9

IT WAS GROWING DARK when we left the house.

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

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

Aaron and I all but carried her to the car¡ªshe could walk in her sleep if propelled¡ªand much as I wanted to talk with Aaron I didn't dare risk it, though Merrick slept between us, quite soundly, during the entire ride home.

When we reached the Motherhouse, that good female member of the Order whom I've mentioned before, and will now for the sake of this account call Mary, helped us to carry Merrick up to her room and lay her on the bed.

Now, I remarked a little while ago that I wanted the Talamasca to envelop her in fantasy, to give her everything that she should desire.

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

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

By now, as we left her fast asleep and in the gentle care of Mary, I believe that Aaron and I both had fallen in love with her, completely in a parental sense, and I meant to allow nothing in the Talamasca to distract me from her case.

Of course Aaron, not being the Superior General of the Order, would have the luxury of remaining here with her long after I had been forced back to my desk in London. And I envied him that he would have the pleasure of watching this child meet her first tutors and pick out her own school.

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

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

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

It was more than poignant, these words of the dead man, and my curiosity about "Honey" was all the more strong.

We were in the process of wrapping everything and restoring it to its old order, when there came a knock on the outside door of the room in which the vault is situated.

"Come quickly," Mary said through the door. "She's become hysterical. I don't know what to do."

Up the stairs we headed, and before we'd reached the second floor we could hear her desperate sobs.

She sat on the bed, still in her navy blue dress from the funeral, her feet bare again, and her hair in tangles, sobbing over and over again that Great Nananne was dead.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This seemed to quiet her somewhat.

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

"We'll be waiting for you downstairs in the morning," I told her. "We want you to make that coffee for us. We've been fools, drinking the wrong coffee. We refuse to have breakfast without you. Now you must sleep."

She gave me a grateful and kindly smile, even though the tears were still spilling onto her cheeks. Then, asking no one's permission, she went to the frilly dressing table, where the bottle of rum stood quite incongruously among the other fancy little bottles, and took a good slug of the drink.

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

I don't remember how long we talked.

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

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

"Ah, but there's another matter," I said, and I was about to broach the subject of the weird "disturbance" which I had felt in Great Nananne's house while we had sat in the kitchen. But something stopped me from speaking.

I realized that I sensed the same presence now, under our Motherhouse roof.

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

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

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

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

Once again, I heard the laugh. It seemed an answer to my very query.

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

This time, I didn't tell him to remain behind. He followed me as I went up the stairs.

The door to Merrick's room was open, and the lights were on, causing a brilliant glow to spill into the long broad center hallway.

"Well, come on in," said a womanish voice as I hesitated, and when I did, I was quite alarmed by what I saw.

In a haze of cigarette smoke, there was a young woman sitting in a highly seductive posture at the dressing table, her youthful and fastripening body clothed only in a scant white cotton petticoat, its thin cloth hardly disguising her full breasts and pink nipples, or the dark shadow between her legs.

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

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

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

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

"Who are you?" I asked.

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

"Don't be so hasty, Mr. Talbot," came the hardtoned answer. "Ask me a few questions." She gave more of her weight to the left elbow on the dressing table, and the petticoat gaped to reveal more of her full breasts.

Her eyes positively sparkled in the light of the dressing table lamps. It seemed her lids and eyebrows were governed exclusively by a new personality. She was not even Merrick's twin.

"Cold Sandra?" I asked.

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

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

"Honey in the Sunshine," I said calmly.

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

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

She turned the lighter over now, the cigarette dangling from her lip, and through the little coil of smoke she read the inscription. "To David, my Savior, from Joshua." Her eyes flashed on my face, and she smiled.

The words she'd read cut deep into me, but I would have none of it. I merely stared at her. This would take a little time.

"You're damned right," she said, "it's going to take time. Don't you think I want some of what she's getting. But let's talk about this here, Joshua, he was your lover, wasn't he? You were lovers with him and he died."

The pain I felt was exquisite, and for all my claim to enlightenment and selfknowledge, I was mortified that these words were spoken in Aaron's presence. Joshua had been young, and one of us.

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

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

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

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

"Stop it," I said sharply.

"Don't talk to it, David," said Aaron under his breath. "Don't address it. Every time you talk to it, you give it strength."

A high pealing laughter erupted from the little woman at the dressing table. She shook her head and turned her body to face us completely, the hem of the slip riding up on her naked thighs.

