do," she said, reading my thoughts. "I wish I had something I could really hurt you with. But I guess I'll have to settle for hurting her!"

She glanced about the room.

It was all I needed. I advanced on her and caught her by the shoulders, desperate to keep hold of her in spite of the sweat that covered her and her writhing to escape.

She shrieked. "You stop that, lemme go!" And she managed to grind the cigarette into the side of my face. I reached for her hand, grabbed it and twisted it until she dropped the cigarette. She slapped me hard, so that for one moment I felt faint. Nevertheless, I held on to her slippery shoulders.

"That's it," she cried. "Hurt her, break her bones, why don't you just do that? Think it will make Joshua come back?

Think he'll be any older for you, David, think it will make everything right?"

"Get out of Merrick!" I shouted. I could still hear the broken glass under my shoes. She was perilously close to it. I shook her hard, her head flopping from side to side.

She convulsed, wrenching free, and again there came a slap of awesome strength that all but knocked me off balance. For one split second I couldn't see.

I lunged at her and lifted her under the arms and threw her back on the bed. I knelt on the bed over her, gripping her still. She was struggling to reach my face.

"Let her go, David," Aaron cried out behind me. And I heard the voice of Mary, suddenly, that other loyal member, begging me not to twist her wrist so hard.

Her fingers struggled to reach my eyes.

"You're dead, you know you are, you've got no right here," I roared at her. "Say it, you're dead, you're dead, and you've got to let Merrick go."

I felt her knee against my chest.

"Great Nananne, get her out!" I said.

"How dare you!" she screamed. "You think you can use my godmother against me." She caught my hair with her left hand and yanked at it.

Still I shook her.

And then I drew back, I let her go, and I called upon my own spirit, my own soul to make itself into a powerful instrument, and it was with that invisible instrument that I plunged towards her, striking her at the heart so that she lost her breath.

Get out, get out, get out! I commanded her with all the strength of my soul. I felt myself against her. I felt her collective power, as though there were no body to house it. I felt her resist. I had lost all contact with my own body. Get out of Merrick. Go!

A sob broke loose from her.

"There's no grave for us, you bastard, you devil," she cried. "There's no grave for me or my mother! You can't make me leave here!"

I looked down into her face, though where my own body had fallen—onto the floor or onto the bed—I didn't know. Call on God under any name and go towards him! I told her. Leave those bodies wherever they lie, do you hear me, leave them and go on. Now! It's your chance!

Suddenly the strength that was resisting me contracted, and I felt its intense pressure dissolve. For one moment I thought I saw it, an amorphous shape rising above me. Then I realized I was lying on the floor. I was staring up at the ceiling. And I could hear Merrick, our Merrick crying once more.

"They're dead, Mr. Talbot, they're dead, Cold Sandra's dead and so is Honey in the Sunshine, my sister, Mr. Talbot, they're both dead, they've been dead since they left New Orleans, Mr. Talbot, all those four years of waiting, and they were dead the first night in Lafayette, Mr. Talbot, they're dead, dead, dead." Slowly I climbed to my feet. There were cuts from the broken glass on my hands. I was physically sick. The child on the bed had shut her eyes. Her lips weren't sneering, they were stretched back as she continued her plaintive wails.

Mary was quick to lay a thick robe over her. Aaron was at her side. She rolled on her back and made a face suddenly.

"I'm sick, Mr. Talbot," she said hoarsely.

"This way," I turned her over, away from the perilous glass, and lifted her and carried her into the bathroom in my arms. She leant over the sink, and the vomit poured out of her.

I was shuddering all over. My clothes were drenched.

Mary urged me to step aside. It seemed quite outrageous to me for a moment, and then I realized how it must have seemed to Mary.

And so I withdrew.

When I glanced at Aaron I was amazed at the expression on his face. He had seen many cases of possession. They are all terrible, each in its own way.

We waited in the hallway until Mary told us we might come in.

Merrick was dressed in a white cotton gown to receive us, her hair brushed to a marvelous brown luster, and her eyes rimmed in red, but otherwise quite clear. She was in the armchair in the corner, under the light of the tall lamp. Her feet were safely protected with white satin slippers. But all the glass was gone. Indeed the dressing table looked quite fine with only one lamp and all of its intact bottles.

Merrick was still trembling, however, and when I approached her, she reached out and clasped my hand.

"Your shoulders will hurt for a little while," I said apologetically.

"Here's how they died," she said, looking at me and then at Aaron. "They went with all that money to buy a new car. The man who sold it to them picked them up, you know, and he went with them to Lafayette, and there he killed them for the cash they had. He knocked them both hard over the head."

I shook my head.

"Four years ago, it happened," she said, going on intently, her mind on her story and nothing else. "It happened the very next day after they left. He beat them in a motel room in Lafayette and put their bodies in that car and drove it into the swamps. That car just filled up with water. If they woke up, they drowned. There's nothing left of either one of them now."

"Dear God," I whispered.

"And all this time," she said, "I was so guilty for being jealous, jealous that Cold Sandra had taken Honey in the Sunshine and left me behind. I was guilty and jealous, guilty and jealous. Honey in the Sunshine was my older sister. Honey in the Sunshine was sixteen and she was 'no trouble,' that's what Cold Sandra told me. I was too little and she'd come back for me soon."

She closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath.

"Where is she now?" I asked. Aaron let me know he had not been prepared for that. But I had to put the question to her. For a very long time she made no response. She lay staring, her body shivering violently, and then finally, she said:

"She's gone."

"How did she come through?" I demanded.

Mary and Aaron shook their heads. "David, leave her for the moment," said Aaron as politely as he could. I had no intention of dropping the matter. I had to know.

Again, there was no immediate answer. And then Merrick heaved a sigh and turned to one side.

"How did she come through?" I asked again.

Merrick's face crumpled. She began very softly to cry.

"Please, Sir," said Mary, "let her alone just now."

"Merrick, how did Honey in the Sunshine come through?" I demanded. "Did you know she wanted to come through?" Mary took a stand to Merrick's left and glared at me.

I kept my eyes on the shivering girl.

"Did you ask her to come through?" I demanded softly.

"No, Mr. Talbot," she said softly, her eyes drifting up to me again. "I prayed to Great Nananne. I prayed to her spirit while it was still near earth to hear me." Her tired voice could barely carry the words. "Great Nananne sent her to tell me. Great Nananne will take care of them both."

"Ah, I see."

"You know what I did," she continued. "I called on a spirit that had only just died. I called on a soul that was still close enough to help me, and I got Honey, I got more than I ever wanted to get. But that's how it works sometimes, Mr. Talbot. When you call on les mystères you don't always know what you're going to get."

"Yes," I responded. "I know. Do you remember all that happened?"

"Yes," she said, "and no. I remember your shaking me and I remember knowing what had happened, but I don't really remember all the time that ticked by while she was in me."

"I see," I said gratefully. "What do you feel now, Merrick?"

"Afraid of myself a little," she answered. "And I'm sorry she hurt you."

"Oh, darling, for the love of Heaven, don't think about me," I answered. "I'm only concerned with you."

"I know that, Mr. Talbot, but if it's any consolation to you, Joshua went into the Light when he died. He didn't hate you when he was falling down the mountain. Honey just made that up."

I was stunned. I could feel Mary's sudden embarrassment. I could see that Aaron was amazed.

"I'm sure of it," Merrick said. "Joshua's in Heaven. Honey just read all those things from your mind." I couldn't answer her. At the risk of more suspicion and condemnation from the vigilant Mary, I leant over and kissed Merrick on the cheek.

"The nightmare's over," she said. "I'm free of them all. I'm free to begin." And so our long journey with Merrick began.

10

IT HAD NOT BEEN EASY for me to tell this story to Louis, and it was not finished. I had much more to say. But as I paused, it was as if I had wakened to the parlor around me, and to Louis's attentive presence, and I felt both immediate comfort and crushing guilt. For a moment I stretched my limbs and I felt my vampiric strength in my veins. We sat like two wholesome beings together, in the comfort of the glass-shaded lamps. For the first time since I'd begun the story, I stared up at the paintings along the walls of the room. These were all wonderfully colored Impressionist treasures which Louis had long ago collected and once kept in a small uptown house, where he lived until Lestat burnt that house, and, in reconciliation, begged Louis to come and join him here. I looked at a painting by Monet—one I'd come to neglect of late due to familiarity—a painting full of sunshine and greenery, of a woman at work on her needlepoint by a window under the limbs of delicate indoor trees. Like so many Impressionist paintings it was both highly intellectual, with its obvious brush strokes, and flagrantly domestic. And I let its stalwart sanctification of the ordinary soothe my suffering heart.

I wanted to feel our domesticity here in the Rue Royale. I wanted to feel morally safe, which of course I would never feel again.

It had exhausted my soul to revisit those times when I was a living mortal being, when I had taken the wet daytime heat of New Orleans for granted, when I'd been a trusted friend to Merrick, for that is what I had been, regardless of what Honey in the Sunshine had condemned me for being—with a boy named Joshua who had lived many, many years before. As for that matter, Aaron and Mary never questioned me about it. But I knew that neither of them would ever look at me in the same way again. Joshua had been too young and I had been too old for the relationship. And I had only confessed my transgressions—a precious few nights of love—to the Elders long after Joshua was dead. They had condemned me for it and charged me never to let such a thing occur again.

When I'd been appointed Superior General, the Elders had exacted a confirmation that I was well beyond such breaches of morality, and I had given it, humiliated that it had been mentioned again.

As for Joshua's death, I did blame myself for what happened to him. He had begged me to go on the climb, which itself was not terribly dangerous, to visit a shrine in the Himalayas which had been part of his study in Tibetan lore. Other members of the Order were with him and they came home safe. The fall had been the result of a small but sudden avalanche, as I understood it, and Joshua's body had not been recovered for several months. Now as I reviewed these things for Louis, now as I pondered that I had approached the woman Merrick in my dark and eternal guise as a vampire, I felt the sharpest and most profound guilt. It wasn't something for which I could ever seek absolution. And it wasn't something that could prevent me from seeing Merrick again. It had been done. I had asked Merrick to raise Claudia's ghost for us. And I had much more to tell Louis before the two could come together, and more within myself that had to be resolved.

All this while, Louis had listened without saying a word. With his finger curled under his lip, his elbow on the arm of the couch, he had merely studied me as I recounted the memories, and now he was eager for the tale to go on.

"I knew this woman was powerful," he said gently. "What I didn't know was how much you loved her." I marveled at his customary manner of speaking, the melting quality of his voice and the way his words seemed barely to disturb the air.

"Ah, well, neither did I," I replied. "There were so many of us, bound together by love, in the Talamasca, and each one is a special case."

"But this woman, you truly love her," he pressed gently. "And I've asked you to go against your heart."

"Oh, no, you haven't," I confessed. I faltered. "It was inevitable that I contact the Talamasca," I insisted. "But it should have been contact with the Elders, in writing, and not this."

"Don't condemn yourself so much for contacting her," he said with an uncommon self-confidence. He seemed earnest and, as always, forever young.

"Why not?" I asked. "I had thought you were a specialist in guilt?" He laughed politely at this, and then again made a silent chuckle. He shook his head.

"We have hearts, don't we?" he replied. He shifted a little against the pillows of the couch. "You tell me you believe in God. That's more than the others have ever said to me. Quite truly it is. What do you think God has planned for us?"

"I don't know that God plans anything," I said a little bitterly. "I know only that He's there." I thought of how much I loved Louis, and had ever since I had become Lestat's fledgling. I thought of how deeply I depended upon him, and what I would do for him. It was the love of Louis which had at times crippled Lestat, and enslaved Armand. Louis need have no consciousness of his own beauty, of his own obvious and natural charm.

"David, you have to forgive me," he said suddenly. "I want so desperately to meet this woman myself that I urge you on for selfish reasons, but I mean it when I say that we do have hearts in every sense of the word."

"Of course, you do," I replied. "I wonder if angels have hearts," I whispered. "Ah, but it doesn't matter, does it? We are what we are."

He didn't answer me, but I saw his face darken for a moment and then he fell into reverie, with his habitual expression of curiosity and quiet grace.

"But when it comes to Merrick," I said, "I have to face that I've contacted her because I need her desperately. I could not have gone on for long without contacting her. Every night that I spend in New Orleans, I think of Merrick. Merrick haunts me as though she was a ghost herself."

"Tell me the rest of your story," Louis prodded. "And, if when you're finished you wish to conclude the matter with Merrick—end the contact, so to speak—then I shall accept it without another word."

