The witching hour

Thirty-eight

NO ONE SEEMED the least surprised at the news. Aaron drank a toast with them over breakfast, and then went back to work in the library at First Street, where at Rowan’s invitation he was cataloging the rare books.

Smooth-talking Ryan of the cold blue eyes came by Tuesday afternoon, to shake Michael’s hand. In a few words of pleasant conversation, he made it clear that he was impressed with Michael’s accomplishments, which could only mean of course that Michael had been investigated, through the regular financial channels, just as if he were bidding on a job.

“It’s all sort of annoying, I’m sure,” Ryan admitted finally, “investigating the fiancée of the designee of the Mayfair legacy, but you see, I don’t have much choice in the matter … ”

“I don’t mind,” Michael said with a little laugh. “Anything you couldn’t find out and you wanna know, just ask.”

“Well, for starters, how did you ever do so well without committing a crime?”

Michael laughed off the flattery. “When you see this house in a couple of months,” he said, “you’ll understand.” But he wasn’t fool enough to think his modest fortune had impressed this man. What were a couple of million in blue chip securities compared to the Mayfair legacy? No, this was a little talk about the geography of New Orleans-that he had come from the other side of Magazine Street, and that he still had the Irish Channel in his voice. But Michael had been too long out west to worry about something like that.

They walked together over the newly clipped grass. The new boxwood-small and trim-was now in place throughout the garden. It was possible to see the flower beds as they had been laid out a century before-to see the little Greek statues placed at the four corners of the yard.

Indeed, the entire classical plan was reemerging. The long octagonal shape of the lawn was the same as the long octagonal shape of the pool. The perfectly square flagstones were set in a diamond pattern against the limestone balustrades which broke the patio into distinct rectangles and marked off paths which met at right angles, framing both garden and house. Old trellises had been righted so that they once again defined the gateways. And as the black paint went up on the cast-iron lace railings, it brought to life their ornate and repetitive design of curlicues and rosettes.

Yes, patterns-everywhere he looked he discerned patterns-struggling against the sprawling crepe myrtle and the glossy-leafed camellias, and the antique rose as it fought its way up the trellis, and against the sweet little four o’clocks which fought for light in the brightest patches of unhindered sun.

Beatrice, very dramatic in a great pink hat and large square silver-rimmed glasses, met with Rowan at two o’clock to discuss the wedding. Rowan had set the date for Saturday a week. “Less than a fortnight!” Beatrice declared with alarm. No, everything had to be done right. Didn’t Rowan understand what the marriage would mean to the family? People would want to come from Atlanta and New York.

It couldn’t be done before the last of October. And surely Rowan would want the renovations of the house to be complete. It meant so much to everyone to see the house.

All right, said Rowan, she guessed she and Michael could wait that long, especially if it meant they could spend their wedding night in the house, and the reception could be held here.

Definitely, said Michael; that would give him almost eight solid weeks to get things in shape. Certainly the main floor could be finished and the front bedroom upstairs.

“It would be a double celebration, then, wouldn’t it?” said Bea. “Your wedding, and the reopening of the house. Darlings, you will make everyone so very happy.”

And yes, every Mayfair in creation must be invited. Now Beatrice went to her list of caterers. The house could hold a thousand if tents were arranged over the pool and over the lawn. No, not to worry. And the children could swim, couldn’t they?

Yes, it would be like old times, it would be like the days of Mary Beth. Would Rowan like to have some old photographs of the last parties given before Stella died?

“We’ll gather all the photographs for the reception,” said Rowan. “It can be a reunion. We’ll put out the photographs for everyone to enjoy.”

“It’s going to be marvelous.”

Suddenly Beatrice reached out and took Michael’s hand.

“May I ask you a question, darling? Now that you’re one of the family? Why in the world do you wear these horrible gloves?”

“I see things when I touch people,” he said before he could stop himself.

