"Of course I do," I said. "Trust me that we'll call you when it's time. "
She bowed her head, but only for a second.
"No, no, you don't understand," she said, the husky voice so expressive of concern. "There's no reasonable explanation for her being still alive right now. "
"It's her will," I countered. I'm telling you the truth, there is no reason to be concerned for her. "She's resting, free of pain," I said.
"That's impossible," Rowan whispered.
Something flickered in her expression.
"Who are you?" she asked, that deep voice underscoring her seriousness.
I was the one being spellbound. I couldn't break loose of her. I felt the chills again. The room was too dim. I wanted to tell Jasmine to turn up the chandelier.
"My name doesn't matter," I said, but it was hard for me to speak.
What was it about this woman? Why was her strip down beauty so provocative and threatening? I wanted to see into her soul but she was far too clever to let it happen. Yet I sensed secrets in her, a trove of them, and I felt an electric connection to the monster child that Mona had revealed to me when I made her, and other things.
I knew suddenly this woman was hiding something dreadful to her own conscience, that the dominant note of her character was this concealment and this conscience, and a great striving rooted in her brilliance and her guilt. I wanted it, whatever she was hiding, just to know it for a moment, just to know it in warmth with her. I would have given anything-.
She looked away from me. I had unwittingly stared her down and lost her, and she was fumbling silently, and I almost saw it: a power over life and death.
Fr. Kevin spoke up:
"I have to see Mona before we go," he said. "I must talk to Quinn, about the exorcism. I used to see Goblin, you understand. I'm concerned for both of them. You have to tell Mona we're here-. "
He had taken a chair opposite me and I hadn't even noticed. "Perhaps we should both see her," he said to Rowan. "Then we can decide what to do. " His was a gentle voice, perfect for a priest, humble yet totally unaffected.
I locked eyes with him, and it seemed for an instant I caught hold of shared secrets, things that they all knew, these Mayfairs, things they couldn't tell, things so profoundly connected to their wealth and their roots that they could never be outgrown or expurgated or overcome. With Fr. Kevin it was doubly hard because he was the confessor of this family, bound by that sacred oath, and also he'd been told things he could scarce believe and it had profoundly changed him.
But he too knew how to lock his mind. And again, all I got when I probed him was that aching memory of my own childhood schooling, of my wanting so badly to be good. An echo of my own mental voice coming back on me. I hated it. Away with it! It struck me, sharp and hard, that I had been given so many chances to save my soul that my entire life had been constructed around these chances! That was my nature-going from temptation after temptation, not to sin, but to be redeemed.
I'd never seen my life that way before.
Had that long-ago boy, Lestat, fought hard enough, he could have become a monk.
"Accursed!" whispered the ghost.
"That's not possible," I said.
"Not possible to see her!" Rowan said. "You can't be serious. "
I heard a soft laughter. I turned around in the chair.
To my far right the ghost was laughing. "Now what are you going to do, Lestat?" he asked.
"What is it?" asked Rowan. "What are you seeing?"
"Nothing," I insisted. "You can't see her. I promised her. No one would come up. For God's sakes, let her alone. " I threw all my conviction behind it. I suddenly felt desperate. "Let her die the way she wants, for the love of Heaven. Let her go!"
She glared at me, glared at this display of emotion. An immense inner suffering was suddenly visible in her face, as if she could no longer conceal it, or as if my own outburst, muted as it had been, had ignited the dim fire inside of her.
"He's right," said Fr. Kevin. "But you understand, we have to stay here. "
"And it's not going to be very long," said Rowan. "We'll wait quietly. If you don't want us in the house . . . "
"No, no, of course you're welcome," I said. "Mon Dieu!"