11

I WENT ON with my tale, flashing back once more some twenty years, to the summer of Merrick's fourteenth year. It wasn't hard for the Talamasca to enfold such a friendless orphan as one could easily see. In the days following Great Nananne's funeral, we discovered that Merrick had no legal identity of any kind, save for a valid passport obtained through the testimony of Cold Sandra that Merrick was her daughter. The last name was an assumed name.

Where and how Merrick's birth might have been recorded eluded our most diligent efforts. No baptism of Merrick Mayfair was recorded in any parish church in New Orleans for the year of Merrick's birth. Few pictures of her existed in the boxes which she had brought with us.

And indeed, no record of Cold Sandra or Honey in the Sunshine existed other than passports which were both under assumed names. Though we calculated a year of death for the two unfortunates, we could find nothing in the newspapers of Lafayette, Louisiana, or anywhere near it to indicate that murdered bodies had been found. In sum, the Talamasca began with a blank slate for Merrick Mayfair, and using its immense resources it soon created for her the documentation of birth and age which the modem world requires. As for the matter of Catholic baptism, Merrick was adamant that she had indeed been given the sacrament as an infant—Great Nananne had "carried her to church"—and as late as only a few years before I left the Order, Merrick still combed church records, in vain, for proof of this herself. I never fully understood the significance of this baptism to Merrick, but then there were many things about Merrick which I never came to understand. One thing I can say for certain, however. Magic and Roman Catholicism were completely intermingled for Merrick and this remained so all her life.

As for the gifted and kindhearted man named Matthew, he was not difficult to trace at all. Matthew had been, in fact, an Olmec archaeologist, and when polite inquiries were made among his survivors in Boston, it was quickly ascertained that a woman named Sandra Mayfair had lured him to New Orleans by means of a letter some five years before regarding some Olmec treasure for which the woman claimed to have directions and a rough hand-drawn map. Cold Sandra claimed to have been given an article about Matthew's amateur adventures by her daughter Merrick, who came upon it in Time magazine.

Though Matthew's mother was seriously ill at the time, Matthew had made the journey south with her blessing, and had set out on a private expedition beginning in Mexico. He was never seen by anyone in the family alive again. As for the expedition, Matthew had kept a journal by means of long impassioned letters addressed to his mother, which he had mailed all in a batch upon his return to the States.

After Matthew's death, in spite of the woman's determined efforts, no scholars in the field of Olmec studies could be interested in what Matthew claimed to have seen or found.

The mother had died, leaving all these papers to her sister, who did not know what to make of "the responsibility" and quickly decided to sell Matthew's papers to us for a liberal sum. Those papers included a small box of vivid color photographs sent to the mother, many of which included Cold Sandra and Honey in the Sunshine, both extraordinarily beautiful women, as well as the ten-year-old child, Merrick, who did not resemble the other two. As Merrick had risen from a week of torpor and was deep in her studies, and fascinated with her education in etiquette, it was no great pleasure for me to give her these photographs and letters for her private store. She showed no emotion, however, when confronted with the snapshots of her mother and her sister. And preserving her usual silence on the question of Honey in the Sunshine, who appeared to be about sixteen in the pictures, she put all of this aside.

As for me, I spent some time with the pictures.

Cold Sandra was tall and tawny with very black hair and light eyes.

As for Honey in the Sunshine, she appeared to fulfill all the expectations engendered by that name. Her skin in the photographs did appear to be the color of honey, her eyes were yellow as were her mother's, and her hair, light blond and tightly curly, fell down around her shoulders like foam. Her facial features appeared entirely Anglo-Saxon. The same was true of Cold Sandra.

As for Merrick in the photographs, she appeared very much as she did when she came to our door. She was already the budding woman at the age of ten, and appeared somehow to be of a quieter nature, the other two often hanging upon Matthew and smiling as they embraced him for the eager lens. Merrick was frequently captured with a solemn face, and most often alone.

Of course these pictures revealed much of the rain forest into which they'd penetrated, and there were even poor-quality flash shots of bizarre cave paintings which appeared neither Olmec nor Maya, though my opinion might very well have been wrong. As for the exact location, Matthew refused to reveal it, using terms such as "Village One" and "Village Two." Given Matthew's lack of specificity, and the bad condition of the photographs, it wasn't difficult to see why archaeologists had not been interested in his claims.

With Merrick's consent, and in secrecy, we enlarged every photograph of any value, but the quality of the originals defeated us. And we lacked concrete information as to how the journey could be made again. But of one thing I was fairly sure. The initial flight might have been to Mexico City, but the cave was not in Mexico at all. There was a map, yes, drawn with an unsteady hand in black ink on common modern parchment paper, but it gave no place names, only a diagram involving "The City" and the aforementioned Village One and Village Two. We had it copied for preservation's sake, as the parchment paper was badly damaged and torn at the edges. But it was hardly a significant clue.

It was tragic to read the enthusiastic letters which Michael had sent home.

I shall never forget the first letter he wrote to his mother after the discovery. The woman was very ill, and had only just learnt that her case was terminal, news which had reached Matthew somewhere along the route, though we had no indication of where precisely, and Matthew had begged her please to wait for him to come home. Indeed, it was on that account that he had cut the journey short, taking only some of the treasure, a great deal of which remained.

"If only you'd been with me," he wrote, or words to that effect.

And can you imagine me, your gangly and awkward son, plunging into the pure darkness of a ruined temple and finding these strange murals which defy classification? Not Maya, certainly not Olmec. But by and for whom? And in the very midst of this, my flashlight slips out of my hands as if someone snatched it from me. And darkness shrouds the most splendid and unusual paintings I've ever seen.

But no sooner had we left the temple, than we must climb the rocks beside the waterfall, with Cold Sandra and Honey leading the way. It was in back of the waterfall that we found the cave, though I suspect it might have been a tunnel, and there was no mistaking it because the mammoth volcanic boulders around it had been carved into a giant face with an open mouth.

Of course we had no light with us—Cold Sandra's flashlight was drenched—and we were near to fainting from the heat when we got inside. Cold Sandra and Honey were fearful of spirits and claimed to be "feeling" them. Merrick has even spoken up on this subject, blaming the spirits for a bad fall she took on the rocks. Yet tomorrow, we'll be making the entire trek again. For now, let me say again what I saw by the sunshine that made its way into temple and cave. Unique paintings, I tell you, in both places, which must be studied at once. But in the cave there were also hundreds of glistening jade objects, just waiting for a scoop of the hand. How in the world such treasures have survived the usual thievery in these parts, I can't guess. Of course the local Maya deny all knowledge of such a place, and I'm not eager to enlighten them. They are kind to us, offering us food and drink and hospitality. But the shaman appears angry with us, but will not tell us the reason. I live and breathe only to go back.

Matthew never did go back. During the night he had grown feverish and his very next letter recorded the regret with which he set out for civilization, thinking his illness was something that could easily be cured. How awful it was that this curious and generous man had fallen ill.

A mysterious insect bite had been the culprit, but that was not discovered until he'd reached "The City," as he called it, careful to use no key description or name. His last batch of letters was written from the hospital in New Orleans, and mailed by the nurses at his request.

"Mother, there is nothing that can be done. No one is even certain of the nature of the parasite, except that it has made its way throughout my internal organs, and has proved itself refractory to every medicine known to man. I wonder sometimes if the local Maya might have helped me with this ailment. They were so very kind. But then the natives have probably long been immune."

His very last letter was completed on the day he prepared to return to Great Nananne's house. The script had degenerated, as Matthew was suffering one violent chill after another, but obviously determined to write. His news was marked by the same strange mixture of resignation and denial which so often afflicts the dying:

"You cannot believe the sweetness of Sandra and Honey and Great Nananne. Of course, I've done everything I can to lighten their burden. All of those artifacts which we discovered on the expedition are by right the property of Sandra, and I will attempt a revised catalog once I reach the house. Perhaps Great Nananne's nursing will work some miracle. I'll write to you when I have good news."

The only remaining letter in the collection was from Great Nananne. It was in beautiful convent script, written with a fountain pen, and stated that Matthew had died "With the Sacraments," and that his suffering had not been very great at the end. She signed herself Irene Flaurent Mayfair.

Tragic. I can find no better word.

Indeed, there seemed a ring of tragedy surrounding Merrick, what with the murders of Cold Sandra and Honey, and I could well understand why Matthew's collected papers did not tear her away from her studies, or away from her frequent lunches and shopping trips in town.

She was also indifferent to the renovation of Great Nananne's old house, which did indeed belong to Great Nananne with proper title, and was passed on to Merrick by means of a handwritten will, which was handled for us by a skilled local lawyer with no questions asked.

The renovation was historically accurate and quite extensive, involving two expert contractors in the field. Merrick did not want to visit the house at all. The house, to my knowledge, does belong to Merrick officially, right now. By the end of that long ago summer, Merrick had an immense wardrobe, though she was growing taller with every passing day. She favored expensive well-made dresses with lots of stitching, and visibly worked fabrics such as the white pique which I already described. When she began to appear at supper in graceful high heeled shoes, I was personally and secretly distraught.

I am not a man who loves women of any age, but the sight of her foot, its arch so delicately stretched by the height of the heel, and of her leg, so taut from the pressure, was quite enough to send the most unwelcome and erotic thoughts through my brain.

As for her Chanel No. 22, she had begun to wear it daily. Even those who claimed to be annoyed by perfume rather liked it and came to associate it with her ever genial presence, her questions and steady conversation, her hunger for knowledge about all things.

She had a wondrous grasp of the fundamentals of grammar, which greatly assisted her in learning to read and write French, after which learning Latin was something of a snap. As for mathematics, she detested it, and suspected it somewhat—the theory was simply beyond her—but she was clever enough to absorb the fundamentals. Her enthusiasm for literature was as great as that of anyone I've ever known. She ripped through Dickens and Dostoyevsky, talking about the characters with easy familiarity and endless fascination as though they lived down the street from her house. As for magazines, she was enthralled by the art and archaeology periodicals to which we subscribed routinely, and went on to devour the standards of pop culture, as well as the news magazines she'd always loved. Indeed, Merrick remained convinced all her young years, as I knew her, that reading was the key to all things. She claimed to understand England simply because she read the London Times every day. As for the history of Mesoamerica, she fell in love with it, though she never asked to see the suitcase of her own treasures at all. With her own writing she made wondrous progress, soon developing something of an old-fashioned band. It was her aim to shape her letters as Great Nananne had shaped hers. And Merrick succeeded, being able to keep copious diaries with ease.

Understand, she was not a genius of a child, but merely one of considerable intelligence and talent, who after years of frustration and boredom had seized her opportunity at last. There was no impediment in her to knowledge. She resented no one's seeming superiority. Indeed, she absorbed every influence that she could. Oak Haven, having no other child in its midst, delighted in her. The giant boa constrictor became a favorite pet. Aaron and Mary took Merrick into the city frequently to the local municipal museum, and often made the short flight to Houston to expose her to the splendid museums and galleries of that southern capital as well. As for me, I had to go back to England several times during that fateful summer. I much resented it. I had come to love the New Orleans Motherhouse, and I did seek every excuse to remain. I wrote long reports to the Elders of the Talamasca, admitting to this weakness, but explaining, well, pleading perhaps, that I needed to become better acquainted with this strange part of America which didn't seem American at all.

The Elders were indulgent. I had plenty of time to spend with Merrick. However, one letter from them cautioned me not to become overly fond of this "little girl." This stung me because I misinterpreted it. I made an avowal of my purity. The Elders wrote back: "David, we don't doubt your purity; children can be fickle; we were thinking of your heart." Aaron, meantime, cataloged all Merrick's possessions and eventually established a full room in one of the outbuildings to contain the statues which had been taken from her shrines.

Not one but several medieval codices made up the legacy of Oncle Vervain. There was no explanation as to how he had acquired these books. But there was evidence that he had used them, and in some we found his notes in pencil along with certain dates.

In one carton from Great Nananne's attic were a whole cache of printed books on magic, all published in the 18oos, when the "paranormal" had been such the rage in London and on the Continent, what with mediums and séances and such. These had their pencil markings as well.

We found also a great disintegrating scrapbook crammed with brittle yellowed newspaper clippings, all from New Orleans, which told tales of Voodoo attributed to "the local Doctor of much renown, Jerome Mayfair," whom Merrick identified for us as Oncle Vervain's grandfather, The Old Man. Indeed, all of New Orleans had known about him and there were many quaint little stories of Voodoo meetings broken up by the local police at which many "white ladies" were arrested, as well as women of color, and blacks.