Her large gray eyes brightened. “Oh, that’s most intriguing. Did you know Julien had that power? That’s what they always told me. And Mary Beth too. Oh, darling, please let me.” She began to roll the leather back, her long pink almond-shaped fingernails lightly scraping his skin as she did it. “Please? May I? You don’t mind?” She ripped the glove off and held it up with a triumphant yet innocent smile.

He did nothing. He remained passive, his hand open, fingers slightly curled. He watched as she laid her hand on his, and then squeezed his hand firmly. In a flash the random images crowded into his head. The miscellany came and went so fast he caught none of it-merely the atmosphere, the wholesomeness, the equivalent of sunshine and fresh air, and the very distinct register of Innocent. Not one of them.

“What did you see?” she asked.

He saw her lips stop moving before the words came clear.

“Nothing,” he said as he drew back. “It’s considered to be the absolute confirmation of goodness, and good fortune. Nothing. No misery, no sadness, no illness, nothing at all.” And in a way, that had been perfectly true.

“Oh, you are a darling,” she said, blank-faced and sincere, and then swooped in to kiss him. “Where did you ever find such a person?” she asked Rowan. And without waiting for an answer, she said, “I like you both! And that’s better than loving you, for that’s expected, you know. But liking you, what a curious surprise. You really are the most adorable couple, you with your blue eyes, Michael, and Rowan with that scrumptious butterscotch voice! I could kiss you on your eyes every time you smile at me-and don’t do it now, how dare you? – and I could kiss her on her throat every time she utters a word! A single solitary word!”

“May I kiss you on the cheek, Beatrice?” he asked tenderly.

“Cousin Beatrice to you, you gorgeous hunk of man,” she said with a little theatrical pat of her heaving bosom. “Do it!” She shut her eyes tight, and then opened them with another dramatic and radiant smile.

Rowan was merely smiling at them both in a vague, bemused fashion. And now it was time for Beatrice to take her downtown to Ryan’s office. Interminable legal matters. How horrible. Off they went.

He realized the black leather glove had fallen to the grass. He picked it up, and put it on.

Not one of them …

But who had been speaking? Who had been digesting and relaying that information? Maybe he was simply getting better at it, learning to ask the questions, as Aaron had tried to teach him to do.

Truth was, he hadn’t paid much attention to that aspect of the lessons. He mainly wanted to shut the power off. Whatever the case, there had, for the first time since the debacle of the jars, been a clear and distinct message. In fact, it was infinitely more concise and authoritative than the majority of the awful signals he’d received that day. It had been as clear as Lasher’s prophecy in its own way.

He looked up slowly. Surely there was someone on the side porch, in the deep shade, watching him. But he saw nothing. Only the painters at work on the cast iron. The porch looked splendid now that the old screen had been stripped away and the makeshift wooden railings removed. It was a bridge between the long double parlor and the beautiful lawn.

And here we will be married, he thought dreamily. And as if to answer the great crepe myrtles caught the breeze, dancing, their light pink blossoms moving gracefully against the blue sky.

When he got back to the hotel that afternoon, there was an envelope waiting for him from Aaron. He tore it open even before he reached the suite. Once the door was soundly shut on the world, he pulled out the thick glossy color photograph and held it to the light.

A lovely dark-haired woman gazed out at him from the divine gloom spun by Rembrandt-alive, smiling the very same smile he had only just seen on Rowan’s lips. The Mayfair emerald gleamed in this masterly twilight. So painfully real the illusion, that he had the feeling the cardboard on which it was printed might melt and leave the face floating, gossamer as a ghost, in the air.

But was this his Deborah, the woman he had seen in the visions? He didn’t know. No shock of recognition came to him no matter how long he studied it.

Taking off the gloves and handling it yielded nothing, only the maddeningly meaningless images of intermediaries and incidental persons he had come by now to expect. And as he sat on the couch holding the photograph, he knew it would have been the same had he touched the old oil painting itself.

