The witching hour

Nine

MICHAEL AWOKE ABRUPTLY, thirsting, and hot in the bed covers though the air in the room was quite cool. He was wearing his shorts and his shirt, cuffs unbuttoned, collar undone. He was also wearing his gloves.

A light burned at the end of the little carpeted corridor. Over the soft engulfing roar of the air conditioner, he heard what sounded like the rustle of papers.

Good heavens, where am I? he thought. He sat up. At the end of the little hallway, there appeared to be a parlor, and a baby grand piano of pale and lustrous wood standing against a bank of flowered drapes. His suite at the Pontchartrain Hotel, it had to be.

He had no memory of coming here. And he was instantly angry with himself for having gotten so drunk. But then the euphoria of the earlier evening returned to him, the vision of the house on First Street beneath the violet sky.

I’m in New Orleans, he thought. And he felt a surge of happiness which effaced all his present confusion and guilt. “I’m home,” he whispered. “Whatever else I’ve done, I’m home.”

But how had he managed to get into this hotel? And who was in the parlor? The Englishman. His last clear memory was of speaking to the Englishman in front of the First Street house. And with that little recollection came another: he saw the brown-haired man behind the black iron fence again, staring down at him. He saw the glittering eyes only a few feet above him, and the strangely white and impassive face. A curious feeling passed over him. It wasn’t fear precisely. It was more purely visceral. His body tensed as it might against a threat.

How could that man have changed so little over the years? How could he have been there one minute and gone the next?

It seemed to Michael that he knew the answers to these questions, that he’d always understood the man was no ordinary man. But his sudden familiarity with such a completely unfamiliar notion almost made him laugh.

“You’re losing it, buddy.” he whispered.

But he had to get his bearings now, in this strange place, and find out what the Englishman wanted, and why he was still here.

Quickly he surveyed the room. Yes, the old hotel. A feeling of comfort and security came to him as he saw the slightly faded carpet, the painted air conditioner beneath the windows, and the heavy old-fashioned telephone sitting on the small inlaid desk with its message light pulsing in the darkness.

The door of the bath stood open revealing a dim slash of white tile.

To his left, the closet, and his suitcase, opened on its stand, and wonder of wonders, on the table beside him an ice bucket, beaded over beautifully with tiny drops of moisture, and crammed into the ice three tall cans of Miller’s beer.

“Well, isn’t that just about perfect?”

He removed his right glove and touched one of the beer cans. Immediate flash of a uniformed waiter, same old load of distracting, irrelevant information. He put the glove back on and opened the can. He drank down half of it in deep cold swallows. Then he climbed to his feet and went into the bathroom and pissed.

Even in the soft morning light coming through the slatted blinds, he could see his shaving kit laid out on the marble dresser. He took out his toothbrush and toothpaste and brushed his teeth.

Now he felt a little less headachy, hung over, and downright miserable. He combed his hair, swallowed the rest of the can of beer, and felt almost good.

He changed into a fresh shirt, pulled on his trousers, and taking another beer from the ice bucket, he went down the hallway and stood looking into a large, elegantly furnished room.Beyond a gathering of velvet couches and chairs, the Englishman sat at a small wooden table, bent over a mass of manila folders and typewritten pages. He was a slightly built man with a heavily lined face and rather luxuriant white hair. He wore a gray velvet smoking jacket, tied at the waist, and gray tweed trousers, and he was looking at Michael with an extremely friendly and agreeable expression.

He rose to his feet.

“Mr. Curry, are you feeling better?” he asked. It was one of those eloquent English voices which make the simplest words take on new meaning, as if they’ve never been properly pronounced before. He had small yet brilliant blue eyes.

“Who are you?” Michael asked.

The Englishman drew closer, extending his hand.

Michael didn’t take it, though it hurt him to be this rude to somebody who looked so friendly and earnest and sort of nice. He took another sip of the beer.

“My name’s Aaron Lightner,” the Englishman said. “I came from London to see you.” Softly spoken, unobtrusive.

“My aunt told me that part. I saw you hanging around my house on Liberty Street. Why the hell did you follow me here?”

“Because I want to talk to you, Mr. Curry,” the man said politely, almost reverentially. “I want to talk to you so badly that I’m willing to risk any discomfort or inconvenience I might incur. That I’ve risked your displeasure is obvious. And I’m sorry for it, truly sorry. I only meant to be helpful in bringing you here, and please allow me to point out that you were entirely cooperative at the time.”

“Was I?” Michael found he was bristling. Yet this guy was a real charmer, he had to give him that. But another glance at the papers spread out on the table made Michael furious. For fifty bucks, or considerably less, the cab driver would have lent him a hand. And the cab driver wouldn’t be here now.

“That’s quite true,” said Lightner in the same soft, well-tempered voice. “And perhaps I should have retired to my own suite above, but I wasn’t certain whether or not you’d be ill, and frankly I was worried on another count.”

Michael said nothing. He was fully aware that the man had just read his mind, so to speak. “Well, you just caught my attention with that little trick,” he said. And he thought, Can you do it again?

“Yes, if you like,” said the Englishman. “A man in your frame of mind is, unfortunately, quite easy to read. Your increased sensitivity works both ways, I fear. But I can show you how to hide your thoughts, how to throw up a screen if you wish. On the other hand, it isn’t really necessary. Because there aren’t very many people like me walking about.”

Michael smiled in spite of himself. All this was said with such genteel humility that he was a little overwhelmed and definitely reassured. The man seemed completely truthful. In fact, the only emotional impression received by Michael was one of goodness, which surprised him somewhat.

