By that time I was on the mend, and when days did begin to connect with one another, I was running only a low grade temperature, and the "toxin" was completely gone. Soon I no longer required intravenous nourishment. My strength was coming back.
My case was nothing exceptional. It had to do with a species of amphibian which I must have encountered in the brush. Even touch ing this creature can be fatal. My contact must have been indirect.
Merrick and the others were not afflicted, that was soon made clear to me, and I was much relieved, though in my state of confusion, I had to confess I had not thought of them as I should.
Merrick spent a great deal of time with me, but Aaron was almost always there as well. As soon as I would start to address an important question to Merrick, a nurse or a doctor came into the room. At other times I was confused as to the order of events and didn't want to reveal that confusion. And occasionally, very occasionally, I would wake in the night, convinced I'd been back in the jungles in my dreams.
At last, though I was still technically sick, I was brought by ambu lance to Oak Haven and moved into the upstairs left front room.
This is one of the more gracious and lovely bedrooms in the house, and, in my robe and slippers, I was walking out on the front porch by the evening of that day. It was winter, but wondrously green all around me, and the breeze off the river was welcome.
At last, after two days of "small talk," which was threatening to drive me out of my mind, Merrick came to my room alone. She wore a nightgown and robe and she appeared exhausted. Her rich brown hair was held back from her temples by two amber combs. I could see the relief in her face as she looked at me.
I was in bed, with pillows propped and a book on the Maya people open in my lap.
"I thought you were going to die," she said plainly. "I prayed for you in a way I've never prayed before. "
"Do you think God heard your prayers?" I asked. Then I realized she hadn't mentioned praying to God at all. "Tell me," I asked, "was I ever in real danger?"
She seemed shocked by the question. Then she fell quiet, as though debating what she might say. I already had part of my answer, purely from her reaction to the question, so I waited patiently until she meant to speak.
"There were times in Guatemala," she said, "when they told me you were not likely to make it much longer. I sent them away, insofar as they'd listen, and I put the mask over my face. I could see your spirit just above your body; I could see it struggling to rise and free itself from your body. I could see it stretched over you, the double of you, rising, and I put out my hand and I pressed on it, and made it go back into its place. "
I felt a dreadful overwhelming love for her.
"Thank God you did it," I said.
She repeated my words from the jungle village.
"Life belongs to those who are alive. "
"You remember me saying it?" I asked her, or rather I expressed to her my gratitude.
"You said it often," she replied. "You thought you were talking to someone, the someone we'd both seen in the mouth of the cave before we'd made our escape. You thought you were engaged in a debate with him. And then one morning, very early, when I woke up in the chair and found you conscious, you told me you'd won. "
"What are we
going to do with the mask?" I asked. "I see myself becoming enthralled with it. I see myself testing it on others, but in secret. I see myself becoming its unwholesome slave. "
"We won't let that happen," she said. "Besides, others aren't affected in the same way. "
"How do you know?" I asked.
"The men in the tent, when you were getting sicker and sicker, they picked it up, they thought it was a curio, of course. One of them thought we'd bought it from the village people. He was the first to look through it. He saw nothing. Then another one of the men did the same thing. So forth and so on. "
"What about here in New Orleans?"
"Aaron saw nothing through it," she said. And then in something of a sad voice she added: "I didn't tell him all that happened. That's for you to do, if you wish. "
"And you?" I pressed. "What do you see when you look through the mask now?"
She shook her head. She looked off a bit, desperately biting into her lip, and then she looked at me.
"I see Honey when I look through it. Almost always. I see Honey in the Sunshine, and that's all. I see her in the oaks outside of the Mother house. I see her in the garden. I see her whenever I look through the mask. The world is as it is around her. But she's always there. " There was a passage of time and then she confessed:
"I believe it was all Honey's doing. Honey goaded me with nightmares. Oncle Vervain was never really there. It was always Honey in the Sunshine, greedy for life, and how can I blame her? She sent us back there to get the mask so that she could come through. I've vowed I won't let her do it. I mean, I won't let her grow stronger and stronger through me. I won't be used and destroyed by her. It's like you said. Life belongs to those who are alive. "
"Would it do no good to speak to her? Would it do no good to tell her that she's dead?"