“What do you want of me?” he whispered.

Out of innocence and out of time, the dark-haired girl smiled back at him. A stranger. Caught forever in her brief and desperate girlhood. Fledgling witch and nothing more.

But somebody had told him something this afternoon when Beatrice’s hand had touched his! Somebody had used the power for some purpose. Or was it simply his own inner voice?

He put aside his gloves, as he was accustomed to do now when alone here, and picked up his pen and his notebook, and began to write.

“Yes, it was a small constructive use of the power, I think. Because the images were subordinate to the message. I’m not sure that ever happened before, not even the day I touched the jars. The messages were mingled with the images, and Lasher was speaking to me directly, but it was mixed together. This was quite something else.”

And what if he were to touch Ryan’s hand tonight at dinner, when they all gathered around the candlelighted table in the Caribbean Room downstairs? What would the inner voice tell him? For the first time, he found himself eager to use the power. Perhaps because this little experiment with Beatrice had turned out so well.

He had liked Beatrice. He had seen perhaps what he wanted to see. An ordinary human being, a part of the great wave of the real which meant so much to him and to Rowan.

“Married by November 1. God, I have to call Aunt Viv. She’ll be so disappointed if I don’t call.”

He put the photograph on Rowan’s bedside table for her to see.

There was a lovely flower there, a white flower that looked like a familiar lily, yet somehow different. He picked it up, examining it, trying to figure why it looked so strange, and then he realized it was much longer than any lily he’d ever seen, and its petals seemed unusually fragile.

Pretty. Rowan must have picked it when she was walking back from the house. He went into the bathroom, filled a glass with water, and put the lily in it, and brought it back to the table.

He didn’t remember about touching Ryan’s hand until the dinner was long over and he was alone upstairs again, with his books. He was glad he hadn’t done it. The dinner had been too much fun, what with young Pierce regaling them with old legends of New Orleans-all the lore he remembered but which Rowan had never heard-and entertaining little anecdotes about the various cousins, all of it loosely strung together in a natural and beguiling way. But Pierce’s mother, Gifford, a trim, beautifully groomed brunette, and also a Mayfair by birth, had stared at him and Rowan fearfully and silently throughout the meal, and talked almost not at all.

And of course the whole dinner was, for him, another one of those secretly satisfying moments-comparing this night to the event of his boyhood when Aunt Viv had come from San Francisco to visit his mother, and he had dined in a real restaurant-the Caribbean Room-for the very first time.

And to think, Aunt Viv would be here before the end of next week. She was confused, but she was coming. What a load off his mind.

He’d sock her away in some nice comfortable condominium on St. Charles Avenue-one of the new brick town houses with the pretty mansard roofs and the French windows. Something right on the Mardi Gras parade route so she could watch from her balcony. In fact, he ought to be scanning the want ads now. She could take cabs anywhere she had to go. And then he’d break it to her very gently that he wanted her to stay down here, that he didn’t want to go back to California, that the house on Liberty Street wasn’t home to him anymore.

About midnight, he left his architecture books and went into the bedroom. Rowan was just switching off the light.

“Rowan,” he said, “if you saw that thing you’d tell me, wouldn’t you?”

“What are you talking about, Michael?”

“If you saw Lasher, you’d tell me. Right away.”

“Of course I would,” she said. “Why would you even ask me that? Why don’t you put away the picture books and come to bed?”

He saw that the picture of Deborah had been propped up behind the lamp. And the pretty white lily in the water glass was standing in front of the picture.

“Lovely, wasn’t she?” Rowan said. “I don’t suppose there is a way in the world to get the Talamasca to part with the original painting.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Probably not likely. But you know that flower is really remarkable. This afternoon, when I put it in the glass, I could swear it had only a single bloom, and now there are three large blooms, look at it. I must not have noticed the buds.”

She looked puzzled. She reached out, took the flower carefully from the water and studied it. “What kind of lily is it?” she asked.