Michael walked past the piano to the flowered draperies and pulled the cord. He loathed being in an electrically lighted room in the morning, and he felt immediately happy again when he looked down on St. Charles Avenue, on the wide band of grass and the streetcar tracks, and the dusty foliage of the oaks. He had not remembered the leaves of the oaks as being so darkly green. It seemed everything he saw was remarkably vivid. And when the St. Charles car passed beneath him, moving slowly uptown, the old familiar roar-a sound like no other-brought the excitement back to him. How drowsy and wonderfully familiar it all seemed.

He had to get back outside, walk over to the First Street house again. But he was keenly aware of the Englishman watching him. And again, he could detect nothing but honesty in the man, and nothing but a sort of wholesome goodwill.

“OK, I’m curious,” he said turning around. “And I’m grateful. But I don’t like all this. I really don’t. So out of curiosity and in gratitude, if you follow me, I’ll give you twenty minutes to explain who you are, and why you are here, and what this is all about.” He sat down on the velvet couch opposite the man and the messy table. He switched off the lamp. “Oh, and thanks for the beer. I really appreciate the beer.”

“There’s more in the refrigerator in the kitchen behind me,” said the Englishman. Unflappably pleasant.

“Thoughtful,” said Michael. He felt comfortable in this room. He could not remember it really from childhood, but it was pleasant with its dark papered walls and soft upholstered pieces and low brass lamps.

The man seated himself at the table, facing Michael. And for the first time Michael noticed a small bottle of brandy and a glass. He saw that the man’s suit coat was on the back of the other chair. A briefcase, the briefcase Michael had seen in the airport, was standing by the chair.

“You wouldn’t care for a little cognac?” the man asked.

“No. Why do you have the suite just overhead? What’s going on?”

“Mr. Curry, I belong to an old organization,” said the man. “It’s called the Talamasca. Have you ever heard the name?”

Michael thought for a moment. “No.”

“We go back to the eleventh century. More truly, we go back before that. But sometime during the eleventh century we took the name Talamasca, and from that time on we had a constitution, so to speak, and certain rules. What we are in modern parlance is a group of historians interested primarily in psychic research. Witchcraft, hauntings, vampires, people with remarkable psychic ability-all of these things interest us and we keep an immense archive of information regarding them.”

“You’ve been doing this since the eleventh century?”

“Yes, and before, as I said. We are in many respects a passive group of people; we do not like to interfere. As a matter of fact, let me show you our card and our motto.”

The Englishman drew the card out of his pocket, gave it to Michael, and returned to his chair.

Michael read the card:

THE TALAMASCA

We watch

And we are always here.

There were phone numbers given for Amsterdam, Rome, and London.

“You have headquarters in all those places?” Michael asked.

“Motherhouses, we call them,” said the Englishman. “But to continue, we are largely passive, as I said. We collect data; we correlate, cross-reference, and preserve information. But we are very active in making our information available to those who might benefit from it. We heard about your experience through the London papers, and through a contact in San Francisco. We thought we might be able to … be of assistance to you.”

Michael took off his right glove, tugging slowly at each finger, and then laid the glove aside. He picked up the card again. Jarring flash of Lightner putting several such cards in his pocket in another hotel room. New York City. Smell of cigars. Noise of traffic. Flash of some woman somewhere, speaking to Lightner fast in a British accent …

“Why not ask it a specific question, Mr. Curry?”

The words brought Michael out of it. “All right,” he said. Is this man telling me the truth? The load continued, debilitating and discouraging, voices growing louder, more confused. Through the din, Michael heard Lightner speak to him again:

“Focus, Mr. Curry, extract what you want to know. Are we good people or are we not?”

Michael nodded, repeating the question silently, then he couldn’t take all this any longer. He set the card down on the table, careful not to brush the table itself with his fingertips. He was shaking slightly. He slipped his glove back on. His vision cleared.

“Now, what do you know?” asked Lightner.

“Something about the Knights Templar, you stole their money,” Michael said.

“What?” Lightner was flabbergasted.

“You stole their money. That’s why you have all these Motherhouses all over kingdom come. You stole their money when the king of France arrested them. They gave it to you for safekeeping and you kept it. And you’re rich. You’re all filthy rich. And you’re ashamed of what happened with the Knights Templar, that they were accused of witchcraft and destroyed. I know that part, of course, from the history books. I was a history major. I know all about what happened to them. The king of France wanted to crack their power. Apparently he didn’t know about you.” Michael paused. “Very few people really know about you.”

Lightner stared in what seemed innocent amazement. Then his faced colored. His discomfort seemed to be increasing.

Michael laughed, though he tried not to. He moved the fingers of the right glove. “Is that what you mean by focus and extract information?”

“Well, I suppose that is what I meant, yes. But I never thought you would extract such an obscure-”

“You’re ashamed of what happened with the Knights Templar. You always have been. Sometimes you go down into the basement archives in London and you read through all the old material. Not the computer abstracts, but the old files, written in ink on parchment. You try to convince yourself there was nothing that the order could have done to help the Knights.”

“Very impressive, Mr. Curry. But, Mr. Curry, if you know your history, you’ll know that no one except the Pope in Rome could have saved the Knights Templar. We certainly were not in a position to do it, being an obscure and small and completely secret organization. And frankly, when the persecutions were over, when Jacques de Molay and the others had been burnt alive, there wasn’t anyone left to whom the money could be returned.”

Michael laughed again. “You don’t have to tell all this to me, Mr. Lightner. But you’re really ashamed of something that happened six hundred years ago. What an odd bunch of guys you must be. By the way, for what it’s worth, I did write a paper once on the Knights, and I agree with you. Nobody could have helped them, not even the Pope, as far as I can figure. If you guys had surfaced, they would have burnt you at the stake too.”

Again, Lightner flushed. “Undoubtedly,” he said. “Are you satisfied that I’ve been telling you the truth?”

“Satisfied? I’m impressed!” Michael studied him for a long moment. Again, the distinct impression of a wholesome human being, one who shared the values which mattered very much to Michael himself. “And this work of yours is the reason you followed me,” Michael asked, “enduring, what was it, discomfort and inconvenience, and my displeasure?” Michael picked up the card, which took some doing with his gloved fingers, and slipped the card into the pocket of his shirt.