The most tragic of all discoveries, however, and the one which was of the least use to us as an Order of Psychic Detectives—if that is what we are—was the diary of the colored daguerreotypist who was too far back in the lineage for a direct connection in Merrick's account. It was a quiet, friendly document, created by one Laurence Mayfair, mentioning, among other things, the daily weather in the city, the number of customers at the studio, and other small local events. It recorded a happy life, I felt certain, and we took the time to copy it very carefully and send that copy to the local university, where such a document by a man of color before the Civil War would be given its just due. In time, many similar documents, as well as copies of photographs, were sent on to various Southern universities, but such steps were always taken—for Merrick's sake—with great care.

Merrick was absent from the accompanying letters. She really did not want the material traced to her personally because she did not want to explain her family to those outside the Order, and I think she feared, and perhaps rightly, that her presence with us might be questioned as well.

"They need to know about our people," she'd say at table, "but they don't need to know about me." She was greatly relieved that we did what we did, but she was launched now into another world. She would never be that tragic child again who had showed the daguerreotypes to me the first evening. She was Merrick the student who pored over her books for hours, Merrick the passionate arguer of politics, before, during, and after the television news. She was Merrick who owned seventeen pairs of shoes, and changed them three times a day. She was Merrick, the Catholic, who insisted on going to Mass every Sunday even if a Biblical inundation were falling upon the plantation and the nearby church.

Of course I was pleased to see these things, though I knew many recollections lay dormant inside her and must someday be resolved.

Finally, it was late fall, and I had no choice but to return to London for good. Merrick had another six months of study planned before she'd be sent to Switzerland, and our parting was tearful to say the least. I was no longer Mr. Talbot, but David, as I was to many other members, and, as we waved goodbye to each other at the doorway of the plane, I saw Merrick cry again for the first time since that awful night when she'd cast off the ghost of Honey in the Sunshine and broken into sobs.

It was dreadful. I couldn't wait for the plane to land so that I could write her a letter. And for months her frequent letters were the most interesting aspect of my life.

By February of the following year, Merrick was on a plane with me for Geneva. Though the weather made her hopelessly forlorn, she studied diligently at school, dreaming of summers spent in Louisiana, or of the many vacation trips which took her to the tropics which she loved.

One year she went back to Mexico, during the worst of all seasons, to see the Maya ruins, and it was that summer that she confided to me that we had to make the return trip to the cave.

"I'm not ready to retrace my steps," she said, "but the moment will come. I know that you've saved everything that Matthew wrote on the subject, and understand that I may be guided on that journey by others besides Matthew. But do not worry. It's too soon for us to go."

The next year she visited Peru, then after that Rio de Janeiro, and always back to school when fall came. She did not make friends easily in Switzerland, and we did all we could to convey upon her a sense of normality, but the very nature of the Talamasca is unique and secretive and I'm not sure we were always successful at making her feel at ease with others at school.

At age eighteen, Merrick informed me by official letter that she was more than positive that she wished to spend her life in the Talamasca, even though we assured her that we would educate her no matter what her choice. She was admitted as a postulant, which is for us a very young member, and she went to Oxford to begin her university years. I was thrilled to have her in England. I met her plane and was astonished by the tall graceful young woman who flew into my arms.

She lodged at the Motherhouse every weekend. Once again the chilly weather oppressed her dreadfully, but she wanted to remain.

On weekends we would take side trips to Canterbury Cathedral or Stonehenge or Glastonbury, whatever her fancy. It was interesting talk all the way. Her New Orleans accent—I call it that for want of a better term—had left her completely, she had surpassed me utterly in her knowledge of the Classics, her Greek was perfect, and she could speak Latin with other members of the Order, a rare talent in one of her time.

She became a specialist in Coptic, translating volumes of Coptic magical texts which the Talamasca had owned for centuries. She was deep into the history of magic, assuring me of the obvious, that magic all over the world and in every era is pretty much the same.

She often fell asleep in the Motherhouse library, her face on her book on the table. She'd lost her interest in clothes except for a few very pretty and ultrafeminine garments, and, intermittently, she bought and wore those fatal very high heeled shoes.

As for her liking for Chanel No.22, nothing ever inhibited her from wearing a great deal of the scent in her hair and on her skin and her clothing. Most of us found it very delicious, and no matter where I was in the Motherhouse, I knew, by the rise of this delightful scent, when Merrick had come through the front door.

On her twenty-first birthday, my personal gift to Merrick was a triple string of natural and perfectly matched white pearls. Of course it cost a fortune, but I didn't care. I had a fortune. She was deeply touched by it, and to all important functions within the Order she always wore the necklace, whether attired in a black silk shirtwaist dress of magnificent angles and fullness—her favorite for such evenings—or a more casual dark wool suit. Merrick was by this time a famous beauty, and the young members were always falling in love with her and complaining bitterly that she repelled their advances and even their praise. Merrick never spoke of love, or of men who were interested in her. And I had come to suspect that she was enough of a mind reader to feel very much isolated and alienated, even within our hallowed halls.

I was hardly immune to her appeal. At times, I found it downright difficult to be in her presence, so fresh and lovely and inviting did she seem. She had a way of looking luscious in austere garments, her breasts large and high, her legs rounded and tapered exquisitely beneath her modest hem.

There was one trip to Rome on which I became miserable in my desire for her. I cursed the fact that age had not yet delivered me from such torment, and did all that I could so that she might never guess. I think she knew it, however, and in her own way, she was merciless.

She once let slip, after a sumptuous dinner at the Hassler Hotel, that she found me the only truly interesting man in her life.

"Bad luck, wouldn't you say, David?" she had asked me pointedly. The return to the table of two other Talamasca comrades had cut the conversation short. I was flattered but deeply disturbed. I couldn't have her, it was quite out of the question, and that I wanted her so much came as a terrible surprise.

At some point, after that Roman trip, Merrick devoted some time in Louisiana to recording the entire history of her family—that is, what she knew of her people, quite apart from their occult powers, and, together with quality copies of all of her daguerreotypes and photographs, she made this available to several universities for whatever use they might desire. Indeed, the family history—without Merrick's name, and indeed minus several key names—is now part of several important collections concerning the "gens de couleur libres, " or the history of black families in the south. Aaron told me that the project exhausted Merrick emotionally, but she had said les mystères were haunting her, and it had to be done. Lucy Nancy Marie Mayfair demanded it; indeed so did Great Nananne. So did white Oncle Julien Mayfair from uptown. But when Aaron prodded as to whether she was really being haunted, or merely respectful, Merrick said nothing except that it was time to go back to work overseas.

As for her own Afro-American blood, Merrick was always quite frank about it and sometimes surprised others by discussing it. But almost without exception, in every situation, she passed for white. For two years, Merrick studied in Egypt. Nothing could lure her away from Cairo, until she began an impassioned investigation of Egypian and Coptic documents throughout the museums and libraries of the globe. I remember going through the dim and grimy Cairo Museum with her, loving her inevitable infatuation with Egyptian mystery, and that trip ended with her getting completely drunk and passing out after supper in my arms. Fortunately I was almost as drunk as she was. I think we woke up together, each properly dressed, lying side by side on her bed. In fact, Merrick had already become something of a famous though occasional drunk. And more than once she had wrapped her arms around me and kissed me in a way that thoroughly invigorated me and left me in despair. I refused her seeming invitations. I told myself, and probably rightly so, that I was partly imagining her desire. Besides, I was old then obviously, and for a young person to think that she wants you when you're old is one thing; to actually follow through with it is quite another affair. What had I to offer her but a host of minor inevitable physical debilities? I did not dream then of Body Thieves who would bequeath to me the form of a young man. And I must confess that, years later, when I did find myself in possession of this young man's corpus, I did think of Merrick. Oh, indeed, I did think of Merrick. But by then I was in love with a supernatural being, our inimitable Lestat, and he blinded me even to memories of Merrick's charms.

Enough said on that damned subject! Yes, I desired her, but my task is to return to the story of the woman I know today. Yes, Merrick, the brave and brilliant member of the Talamasca, that is the story I have to tell: Long before computers were so very common, she had mastered them for her own writing and was soon heard to be tapping away at fantastical speed on her keyboard late into the night. She published hundreds of translations and articles for our members, and many, under a pseudonym, in the outside world.

Of course we are very careful in sharing all such learning. It is not our purpose to be noticed; but there are things which we do not feel we can keep to ourselves. We would never have insisted on a pseudonym, however; but Merrick was as secretive about her own identity as ever she was as a child.

Meanwhile, as regards the "uptown Mayfairs" of New Orleans, she showed little interest in them personally, hardly bothering with the few records we recommended that she read. They were never her people, really, no matter what she might have thought of "Oncle Julien" appearing in Great Nananne's dream. Also, no matter what one might observe about the "powers" of those Mayfairs, they have in this century almost no interest at all in "ritual magic," and that was Merrick's chosen field.

Of course nothing of Merrick's possessions had ever been sold. There was no reason to sell anything. It would have been absurd.

The Talamasca is so very rich that the expenses of one person, such as Merrick, mean virtually nothing, and Merrick, even when she was very young, was devoted to the projects of the Order and worked of her own free will in the archives to update records, make translations, and identify and label articles very similar to those Olmec treasures which belonged to her.

If ever a member of the Talamasca earned her own way, it was Merrick, almost to a degree which put us to shame. Therefore, if Merrick wanted a shopping spree in New York or Paris, no one was likely to deny it. And when she chose a black Rolls Royce sedan as her personal car, soon establishing a small worldwide collection of them, no one thought it a bad idea at all.

Merrick was some twenty-four years old before she approached Aaron about taking stock of the occult collection she had brought to the Order ten years before.

I remember it because I remember Aaron's letter.

"Never has she shown the slightest interest," he wrote:

and you know how this has worried me. Even when she made her family history and sent it off to various scholars, she did not touch upon the occult heritage at all. But this afternoon she confided to me that she has had several

"important" dreams about her childhood, and that she must return to Great Nananne's house. Together with our driver we made the trip back to the old neighborhood, a sad journey indeed.

The district has sunk considerably lower, I think, than she could have imagined, and I believe the shattered ruin of the

"corner bar" and the "corner store" took her quite by surprise. As for the house, it has been splendidly maintained by the man who lives on the premises, and Merrick spent almost an hour, alone by choice, in the rear yard. There the caretaker had made a patio, and the shed is virtually empty. Nothing remains of the temple, naturally, except the brightly painted center post.

She said nothing to me afterwards, absolutely refusing to discuss these dreams of hers in any detail. She expressed extreme gratitude to me that we'd kept the house for her, during her period of "negligence," and I hoped this might be the end of it.

But at supper, I was quite astonished to hear that she planned to move back into the house and spend part of her time there from now on. She wanted all the old furniture, she told me. She'd supervise the arrangements herself.

"What about the neighborhood?" I found myself asking weakly, to which she replied with a smile, "I was never afraid of the neighbors. You'll soon discover, Aaron, that the neighbors will become afraid of me." Not to be outdone, I quipped, "And suppose some stranger should try to murder you, Merrick," to which she fired back, "Heaven help the man or woman who would attempt such a thing."

Merrick was as good as her word, and did move back to the "old neighborhood," but not before building a caretaker's quarters above the old shed.

The two miserably rundown houses which flanked the house were purchased and demolished, and brick walls went up around three sides of the enormous lot and along the front, coming to meet the high iron picket fence directly before the facade. There was always to be a man on the property; some sort of alarm system was installed; flowers were planted. Feeders were put out for the hummingbirds once more. It all sounded quite wholesome, and natural, but having once seen that house, I was still chilled by frequent stories of how Merrick came and went.

The Motherhouse remained her true home, but many afternoons, according to Aaron, she disappeared into New Orleans and did not return for several days.

"The house is now quietly spectacular," Aaron wrote to me. "All the furniture was of course repaired and refinished, and Merrick has claimed Great Nananne's mammoth four-poster for her own. The floors of heart pine have been beautifully redone, giving the house a rather amber glow. Nevertheless, it worries me dreadfully that Merrick secludes herself there for days on end."

Naturally, I myself wrote to Merrick, broaching the subject of the dreams that had motivated her return to the house.

"I want to tell you about these things but it is too soon," Merrick replied immediately.

Let me say only that in these dreams it is Great-Oncle Vervain who talks with me. Sometimes I'm a child again as I was on the day he died. Other times we are adults together. And it seems, though I cannot with uniform success remember everything, in one dream we were both young.

For now, you mustn't worry. You must realize that it was inevitable that I should return to my childhood home. I am of an age when people become curious about the past, especially when it has been sealed off so successfully and abruptly as was mine.

Understand, I do not feel guilt for having abandoned the house where I grew up. It is only that my dreams are telling me that I must return. They tell me other things as well.

These letters worried me, but Merrick gave only brief responses to my queries.