“Well, it’s kind of like what we used to call an Easter lily, but they don’t bloom at this time of year. I don’t know what it is. Where did you get it?”

“Me? I’ve never seen it before.”

“I assumed you’d picked it somewhere.”

“No, I didn’t.”

Their eyes met. She was the first to look away, raising her eyebrows slowly, and then giving a little tilt to her head. She put the lily back in the glass. “Maybe a little gift from someone.”

“Why don’t I throw it away?” he said.

“Don’t get upset, Michael. It’s just a flower. He’s full of little tricks, remember?”

“I’m not upset, Rowan. It’s just that it’s already withering. Look at it, it’s turning brown, and it looks weird. I don’t like it.”

“All right,” she said, very calmly. “Throw it away.” She smiled. “But don’t worry about anything!”

“Of course not. What is there to worry about? Just a three-hundred-year-old demon with a mind of his own, who can make flowers fly through the air. Why shouldn’t I be overjoyed about a strange lily popping up out of nowhere? Hell, maybe he did it for Deborah. What a nice thing to do.”

He turned and stared at the photograph again. Like a hundred Rembrandt subjects, his dark-haired Deborah appeared to be looking right back at him.

He was startled by Rowan’s soft little laugh. “You know, you are cute when you’re angry,” she said. “But there’s probably a perfectly good explanation for how the flower got here.”

“Yeah, that’s what they always say in the movies,” he said. “And the audience knows they’re crazy.”

He took the lily into the bathroom and dropped it into the trash. It really was withering. No waste, wherever the hell it came from, he figured.

She was waiting for him when he came out, her arms folded, looking very serene and inviting. He forgot all about his books in the living room.

The next evening he walked over alone to First Street. Rowan was out with Cecilia and Clancy Mayfair, making the rounds of the city’s fashionable malls.

The house was hushed and empty when he got there. Even Eugenia was out tonight, with her two boys and their children. He had it all to himself.

Though the work was progressing wonderfully, there were still ladders and drop cloths virtually everywhere. The windows were still bare, and it was too soon to clean them. The long shutters, removed for sanding and painting, lay side by side like great long planks on the grass.

He went into the parlor, stared for a long time at his own shadowy reflection in the mirror over the first fireplace, the tiny red light of his cigarette like a firefly in the dark.

A house like this is never quiet, he thought. Even now he could hear a low singing of creaks and snaps in the rafters and the old floors. You could have sworn someone was walking upstairs, if you didn’t know better. Or that far back in the kitchen, someone had just closed a door. And that funny noise, it was like a baby crying, far far away.

But nobody else was here. This wasn’t the first night he’d slipped away to test the house and test himself. And he knew it wouldn’t be the last.

Slowly he walked back through the dining room, through the shadowy kitchen and out the French doors. A flood of soft light bathed the night around him, pouring from the lanterns on the freshly restored cabana, and from the underwater lights of the pool. It shone on the neatly trimmed hedges and trees, and on the cast-iron furniture, all sanded and newly painted, and arranged in little groups on the clean-swept flagstones.

The pool itself was completely restored, and filled to the brim. Very glamorous it seemed, the long rectangle of deep blue water, rippling and shining in the dusk.

He knelt down and put his hand in the water. A little too hot really for this early September weather, which was no cooler than August when you got right down to it. But good for swimming now in the dark.

A thought occurred to him. Why not go into the pool now? It seemed wrong somehow without Rowan-that the first splash was one of those moments that ought to be shared. But what the hell? Rowan was having a good time, no doubt, with Cecilia and Clancy. And the water was so tempting. He hadn’t swum in a pool in years.

He glanced back up at the few lighted windows scattered throughout the dark violet wall of the house. Nobody to see him. Quickly he peeled off his coat, shirt and trousers, his shoes and his socks. He stripped off his shorts. And walking to the deep end, he dove in without another thought.