“Not entirely,” said the Englishman. “Though I want to help you very much, and if that sounds patronizing or insulting, I’m sorry. Truly sorry. But it’s true, and it’s pointless to lie to someone like you.”

“Well, I don’t suppose it will come as any surprise to you that there have been times in the last few weeks when I have prayed out loud for help. I’m a little better off now than I was two days ago, however. A good deal better off. I’m on my way to doing … what I feel I have to do.”

“You have an enormous power, and you don’t really understand it,” Lightner said.

“But the power is unimportant. What I’m talking about is the purpose. Did you read the articles on me in the papers?”

“Yes, everything in print that I could find.”

“Well, then you know I had these visions when I was dead; and that they involved a purpose in my coming back; and that somehow or other, the entire memory has been wiped out. Well, almost the entire memory.”

“Yes, I understand.”

“Then you know the thing about the hands doesn’t matter,” said Michael. Uneasiness. He took another deep swallow of beer. “Nobody much believes about the purpose. But it’s been over three months since the accident happened, and the feeling I have is the same. I came back here on account of the purpose. It has something to do with that house I went to last night. That house on First Street. I intend to keep trying to figure out what that purpose is.”

The man was scanning him intently. “It does? The house is connected to the visions you saw when you were drowned?”

“Yes, but don’t ask me how. For months, I’ve seen that house over and over again in my mind. I’ve seen it in my sleep. It’s connected. I came two thousand miles because it’s connected. But again, don’t ask me how or why.”

“And Rowan Mayfair, how is she connected?”

Michael set the beer down slowly. He took a hard appraising look at the man. “You know Dr. Mayfair?” he asked.

“No, but I know a great deal about her, and about her family,” said the Englishman.

“You do? About her family? She might be very interested to know that. But how do you know about her family? What is her family to you? I thought you said you were waiting outside my house in San Francisco because you wanted to talk to me.”

Lightner’s face darkened for a moment. “I’m very confused, Mr. Curry. Perhaps you’ll enlighten me. How did Dr. Mayfair happen to be there?”

“Look, I’m getting sick of your questions. She was there because she was trying to help me. She’s a doctor.”

“She was there in her capacity as a doctor?” Lightner asked in a half whisper. “I’ve been laboring under a misimpression. Dr. Mayfair didn’t send you here?”

“Send me here? Good Lord, no. Why the hell would she do that? She wasn’t even in favor of my coming, except that I’d get it out of my system. The truth is, I was so drunk when she picked me up it’s a wonder she didn’t have me committed. I wish I was that drunk right now. But why would you have an idea like that, Mr. Lightner? Why would Rowan Mayfair send me here?”

“Indulge me for a moment, won’t you?”

“I don’t know if I will.”

“You didn’t know Dr. Mayfair before you had the visions?”

“No. Not till five minutes afterwards.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“She’s the one who rescued me, Lightner. The one who pulled me out of the sea. That’s the first time I ever laid eyes on her, when she brought me around on the deck of her boat.”

“Good Lord, I had no idea.”

“Well, neither did I until Friday night. I mean I didn’t know her name or who she was or anything about her. The Coast Guard flubbed it. They didn’t get her name or the registry of the boat when the call came in. But she saved my life out there. She’s got some kind of powerful diagnostic sense, some sort of sixth sense about when a patient’s going to live or die. She started trying to revive me immediately. I sometimes wonder if the Coast Guard had spotted me, whether or not they would even have tried.”

Lightner lapsed into silence, staring at the carpet. He seemed deeply troubled.

“Yes, she is a remarkable physician,” he whispered, but this did not seem to be a full expression of his thoughts. He seemed to be struggling to concentrate. “And you told her about these visions.”

“I wanted to get back on her boat. I had this idea, that maybe if I knelt down on the deck and touched the boards, well, something might come through my hands. Something that might jog my memory. And the amazing thing was, she went along with it. She’s not an ordinary doctor at all.”

“No, I quite agree with you there,” said Lightner. “And what happened?” he asked.

“Nothing, that is, nothing except that I got to know Rowan.”

He paused. He wondered if this man could guess how it was between him and Rowan. He was not going to say.

“Now I think you owe me some answers,” Michael said. “Exactly what do you know about her and her family, and what made you think she sent me here? Me, of all people. Why the hell would she send me here?”

“Well, that’s what I was trying to discover. I thought perhaps it had to do with the power in your hands, that she’d asked you to do some secretive research for her. Why, it was the only explanation I could think of. But Mr. Curry, how did you know about this house? I mean, how did you make the connection between what you saw in the visions and … ”

“I grew up here, Lightner. I loved that house when I was a little kid. I used to walk past it all the time. I never forgot it. Even before I drowned I used to think about that house. I aim to find out who owns it and what this all means.”

“Really … ” said Lightner, again in a half whisper. “You don’t know who owns it?”

“No, I just said I aim to find out.”

“You don’t have any idea … ”

“I just told you, I aim to find out!”

“You tried to climb over the fence last night.”

“I remember. Now would you mind telling me a few things, please? You know about me. You know about Rowan Mayfair. You know about the house. You know about Rowan’s family-” Michael stopped, staring fixedly at Lightner. “Rowan’s family!” he said. “They own that house?”

Gravely, Lightner nodded.

“That’s really true?”

“They have for centuries,” said Lightner quietly. “And if I’m not sadly mistaken that house will belong to Rowan Mayfair, upon her mother’s death.”

“I don’t believe you,” Michael whispered. But in truth he did. Once again the atmosphere of the visions enveloped him, only to dissolve immediately as it always did. He stared at Lightner, unable to form any of the questions teeming in his head.