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

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

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

She scowled at me and leant forward. I could see her nipples.

"You give yourself away for what you are," I said. "Or is it what you were?"

Suddenly she rose from the dressing table, and the left hand, free of the cigarette, swept all the bottles and the lamp off the right side of the table, with one fine blow.

There was a roar of shattered glass. The lamp went out with a loud spark. Two or more of the bottles were broken. The carpet was littered with sharp fragments. The room was filled with a powerful perfume.

She stood before us, her hand on her hip, the cigarette held high. She looked down at the bottles.

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

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

Her face was full of anger and very beautiful.

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

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

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

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

I said nothing.

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

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

"Stop it!" I cried.

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

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

"Don't you shout at me, Mister," she blazed back. She glanced down at the broken glass and tapped her ashes into it. "Now let's just see about fixing her good."

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

I advanced on the figure.

"Stay back."

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

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

I took hold of her, crushing the glass under my shoes.

"You're dead, aren't you, Honey in the Sunshine? You're dead, and you know it, and this is all the life you can get!"

For one moment the beautiful face went blank. The girl appeared to be Merrick. Then the eyebrows were raised again. The lids assumed their languid expression, making the eyes glitter.

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

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

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

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

"Come back, Merrick, throw her off, Merrick," I said. I stepped forward once again.

She moved back and towards the foot of the high bed. She turned the cigarette in her hand. She meant to jab me with it.

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

She glanced about the room.

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

She shrieked. "You stop that, lemme go!" And she managed to grind the cigarette into the side of my face.

I reached for her hand, grabbed it and twisted it until she dropped the cigarette. She slapped me hard, so that for one moment I felt faint. Nevertheless, I held on to her slippery shoulders.

"That's it," she cried. "Hurt her, break her bones, why don't you just do that? Think it will make Joshua come back? Think he'll be any older for you, David, think it will make everything right?"

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

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

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

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

Her fingers struggled to reach my eyes.

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

I felt her knee against my chest.

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

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

Still I shook her.

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

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

A sob broke loose from her.

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

I looked down into her face, though where my own body had fallen¡ªonto the floor or onto the bed¡ªI didn't know.

Call on God under any name and go towards him! I told her. Leave those bodies wherever they lie, do you hear me, leave them and go on. Now! It's your chance!

Suddenly the strength that was resisting me contracted, and I felt its intense pressure dissolve. For one moment I thought I saw it, an amorphous shape rising above me. Then I realized I was lying on the floor.

I was staring up at the ceiling. And I could hear Merrick, our Merrick crying once more.

"They're dead, Mr. Talbot, they're dead, Cold Sandra's dead and so is Honey in the Sunshine, my sister, Mr. Talbot, they're both dead, they've been dead since they left New Orleans, Mr. Talbot, all those four years of waiting, and they were dead the first night in Lafayette, Mr. Talbot, they're dead, dead, dead."

Slowly I climbed to my feet. There were cuts from the broken glass on my hands. I was physically sick.

The child on the bed had shut her eyes. Her lips weren't sneering, they were stretched back as she continued her plaintive wails.

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

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

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

I was shuddering all over. My clothes were drenched.

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

And so I withdrew.

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

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

Merrick was dressed in a white cotton gown to receive us, her hair brushed to a marvelous brown luster, and her eyes rimmed in red, but otherwise quite clear. She was in the armchair in the corner, under the light of the tall lamp.

Her feet were safely protected with white satin slippers. But all the glass was gone. Indeed the dressing table looked quite fine with only one lamp and all of its intact bottles.

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

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

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

I shook my head.

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

"Dear God," I whispered.

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

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

"Where is she now?" I asked. Aaron let me know he had not been prepared for that. But I had to put the question to her.

For a very long time she made no response. She lay staring, her body shivering violently, and then finally, she said:

"She's gone."

"How did she come through?" I demanded.

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

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

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

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

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

"Merrick, how did Honey in the Sunshine come through?" I demanded. "Did you know she wanted to come through?"

Mary took a stand to Merrick's left and glared at me.

I kept my eyes on the shivering girl.

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

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

"Ah, I see."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I'm sure of it," Merrick said. "Joshua's in Heaven. Honey just read all those things from your mind."

I couldn't answer her. At the risk of more suspicion and condemnation from the vigilant Mary, I leant over and kissed Merrick on the cheek.

"The nightmare's over," she said. "I'm free of them all. I'm free to begin."

And so our long journey with Merrick began.