God! This was living! He plunged down until his hands touched the deep blue bottom, then turned over so that he could see the light glittering on the surface above.

Then he shot upwards, letting his natural buoyancy carry him right through that surface, shaking his head and treading water, as he looked up at the stars. There was noise all around him! Laughter, chatter, people talking in loud, animated voices to one another, and underneath it all, the fast-paced wail of a Dixieland band.

He turned, astonished, and saw the lawn strung with lanterns and filled with people; everywhere young couples were dancing on the flagstones or even right on the grass. Every window in the house was lighted. A young man in a black dinner jacket suddenly dove into the pool right in front of him, blinding him with a violent splash of water.

The water suddenly filled his mouth. The noise was now deafening. At the far end of the pool stood an old man in a tailcoat and white tie, beckoning to him.

“Michael!” he shouted. “Come away at once, man, before it’s too late!”

A British accent; it was Arthur Langtry. He broke into a rapid swim for the far end. But before he’d taken three strokes, he lost his wind. A sharp pain caught him in the ribs, and he veered for the side.

As he caught hold of the lip of the pool and pulled himself up again, the night around him was empty and quiet.

For a second he did nothing. He remained there, panting, trying to control the beating of his heart, and waiting for the pain in his lungs to go away. His eyes moved all the while over the empty patio, over the barren windows, over the emptiness of the lawn.

Then he tried to climb up and out of the pool. His body felt impossibly heavy, and even in the heat he was cold. He stood there shivering for a moment, then he went into the cabana and picked up one of the soiled towels he used in the day, when he came in here to wash his hands. He toweled dry with it, and went back out and looked again at the empty garden and the darkened house. The freshly painted violet walls were now exactly the color of the twilight sky.

His own noisy breathing was the only sound in the quiet. But the pain was gone from his chest, and slowly he forced himself to breathe deeply several times.

Was he frightened? Was he angry? He honestly didn’t know. He was in a state of shock maybe. He wasn’t sure on that score either. He felt he’d run the four-minute mile again, that was certain, and his head was beginning to hurt. He picked up his clothes and dressed, refusing to hurry, refusing to be driven away.

Then for a long moment he sat on the curved iron bench, smoking a cigarette and studying things around him, trying to remember exactly what he’d seen. Stella’s last party. Arthur Langtry.

Another one of Lasher’s tricks?

Far away, over the lawn, all the way at the front fence, among the camellias, he thought he saw someone moving. He heard steps echoing. But it was only an evening stroller, someone peeping perhaps through the leaves.

He listened until he could no longer hear the distant footsteps, and he realized he was hearing the click of the riverfront train passing, just the way he’d heard it on Annunciation Street when he was a boy. And that sound again, the sound of a baby crying, that was just a train whistle.

He rose to his feet, stubbed out the cigarette, and went back into the house.

“You don’t scare me,” he said, offhandedly. “And I don’t believe it was Arthur Langtry.”

Had someone sighed in the darkness? He turned around. Nothing but the empty dining room around him. Nothing but the high keyhole door to the hallway. He walked on, not bothering to soften his footfalls, letting them echo loudly and obtrusively.

There was a faint clicking. A door closing? And the sound a window makes when it is raised-a vibration of wood and panes of glass.

He turned and went up the stairway. He went to the front and then through every empty room. He didn’t bother with the lights. He knew his way around the old furniture, ghostly under its plastic drapery. The pale light from the street lamp floating through the doorways was plenty enough for him.

Finally he had covered every foot of it. He went back down to the first floor and out the door.

When he got back to the hotel, he called Aaron from the lobby and asked him to come down to the bar for a drink. It was a pleasant little place, right in the front, small, with a few cozy tables in a dim light, and seldom crowded.

They took a table in the corner. Swallowing half a beer in record time, he told Aaron what had happened. He described the gray-haired man.

“You know, I don’t even want to tell Rowan,” he said.