“Mr. Curry. Indulge me again. Please. Explain to me in detail how the house is connected with the visions. Or more specifically, how you came to know it and remember it when you were a child.”

“Not till you tell me what you know about all this,” said Michael. “Do you realize that Rowan-?”

Lightner interrupted him:

“I am willing to tell you a great deal about the house and about the family,” he said, “but I ask in exchange that you speak first. That you tell me anything you can recall, anything which seems significant, even if you don’t know what to make of it. Possibly I shall know what to make of it. Do you follow my drift?”

“All right, my info for your info. But you are going to tell me what you know?”

“Absolutely.”

It was worth it, obviously. It was about the most exciting thing which had happened, outside of Rowan coming to his door. And he was surprised how much he wanted to tell this man everything, absolutely every last detail.

“OK,” he began, “as I said, I used to pass that house all the time when I was a kid. I used to go out of my way to pass it. I grew up on Annunciation Street by the river, about six blocks away. I used to see a man in the garden of that house, the same man I saw last night. Do you remember me asking you if you saw him? Well, I saw him last night by the fence, and back farther, in the garden, and damned if he didn’t look exactly the same as he had when I was a little kid. And I mean I was four years old the first time I saw that guy. I was six when I saw him in church.”

“You saw him in church?” Again the scanning, the eyes seeming to graze Michael’s face as Lightner listened.

“Right, at Christmastime, at St. Alphonsus, I’ve never forgotten it, because he was in the sanctuary of all places, you know what I’m talking about? The crib was set up at the altar rail, and he was back on the side altar steps.”

Lightner nodded. “And you are certain it was he?”

Michael laughed. “Well, given the part of town I come from, I was certain it was him,” he said. “But yes, seriously, it was the same man. I saw him another time, too, I’m almost sure of it, but I haven’t thought about it for years. It was at a concert downtown, a concert I’ll never forget because Isaac Stern played that night. It was the first time I heard anything like that, live, you know. And anyway, I saw that man in the auditorium. He was looking at me.”

Michael hesitated, the ambience of that long-ago moment returning, without a welcome, actually, because that had been such a sad and wrenching time. He shook it off. Lightner was reading his thoughts again, he knew it.

“They are not clear when you’re upset,” said Lightner softly. “But this is most important, Mr. Curry-”

“You’re telling me! It’s all got to do with what I saw when I was drowned. I know because I kept thinking about it after the accident, when I couldn’t focus on anything else. I mean I kept waking up, seeing that house, thinking yes, go back there. It’s what Rowan Mayfair called an idée fixe.”

“You did tell her about it … ”

Michael nodded. He finished the beer. “Described it to her completely. She was patient, but she couldn’t figure it out. She did say something that was very on the money, however. She said it was too specific to be something simply pathological. I thought that made a lot of sense.”

“Let me ask for just a little more patience,” Lightner said. “Would you tell me what you do remember of the visions? You said you had not entirely forgotten … ”

Michael’s faith in the man was increasing. Maybe it was the mildly authoritative manner. But nobody had asked about the visions with this kind of seriousness, not even Rowan. He found himself completely disarmed. The man seemed so sympathetic.

“Oh, I am,” said Lightner hastily. “Believe me, I’m entirely sympathetic, not only to what’s happened to you, but to your belief in it. Please, do tell me.”

Michael described briefly the woman with the black hair, the jewel that was mixed up with it, the vague image or idea of a doorway … “Not the doorway of the house, though, it can’t be. But it’s got to do with the house.” And something about a number now forgotten. No, not the address. It wasn’t a long number, it was two digits, had some very important significance. And the purpose, of course the purpose, the purpose was the saving thing, and Michael’s strong sense that he might have refused.

“I can’t believe that they would have let me die if I had not accepted. They gave me a choice on everything. I chose to come back, and to fulfill the purpose. I awoke knowing I had something terribly important to do.”

He could see that what he said was having an amazing effect upon Lightner. Lightner didn’t even attempt to disguise his surprise.

“Is there anything else you remember?”

“No. Sometimes it seems I’m about to remember everything. Then it just slides away. I didn’t start thinking about the house till about twenty-four hours afterwards. No, maybe even a little longer. And immediately there was the sense of connection. I felt the same sense last night. I’d come to the right place to find all the answers, but I still couldn’t remember! It’s enough to drive a man mad.”

“I can imagine,” said Lightner softly, but he was still deeply involved in his own surprise or amazement at all that Michael had said. “Let me suggest something. Is it possible that when you were revived you took Rowan’s hand in yours, and that this image of the house came to you then from Rowan?”

“Well, it’s possible, except for one very important fact. Rowan doesn’t know anything about that house. She doesn’t know anything about New Orleans. She doesn’t know anything about her family, except for the adoptive mother who died last year.”

Lightner seemed reluctant to believe this.

“Look,” Michael said. He was getting quite carried away now on the whole subject and he knew it. The fact was, he liked talking to Lightner. But things were going too far. “You have to tell me how you know about Rowan. Friday night when Rowan came to get me in San Francisco, she saw you. She said something about having seen you before. I want you to be straight with me, Lightner. What’s all this about Rowan? How do you know about her?”

“I shall tell you everything,” said Lightner with the same characteristic gentleness, “but let me ask you again, are you sure Rowan has never seen a picture of that house?”

“No, we discussed that very point. She was born in New Orleans-”

“Yes … ”

“But they took her away that very day. They made her sign a paper that she’d never come back here. I asked her if she’d ever seen pictures of the houses here. She told me she hadn’t. She couldn’t find a scrap of information about her family after her adoptive mother’s death. Don’t you see? This didn’t come from Rowan! It involves Rowan just as it involves me.”

“How do you mean?”

