"But you see, I never much believed in those women. When I encountered Merrick, well, I sensed something immensely powerful and alien to my understanding. Now, please, do go on. Tell me what happened tonight." I recounted how I'd taken Merrick back to the Windsor Court Hotel, and how the spell had then descended upon me with numerous apparitions, the most unwholesome and frightening of which was most definitely that of the dead grandmother, Great Nananne.
"If you could have seen the two figures speaking to one another in the carriageway, if you could have seen their absorbed and somewhat secretive manner, and the casual fearless way in which they regarded me, it would have given you chills."
"No doubt of it," he said. "And you do mean you actually saw them, as though they were truly there. It wasn't simply an idea."
"No, my dear fellow, I saw them. They looked real. Of course they didn't look entirely like other people, you must understand. But they were there!"
I went on to explain my return to the hotel, the altar, Papa Legba, and then my coming home, and, once again, I described the music of the harpsichord and the singing of the caged birds.
Louis grew visibly sad at this, but again, he did not interrupt.
"As I told you before," I said, "I recognized the music. It was Mozart's first sonata. And the playing was unrealistic and full of—."
"Tell me."
"But you must have heard it. It was haunting. I mean a long, long time ago you must have heard such music, when it was first played here, for hauntings only repeat what occurred once upon a time."
"It was full of anger," he said softly, as though the very word "anger" made him hush his tone.
"Yes, that was it, anger. It was Claudia playing, was it not?"
He didn't respond. He seemed stricken by his memories and considerations. Then finally he spoke.
"But you don't know that Claudia made you hear these sounds," he said. "It might have been Merrick and her spell."
"You're right on that score, but you see, we don't know that Merrick caused all the other things, either. The altar, the candle, even my blood upon the handkerchief—these things don't prove that Merrick sent the spirits after me. We have to think about the ghost of Great Nananne."
"You mean this ghost might have interfered with us, entirely on her own?" I nodded. "What if this ghost wants to protect Merrick? What if this ghost does not want her granddaughter to conjure the soul of a vampire? How can we know?"
He seemed on the edge of total despair. He remained poised and somewhat collected, but his face was badly stricken, and then he seemed to pull himself together, and he looked to me to speak, as if no words could express what he felt.
"Louis, listen to me. I have only a tenuous understanding of what I'm about to say, but it's most important."
"Yes, what is it?" He seemed at once animated and humble, sitting upright in the chair, urging me to go on.
"We're creatures of this earth, you and I. We are vampires. But we're material. Indeed, we are richly entangled with Homo sapiens in that we thrive on the blood of that species alone. Whatever spirit inhabits our bodies, governs our cells, enables us to live—whatever spirit that does all those things is mindless and might as well be nameless, insofar as we know. You do agree on these points..."
"I do," he said, obviously eager for me to go on.
"What Merrick does is magic, Louis. It is from another realm."
He made no response.
"It's magic that we're asking her to do for us. Voodoo is magic, so is Candomble. So is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass." He was taken aback, but fascinated.
"God is magic," I continued, "and so are the saints. Angels are magic. And ghosts, if they be truly the apparitions of souls who once lived on earth, are magic as well."
He absorbed these words respectfully and remained silent.
"You understand," I continued, "I don't say that all these magical elements are equal. What I am saying is that what they have in common is that they are divorced from materiality, divorced from the earth, and from the flesh. Of course they interact with matter. They interact with the flesh. But they partake of the realm of pure spirituality where other laws—
laws unlike our physical earthly laws—might exist."
"I see your meaning," he said. "You're warning me that this woman can do things that will baffle us as easily as they might baffle mortal men."
"Yes, that is my intent here, partly," I answered. "However, Merrick may do more than simply baffle us, you understand me. We must approach Merrick and what she will do with the utmost respect."
"I do understand you," he said. "But if human beings have souls that survive death, souls that can manifest as spirits to the living, then human beings have magical components as well."
"Yes, a magical component, and you and I still possess this magical component, along with some additional vampiric component, but when a soul truly leaves its physical body? Then it is in the realm of God."
"You believe in God," he murmured, quite amazed.
"Yes, I think so," I answered. "Indeed, I know so. What's the point of hiding it as if it were an unsophisticated or foolish frame of mind?"
"Then you do indeed have great respect for Merrick and her magic," he said. "And you believe that Great Nananne, as you call her, might be a very powerful spirit indeed."
"Precisely," I said.
He settled back in the chair, and his eyes moved back and forth a little too rapidly. He was quite excited by all I'd told him, but his general disposition was one of profound sorrow, and nothing made him look happy or glad.
"Great Nananne might be dangerous, that's what you're saying," he murmured. "Great Nananne might want to protect Merrick from ... you and me."
He looked rather splendid in his sorrow. Again he made me think of the paintings of Andrea del Sarto. There was something lush in his beauty, for all the sharp and clear well-drawn lines of his eyes and mouth.
"I don't expect my faith to make a particle of difference to you," I said. "But I want to emphasize these feelings, because this Voodoo, this matter of spirits, is indeed a dangerous thing."
He was perturbed but hardly frightened, perhaps not even cautious. I wanted to say more. I wanted to tell him of my experiences in Brazil, but it wasn't the time or place.
"But David, on the matter of ghosts," he said finally, again maintaining a respectful tone, "surely there are all kinds of ghosts."
"Yes, I think I know what you mean," I responded.
"Well, this Great Nananne, if indeed she appeared of her own volition, from where precisely did she come?"
"We can't expect to know that, Louis, about any ghost."
"Well surely some ghosts are manifestations of earthbound spirits, don't students of the occult maintain this truth?"
"They do."
"If these ghosts are the spirits of the dead who are earthbound, how can we say they are purely magical? Aren't they still within the atmosphere? Aren't they struggling to reach the living? Aren't they divorced from God? How else can one interpret Claudia's haunting of Jesse? If it was Claudia, then Claudia has not gone on into a purely spiritual realm. Claudia is not a partaker of the laws beyond us. Claudia is not at peace."
"Ah, I see," I answered. "So that is why you want to attempt the ritual." I felt foolish for not having seen it all along.
"You believe that Claudia's suffering."
"I think it's entirely possible," he said, "if Claudia did appear to Jesse as Jesse seemed to think." He looked miserable.
"And frankly, I hope that we can't rouse Claudia's spirit. I hope that Merrick's power doesn't work. I hope that if Claudia had an immortal soul, that soul has gone to God. I hope for things in which I can't believe."
"So this is why the story of Claudia's ghost has so tormented you. You don't want to speak to her. You want to know that she's at peace."