“Why not?” Aaron asked.

“Because she doesn’t want to know. She doesn’t want to see me upset again. It drives her nuts. She tries to be understanding, but things just don’t affect her the same way. I go crazy. She gets angry.”

“I think you must tell her.”

“She’ll tell me to ignore it, and to go on doing what makes me happy. And sometimes I wonder if we shouldn’t get the hell out of here, Aaron, if somebody shouldn’t … ” He stopped.

“What, Michael?”

“Ah, it’s crazy. I’d kill anybody who tried to hurt that house.”

“Tell her. Just tell her simply and quietly what happened. Don’t give her the reaction which will upset her, unless of course she asks for it. But don’t keep any secrets, Michael, especially not a secret like that.”

He was quiet for a long time. Aaron had almost finished his drink.

“Aaron, the power she has. Is there any way to test it, or work with it, or learn what it can do?”

Aaron nodded. “Yes, but she feels she’s worked with it all her life in her healing. And she’s right. As for the negative potential, she doesn’t want to develop it; she wants to rein it in completely.”

“Yes, but you’d think she’d want to play with it once in a while, in a laboratory situation.”

“In time, perhaps. Right now I think she’s focused completely upon the idea of the medical center. As you said, she wants to be with the family and realize these plans. And I have to admit this Mayfair Medical is a magnificent conception. I think Mayfair and Mayfair are impressed, though they’re reluctant to say so.” Aaron finished his wine. “What about you?” Aaron gestured to Michael’s hands.

“Oh, it’s getting better. I take the gloves off more and more often. I don’t know … ”

“And when you were swimming?”

“Well, I took them off, I guess. God, I didn’t even think about it. I … You don’t think it had to do with that, do you?”

“No, I don’t think so. But I think you’re very right to assume it might not have been Langtry. It’s no more than a feeling perhaps, but I don’t think Langtry would try to come through in that way. But do tell Rowan. You want Rowan to be perfectly honest with you in return, don’t you? Tell her the whole thing.”

He knew Aaron was right. He was dressed for dinner and waiting in the living room of the suite when Rowan came in. He fixed her a club soda with ice, and explained the whole incident as briefly and concisely as he could.

At once, he saw the anxiety in her face. It was almost a disappointment, that something ugly and dark and awful had once again blighted her stubborn sense that everything was going well. She seemed incapable of saying anything. She merely sat on the couch, beside the heap of packages she’d brought home with her. She did not touch the drink.

“I think it was one of his tricks,” said Michael. “That was my feeling. The lily, that was some kind of trick. I think we should just go right on.”

That’s what she wanted to hear, wasn’t it?

“Yes, that’s exactly what we should do,” she said, with slight irritation. “Did it … shake you up?” she asked. “I think I might have gone crazy seeing something like that.”

“No,” he said. “It was shocking. But it was sort of fascinating. I guess it made me angry. I kind of … well, had one of those attacks, sort of … ”

“Oh, Christ, Michael.”

“No, no! Sit back down, Dr. Mayfair. I’m fine. It’s just that when these things happen, there’s an exertion, an overall systemic reaction or something. I don’t know. Maybe I’m scared and I don’t know it. That’s probably what it is. One time when I was a kid, I was riding the roller coaster at Pontchartrain Beach. We got right to the top and I figured, well, I won’t brace myself for once. I’ll just go down the big dip completely relaxed. Well, the strangest thing happened. I felt these cramps in my stomach and my chest. Painful! It was like my body tensed for me, without permission. It was sort of like that. In fact, it was exactly like that.”

She was really losing it. She sat there with her arms folded, and her lips pressed together, and she was losing it. Finally in a low voice she said, “People die of heart attacks on roller coasters. Just the way they die from other forms of stress.”

“I’m not going to die.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because I’ve done it before,” he said. “And I know it’s not time.”

She gave a little bitter laugh. “Very funny,” she said.