Michael felt dazed trying to compass it. “I mean, I knew that they chose me because of everything that had ever happened to me … who I was, what I was, where I’d lived, it was all connected. And don’t you see? I’m not the center of it. Rowan is probably the center. But I have to call Rowan. I have to tell her. I have to tell her that the house is her mother’s house.”

“Please don’t do that, Michael.”

“What?”

“Michael, sit down, please.”

“What are you talking about? Don’t you understand how incredible this is! That house belongs to Rowan’s family. Rowan doesn’t even know anything about her family. Rowan doesn’t even know her own mother’s full name.”

“I don’t want you to call her!” said Lightner with sudden urgency. “Please, I haven’t fulfilled my side of the bargain. You haven’t heard me out.”

“God, don’t you realize? Rowan was probably just taking out the Sweet Christine when I was washed off that rock! We were on a collision course with each other, and then these people, these people who knew everything, chose to intervene.”

“Yes, I do realize … all I ask is that you allow for our exchange of information now, before you call Rowan.”

The Englishman was saying more, but Michael couldn’t hear him. He felt a sudden violent disorientation as if he were slipping into unconsciousness, and if he didn’t grab hold of the table he would black out. But this wasn’t a failure of his body; it was his mind that was slipping; and for one brilliant second the visions opened again, the black-haired woman was speaking directly to him, and then from some vantage point high above, some lovely and airy place where he was weightless and free he saw a small craft on the sea below, and he said, Yes, I’ll do it.

He held his breath. Desperate not to lose the visions, he didn’t reach out for them mentally. He didn’t crowd them. He remained locked in stillness, feeling them leave him again in confusion, feeling the coldness and the solidity of his body around him, feeling the old familiar longing and anger and pain.

“Oh, my God,” he whispered. “And Rowan doesn’t even have the slightest idea … ”

He realized he was sitting down on the couch again. Lightner had hold of him, and he was grateful. Otherwise he might have fallen. He shut his eyes again. But the visions were nowhere near. He saw only Rowan, soft and pretty and beautifully disheveled in the big white terry-cloth robe, her neck bent, her blond hair falling down to veil her face as she cried.

When he opened his eyes, he saw that Lightner was sitting next to him. There was the horrifying feeling that he had lost seconds, possibly minutes of time. He didn’t mind the presence of the man, however, The man seemed genuinely kindly and respecting, in spite of all the incredible things he had to say.

“Only a second or two has passed,” said Lightner. (Mind reading again!) “But you were dizzy. You almost fell.”

“Right. You don’t know how awful this is, not remembering. And Rowan said the strangest thing.”

“What was that?”

“That maybe they didn’t mean for me to remember.”

“And this struck you as strange?”

“They want me to remember. They want me to do what I’m supposed to do. It has to do with the doorway, I know it does. And the number thirteen. And Rowan said another thing that really threw me. She said how did I know that these people I saw were good? Christ, she asked me if I thought they were responsible for the accident, you know, for me being washed out to sea like that. God, I tell you I’m going crazy.”

“Those are very good questions,” said the man with a sigh. “Did you say the number thirteen?”

“Did I? Is that what I said? I don’t … I guess I did say that. Yes, it was the number thirteen. Christ, I’ve got that back now. Yes, it was the number thirteen.”

“Now I want you to listen to me. I don’t want you to call Rowan. I want you to get dressed and to come with me.”

“Wait a second, my friend. You’re a very interesting guy. You look better in a smoking jacket than anybody I’ve ever seen in the movies and you have a very persuasive and charming manner. But I’m right here, exactly where I want to be. And I’m going back to that house after I call Rowan … ”

“And what exactly are you going to do there? Ring the bell?”

“Well, I’ll wait till Rowan comes. Rowan wants to come, you know. She wants to see her family. That’s got to be what this is all about.”

“And the man, what do you suppose he has to do with it all?” asked Lightner.

Michael was stopped. He sat there staring at Lightner. “Did you see that man?” he asked.

“No. He didn’t allow time for that. He wanted you to see him. And why is what I would like to know.”

“But you know all about him, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“OK, it’s your turn to talk, and I wish you’d start right now.”

“Yes, that’s our bargain,” said Lightner. “But I find it’s more important than ever that you know everything.” He stood up, and walked slowly over to the table, and began to gather up the papers that were scattered all over it, placing them neatly into a large leather folder. “And everything is in this file.”

Michael followed him. He looked down at the impossibly large mass of materials which the man was cramming into the folder. Mostly typewritten sheets, yet some were in longhand as well.

“Look, Lightner, you owe me some answers,” Michael said.

“This is a compendium of answers, Michael. It’s from our archives. It’s entirely devoted to the Mayfair family. It goes back to the year 1664. But you must hear me out. I cannot give it to you here.”

“Where then?”

“We have a retreat house near here, an old plantation house, quite a lovely place.”

“No!” Michael said impatiently.

Lightner gestured for quiet. “It’s less than an hour and a half away. I must insist that you dress now and you come with me, and that you read the file in peace and quiet at Oak Haven, and that you save all your questions until you’ve done so, and all the aspects of this case are clear. Once you’ve read the records you’ll understand why I’ve begged you to postpone your call to Dr. Mayfair. I think you’ll be glad that you did.”

“Rowan should see this record.”

“Indeed, she should. And if you were willing to place it in her hands for us, we would be eternally grateful indeed.”

Michael studied the man, trying to separate the charm of the man’s manner from the astonishing content of what he said. He felt drawn to the man and reassured by his knowledge on the one hand; yet suspicious on the other. And through it all, he was powerfully fascinated by the pieces of the puzzle which were falling into place.

Something else had come clear to him also. The reason he so disliked this power in his hands was that once he had touched another, or the belongings of another, a certain intimacy was established. In the case of strangers, it was fairly quickly effaced. In the case of Lightner it was gradually increasing.

“I can’t go with you to the country,” Michael said. “There’s no doubt in my mind that you’re sincere. But I have to call Rowan and I want you to give this material to me here.”