Aaron had also become concerned. Merrick was spending less and less time at Oak Haven. Often he made the drive into New Orleans to call upon her at the old house, that is, until Merrick asked to be left alone. Of course, such a manner of living is not uncommon among Talamasca members. Frequently they divide their time between the Motherhouse and a private family home. I had and still do have a home in the Cotswolds in England. But it is not a good sign when a Member absents herself from the Order for long periods of time. In Merrick's case it was particularly disturbing due to her frequent and cryptic mentions of her dreams.

During the fall of that fateful year, her twenty-fifth, Merrick wrote to me about a journey to the cave. Let me continue with my reconstruction here of her words:

"David, I no longer sleep through the night without a dream of my Great-Oncle Vervain. Yet less and less am I able to recall the substance of these dreams. I know only that he wants me to return to the cave I visited in Central America when I was a child. David, I must do this. Nothing can prevent it. The dreams have become a form of obsession, and I ask that you not bombard me with logical objections to what you know I must do."

She went on to talk about her treasure.

I have been through all of the so-called Olmec treasures, and I know now they are not Olmec at all. In fact, I can't identify them, though I have every published book or catalog on antiquities in that part of the world. As for the destination itself, I have what I remember, and some writings by my Oncle Vervain, and the papers of Matthew Kemp, my beloved stepfather of years ago.

I want you to make this journey with me, though certainly we cannot attempt it without others. Please answer me as quickly as you can as to whether you are willing. If not, I will organize a party on my own.

Now, I was almost seventy years of age when I received this letter, and her words presented quite a challenge to me, and one which I didn't welcome at all. Though I longed for the jungles, longed for the experience, I was quite concerned that it was beyond my ability to make such a trip.

Merrick went on to explain that she had spent many hours going through the artifacts retrieved on her girlhood journey.

"They are indeed older," she wrote, "than those objects which archaeologists call Olmec, though they undoubtedly share many common traits with that civilization and would be called Olmec-oid due to their style. Elements we might call Asian or Chinese proliferate in these artifacts, and then there is the matter of the alien cave-paintings which Matthew managed to photograph as best he could. I must investigate these things personally. I must try to arrive at some conclusion regarding the involvement of my Oncle Vervain in this part of the world."

I called her that night from London.

"Look, I'm entirely too old to go off into that jungle," I said, "if it's even still there. You know they're cutting down the rain forests. It might be farmland by now. Besides, I'd slow you down no matter what the terrain."

"I want you to come with me," she said softly, coaxingly. "David, please do this. We can move at your pace, and when it comes time to make the climb in the waterfall, I can do that part alone.

"David, you were in the jungles of the Amazon years ago. You know this sort of experience. Imagine us now with every microchip convenience. Cameras, flashlights, camping equipment; we'll have every luxury. David, come with me. You can remain in the village if you like. I'll go on to the waterfall alone. With a modem four-wheel drive vehicle, it will be nothing at all."

Well it wasn't nothing at all.

A week later I arrived in New Orleans, determined to argue her out of the excursion. I was driven directly to the Motherhouse, a little disturbed that neither Aaron nor Merrick had come to meet my plane.

12

AARON GREETED ME at the door.

"Merrick's at her house in New Orleans. The caretaker says she's been drinking. She will not talk to him. I've called every hour since morning. The phone simply rings and rings."

"Why didn't you tell me this was happening?" I demanded. I was deeply concerned.

"Why? So you'd worry about it all the way across the Atlantic? I knew you were coming. I know you're the only one who can reason with her when she's in this state."

"Whatever in the world makes you think so?" I argued. But it was true. Sometimes I could talk Merrick into ending her binges. But not always.

Whatever the case, I bathed, changed clothes, as the early winter weather was unseasonably warm, and set out in a drowsy evening shower, with the car and driver, for Merrick's house.

It was dark when I got there, but even so, I could see that the neighborhood had deteriorated beyond my wildest speculation. It seemed as if a war had been lost in the district, and the survivors had no choice but to live among hopeless wooden ruins tumbling down into the eternal giant weeds. Here and there was a well-kept shotgun house with a bright coat of paint and some gingerbread trim beneath its roof. But dim lights shone through heavily barred windows. Abandoned cottages were being dismantled by the rampant greenery. The area was derelict and obviously dangerous as well.

It seemed to me that I could sense people prowling about in the darkness. I detested the feeling of fear which had been so uncommon in me in my youth. Old age had taught me to respect danger. As I said, I hated it. I remember hating the thought that I wouldn't ever be able to accompany Merrick on this insane journey to the Central American jungles, and I'd be humiliated as the result.

At last the car stopped at Merrick's house.

The lovely old raised cottage, painted a fresh shade of tropical pink with white trim, appeared rather wonderful behind the high iron picket fence. The new brick walls were thick and very high as they embraced the property on either side. A bank of densely flowering oleander behind the iron pickets shielded the house somewhat from the squalor of the street. As the caretaker greeted me, and brought me up the front steps, I saw that Merrick's long windows were well barred I

also, in spite of their white lace curtains and shades, and that lights were on throughout the house. The porch was clean; the old square pillars were solid; the leaded glass sparkled within the twin windows of the polished double doors. A wave of remembrance passed over me, nevertheless.

"She won't answer the bell, Sir," said the caretaker, a man I scarcely noticed in my haste. "But the door's unlocked for you. I took her some supper at five o'clock."

"She asked for her supper?" I inquired.

"No, Sir, she never said anything. But she ate the food. I picked up the dishes at six." I opened the door and found myself in the comfortable air-cooled front hall. I saw at once that the old parlor and dining room to my right had been splendidly refurnished with rather bright Chinese carpets. A modem sheen covered the old furniture. The old mirrors above the white marble mantels were as dark as they had ever been. To my left lay the front bedroom; Great Nananne's bed was dressed with an ivory white canopy and a counterpane of heavy crocheted lace.

In a polished wooden rocking chair before the bed, facing the front windows, sat Merrick, a wobbling light easily illuminating her thoughtful face.

There was a bottle of Flor de Caña rum on the little candlestand table beside her. She lifted the glass to her lips, drank from it, and then sat back, continuing to stare off as if she didn't know that I was there.

I stopped at the threshold.

"Darling," I said, "aren't you going to offer me a drink?"

Without so much as turning her head, she smiled.

"You never liked straight rum, David," she said softly. "You're a Scotch man like my old stepfather, Matthew. It's in the dining room. How about some Highland Macallan? Twenty-five years old. That good enough for my beloved Superior General?"

"I should say so, gracious lady," 1 replied. "But never mind that just now. May I step into your boudoir?" She uttered a small pretty laugh. "Sure, David," she said, "come on in." I was startled as soon as I looked to my left. A large marble altar had been erected between the two front windows, and I saw there the old multitude of sizable plaster saints. The Virgin Mary wore her crown and the vestments of Mount Carmel, holding the radiant Baby Jesus beneath her innocent smile.

Some elements had been added. I realized they were the Three Magi of Christian scripture and lore. The altar was no Christmas crèche, you understand. The Magi or Wise Men had merely been included in a large panoply of sacred figures, more or less on their own terms.

I spied several of the mysterious jade idols among the saints, including one very mean little idol which held its scepter quite ready for duty or attack.

Two other rather vicious little characters flanked the large statue of St. Peter. And there before them lay the green jade hummingbird perforator, or knife, one of the most beautiful artifacts in Merrick's large cache. The gorgeous axe of obsidian which I had seen years ago was given a place of prominence between the Virgin Mary and the Arc Angel Michael. It had a lovely luster in the dim light.

But perhaps the most surprising contents of the altar were the daguerreotypes and old photographs of Merrick's people, ranged thickly as any display upon a parlor piano, the multitude of faces lost in the gloom. A double row of candles burned before the entire array, and there were fresh flowers aplenty, in numerous vases. Everything appeared dusted and quite clean. That is, until I realized that the shriveled hand had its place among the offerings. It stood out against the white marble, curled and hideous, very much as it had seemed when I first saw it long ago.

"For old times' sake?" I asked, gesturing to the altar.

"Don't be absurd," she said under her breath. She lifted a cigarette to her lips. I saw by the box on the little table that it was Rothmans, Matthew's old brand. My old brand as well. I knew her to be a smoker now and then, rather like I was myself.

Nevertheless, I found myself looking hard at her. Was she really my beloved Merrick? My skin had begun to crawl, as they say, a feeling I detest.

"Merrick?" I asked.

When she looked up at me, I knew it was she and no one else inside her handsome young body, and I knew that she wasn't very drunk at all.

"Sit down, David, my dear," she said sincerely, almost sadly. "The armchair's comfortable. I'm really glad you came." I was much relieved by the familiarity of her tone. I crossed the room, in front of her, and settled in the armchair from which I could easily see her face. The altar loomed over my right shoulder, with all those tiny photographic faces staring at me, as they had long ago. I found that I did not like it, did not like the many indifferent saints and the subdued Wise Men, though I had to admit that the spectacle was dazzling to my eyes.

"Why must we go off to these jungles, Merrick?" I asked. "Whatever made you decide to drop everything for such an idea?"

She didn't answer immediately. She took a drink of rum from her glass, her eyes focused on the altar. This gave me time to note that a huge portrait of Oncle Vervain hung on the far wall beside the door through which I'd entered the room.

I knew it at once to be an expensive enlargement of the likeness Merrick had revealed to us years ago. The processing had been true to the sepia tones of the portrait, and Oncle Vervain, a young man in his prime, resting his elbow comfortably on the Greek column, appeared to be staring directly at me with bold brilliant light eyes. Even in the shuddering gloom, I could see his handsome broad nose and beautifully shaped full lips. As for the light eyes, they gave the face a certain frightening aspect, though I wasn't certain whether or not I ought to have felt such a thing.

"I see you came to continue the argument," Merrick said. "There can be no argument for me, David. I have to go and now."

"You haven't convinced me. You know very well I won't let you journey into that part of the world without the support of the Talamasca, but I want to understand—."

"Oncle Vervain is not going to leave me alone," she said quietly, her eyes large and vivid, her face somewhat dark against the low light of the distant hall. "It's the dreams, David. Truth is, I've had them for years, but never the way they come now. Maybe I didn't want to pay attention. Maybe I played, even in the dreams themselves, as if I didn't understand."

It seemed to me that she was three times as fetching as I had remembered. Her simple dress of violet cotton was belted tightly at the waist, and the hem barely covered her knees. Her legs were lean and exquisitely shaped. Her feet, the toenails painted a bright shiny violet to match the dress, were bare.

"When precisely did the onslaught of dreams begin?"

"Spring," she replied a little wearily. "Oh, right after Christmas. I'm not even sure. Winter was bad here. Maybe Aaron told you. We had a hard freeze. All the beautiful banana trees died. Of course they came right back up as soon as the spring warmth arrived. Did you see them outside?"

"I didn't notice, darling. Forgive me," I replied.

She resumed as if I hadn't answered.

"And that's when he came to me the most clearly," she said. "There was no past or future in the dream, then, only Oncle Vervain and me. We were in this house together, he and I, and he was sitting at the dining room table—." She gestured to the open door and the spaces beyond it, "—and I was with him. And he said to me, 'Girl, didn't I tell you to go back there and get those things?' He went into a long story. It was about spirits, awful spirits that had knocked him down a slope so that he cut his head. I woke up in the night and wrote down everything I remembered, but some of it was lost and maybe that was meant to be."

"Tell me what else you remember now."

"He said it was his mother's great-grandfather who knew of that cave," she responded. "He said that the old man took him there, though he himself was scared of the jungle. Do you know how many years back that would be? He said he never got to go back there. He came to New Orleans and got rich off Voodoo, rich as anybody can get off Voodoo. He said you give up your dreams the longer you live, until you've got nothing."

I think I winced at those choice and truthful words.

"I was seven years old," she said, "when Oncle Vervain died under this roof His mother's great-grandfather was a brujo among the Maya. You know, that's a witch doctor, a priest of sorts. I can still remember Oncle Vervain using that word."

"Why does he want you to go back?" I asked her.

She had not removed her eyes from the altar. I glanced in that direction and realized that a picture of Oncle Vervain was there too. It was small, frameless, merely propped at the Virgin's feet.

"To get the treasure," she said in her low, troubled voice. "To bring it here. He says there's something there that will change my destiny. But I don't know what he means." She gave one of those characteristic sighs of hers. "He seems to think I'll need it, this object, this thing. But what do spirits know?"

"What do they know, Merrick?" I asked.

"I can't tell you, David," she replied raggedly. "I can only tell you that he haunts me. He wants me to go there and bring back those things."

"You don't want to do this," I said. "I can tell by your entire manner. You're being haunted."