“I’m completely serious.”

“Don’t go over there anymore alone. Don’t give it any opportunity to do this to you.”

“Bullshit, Rowan! I’m not scared of that damned thing. Besides, I like going over there. And … ”

“And what?”

“The thing is going to show itself sooner or later.”

“And what makes you so sure it was Lasher?” she asked in a quiet voice. Her face had gone suddenly smooth. “What if it was Langtry, and Langtry wants you to leave me?”

“That doesn’t compute.”

“Of course it computes.”

“Look. Let’s drop it. I only want to be straight with you, to tell you everything that happens, not to hold back on something like that. And I don’t want you to hold back either.”

“Don’t go over there again,” she said, her face clouding. “Not alone, not at night, not asking for trouble.”

He made some little derisive noise.

But she had risen and stalked out of the room. He’d never seen her behave in quite that manner. In a moment she reappeared, with her black leather bag in hand.

“Open your shirt, would you please?” she asked. She was removing her stethoscope.

“What! What is this? You gotta be kidding.”

She stood in front of him, holding the stethoscope and staring at the ceiling. Then she looked down at him, and smiled. “We’re going to play doctor, OK? Now open your shirt?”

“Only if you open your shirt too.”

“I will immediately afterwards. In fact, you can listen to my heart too if you want.”

“Well, if you put it that way. Christ, Rowan, this thing is cold.”

“I only warm it in my hands for children, Michael.”

“Well, hell, don’t you think big brave guys like me feel hot and cold?”

“Stop trying to make me laugh. Take a slow deep breath.”

He did what she asked. “So what do you hear in there?”

She stood up, gathered the stethoscope in one hand, and put it back in the bag. She sat beside him and pressed her fingers to his wrist.

“Well?”

“You seem fine. I don’t hear any murmur. I don’t pick up any congenital problems, or any dysfunction or weakness of any kind.”

“That’s good old Michael Curry!” he said. “What does your sixth sense tell you?”

She reached over and placed her hands on his neck, slipping her fingers down inside his open collar and gently caressing the flesh. It was so gentle and so unlike her regular touch that it brought chills up all over his back, and it stirred the passion in him to a quick, surprising little bonfire.

He was one step from being a pure animal now as he sat there, and surely she must have felt it. But her face was like a mask; her eyes were glassy and she was so still, staring at him, her hands still holding him, that he almost became alarmed.

“Rowan?” he whispered.

Slowly she withdrew her hands. She seemed to be herself again, and she let her fingers drop playfully and with maddening gentleness into his lap. She scratched at the bulge in his jeans.

“So what does the sixth sense tell you?” he asked again, resisting the urge to rip her clothing to pieces on the spot.

“That you’re the most handsome, seductive man I’ve ever been in bed with,” she said languidly. “That falling in love with you was an amazingly intelligent idea. That our first child will be incredibly handsome and beautiful and strong.”

“Are you teasing me? You didn’t really see that?”

“No, but it’s going to happen,” she said. She laid her head on his shoulder. “Wonderful things are going to happen,” she said as he folded her against him. “Because we’re going to make them happen. Let’s go in there now and make something wonderful happen between the sheets.”

By the end of the week, Mayfair and Mayfair held its first serious conference devoted entirely to the creation of the medical center. In consultation with Rowan, it was decided to authorize several coordinated studies as to the feasibility, the optimum size of the center, and the best possible New Orleans location.

Ryan scheduled fact-gathering trips for Anne Marie and Pierce to several major hospitals in Houston, New York, and Cambridge. Meetings were being arranged at the local level to discuss the possibility of affiliation with universities or existing institutions in town.

Rowan was hard at work reading technical histories of the American hospital. For hours she talked long distance to Larkin, her old boss, and other doctors around the country, asking for suggestions and ideas.