“Michael, there is information here which is pertinent to everything you’ve told me. It concerns a woman with black hair. It concerns a very significant jewel. As for the doorway, I don’t know the meaning. As for the number thirteen, I might. As for the man, the woman with the black hair and jewel are connected to him. But I shall let it out of my hands only on my terms.”

Michael narrowed his eyes. “You’re saying this is the woman I saw in the visions?”

“Only you can determine that for yourself.”

“You wouldn’t play games with me.”

“No. Of course not. But don’t play games with yourself either, Michael. You always knew that man was not … what he appeared to be, didn’t you? What did you feel last night when you saw him?”

“Yeesss, I knew … ” Michael whispered. He felt the disorientation again. Yet a dark unsettling thrill ran through him. He saw the man again peering down at him through the fence. “Christ,” he whispered. And before he could stop himself, the most surprising thing happened. He raised his right hand and made a quick, reflexive sign of the cross.

Embarrassed he looked at Lightner.

Then the clearest thought came to him. The sense of excitement in him was rising. “Could they have meant for me to meet you?” Michael asked. “The woman with the black hair, could she have meant for this meeting between you and me to take place?”

“Only you can be the judge of that. Only you know what these beings said to you. Only you know who they actually were.”

“God, but I don’t.” Michael put his hands to the side of his head. He found that he was staring down at the leather folder. There was writing on it in English. Large letters, embossed in gold, but half worn away. “ ‘The Mayfair Witches,’ ” he whispered. “Is that what those words say?”

“Yes. Would you dress now and come with me? They can have breakfast waiting for us in the country. Please?”

“You don’t believe in witches!” Michael said. But they were coming. Again the room was fading. And Lightner’s voice was once again distant, his words without meaning, merely faint, innocuous sounds coming from far away. Michael shuddered all over. Sick feeling. He saw the room again in the dusty morning light. Aunt Vivian had sat over there years ago, and his mother had sat here. But this was now. Call Rowan …

“Not yet,” said Lightner. “After you’ve read the file.”

“You’re afraid of Rowan. There’s something about Rowan herself, some reason you want to protect me from Rowan … ” He could see the dust swirling around him in motes. How could something so particular and so material give the scene an air of unreality? He thought of touching Rowan’s hand in the car. Warning. He thought of Rowan afterwards, in his arms.

“You know what it is,” Lightner said. “Rowan told you.”

“Oh, that’s crazy. She imagined it.”

“No, she didn’t. Look at me. You know I’m telling you the truth. Don’t ask me to search out your thoughts for it. You know. You thought of it when you saw the word ‘Witches.’ ”

“I didn’t. You can’t kill people simply by wishing them dead.”

“Michael, I’m asking for less than twenty-four hours. This is a trust I am placing in you. I ask for your respect for our methods, I ask that you give me this time.”

Michael watched in confused silence as Lightner removed his smoking jacket, put on his suit coat, and then folded the jacket neatly and put it in the briefcase along with the leather file.

He had to read what was in that leather folder. He watched Lightner zipper the briefcase and lift it and hold it in both arms.

“I don’t accept it!” said Michael. “Rowan is no witch. That’s crazy. Rowan’s a doctor, and Rowan saved my life.”

And to think it was her house, that beautiful house, the house he’d loved ever since he was a little boy. He felt the evening again as it had been yesterday with the sky breaking violet through the branches and the birds crying as if they were in a wild wood.

All these years he’d known that man wasn’t real. All his life he’d known it. He’d known it in the church.…

“Michael, that man is waiting for Rowan,” Lightner said.

“Waiting for Rowan? But, Lightner, why, then, did he show himself to me?”

“Listen, my friend.” The Englishman put his hand on Michael’s hand and clasped it warmly. “It isn’t my intention to alarm you or to exploit your fascination. But that creature has been attached to the Mayfair family for generations. It can kill people. But then so can Dr. Rowan Mayfair. In fact, she may well be the first of her kind to be able to kill entirely on her own, without that creature’s aid. And they are coming together, that creature and Rowan. It’s only a matter of time before they meet. Now, please, dress and come with me. If you choose to be our mediator and to give the file on the Mayfair Witches to Rowan for us, then our highest aims will have been served.”

Michael was quiet, trying to absorb all this, his eyes moving anxiously over Lightner but seeing countless other things.

He could not entirely account for his feelings towards “the man” now, the man who had always seemed vaguely beautiful to him, an embodiment of elegance, a wan and soulful figure, almost, who seemed to possess, in his deep garden hideaway, some serenity that Michael himself wanted to possess. Behind the fence last night, the man had tried to frighten him. Or was that so?

If only in that instant, he’d been rid of his gloves, and had been able to touch the man!

He did not doubt Lightner’s words. There was something ghastly in all this, something ominous, something dark as the shadows that enclosed that house. Yet it seemed familiar. He thought of the visions, not in a struggle to remember, but merely to sink once more in the sensations evoked by them, and a conviction of goodness settled on him, as it had before.

“I’m meant to intervene,” he said, “surely I am. And maybe I’m meant to use this power through touching. Rowan said … ”

“Yes?”

“Rowan asked why I thought the power in my hands had nothing to do with it, why I kept insisting it was separate … ” He thought again of touching the man. “Maybe it is part of it, maybe it’s not just a little curse visited on me to drive me crazy and off course.”

“That’s what you thought?”

He nodded. “Seemed like it. Like it was the thing preventing me from coming. I holed up on Liberty Street for two months. I could have found Rowan sooner … ” He looked at the gloves. How he hated them. They made his hands into artificial hands.

He could think no further. He couldn’t grasp all the aspects of this rally. The feeling of familiarity lingered, taking the edges off the shocks of Lightner’s revelations.