"It's a strong ghost, David," she said, her eyes moving over the distant statues. "They're strong dreams." She shook her head. "They're so full of his presence. God, how I miss him." She let her eyes drift. "You know," she said, "when he was very old, his legs were bad. The priest came; he said Oncle Vervain didn't have to go to Sunday Mass anymore. It was too hard. Yet every Sunday, Oncle Vervain got dressed in his best three-piece suit, and always with his pocket watch, you know, the little gold chain in front and the watch in the little pocket—and he sat in the dining room over there listening to the broadcast of Mass on the radio and whispering his prayers. He was such a gentleman. And the priest would come and bring him Holy Communion in the afternoon.

"No matter how bad his legs were, Oncle Vervain knelt down for Holy Communion. I stood in the front door until the priest was gone and the altar boy. Oncle Vervain said that our church was a magic church because Christ's Body and Blood was in Holy Communion. Oncle Vervain said I was baptized: Merrick Marie Louise Mayfair—consecrated to the Blessed Mother. They spelled it the French way, you know: M-e-r-r-i-q-u-e. I know I was baptized. I know." She paused. I couldn't bear the suffering in her voice or in her expression. If only we had located that baptismal certificate, I thought desperately, we might have prevented this obsession.

"No, David," she said aloud, sharply correcting me. "I dream of him, I tell you. I see him holding that gold watch." She settled back into her reverie, though it gave her no consolation. "How I loved that watch, that gold watch. I was the one who wanted it, but he left it to Cold Sandra. I used to beg him to let me look at it, to let me turn its hands to correct it, to let me snap it open, but no, he said, 'Merrick, it doesn't tick for you, chérie, it ticks for others.' And Cold Sandra got it. Cold Sandra took it with her when she left."

"Merrick, these are family ghosts. Don't we all have family ghosts?"

"Yes, David, but it's my family, and my family was never very much like anyone else's family, was it, David? He comes in the dreams and tells me about the cave."

"I can't bear to see you hurt, my darling," I said. "In London, behind my desk, I isolate myself emotionally from the Members all over the world. But from you? Never."

She nodded. "I don't want to cause you pain, either, boss," she said, "but I need you."

"You won't give up on this, will you?" I replied as tenderly as I could. She said nothing. Then:

"We have a problem, David," she said, her eyes fixed on the altar, perhaps deliberately avoiding me.

"And what is that, darling?" I asked.

"We don't know exactly where to go."

"I'm hardly surprised," I responded, trying to remember what I could of Matthew's vague letters. I tried not to sound cross or pompous. "All Matthew's letters were mailed from Mexico City in a batch as I understand it, when you were making your way home."

She nodded.

"But what of the map that Oncle Vervain gave you? I know it has no names, but when you touched it, what happened?"

"Nothing happened when I touched it," she said. She smiled bitterly. She was silent for a long time. Then she gestured to the altar.

It was then that I saw the small rolled parchment, tied in black ribbon, sitting beside the small picture of Oncle Vervain.

"Matthew had help getting there," she said in a strange, almost hollow voice. "He didn't figure it out from that map, or on his own in any fashion."

"You're referring to sorcery," I said.

"You sound like a Grand Inquisitor," she replied, her eyes still very distant from me, her face devoid of feeling, her tone flat. "He had Cold Sandra to help him. Cold Sandra knew things from Oncle Vervain that I don't know. Cold Sandra knew the whole lay of the land. So did Honey in the Sunshine. She was six years older than me." She paused. She was obviously deeply troubled. I don't think I had ever seen her so troubled in all her adult years.

"Oncle Vervain's mother's people had the secrets," she said. "I see so many faces in my dreams." She shook her head as if trying to clear her mind. On her voice went in a near whisper. "Oncle Vervain used to talk to Cold Sandra all the time. If he hadn't died when he did, maybe Cold Sandra would have been better, but then he was so old, it was his time."

"And in the dreams, Oncle Vervain doesn't tell you where the cave is located?"

"He tries," she answered sadly. "I see images, fragments. I see the Maya brujo, the priest, going up to a rock by the waterfall. I see a big stone carved with facial features. I see incense and candles, feathers from the wild birds, beautifully colored feathers and offerings of food."

"I understand," I responded.

She rocked a little in the chair, her eyes moving slowly from side to side. Then she took another drink of the rum in her glass. "Of course I remember things from the journey," she said in a slow voice.

"You were only ten years old," I said sympathetically. "And you mustn't think that because of these dreams you should go back now."

She ignored me. She drank her rum and she stared at the altar.

"There are so many ruins, so many highland basins," she said. "So many waterfalls, so many cloud forests. I need one more piece of information. Two pieces, really. The city to which we flew from Mexico City, and the name of the village where we camped. We took two planes to reach that city. I can't remember those names, if I ever knew them. I don't think I was paying attention. I was playing in the jungles. I was off by myself. I scarcely knew why we were there."

"Darling, listen to me—," I started.

"Don't. Forget it. I have to go back," she said sharply.

"Well, I assume you've combed all your books on the jungle terrain. You've made lists of towns and villages?" I broke off. I had to remember I didn't want this dangerous trip to take place.

She didn't immediately respond to me, and then she stared at me very deliberately and her eyes appeared uncommonly hard and cold. The candlelight and the light of the lamps made them gorgeously green. I noticed that her fingernails were painted the same shade of shiny violet as her toes. Once again she seemed the incarnation of all I'd ever desired.

"Of course I've done that," she said to me gently. "But now I have to find the name of that village, the last real outpost, and the name of the city to which we flew on the plane. If I had that, I could go." She sighed. "Especially that village with the brujo, that's been there for centuries, inaccessible and waiting for us—if I had that, I'd know the way."

"How, precisely?" I asked her.

"Honey knows it," she answered. "Honey in the Sunshine was sixteen when we made that journey. Honey will remember. Honey will tell it to me."

"Merrick, you can't try to call up Honey!" I said. "You know that's far too dangerous, that's utterly reckless, you can't...”

"David, you're here."

"I can't protect you if you call up this spirit, good God."

"But you must protect me. You must protect me because Honey will be as dreadful as she ever was. She'll try to destroy me when she comes through."

"Then don't do it."

"I have to do it. I have to do it and I have to go back to that cave. I promised Matthew Kemp when be was dying I'd report those discoveries. He didn't know he was talking to me. He thought he was talking to Cold Sandra, or maybe even Honey, or maybe his mother, I couldn't tell. But I promised. I promised I would tell the world about that cave."

"The world does not care about one more Olmec ruin!" I said. "There are universities aplenty working all through the rain forests and jungles. There're ancient cities all over Central America! What does it matter now?"

"I promised Oncle Vervain," she said earnestly. "I promised him I'd get all the treasure. I promised I'd bring it back.

'When you grow up,' he said to me, and I promised."

"Sounds to me as if Cold Sandra promised," I said sharply. "And perhaps Honey in the Sunshine promised. You were what, seven years old when the old man died?"

"I have to do it," she said solemnly.

"Listen," I insisted, "we're going to stop this entire plan. It's too dangerous politically to go to those Central American jungles anyway," I declared. "I won't approve the trip. I'm the Superior General. You can't go over my head."

"I don't intend to," she said, her tone softening. "I need you with me. I need you now." She stopped, and, leaning to one side, crushed out her cigarette, and refilled her glass from the bottle. She took a deep drink and settled back again in the chair.

"I have to call Honey," she whispered.

"Why not call Cold Sandra!" I demanded desperately.

"You don't understand," she said. "I've kept it locked in my soul all these years, but I have to call Honey. And Honey's near me. Honey's always near me! I've felt her near me. I've fended her off with my power. I've used my charms and my strength to protect myself. But she never really goes away." She took a deep drink of the rum. "David," she said, "Oncle Vervain loved Honey in the Sunshine. Honey's in these dreams too."

"I think it's your gruesome imagination!" I declared.

She gave a high sparkling laugh at this, fall of true amusement. It startled me. "Listen to you, David, next you'll tell me there are no ghosts or vampires. And that the Talamasca is just a legend, such an Order doesn't exist."

"Why do you have to call Honey?"

She shook her head. She rested back in the chair, and her eyes filled with visible tears. I could see them in the flicker of the candles. I was becoming genuinely frantic.

I stood up, marched into the dining room, found the bottle of twenty-five-year-old Macallan Scotch and the lead crystal glasses on the sideboard, and poured myself a good drink. I returned to her. Then I went back and got the bottle. I brought it with me, settled in the chair, and put it on the nightstand to my left.

The Scotch tasted wonderful. I didn't drink on the plane at all, wanting to be alert for my reunion, and it took the edge off my nerves beautifully.

She was still crying.

"All right, you're going to call up Honey, and you think for some reason Honey knows the name of the town or the village."

"Honey liked those places," she said, unperturbed by my urgent voice. "Honey liked the name of the village from which we hiked to the cave." She turned to me. "Don't you see, these names are like jewels embedded in her conscious; she's there with all she ever knew! She doesn't have to remember like a living being. The knowledge is in her and I have to make her give it to me."

"All right, I see, I understand everything. I maintain that it's too dangerous, and besides, why hasn't the spirit of Honey gone on?"

"She can't until I tell her what she wants to know."

This baffled me completely. What could Honey want to know?

Suddenly Merrick rose from the chair, rather like a slumbering cat instantly propelled into predatory action, and she closed the door to the hall. I heard her turn the key.

I was on my feet. But I stood back, uncertain of what she meant to do. Certainly she wasn't drunk enough to be interfered with in any dramatic authoritarian fashion, and I wasn't surprised when she abandoned her glass for the bottle of rum and took it with her into the center of the room.

Only then did I realize there was no carpet. Her naked feet were soundless on the polished floor, and, with the bottle clutched in her right hand to her breast, she began to turn in a circle, humming and throwing back her head. I pressed myself against the wall.

Round and round she spun, the violet cotton skirt flaring and the bottle sloshing rum into the air. She paid no attention to the spilt liquor, and, slowing her turns only for a moment, she took another deep drink and then turned so fast that her garments slapped against her legs.

Stopping dead as she faced the altar, she spit the rum between her teeth into a fine spray at the waiting saints. A high-pitched wail came out of her clenched teeth as she continued to issue the rum from her mouth. Once again she began to dance, almost deliberately slapping her feet and murmuring. I couldn't catch the language or the words. Her hair was tangled over her face. Again a swallow, again the rum flying, the candles sputtering and dancing as they caught the tiny droplets and ignited them.

Suddenly she hurled a stream of rum from the bottle all over the candles, and the flames went up before the saints in a dangerous flare. Mercifully the fire went out.

Head back, she screamed between her teeth in French:

"Honey, I did it! Honey, I did it. Honey, I did it!"

The room seemed to shake as she bent her knees and circled, pounding her feet in a loud dance.

"Honey, I put the curse on you and Cold Sandra!" she screamed. "Honey, I did it." Suddenly she lunged at the altar, never letting go of her bottle, and, grabbing the green jade perforator in her left hand, she slashed a long cut into her right arm.

I gasped. What could I do to stop her, I thought, what could I do that wouldn't enrage her?

The blood streamed down her arm and she bowed her head, licked at it, drank the rum, and sprayed the offering on the patient saints once again.

I could see the blood flowing down her hand, over her knuckles. Her wound was superficial but the amount of blood was awful.

Again she lifted the knife.

"Honey, I did it to you and Cold Sandra. I killed you, I put the curse on you!" she screamed. I resolved to grab hold of her as she went to cut herself again. But I couldn't move. As God is my witness, I couldn't move. I was rooted to the spot. I tried with all my resources to overcome the paralysis, but it was useless. All I could do was cry to her,

"Stop it, Merrick!"

She slashed at her arm across the first cut, and again the blood flowed.

"Honey, come to me, Honey, give me your rage, give me your hatred, Honey, I killed you, Honey, I made the dolls of you and Cold Sandra, Honey, I drowned them in the ditch the night you left. Honey, I killed you. Honey, I sent you to the swamp water, Honey, I did it," she was screaming.

"For the love of Heaven, Merrick, let go!" I cried. Then suddenly, unable to watch her slash her arm again, I began to pray frantically to Oxalá:

"Give me the power to stop her, give me the power to divert her before she harms herself, give me the power, I beg you, Oxalá, I'm your loyal David, give me the power." I shut my eyes. The floor was trembling beneath me. Suddenly the noise of her screams and her bare feet stopped.

I felt her against me. I opened my eyes. She stood in my embrace, both of us facing the doorway, which was indisputably open, and the shadowy figure who stood with her back to the light of the hall. It was a graceful young girl with long tightly curling blond hair lathered all over her shoulders, her face veiled in shadow, her yellow eyes piercing in the candle glow.

