Blood Canticle (The Vampire Chronicles 10)

That I have gone on home.

I'm walking in the graveyard now

And I am all alone.

And I'll be gone before the leaves

Begin to fall again.

They're rushing up and down the stairs

The bed is wide and soft.

But I lie still and oh, so cold.

Because my mother's gone.

Will I soon see her simple face?

I have no dreams or faith.

I wish that I could make a song

That tells how good it's been.

I had the stage, I had the light.

The music was the tale.

But things are tinged with purple now

And these sad notes I play.

I wait until the autumn comes

And I will be no more.

We stood together, bound by the sorrow of it, as if we were in a deep enchantment.

Quinn leant down to kiss Tommy on the cheek. Tommy just stared at the printed music before him. Jasmine had her arm around his shoulder.

"Now that was beautiful," she said. "And Patsy wrote that, now, she knew what was coming, she knew. "

Then Quinn drew Nash off with him into the dining room. Mona and I went with him, but there was no real need for us.

I saw this as they sat down to talk.

I saw that Nash understood from the first words, and was completely desirous of this position that Quinn

was describing to him. I saw that it had been Nash's secret dream. Nash had only been waiting for the time to present such a proposal to Quinn.

Meanwhile, in the parlor Jasmine was asking Tommy to play the song again.

"But you didn't really see that awful ghost of Patsy, did you?" Tommy was asking.

"No, no," said Jasmine, trying to comfort Tommy, "I was just carrying on, I don't know what got into me, don't you be afraid of Patsy's ghost, don't you think about that, besides, you see a ghost, you make the Sign of the Cross, nothing to it, now you sing that song again, I'll sing it with you. . . . "

"You play the song again, Tommy," I said. "You keep playing it and you keep singing it. If her spirit's wandering, she'll hear it and it will comfort her. "