“All right,” he said finally. “I’ll go with you. I want to read that file, all of it. But I want to be back here as soon as possible. I’m leaving word for her that I’ll be back in case she should call. She matters to me. She matters to me more than you know. And it’s got nothing to do with the visions. It’s got to do with who she is, and how much I … care about her. She can’t be subordinated to anything else.”

“Not even to the visions themselves?” Lightner asked respectfully.

“No. Twice, maybe three times in a lifetime you feel about someone the way I do about Rowan. That involves its own priorities, its own purposes.”

“I understand,” said Lightner. “I’ll be downstairs to meet you in twenty minutes. And I wish that you would call me Aaron, from now on, if you’d like to. We have a long way to go together. I’m afraid I lapsed into calling you Michael quite some time ago. I want us to be friends.”

“We’re friends,” said Michael. “What the hell else could we possibly be?” He gave a little uneasy laugh, but he had to admit, he liked this guy. In fact, he felt distinctly uneasy letting Lightner, and the briefcase, out of his sight.

Michael showered, shaved, and dressed in less than fifteen minutes. He unpacked, except for a few essentials. And only as he picked up his suitcase did he see the message light still pulsing on the bedside phone. Why in the world hadn’t he responded the first time he’d seen it? It infuriated him suddenly.

At once he called the switchboard.

“Yes. A Dr. Rowan Mayfair called you, Mr. Curry, about five-fifteen A.M.” The woman gave him Rowan’s number. “She insisted that we ring, and that we knock.”

“And you did?”

“We did, Mr. Curry. We didn’t get any answer.”

And my friend Aaron was there all the time, Michael thought angrily.

“We didn’t want to use the passkey to go in.”

“That’s fine. Listen, I want to leave word with you for Dr. Mayfair if she calls again.”

“Yes, Mr. Curry?”

“That I arrived safely, and that I’ll call within twenty-four hours. That I have to go out now, but I’ll be here later on.”

He laid a five-dollar bill for the maid on the coverlet and walked out.

The small narrow lobby was bustling when he came down. The coffee shop was crowded and cheerfully noisy. Lightner, having changed from his dark tweed into an immaculate seersucker suit, stood by the doors, looking very much the southern gentleman of the old school.

“You might have answered the phone when it rang,” said Michael. He did not add that Lightner looked like the old white-haired men he remembered from the old days who used to take their evening walks through the Garden District and along the avenue uptown.

“I didn’t feel I had the right to do that,” said Aaron politely. He opened the door for Michael and gestured to the gray car-a stretch limousine-at the curb. “Besides, I was afraid it was Dr. Mayfair.”

“Well, it was,” Michael said. Delicious gust of August heat. He wanted to take off on foot. How comfortable the pavement felt to him. But he knew he had to make this journey. He climbed into the backseat of the car.

“I see” Lightner was saying. “But you haven’t called her back.” He seated himself beside Michael.

“A deal is a deal,” Michael said with a sigh. “But I don’t like it. I’ve tried to make it clear to you how things are with me and Rowan. You know, when I was in my twenties, falling in love with a person in one evening would have been damn near impossible. Least it never happened. And when I was in my thirties? Well maybe, but again it didn’t happen, though now and then I saw just the promise … and maybe I ran away. But I’m in my late forties now, and I’m either more stupid than ever, or I know enough finally that I can fall in love with a person in one day or one night, I can size up the situation, so to speak, and figure when something is just about perfect, you know what I mean?”

“I think so.”

The car was somewhat old but plenty agreeable enough, with well-kept gray leather upholstery and a little refrigerator tucked to one side. Ample room for Michael’s long legs. St. Charles Avenue flashed by all too rapidly beyond the tinted glass.

“Mr. Curry, I respect your feelings for Rowan, though I have to confess I’m both surprised and intrigued. Oh, don’t get me wrong. The woman’s extraordinary by any standard, an incomparable physician and a beautiful young creature of rather amazing demeanor. I know. But what I ask that you understand is this: The File on the Mayfair Witches would never normally be entrusted to anyone but a member of our order or a member of the Mayfair family itself. Now I’m breaking the rules in showing you this material. And the reasons for my decision are obvious. Nevertheless, I want to use this precious time to explain to you about the Talamasca, how we operate, and what small loyalty, in exchange for our confidence, we should like to claim from you.”

“OK, don’t get so fired up. Is there some coffee in this glorified taxi?”

“Yes, of course,” said Aaron. He lifted a thermos from a pocket in the side door, and a mug with it, and started to fill the mug.

“Black will do just fine,” Michael said. A lump rose in his throat suddenly as he saw the big proud houses of the avenue gliding past, with their deep porches and colonnettes and gaily painted shutters, and the pastel sky enmeshed in a tangle of groping branches and softly fluttering leaves. A sudden crazy thought came to him, that some day he would buy a seersucker suit like Lightner’s suit, and he would walk on the avenue, like the gentlemen of years past, walk for hours, round curve after curve as the avenue followed the distant bends of the river, past all these graceful old houses that had survived for so long. He felt drugged and crazy drifting through this ragged and beautiful landscape, in this insulated car, behind dimming glass.

“Yes, it is beautiful,” Lightner said. “Very beautiful indeed.”

“OK, tell me about this order. So you’re driving around in limousines thanks to the Knights Templar. What else?”

Lightner shook his head reprovingly, a trace of a smile on his lips. But again he colored, surprising and amusing Michael.

“Just kidding you, Aaron,” said Michael. “Come on, how did you come to know about the Mayfair family in the first place? And what the hell damn is a witch, in your book, do you mind telling me that?”

“A witch is a person who can attract and manipulate unseen forces,” said Aaron. “That’s our definition. It will suffice for sorcerer or seer, as well. We were created to observe such things as witches. It all started in what we now call the Dark Ages, long before the witchcraft persecutions, as I’m sure you know. And it started with a single magician, an alchemist as he called himself, who began his studies in a solitary spot, gathering together in a great book all the tales of the supernatural he had ever read or heard.