"I did it!" Merrick whispered. "I killed you."

I felt Merrick's whole pliant body against me. I wrapped my arms tightly around her. Again, but silently, I prayed to Oxalá.

Protect us from this spirit if evil is the intent of this Spirit. Oxalá, you who made the world, you who rule in high places, you who are among the clouds, protect us, do not look at my faults as I call on you, but give me your mercy, protect us if this spirit would do us harm.

Merrick wasn't trembling, she was quaking, her body covered in sweat, as it had been during the possession so many years before.

"I put the dolls in the ditch, I drowned them in the ditch, I did it. I drowned them. I did it. I prayed, 'Let them die!' I knew from Cold Sandra that she was going to buy that car, I said, 'Let it go off a bridge, let them drown.' I said, 'When they drive across the lake, let them die.' Cold Sandra was so afraid of that lake, I said, 'Let them die.' " The figure in the doorway appeared as solid as anything I'd ever beheld. The shadowy face showed no expression, but the yellow eyes remained fixed.

Then a voice issued from it, low, and full of hatred.

"Fool, you never caused it!" said the voice. "Fool, you think you caused that to happen to us? You never caused anything. Fool, you couldn't make a curse to save your soul!"

I thought Merrick would lose consciousness, but somehow she remained standing, though my arms were ready to hold her should she fail.

She nodded. "Forgive me that I wanted it," she said in a hoarse whisper that seemed entirely her own. "Forgive me, Honey, that I wanted it. I wanted to go with you, forgive me."

"Go to God to get your forgiveness," came the low voice from the darkened countenance. "Don't come to me." Again Merrick nodded. I could feel the stickiness of her spilt blood coming down over my right fingers. Again I prayed to Oxalá! But my words were coming automatically. I was riveted heart and soul to the being in the doorway, who neither moved nor dissolved.

"Get down on your knees," said the voice. "Write in blood what I tell you."

"Don't do it!" I whispered.

Merrick sprang forward, falling on her knees on the floor that was wet and slippery with blood and spilt rum. Once again, I tried to move, but I couldn't. It was as if my feet had been nailed to the boards. Merrick's back was to me, but I knew she was pressing her left fingers to the wounds to make them bleed ever more deeply, and then I heard the creature in the doorway give two names.

I heard the first distinctly, "Guatemala City, there's where you land," said the spirit, "and Santa Cruz del Flores is as close as you can get to the cave."

Merrick sat back on her heels, her body heaving, her breaths coming rapid and hoarse as she squeezed the blood onto the floor and began to write with her right first finger the names now repeated from her own lips. On and on I prayed for strength against the figure, but I cannot claim that it was my prayers which made the being begin to fade.

A horrid scream broke from Merrick:

"Honey, don't leave me!" she cried. "Honey, don't go. Honey, come back, please, please, come back," she sobbed.

"Honey in the Sunshine, I love you. Don't leave me here alone."

But the spirit was gone.

13

MERRICK’S CUTS were not deep, though the flood of blood had been quite terrifying. I was able to bandage her up fairly decently, and then take her to the nearest hospital, where she was given the proper treatment for the wounds. I don't remember what nonsense we told the attending physician, except that we convinced him that though the wounds had been selfinflicted, Merrick was in her right mind. Then I insisted we return to the Motherhouse, and Merrick, who was at that time in some sort of daze, agreed. I went back for the Scotch, I'm ashamed to say, but then one tends to remember the flavor of a twenty-five-year-old single-malt Highland Scotch like Macallan. Besides, I'm not sure I was in my right mind. I remember drinking in the car, which I never do, and Merrick falling asleep against my shoulder, her right hand clamped to my wrist.

You can well imagine my state of mind.

The visible spirit of Honey in the Sunshine had been one of the more ominous ghosts I'd ever beheld. I was used to shadows, interior voices, and even possession; but to see the seemingly solid form of Honey in the Sunshine standing in the doorway was utterly shattering. The voice alone had been terrifying, but the shape, its apparent solidity and duration, the manner in which the light had played upon it, the eyes being so very reflective—all of this was a little more than I could easily bear.

Then there was the question of my own paralysis during this experience. How had Merrick accomplished this thing? In sum, I was badly shaken but very deeply impressed.

Of course Merrick was not going to say how she had done any part of it. In fact, Merrick didn't want to speak of it at all. At the mere mention of Honey's name, she began to cry. As a man, I found that maddening and unfair. But there was nothing I could do about it. Merrick would wipe her tears, and at once turned the subject to our jungle venture. As for my opinion of the ritual she had used to summon Honey, I had found it simple, its chief component Merrick's own personal power, and the sudden dreadful connection with a spirit who apparently was not at rest. Whatever, that night and on the following day, all Merrick wanted to talk about was the jungle trip. She had become a mono-maniac of sorts. She'd bought her khaki garments. She'd even ordered mine! We must go to Central America directly. We must have the finest camera equipment and all the support which the Talamasca could provide. She wanted to return to the cave because there were other items there, and she wanted to see the land which had been important to her ancient Oncle Vervain. Oncle Vervain would not be haunting her if there were not substantial treasure there which he wanted for her to possess. Oncle Vervain was not going to let her alone. For two days afterwards, while imbibing ridiculous quantities of the delicious full-bodied Macallan Scotch, of which she had laid in several bottles, I tried to control Merrick, to prevent the journey from taking place. But it was quite useless. I was getting drunk over and over again, and Merrick was determined. If I did not give Talamasca authority and support, she would take off on her own.

But the fact was, though I advised against everything, I felt young again on account of these experiences. I felt the curious excitement of one who has seen a ghost firsthand. And I also did not want to go to my grave without ever seeing a tropical jungle again. Even the arguments with Merrick had a wildly stimulating effect. That this beautiful and strong young woman wanted me to go with her, this went to my head.

"We're going," said Merrick, who was poring over a map in the Talamasca library. "Look, I know the way now. Honey's given me the only keys I required. I remember the landmarks and I know that part of the jungle's still unexplored. I've been through all the recent books on the territory."

"But you haven't found Santa Cruz del Flores in your books, have you?" I protested.

"Never mind. It's there. It's simply too small to be on the maps we purchase here. They'll know it when we reach northern Guatemala. Leave it to me. There simply isn't enough money for every ruin to be studied, and there are a nest of ruins in that part of the jungle, possibly a temple complex or even a city. You said this to me yourself.

"I remember seeing a spectacular temple. Don't you want to see it with your own eyes?" She was as cross and unpretentious as a child. "David, please do spring into life as Superior General, or whatever, and arrange everything for us both at once."

"But why do you think Honey in the Sunshine gave you the answers to your questions so easily?" I asked. "Has that not aroused your suspicion?"

"David, that's simple," said Merrick. "Honey wanted to say something of value, because Honey wants me to call her again."

The obvious truth of that statement shocked me somewhat.

"God knows, Merrick, you're strengthening this spirit. Certainly it should be encouraged to move towards the Light."

"Of course I urge her to go," Merrick answered, "but Honey's not leaving me. I told you that evening, I told you I've been feeling Honey's presence for years. All this time I've been pretending there was no Honey, there was no jungle, I didn't have to go back to these painful memories, I could bury myself in academic studies. You know that.

"But I've completed the basic academic portion of my life. And now I must go back. Now, stop mentioning Honey; for the love of Heaven, you think I want to think about what I did?" Then back she went to the maps again, sending for another bottle of Macallan for me, and telling me that we would need tent equipment on this trip, and I should be starting the arrangements now.

At last I pleaded that it was the rainy season in those jungles and we should wait until Christmas when the rains had stopped. She was ready for that objection; the rains were over; she had checked the reports daily. We could go now. There was nothing to be done except to proceed with the journey. If I had condemned the plan as Superior General, Merrick would have taken off for Central America alone. As a full-fledged member of the Order, she had drawn a large allowance for several years and she had banked every penny of it. She could go off on her own and she told me as much.

"Look," she said, "it will break my heart to go against your wishes, but I will if I must." And so it was that we arranged to have four Talamasca field assistants accompany us, both to handle all camp equipment and to carry firearms in case we encountered bandits where we meant to go. Now let me explain briefly about these field assistants for anyone reading this story who might be curious on their account. The Talamasca has many such field assistants throughout the world. They are not full-fledged members of the Order, they have no access to the archives and certainly no access to or knowledge of the Talamasca's vaults. They do not take vows as do true members of the Order. They do not need or have psychic ability. They are not committed for any number of years or for life.

Indeed, they are employees of the Talamasca under its various corporate names, and their prime purpose is to accompany members on archaeological or exploratory expeditions, to assist us in foreign cities and countries, and in general to do what they are asked to do. They are expert in obtaining passports, visas, and the right to carry arms in other countries. Many have a background in law, as well as the armed services of different nations. They are reliable to a remarkable degree.

Were we to find this cave and its treasure, it was the field assistants who would arrange for the artifacts to be legally and securely transported out of the country with all appropriate permissions obtained and fees paid. Now, whether this latter type of activity would involve anything that wasn't legal, I honestly didn't know. It was the field assistants' department, so to speak.

These people do have some vague knowledge that the Talamasca is a tightly organized Order of psychic investigators, but in general they like what they do, enjoying enormous salaries, and they never seek to penetrate or fathom the Order at all. Many of them are seasoned soldiers of fortune. Their work for us almost never involves deliberate violence. And they cherish the opportunity to receive good pay from a relatively benign source.

At last the day came for us to leave. Aaron was past all patience with both of us, and, having never been a jungle traveler, he was greatly agitated, but he accompanied us agreeably to the plane.

We flew south, to Guatemala City, where we confirmed the existence and the location of the Maya village of Santa Cruz del Flores to the northeast. Merrick was wonderfully excited.

A small plane took us to a lovely northern city closer to our destination. And from there we set out with the field assistants in two wellstocked jeeps.

I loved the warmth, the sound of the soft rain, the lilt of Spanish and the native Amerindian voices; and the sight of so many Amerindians in their beautiful white clothes and with their gentle faces made me feel wonderfully drenched in the cultural riches of a foreign and still unspoiled place.

Actually there is plenty of trouble in that part of the world, but we were able to stay well away from it. And my eyes were for the pleasant detail.

No matter. I found myself extraordinarily happy. It was as if I were young again, and the sight of Merrick in her khaki safari jacket and short culottes was as marvelously stimulating as her air of command was soothing to my nerves. Merrick drove our jeep rather like a maniac, but as long as the second car in our little caravan kept up with us, I didn't complain. I chose not to think about the gallons of petrol we were carrying, and how it might explode were we to crash into a chicle tree. I merely trusted that any woman who could evoke a ghost could drive a jeep on a dangerous road. The jungle was breathtaking. Banana and citrus trees all but blocked our way on both sides of the winding uphill drive; here and there were giant mahogany trees soaring to a hundred and fifty feet; and out of the high canopy above came the frightening but unmistakable roar of the howler monkeys and the cry of countless species of exotic bird. Our little world was drenched in green, but again and again we found ourselves on a high promontory from which we could view the canopy of the jungle as it spread out on the volcanic slopes below. Very soon it became apparent that we had entered a cloud forest, and again and again we experienced that marvelous sensation when the clouds truly enveloped us and the sweet dampness penetrated the coverless windows of the jeep and settled on our skin.

Merrick knew I was loving it.

"I promise you," she said, "the last part won't be hard."

At last we reached Santa Cruz del Flores, a jungle village, so small and so out of the way that the recent political strife in the country had not touched it at all.

Merrick announced that it was very much as she remembered it—a small grouping of brightly painted thatched-roof buildings, and a small but remarkably beautiful old stone Spanish church. There were pigs, chickens, and turkeys roaming about everywhere. And I spied some cornfields cut from the jungle, but not very much. The town plaza was beaten dirt. When our two jeeps pulled in, the gentle local inhabitants came out to greet us quite sympathetically, enforcing my opinion that the native Maya Indians are some of the most enchanting people in the world. They were for the most part women, dressed in pretty white garments with remarkable embroidery on them. I saw faces about me which reminded me immediately of the ancient countenances of Central America preserved in Maya, and possibly Olmec, art. Most of the men of the village had gone off to work on the distant sugarcane plantations, or at the nearest chicle ranch, I was told. I wondered if it were forced labor, and decided it was best not to ask. As for the women, they often walked many miles in a day to offer their skillfully woven baskets and embroidered linens for sale at a big native market. They were thankful for a chance to display their wares at home.

There was no hotel of any sort whatsoever, indeed no post office, no phone, and no telegraph—but there were several old women who would eagerly give us lodgings in their houses. Our dollars were welcome. There were lovely local crafts for sale and we purchased freely. There was plenty of food to be had.

