"Forgive me," he whispered. He gave a soft groan of pure and terrible pain.
"Go back to Hell!" cried Merrick, suddenly. She ran at the floating image, arms out to reach over the cauldron, but the child withdrew with the ease of vapor, and, still clutching the jade pick, she lifted her right hand and knocked Merrick back with it, the frigid little face all the while quite still.
Merrick stumbled on the back steps of the house. I caught her arm and lifted her back on her feet. Again, the child turned to Louis as she held the dangerous pick in both her small hands. Down the front of her sheer white dress was the dark stain from the boiling fluids of the cauldron. It meant nothing to her. The cauldron, on its side, poured forth its contents onto the stones.
"Did you think I wasn't suffering, Father?" she asked softly in the same small girlish voice. "Did you think that death had freed me from all my pain?" Her small finger touched the point of the jade instrument. "That's what you thought, wasn't it, Father," she spoke slowly, "and that, if this woman did your will, you'd take away some precious consolation from my very lips. You believed that God would give you that, didn't you? It seemed so very right for you after all your penitential years."
Louis still held his wound, though his flesh was healing and the blood oozed more slowly out of his splayed hand.
"The gates can't be locked to you, Claudia," he said, the tears rising in his eyes. His voice was strong and sure. "That would be too monstrous a cruelty—."
"To whom, Father?" she answered, cutting off his words. "Too monstrous a cruelty to you? I suffer, Father, I suffer and I wander; I know nothing, and all I once knew seems illusory! I have nothing, Father. My senses are not even a memory. I have nothing here at all."
The voice grew weaker, yet it was clearly audible. Her exquisite face was infused with a look of discovery.
"Did you think I'd tell you nursery stories about Lestat's angels?" she asked with a low kindly tone. "Did you think I'd paint a picture of the glassy heavens with palaces and mansions? Did you think I'd sing to you some song learnt from the Morning Stars? No, Father, you will not draw such ethereal comfort from me."
On went her subdued voice:
"And when you come following me I shall be lost again, Father. How can I promise that I shall be there to witness your cries or tears?"
The image had begun to waver. Her large dark eyes fixed upon Merrick, and then on me. Back to Louis she looked. She was fading. The perforator fell from her white hand and struck the stones, breaking in two.
"Come, Louis," she said faintly, the sound of her invitation mingling with the softly stirring trees, "come into this dreary place with me, and leave behind your comforts—leave behind your wealth, your dreams, your blood-soaked pleasures. Leave behind your ever hungry eyes. Leave it all, my beloved, leave it for this dim and insubstantial realm." The figure was rigid and flat, the light barely shining upon its uncertain contours. I could scarcely see the small mouth as it smiled.
"Claudia, please, I beg you," said Louis. "Merrick, don't let her go into uncertain darkness. Merrick, guide her!" But Merrick did not move.
Louis turned frantically from Merrick to the fading image.
"Claudia!" he cried out. With all his soul he wanted to say more, but there was no conviction in him. All was despair. I could feel it. I could read it on his stricken face.
Merrick stood back, staring through the gleaming jade mask, her left hand poised in the air as if to fend off the ghost if it should strike again.
"Come to me, Father," said the child, the voice toneless now, devoid of feeling. The image was transparent, dim. The outline of the small face slowly evaporated. Only the eyes held their luster.
"Come to me," she whispered, her voice dry and thin. "Come, do it with deep pain, as your offering. You'll never find me. Come."
Only a dark shape remained for a few moments, and then the space was empty, and the yard with its shrine and with its tall forbidding trees was still.
I could see no more of her. The candles, what had happened to them? They had all gone out. The burning incense was so much soot on the flagstones. The breeze had scattered it. A great shower of tiny leaves came down languidly from the branches, and the air was full of a subtle yet biting cold.
Only the distant gleam of the heavens gave us illumination. The dreadful chill lingered around us. It penetrated my clothes and settled on my skin.
Louis peered into the darkness with a look of inexpressible grief He began to shiver. The tears didn't flow; they merely stood in his uncomprehending eyes.
Suddenly Merrick ripped off the jade mask and overturned both tables, and the brazier, the contents smashing onto the flags. The mask she cast into the shrubbery by the rear steps.
I stared in horror at the skull of Honey lying in the heap of cast-off instruments. Bitter smoke rose from the wet coals. The burnt remnants of the doll were visible in the flowing liquid. The jeweled chalice rolled on its golden rim. Merrick took hold of Louis by both arms.
"Come inside," she said, "come out of this awful place now. Come inside with me, where we can light the lamps. Come inside where we'll be safe and warm."
"No, not now, my dear," he answered. "I must leave you. Oh, I promise, I'll see you again. Let me alone for now. Take whatever promises I must give you, to quiet you. Take whatever thanks I can express from my heart. But let me go." He bent down and retrieved the little picture of Claudia from the wreckage of the altar. Then off he went down the shadowy alley, pushing the young banana leaves out of his path, his steps growing ever faster, until he was gone altogether, vanished on his own path in the familiar and unchanging night.
20
I LEFT HER CURLED UP on Great Nananne's bed in the front room.
I went back into the garden, picked up the broken pieces of the jade perforator, and found the mask broken in half. How brittle was this strong jade. How bad had been my intentions, how evil the result. These things I brought with me into the house. I could not bring myself to lay my superstitious hands upon the skull of Honey in the Sunshine.
I put the collection of jade remnants on the bedroom altar, amid the glass-covered candles, and then I settled next to her, sitting beside her, and I put my arm around her.
She turned and laid her head on my shoulder. Her skin felt feverish and sweet. I wanted to cover her in kisses, but I couldn't give in to this impulse, anymore than I could give in to the darker impulse to bring through the blood the rhythm of her heart in time with my own.
There was dried blood all over her white silk dress, and on the inside of her right arm.
"I should never have done it, never," she said in a hushed and anxious voice, her breasts yielding softly against me. "It was madness. I knew what would happen. I knew his brain would be fodder for disaster. I knew it. And now he's lost; he's wounded and lost to us both."
I lifted her so that I could look into her eyes. As always their brilliant green color startled me, and enthralled me, but I couldn't concern myself with her charms now.
"But you do believe that it was Claudia?" I asked.
"Oh, yes," she said. Her eyes were still red around the edges from her crying. I saw the tears standing there. "It was Claudia," she declared. "Or that thing which now calls itself Claudia, but the words it spoke? They were lies."
"How can you know that?"
"The same way I know when a human being is lying to me. The same way I know when someone's read another one's mind and is preying upon that other's weakness. The spirit was hostile, once called into our realm. The spirit was confused. The spirit told lies."