"Be quiet," I said. I kept my gaze on her, on her large miserable eyes, and the streaks of hair that ran down her face, and her parted lips. Such yearning, such agony.
"Patsy," I said. "Darling girl, all your tribulation in this place is finished. "
I saw her eyebrows close in a slow listless frown. It seemed I heard a deep long sigh from her.
"You best go on, beautiful girl," I said. "Go on to glory. Don't roam this dismal realm, Patsy. Don't make this darkness your home when you can turn to the Light. Don't you wander here searching and moaning. You go on. Turn your back on this time and place and beg for the gates to open. "
Something quickened in her face. Her eyebrows went smooth, and it seemed that she shuddered.
"Go on, honey," I said. "The Light wants you. And here in this world, Quinn will gather all your songs, every song you ever recorded, Patsy, and put them all together, and they'll go out far and wide, Patsy, every single one, old and new, for always. Isn't that a splendid thing to leave behind, all those wonderful songs that people love, that's your gift, Patsy. "
Her mouth opened, but she didn't speak. Her white cheeks were slick with the water of the swamp, her nightgown torn, her arms scratched and streaked with filth, her fingers struggling to close but unable to
do it.
I heard Mona cry out. I felt a force move the damp air around me. Quinn was vowing in a low-running whisper that, having sinned in taking her life, he would give her songs life forever.
But nothing changed for me in the agonized and straining apparition, except that Patsy raised her right hand just a little, and her parted lips made just a small bit of a word. I couldn't hear it. It seemed she inclined towards me. And I inclined towards her-
-love me, love the way love must be, unsparing love, love Patsy!-
-across the perilous void I moved, as if stepping off the very world itself, and I kissed her lips, wet and reeking of the foul water, and I felt a great current come from inside me, a wind out of the deepest root in me that swept inexorably into her and carried her far, far away, up and out, her form growing faint and immense and brilliant-.
"Into the Light, Patsy!" Mona wailed, her words borne on the wind and swallowed by it-.
-teenaged cowgirl strumming her guitar, belting it: Gloria! stomping her foot, crowd screaming, searing flash of angels, numberless monsters of the unseen, those wings, no, I didn't see, yes, I did, get away! Gloria! I didn't see-Gloria! I'm clawing the grass trying to get into the Earth-Oncle Julien smiling, beckoning. Gloria! This is the most dangerous game. You're no Saint Juan Diego, you know. I will not, I will not, I will not go with you! Patsy in pink leather, arms raised, blinding light, belting Gloria in Excelsis Deo !
Blackness. It is done. I am separate. I am here. I feel the grass beneath me.
I whispered: "Laudamus te. Benedicimus te. Adoramus te. In Gloria Dei Patris!"
When I opened my eyes, I was lying on the ground, and except for Mona who cradled my head in her hands, and Quinn who knelt beside her, the night was quiet and empty.
Chapter 23
23
EVERY NOW AND THEN, I demand to be treated like the supernatural hero that I am.
I strode back to the house, ignoring Quinn and Mona (especially Mona), and opened the kitchen door, and told Jasmine that Patsy's spirit was definitely gone from the Earth, and that I was spent and that I needed
to sleep in Aunt Queen's bed, no matter what anybody thought about it.
Obstreperous little Jerome jumped up from his tiny table and cried: "But I never got to see her! Mamma, I never got to see her. "
"I'll draw you a picture, sit down!" said Jasmine and, with the incontestable authority of the lady with the keys, she led me across the hall and admitted me to the sacrosanct chamber at once, mumbling that Mona had made a mess of the closets only two hours before, but everything was now put right, and I flung myself theatrically upon the rose satin bed, beneath the rose satin canopy, nuzzled into the rose satin pillows and lay there, drenched in the scent of Chantilly, allowing Jasmine to pull off my dirty boots because it made her happy, and protected the bed, and I closed my eyes.
At once Quinn said in a soft, respectful voice, "Lestat, may Mona and I keep watch with you? We're so grateful for what you did. "
"Out of my sight," I said. "Jasmine, please light all the lamps and then make them get out of here. Patsy is gone, and my soul is weak! I have seen the feathered wings of angels. Don't I deserve to sleep for this little while?"
"You get out of here, Tarquin Blackwood and Mona Mayfair!" Jasmine said. "Thank the Lawd that Patsy's gone! I can feel it. That child was just lost and now she's way up home and no more searching. I'm taking these boots to Allen. Allen's the boot expert on this property. Allen can clean these boots. Now, you two go on, you heard what the man said. His soul is weak. Now let him be. Lestat, I'm getting you a blanket. "
Amen.
I drifted.
Julien was at my ear in heated French: "I'll follow you to the ends of the Earth through all your endeavors until you are ruined in madness! Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. All that you do is vanity, and for your own pride and glory! You think the angels don't know what you do and for whom you do it!"