I at once wanted to see the church, and was informed by one of the locals in Spanish that I must not enter by the front door without first asking permission of the deity who governed that entrance. Of course, I could go in by the side, if I wished.

Not wishing to offend anyone, I took the side entrance and found myself in a simple white-walled building amid ancient Spanish wooden statues and the usual flickering candles, a very comforting place indeed. I think I prayed the way I had in the old days, in Brazil. I prayed to all those benevolent deities unseen to be with us and protect us from any form of harm.

Merrick joined me a few moments later—making the Sign of the Cross and kneeling at the Communion Rail for long moments of prayer. Eventually I went outside to wait.

There I spied a somewhat wrinkled old man, short of stature, and with shoulder-length black hair. He was dressed simply in a machine-made shirt and pants. I knew at once that he was the local shaman. I gave him a respectful bow, and though his eyes lingered on me with no hint of menace, I went my way.

I was hot but I was supremely happy. The village was fringed with coconut palms and there were even some pine trees due to the elevation, and for the first time in my life, as I walked about the bordering jungles I saw many exquisite butterflies in the dappled gloom.

There were moments when I was so purely happy that I could have given way to tears. I was secretly grateful to Merrick for this journey. And I concluded in my heart of hearts that no matter what happened from here on out, the experience had been well worth it for me.

When it came to our lodging, we chose a compromise.

Merrick sent the four field assistants to live in the village homes, after they had pitched and stocked a tent for us just behind the most far-flung village house. All of this seemed perfectly reasonable to me until I realized we were an unmarried man and woman residing in this tent, and it wasn't very proper at all.

Never mind. Merrick was powerfully stimulated by our adventure, as was I, and I was eager for her company alone. The Talamasca assistants outfitted the tent with cots, lanterns, camp desks, and chairs; made certain Merrick had ample batteries for her laptop computer; and, after a wonderful supper—tortillas, beans, and delicious wild turkey meat—we were left alone as night fell, in marvelous privacy, to discuss what we meant to do the following day.

"I don't intend taking the others with us," Merrick averred. "We're way beyond the danger of bandits, and, as I told you, it isn't far. I remember one small settlement along the way. It's tiny compared to this one. The people will leave us alone." She was more excited than I'd ever known her to be.

"Of course we can cover some of the road with the jeep before we start walking, and you'll see Maya ruins around us just as soon as we set out. We're going to drive through those, and walk where the trails gives out." She settled back on her cot, resting on one elbow, and drank her dark Flor de Caña rum, which she'd bought in the city before we set out.

"Wooh! This is good," she told me, and of course this struck predictable terror in me that she meant to go on a bender here in the jungle.

"Don't worry about it, David," she said. "Fact is, you ought to take a drink of this yourself." I suspected her motives, but nevertheless succumbed. I was really in Heaven, I have to confess. What I remember of that evening still produces in me a certain amount of guilt. I did drink far too much of the delicious aromatic rum. At some point, I remember lying back on my bed and looking up into the face of Merrick, who had come to sit beside me. Then Merrick leant down to kiss me and I pulled her very close, responding a little more rashly perhaps than she had expected. But she was not displeased.

Now, I was a person for whom sexuality had pretty much lost its appeal. When I had been occasionally aroused, during those last twenty years of my mortal life, it was almost always by a young man.

But the attraction of Merrick seemed somehow to have nothing to do with gender. I found myself overly excited and eager to consummate what had so haphazardly begun. Only as I shifted to let her lie beneath me, where I wanted her to be, did I gain some control over myself, and rise from the cot.

"David," she whispered. I heard my name echo: David, David. I couldn't move. I saw her shadowy form there waiting for me. And for the first time I realized that the lanterns had been put out. A little light came from the nearest house, barely penetrating the fabric of the tent, and of course it was quite sufficient for me to see that she had taken off her clothes.

"Damn it, I can't do this," I said. But in truth I was afraid that I couldn't finish it. I was afraid that I was too old. She rose with that same suddenness which had startled me when she began to summon Honey in her little seance, and she wrapped her naked arms around me and began to kiss me in earnest, her skilled hand going directly to the root of my desire.

I do believe I hesitated, but that I don't recall. What is vivid still is that we lay together and that, though I failed myself morally, I did not fail her at all. I did not fail the two of us as a man and a woman, and there was afterwards both a drowsiness and a sense of exultation that left no room for shame.

It seemed, as I drifted off to sleep with my arms around her, that this had been building all of the years during which I'd known her. I belonged to her now, quite completely. I was drenched with the scent of her perfume and her rum, of her skin and her hair. I wanted nothing but to be with her and to sleep beside her, and that the warmth of her would penetrate my inevitable dreams.

When I awoke in the morning, right at dawn, I was too shocked by everything that had taken place to know quite what to do. She was sleeping soundly, in a marvelously disheveled state, and I, humiliated that I had so dreadfully betrayed my position as Superior General, ripped my eyes off her, bathed, dressed, reached for my journal, and went out and into the little Spanish church so that I could write about my sins.

Once again I spied the shaman, who was standing to one side of the church building and watching me as though he knew everything that had taken place. His presence made me extremely uncomfortable. I no longer thought him to be innocent or quaint. And of course I despised myself utterly, but I had to admit I was invigorated, as is always the case with this kind of encounter, and, naturally, oh yes, naturally, I felt very young. In the quiet and cool of the little church with its sloped roof and its uncritical saints, I wrote for perhaps an hour. Then Merrick came in, said her prayers, and came to sit beside me, as if nothing at all had happened, and then whispered to me excitedly that we should go.

"I've betrayed your trust, young woman," I whispered immediately.

"Don't be so foolish," she fired back. "You did exactly what I wanted you to do. Do you think I wanted to be humiliated? Of course not!"

"You're putting the wrong meaning on everything," I argued.

She reached for the back of my neck, held my head as firmly as she could, and kissed me.

"Let's go," she said, as if speaking to a child. "We're wasting time. Come on."

14

IN THE JEEP, we managed an hour before the road gave out. Then, hefting our machetes, we proceeded to follow the trail on foot.

There was very little conversation between us, all of our energy being given over to the difficult and steady assent. But again that sense of bliss descended upon me, and the sight of Merrick's forceful slim body up ahead of me was a constant guilty delight.

The jungle now seemed impenetrable, regardless of the altitude, and again there came the clouds with their wondrous sweetness and damp.

I had my eye out all the time for ruins of any sort, and indeed we saw them, on both sides of us, but whether they were temples or pyramids or whatever, I was not meant to know. Merrick dismissed them out of hand, and insisted that we press doggedly on.

The heat ate through my clothing. My right arm ached from the weight of the machete. The insects became an unendurable nuisance, but I would not have been in any other place just then for anything in the world. Quite suddenly Merrick stopped, and motioned for me to come to her side.

We had come upon a clearing of sorts, or the remains of one, I should say, and I saw decayed plaster hovels where there had once been houses, and one or two shelters which still maintained their old thatched roofs.

"The little village is gone," Merrick said as she surveyed the disaster. I remembered Matthew Kemp's mention of Village One and Village Two on his map and in his letters of years ago. She stood for a long moment staring into the remnants of the place and then she spoke in a secretive voice. "Do you feel anything?"

I had not felt anything until she asked me, but no sooner did I hear the question than I was aware of something spiritually turbulent in the air. I resolved to apply all my senses to it. It was quite strong. I cannot say I felt personalities or an attitude. I felt a commotion. For one moment I felt menace, and then nothing at all.

"What do you make of it?" I asked her.

Her very stillness made me uneasy.

"It's not the spirits of this village," she answered. "And I'll bet you anything that whatever we're feeling is precisely what caused the villagers to move on." She started off again, and I had no choice but to follow her. I was almost as obsessed as she.

Once we had circled the entangled village ruin, the trail appeared again.

However, the jungle soon became denser; we had to hack our way all the more fiercely, and at times I felt a dreadful pain in my chest.

Quite suddenly, as if it had appeared by magic, I saw the huge bulk of a pale stone pyramid looming before us, its steps covered by scrub growth and dense vine.

Someone at some time had cleared it, and much of its strange carving was visible, as well as its flight of steep steps. No, it wasn't Maya, at least not insofar as I could see.

"Ah, let me savor this," I said to Merrick.

She didn't answer me. She seemed to be listening for an important sound. I too listened and there came again that awareness that we were not alone. Something moved in the atmosphere, something pushed against us, something sought with great determination to move against gravity and affect my body as I stood there, machete in hand. Merrick suddenly veered to the left, and began hacking her way around the side of the pyramid and onward in the same direction that we'd taken before.

There was no trail now. There was nothing but the jungle, and I soon realized that another pyramid loomed to our left, and that it was much higher than the building to our right. We were in a small alley-way before the two immense monuments, and we had to make our way through cumbersome rubble, as someone had done digging here at some time before.

"Thieves," she said, as if reading my thoughts. "They've plundered the pyramids many times." That was hardly uncommon with regard to Maya ruins. So why should it not happen to these strange alien buildings as well?

"Ah, but look," I said, "at what they've left behind. I want to climb one of these. Let's tackle the smaller one. I want to see if I can make it to the platform on top."

She knew as well as I did that that is where a thatched-roof temple might have stood in ancient times. As for the age of these monuments, I had no indication. They might have been built before the Birth of Christ or a thousand years after. Whatever, they seemed marvelous to me and they maddened my already boyish sense of adventure. I wanted to get out my camera.

Meantime, the spiritual tumult continued. It was wondrously intriguing. It was as if the air were whipped by the spirits. The sense of menace was strong.

"Good Lord, Merrick, how they're trying to stop us," I whispered. The jungle gave forth its chorus of cries, as if answering me. Something moved in the brush.

But Merrick, after stopping for only a few moments, pressed on.

"I have to find the cave," she said in a dull flat voice. "They didn't stop us last time and they're not going to stop you and me now." On she went, the jungle closing all too readily behind her.

"Yes," I cried out. "It's not one soul, it's many. They don't want us near these pyramids."

"It's not the pyramids," she insisted, chopping at the vines and pushing through the undergrowth. "It's the cave, they know we are going to the cave."

I did my best to keep up with her, and to aid her, but she was definitely the one clearing our path. We had gone some yards when it seemed the jungle grew impossibly thick and that the light was suddenly altered, and I realized we had come to the blackened doorway of an immense edifice, which spread its sloping walls to our right and our left. It was a temple, surely, and I could see the impressive carvings on either side of the entrance, and also above as the wall rose to a great apron of stone with intricate carvings visible in the scarce high rays of the desperate sun.

"Lord, Merrick, wait," I called out. "Let me photograph this." I struggled to reach my small camera, but I would have to remove my backpack and my arms were simply too tired.

The airy turbulence grew extremely intense. I felt something similar to the light tap of fingers against my eyelids and my cheeks. It was altogether different from the constant barrage of the insect world. I felt something touch the back of my hands, and it seemed that I almost lost my grip on the machete, but I quickly recovered. As for Merrick, she stood staring into the darkness of the hallway or passage in front of her.

"My God," she whispered. "They're much stronger than they were before. They don't want us to go inside."

"And why would we do that?" I asked quickly. "We're searching for a cave."

"They know that's what we're doing," she said. "The cave is on the other side of the temple. The simplest way is straight through."

"God in Heaven," I said. "This is the way you went before?"

"Yes," she answered. "The villagers wouldn't go with us. Some never made it as far. We went on, through there."

"And what if the ceiling of this passage collapses on us?" I asked.

"I'm going through it," she answered. "The temple's built of solid limestone. Nothing's changed, and nothing will." She removed her small flashlight from her belt and sent the beam into the opening. I could see the stone floor in spite of the few pallid plants which had struggled to cover it. I could make out lavish paintings on the walls!

Her flashlight hit great rich figures of dark skin and golden clothes proceeding against a backdrop of vivid blue. Above, as the walls rose to a vaulted ceiling, I saw another procession against the deep shade of Roman red. The entire chamber seemed some fifty feet in length and her feeble light struck a bit of greenery at the other end. Again, there came those spirits, swarming around me, silent yet nevertheless intensely active, trying once more to strike my eyelids and my cheeks.

I saw Merrick flinch. "Get away from me!" she whispered. "You have no power over me!" There was an immense response. The jungle around us appeared to tremble, as if an errant breeze had worked its way down to us, and a shower of leaves fell at our feet. Once again I heard the unearthly roar of the howler monkeys high in the trees. It seemed to give voice to the spirits.

"Come on, David," Merrick said; but as she meant to go forward something invisible appeared to stop her, because she stepped back off-balance and raised her left hand as if to shield herself. Another volley of leaves descended upon us.