It was becoming obvious to her that her most grandiose dream could be realized with only a fraction of her capital, if capital was even involved at all. At least that is how Lauren and Ryan Mayfair interpreted her dreams; and it was best to allow things to proceed on that basis.

“But what if some day every penny of that money could be flowing into medicine,” said Rowan privately to Michael, “going into the creation of vaccines and antibiotics, operating rooms and hospital beds?”

The renovations were going so smoothly that Michael had time to look at a couple of other properties. By mid-September, he’d acquired a big deep dusty shop on Magazine Street for the new Great Expectations, just a few blocks from First Street and from where he’d been born. It was in a vintage building with a flat above and an iron gallery that covered the sidewalk. Another one of those perfect moments.

Yes, it was all going beautifully and it was so much fun. The parlor was almost finished. Several of Julien’s Chinese rugs and fine French armchairs had been returned to it. And the grandfather clock was working once again.

Of course the family besieged them to leave their digs at the Pontchartrain and come to this or that house until the wedding. But they were too comfortable there in the big suite over St. Charles Avenue. They loved the Caribbean Room, and the staff of the small elegant hotel; they even loved the paneled elevator with the flowers painted on the ceiling, and the little coffee shop where they sometimes had breakfast.

Also Aaron was still occupying the suite upstairs, and they had both become extremely fond of him. A day wasn’t a day without coffee or a drink or at least a chat with Aaron. And if he was suffering any more of those accidents now, he didn’t say so.

The last weeks of September were cooler. And many an evening they remained at First Street, after the workers had gone, having their wine at the iron table, and watching the sun set beyond the trees.

The very last light caught in the high attic windows which faced south, turning the panes to gold.

So quietly grand. The bougainvillea gave forth its purple blooms in dazzling profusion, and each newly finished room or bit of painted ironwork excited them, and filled them with dreams of what was to come.

Meantime Beatrice and Lily Mayfair had talked Rowan into a white dress Wedding at St. Mary’s Assumption Church. Apparently the legacy stipulated a Catholic ceremony. And the trappings were considered to be absolutely indispensable for the happiness and satisfaction of the whole clan. Rowan seemed pleased when she finally gave in.

And Michael was secretly elated.

It thrilled him more than he dared to admit. He had never hoped for anything so graceful or traditional in his life. And of course it was the woman’s decision, and he hadn’t wanted to pressure Rowan in any way. But ah, to think of it, a formal white dress wedding in the old church where he’d served Mass.

As the days grew even cooler, as they moved into a beautiful and balmy October, Michael suddenly realized how close they were to their first Christmas together, and that they would spend it in the new house. Think of the tree they could have in that enormous parlor. It would be marvelous, and Aunt Viv was finally settling in at the new condominium. She was still fussing for her personal things, and he was promising to fly to San Francisco any day now to get them, but he knew she liked it here. And she liked the Mayfairs.

Yes, Christmas, the way he had always imagined it ought to be. In a magnificent house, with a splendid tree, and a fire going in the marble fireplace.

Christmas.

Inevitably, the memory of Lasher in the church came back to him. Lasher’s unmistakable presence, mingled with the smell of the pine needles and the candles, and the vision of the plaster Baby Jesus, smiling in the manger.

Why had Lasher looked so lovingly at Michael on that long-ago day when he’d appeared in the sanctuary by the crib?

Why all of it? That was the question finally.

And maybe Michael would never know. Maybe, just maybe, he had somehow completed the purpose for which his life had been given back to him. Maybe it had never been anything more than to return here, to love Rowan, and that they should be happy together in the house.

But he knew it couldn’t be that simple. Just didn’t make sense that way. It would be a miracle if this lasted forever. Just a miracle, the way the creation of Mayfair Medical was a miracle, and that Rowan wanted a baby was a miracle, and that the house would soon be theirs was a miracle … and like seeing a ghost was a miracle-a ghost beaming at you from the sanctuary of a church, or from under a bare crepe myrtle tree on a cold night.