“His name and his life story are not important for the moment. But what characterized his account was that it was curiously secular for the times. He was perhaps the only historian ever to write about the occult, or the unseen, or the mysterious without making assumptions and assertions as to the demonic origin of apparitions, spirits, and the like. And of his small band of followers he demanded the same open-mindedness. ‘Merely study the work of the so-called spell binder,’ he would say. ‘Do not assume you know whence his power comes.’

“We are very much the same now,” Aaron continued. “We are dogmatic only when it comes to defending our lack of dogma. And though we are large and extremely secure, we are always on the lookout for new members, for people who will respect our passivity and our slow and thorough methods, people who find the investigation of the occult as fascinating as we do, people who have been gifted with an extraordinary talent such as the power you have in your hands …

“Now when I first read of you, I have to confess, I knew nothing about any connection between you and Rowan Mayfair or the house on First Street. It was membership that entered my mind. Of course I hadn’t planned to tell you this immediately. But everything is changed now, you’ll agree.

“But whatever was to happen on that account, I came to San Francisco to make available our knowledge to you, to show you, if you wished, how to use your power, and then perhaps to broach the subject that you might find our way of life fulfilling or enjoyable, enough to consider it, at least for a while …

“You see, there was something about your life which intrigued me, that is, what I could learn of it, from the public records and from, well some simple investigation that we conducted on our own. And that is, that you seemed to be at a crossroads before the accident, it was as if you had achieved your goals, yet you were unsatisfied-”

“Yeah, you’re right about all that,” Michael said. He had forgotten completely about the scenery beyond the windows. His eyes were fixed on Lightner. He held out the mug to be refilled with coffee. “Go on, please.”

“And well, there’s your background in history,” said Lightner, “and the absence of any close family, except for your darling aunt, whom I have come to simply adore on short acquaintance, I must confess, and of course there is still the question of this power you possess, which is considerably stronger than I ever supposed …

“But to continue about the order. We have observed occult phenomena throughout the world, as well you can imagine. And our work with the witch families is but a small part of it, and one of the few parts which involve real danger, for the observation of hauntings, even cases of possession, and our work with reincarnation and mind reading and the like involve almost no danger at all. With witches, it’s entirely different.… And as a consequence, only the most experienced members are ever invited to work with this material, even to read it or try to understand it. And almost never would a novice or even a young member be brought into the field to approach a family such as the Mayfair family because the dangers are too great.

“All of that will come clear to you when you read the File. What I want from you now is some understanding that you won’t make light of what we offer and what we do. That if we should part ways, either disagreeably or agreeably, you will respect the privacy of the persons mentioned in the Mayfair history … ”

“You know you can trust me on that score. You know what kind of a person I am,” Michael said. “But what do you mean about danger? You’re talking about this spirit again, this man, and you’re talking about Rowan … ”

“Prematurely. What more do you want to know about us?”

“Membership, how does it actually work?”

“It begins with a novitiate, just as it does in a religious order. But again, let me emphasize one does not embrace a slate of teachings when one comes to us. One embraces an approach to life. During one’s years as a novice, one comes to live in the Motherhouse, to meet and associate with the older members, to work in the libraries, and to browse in them at will … ”

“Now that would be heaven,” Michael said, dreamily. “But I didn’t mean to interrupt you. Go on.”

“After two years of preparation, then we talk of serious commitment, we speak of fieldwork or scholarly pursuits. Of course one may follow the other, and again, we are not comparable to a religious order in providing our members with unrefusable assignments; we do not take vows of obedience. Allegiance, confidentiality, these are far more important to us. But you see, in the final analysis, it’s all about understanding; about being inducted and absorbed into a special sort of community … ”

“I can see it,” said Michael. “Tell me about the Motherhouses. Where are they?”

“The one in Amsterdam is the oldest now,” Aaron said. “Then there is the house outside of London, and our largest house, and our most secret perhaps, in Rome. Of course the Catholic Church doesn’t like us. It doesn’t understand us. It puts us with the devil, just as it did the witches, and the sorcerers, and the Knights Templar, but we have nothing to do with the devil. If the devil exists, he is no friend to us … ”

Michael laughed. “Do you think the devil exists?”

“I don’t know, frankly. But that’s what a good member of the Talamasca would say.”

“Go on, about the Motherhouses … ”

“Well, you’d like the one in London, actually … ”

Michael was scarcely aware that they had left New Orleans, that they were speeding on through the swampland, on a barren strip of new highway, and that the sky had narrowed to a ribbon of flawless blue overhead. He was listening to every word Aaron said, quite enthralled. But a dark troublesome feeling was brewing in him, which he tried to ignore. This was all familiar, this unfolding story of the Talamasca. It was familiar as the frightening words about Rowan and “the man” had been familiar, familiar as the house itself had been familiar. And tantalizing though this was, it discouraged him suddenly, because the great design-of which he felt he was part-seemed for all its vagueness to be growing, and the bigger it grew, the more the world itself seemed to dwindle, to lose its splendor and its promise of infinite natural wonders and ever-shifting fortune, and even some of its ragged romance.

Aaron must have realized what Michael was feeling, because Aaron paused once before continuing with his story, to say tenderly but almost absently, “Michael, just listen now. Don’t be afraid … ”

“Tell me something, Aaron,” he said.

“If I can, of course … ”

“Can you touch a spirit? That man, I mean. Can you touch him with your hand?”

“Well, there are times when I think that would be entirely possible … At least you could touch something. But of course, whether or not the being would allow himself to be touched is quite another story, as you’ll soon see.”

Michael nodded. “It’s all connected, then. The hands, the visions, and even you … and this organization of yours. It’s connected.”

“Wait, wait until you’ve read the history. At each step of the game … wait and see.”