"Not good enough!" she said aloud and plunged into the vaulted chamber, her light growing brighter and fuller so that we found ourselves surrounded by some of the most vivid murals which I've ever seen. Everywhere around us there rose splendid processional figures, tall and thin, complete with ornate kilts, earrings, and lavish headdresses. I could not mark the style as Maya or Egyptian. It was like nothing I'd ever studied or seen. Matthew's old photographs had failed to capture one tenth of the vibrancy or detail. A lovely detailed black-and-white border ran along the floor on either sides.

On and on we went, our every footfall echoing off the walls as we proceeded, but the air had grown intolerably hot. Dust rose in my nostrils. I felt the touch of fingers all over me. Indeed there came the grip of hands on my upper arm, and a muffled blow against my face.

I reached out for Merrick's shoulder, both to hurry her and to stay with her.

We were in the very middle of the passage when she came to a standstill and flinched as if receiving a shock.

"Get away from me, you won't stop me!" she whispered. And then in a long stream of French she called on Honey in the Sunshine to make the way.

We hurried on. I wasn't at all sure that Honey would do anything of the sort. It seemed far more likely that Honey would bring the temple down on our heads.

At last we came out in the jungle once more, and I coughed to clear my throat. I looked back at the edifice. Less was visible on this side than on the front. I felt the spirits all around us. I felt threats without language. I felt myself pushed and shoved by weak creatures desperate to stop my advance.

I needed my handkerchief for the millionth time, to wipe the insects off my face.

Merrick immediately moved on.

The path went steeply upwards. And I beheld the sparkle of the waterfall before I heard its music. There came a narrow place where the water ran deep, and Merrick crossed over to the right bank as I followed, my machete working as hard as hers.

The climb up the waterfall was not difficult at all. But the activity of the spirits became increasingly stronger. Again and again Merrick cursed under her breath. I called on Oxalá to show the way.

"Honey, get me there," Merrick said.

Quite abruptly I perceived, just beneath an overhang, where the waterfall jetted forward, a monstrous open-mouthed face carved deep into the volcanic rock that surrounded an obvious cave. It was precisely as the doomed Matthew had described it. His camera had been ruined by moisture before he could photograph it, however, and its size was something of a shock.

Now, you can well imagine my satisfaction that we had reached this mythic place. For years I had heard tell of it, it was inextricably bound up in my mind with Merrick, and now we were there. Though the spirits kept up their assault, the gentle mist from the waterfall was cooling my hands and face.

I made my way up to stand beside Merrick, when suddenly the spirits exerted immense pressure against my body, and I felt my left foot go out from under me.

Though I never cried out, but merely reached for purchase, Merrick turned and grabbed hold of me by the loose shoulder of my jacket. That was all I needed to recover my footing and climb the remaining few feet to be at the flattened entrance of the cave.

"Look at the offerings," Merrick said, putting her left hand on my right. The spirits redoubled their efforts, but I held firm and so did Merrick, though twice she swiped at something near to her face.

As for "the offerings," what I beheld was a giant basalt head. It struck me as similar to the Olmec, but that was all I could say. Did it resemble the murals in the temple? Impossible to judge. Whatever it was, I loved it. It was helmeted and tilted upwards so that the face with its open eyes and unique smiling mouth received the rain that inevitably fell here, and at its uneven base, amid piles of blackened stones, stood an amazing array of candles, feathers, and wilted flowers, as well as pottery. I could smell the incense where I stood.

The blackened rocks testified to many years of candles, but the last of these offerings could not have been more than two or three days old.

I felt something change in the air around us. But Merrick seemed as distressed by the spirits as before. She made another involuntary gesture, as though to drive something unseen away.

"So nothing stopped them from coming," I said quickly, looking at the offering. "Let me try something." I reached into my jacket pocket and took out a pack of Rothmans, which I was keeping for the inevitability that I would smoke. I opened them hastily, lighted one with my butane lighter, in spite of the incessant spray of the waterfall, drew in the smoke, and then put the cigarette before the immense head. I put the entire pack with it. Silently I said the prayers to the spirits, asking them to allow us access to this place.

I felt no change in the assault of the spirits. I felt them pushing on me with renewed energy in a way that was beginning to unnerve me, certain though I might be that they would never gain very much strength.

"They know our motives," said Merrick, gazing at the giant upturned head and its withered flowers. "Let's go into the cave."

We used our large flashlights, and at once the silence from the waterfall descended upon us, along with the smell of dry earth and ash.

Immediately, I saw the paintings, or what I perceived to be paintings. They were well inside, and we walked upright and swiftly towards them, ignoring the spirits which had now produced a whistling sound near my ears. To my utter shock, I saw that these splendidly colored wall coverings were in fact mosaics made with millions of tiny chips of semiprecious stones! The figures were far simpler than those of temple murals, which argued perhaps for a more ancient date.

The spirits had gone quiet.

"This is marvelous," I whispered, because I had to say something. And again I tried to reach for my camera, but the pain in my arm was simply too sharp. "Merrick, we must take photographs," I told her. "Look, darling, there's writing. We must photograph it. I'm sure those are glyphs."

She didn't answer. She stared at the walls as I did. She seemed entranced.

I could not quite make out a procession, or indeed attribute any activity to the tall slender figures, except to say that they appeared to be in profile, to wear long garments, and to be carrying important objects in their hands. I did not see bloody victims struggling. I did not see clear figures of priests.

But as I struggled to make out the intermittent and glittering splendor, my foot struck something hollow. I looked down at a wealth of richly colored pottery gleaming before us as far as we could see.

"This isn't a cave at all, is it?" Merrick said. "I remember Matthew saying it was a tunnel. It is a tunnel. It's been carved out entirely by man."

The stillness was shocking.

Stepping as carefully as she could, she went on, and I behind her, though I had to reach down several times to move some of the small vessels out of my way.

"This is a burial place, that's what it is, and all these are offerings," I said. At that I felt a sharp blow to the back of my head. I spun around and shone my flashlight on nothing. The light from the cave entrance hurt my eyes.

Something pushed my left side and then my right shoulder. It was the spirits coming at me again. I saw that Merrick was jerking and moving to the side, as if something were striking her also.

I uttered a prayer to Oxalá again, and heard Merrick issuing her own refusals to back down.

"This is as far as we got last time," said Merrick, turning to look at me, her face dark above her flashlight, which she politely directed to the ground. "We took everything we found here. Now I'm going on." I was right with her, but the assault of the spirits grew stronger. I saw her pushed to one side. But quickly she steadied herself. I heard the crunch of pottery beneath her feet.

"You've made us angry," I said to the spirits. "Maybe we don't have any right here. And maybe we do!" At this I received a heavy silent blow to the stomach, but it was not sufficient to cause pain. I felt a sharp increase in my exhilaration suddenly.

"Go on, do your damndest," I said. "Oxalá, who is buried here? Would he or she have it remain secret forever? Why did Oncle Vervain send us to this place?"

Merrick, who was several yards ahead of me, let out a gasp.

I caught up with her at once. The tunnel had opened into a great hollow round chamber where the mosaics ascended the low dome. Much had fallen away from age or dampness, I knew not which, but it was a glorious room nevertheless. Round both walls the figures proceeded, until there stood one individual whose facial features had long ago been broken away.

On the floor of the room, in its very center, surrounded by clear circles of pottery offerings and fine jade statues, lay a beautiful arrangement of ornaments in a nest of dust.

"Look, the mask, the mask in which he was buried," Merrick said, her light falling upon the most glorious polished green jade image, which lay as it had been placed perhaps thousands of years before, the body of the wearer having long since melted away.

Neither of us dared take a step. The precious articles surrounding the burial were too beautifully arranged. We could see the ear ornaments now, glinting, as the soft moldering earth nearly swallowed them, and across the would-be chest of the being we saw a long richly carved scepter, which perhaps he had held in his hand.

"Look at all the debris," she said. "No doubt he was wrapped in fabric full of precious amulets and sacrifices. Now the fabric's gone and only the stone objects remain."

There was a loud noise behind us. I could hear pottery smashing. Merrick gave a short cry, as though something had struck her.

Then willfully, indeed, as if driven, she plunged forward, dropped to her knees, and picked up the brilliant green mask. She darted back with it, away from the remains of the corpse.

A flying stone struck me on the forehead. Something shoved at my back.

"Come on, let's leave the rest for the archaeologists," she said. "I have what I came for. It's what Oncle Vervain told me to get."

"The mask? You mean you knew all the time there was a mask in this tunnel, and that's what you wanted?" She was already on her way to the outside air.

Scarcely had I caught up with her when she was pushed backwards.

"I'm taking it, I have to have it," she declared.

As we both tried to continue, something unseen blocked our path. I reached out. I could touch it. It was like a soft silent wall of energy.

Merrick suddenly gave over her flashlight to me and in both hands she held the mask. At any other time of my life, I would have been admiring it, for it had an immense amount of expression and detail. Though there were holes for eyes and a gash for the mouth, all features were deeply contoured and the gloss of the thing was beautiful in itself.

As it was, I moved with all my strength against this force that sought to block me, lifting both flashlights as if they were clubs.

Merrick again startled me with a gasp. She held the mask to her face, and as she turned to took at me it appeared brilliant and faintly ghastly in the light. It seemed suspended in the darkness, for I could scarce make out her hands or her body at all.

She turned it away from me, still holding it to her face. And again there came a gasp from her. The air in the cave fell silent and still.

All I could hear was her breathing and then my own. It seemed she began to whisper something in a foreign tongue, though I didn't know what tongue it was.

"Merrick?" I asked gently. In the abrupt and welcome stillness, the air of the cave felt moist and sweetly cool.

"Merrick," I said again, but I could not rouse her. She stood with the mask over her face, peering ahead of us, and then, with a surprising gesture, she ripped the thing away and gave it over to me.

"Take it, look through it," she whispered.

I shoved my flashlight through my belt loop, gave hers back to her, and took the mask in both hands. I remember those little gestures because they were so ordinary, and I didn't know yet what I thought about the stillness around us or the dimness in which we stood.

Far, far away was the greenery of the jungle, and everywhere above us and around us the coarse but beautiful mosaics glittered with their tiny bits of stone.

I lifted the mask as she had directed me. A swimming sensation overcame me. I took several steps backwards, but whatever else I did, I don't know. The mask remained in place and my hands remained on it, and all else had subtly changed.

The cave was full of flaring torches, there was the sound of someone chanting in a low and repetitive manner, and before me in the dimness there stood a figure, wavering as if he were not entirely solid, but rather made of silk, and left to the mercy of the scant draught from the entrance of the cave.

I could see his expression clearly, though not define it entirely or say what feature conspired in his young male face to evince what emotion or how. He was begging me in dumb eloquence to get out of the cave and to leave the mask behind.

"We can't take it," I said. Or rather I heard myself say this. The chanting grew louder. More shapes closed in around the one wavering but determined figure. It seemed he stretched out his arms to beseech me.

"We can't take it," I said again. His arms were a golden brown and covered with gorgeous stone bracelets. His face was oval and his eyes dark and quick. I saw tears on his cheeks.

"We can't take it," I said, and then I felt myself failing. "We must leave it. We must bring back the things that were taken before!"

An overwhelming sadness and grief swallowed me; I wanted to lie on the ground; so great was this emotion and so right was it that I felt it and expressed it with my entire form.

Yet no sooner had I hit the ground—at least I think I did—than I was jerked upright, and the mask was ripped away. One moment I felt it in my fingers and against my face, and the next I felt nothing and saw nothing but the distant light flickering in the green leaves.

The figure was gone, the chanting had stopped, the grief was broken. Merrick was pulling me with all her strength:

"David, come on!" she said. "Come on!" She would not be denied. And I myself felt an overwhelming desire to get out of the cave with her, and to take the mask; to steal this magic, this indescribable magic which had enabled me to see the spirits of the place with my own eyes. Boldly, wretchedly, without any excuse whatsoever, I reached down, without losing a pace, and caught up a handful of brilliant glinting stone artifacts from the thick moldering floor, stuffing them into my pockets as I went on.

We were in the open jungle in a matter of moments. We ignored the unseen hands that assailed us, the volleys of leaves, and the urgent cries of the howler monkeys, as though they'd joined in the assault. A slender banana tree crashed down into our path, and we moved over it, hacking the others that seemed to be bowing to strike us in the face. We made remarkable time, moving through the hallway of the temple. We were almost running when we found the remnants of the trail. The spirits sent more of the banana trees flapping towards us. There was a rain of coconuts, which did not strike us. From time to time small pebbles came in a little gale.