The Witching Hour (Lives of the Mayfair Witches 1)

But Liz described him all right--tall, brown hair, very "distinguished," Liz said, and he'd been kissing Deirdre and whispering to her.

"Rita Mae, imagine her opening all the locks, bringing him up the stairs. She was just crazy."

"All I know is this," Rita said later to Jerry Lonigan when they were courting. "She was the sweetest girl I ever knew in my life. She was a saint compared with those nuns, I tell you. And when I thought I'd go crazy in that place, she held my hand and told me she knew how I was feeling. I would have done anything for her."

But when the time came to do something for Deirdre Mayfair, Rita hadn't been able to do it.

Over a year had passed. Rita's teenaged life was gone and she never for a second missed it. She had married Jerry Lonigan, who was twelve years older than her and nicer than any boy she'd ever met--a decent and kind man who made a good living from Lonigan and Sons' Funeral Home, one of the oldest in the parish, which he ran with his daddy.

Jerry was the one who gave Rita news about Deirdre. He told her Deirdre was pregnant by a man who'd been killed already in a highway accident, and those aunts of hers, those mean crazy Mayfair women, were going to make her give up her baby.

Rita was going by that house to see Deirdre. She had to. Jerry didn't want her to go.

"What the hell you think you can do about it! Don't you know that aunt of hers, Miss Carlotta, she's a lawyer? She could get Deirdre committed if she didn't give up that baby."

Red Lonigan, Jerry's dad, shook his head. "That's been done plenty a time, Rita," he said. "Deirdre will sign the papers or wind up in the nuthouse. Besides, Father Lafferty's got a hand in this thing. And if there's any priest at St. Alphonsus I trust, it's Tim Lafferty."

But Rita went.

It was the hardest thing she'd ever done, walking up to that enormous house and ringing the bell, but she did it. And naturally it was Miss Carl who came to the door, the one everybody was afraid of. Jerry told her later that if it had been Miss Millie or Miss Nancy it might have been different.

Still Rita walked right in, just sort of pushed past Miss Carl. Well, she had opened the screen door a crack, hadn't she? And Miss Carl really didn't look mean. She just looked businesslike.

"Just want to see her, you know, she was my best friend at St. Ro's ... "

Every time Miss Carl said no in her polite way, Rita said yes in some other way, talking about how close she'd been to Deirdre.

Then she'd heard Deirdre's voice at the top of the steps.

"Rita Mae!"

Deirdre's face was wet from crying and her hair was all in straggles over her shoulders. She ran down the steps barefoot towards Rita, and Miss Nancy, the heavyset one, came right behind her.

Miss Carl took Rita firmly by the arm and tried to move her towards the front door.

"Wait just a minute!" Rita said.

"Rita Mae, they're going to take my baby!"

Miss Nancy caught Deirdre around the waist and lifted her off her feet on the stairway.

"Rita Mae!" Deirdre screamed. She had something in her hand, a little white card it looked like.

"Rita Mae, call this man. Tell him to help me."

Miss Carl stepped in front of Rita:

"Go home, Rita Mae Lonigan," she said.

But Rita darted right around her. Deirdre was struggling to get free of Miss Nancy, and Miss Nancy was leaning against the banister, off balance. Deirdre tried to throw the little white card to Rita, but it just fluttered down on the stairs. Miss Carl went to get it.

And then it was just like fighting for Mardi Gras trinkets thrown from the parade floats. Rita pushed Miss Carl to the side and snatched the card up, just the way you snatched a junk necklace off the pavement before anybody else could get it.

"Rita Mae, call that man!" Deirdre screamed. "Tell him I need him."

"I will, Dee Dee!"

Miss Nancy was carrying her back up the steps, Deirdre's bare feet swinging out, her hands clawing at Miss Nancy's arm. It was awful, just awful.

And then Miss Carl grabbed Rita's wrist.

"Give me that, Rita Mae Lonigan," said Miss Carl.

Rita pulled loose and ran out of the front door, the little white card clutched in her hand. She heard Miss Carl running across the porch right after her.

Her heart was pounding as she ran down the path. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, this was a madhouse! And Jerry was going to be so upset. And what would Red say?

Then Rita felt a sharp, ugly pain as her hair was jerked from the back. The woman pulled her almost off her feet.

"Don't you do that to me, you old witch!" Rita said, her teeth clenched. Rita couldn't stand to have her hair pulled.

Miss Carl tried to tear the little white card out of her fingers. This was almost the worst thing that had ever happened to Rita. Miss Carl was twisting and tearing off the corner of the card as Rita held on to it, and with the other hand Miss Carl was still yanking Rita's hair as hard as she could. She was going to pull it out by the roots.

"Stop it!" Rita screamed. "I'm warning you now, I'm warning you!" She got the card away from Miss Carl and she crumpled it in her fist. You just couldn't hit an old lady like this.

But when Miss Carl jerked her hair again, Rita did hit her. She hit Miss Carl across the chest with her right arm, and Miss Carl fell into the chinaberry trees. If there hadn't been so many chinaberry trees, she would have fallen on the ground.

Rita ran out the gate.

A storm was blowing up. The trees were all moving. She could see the big black branches of the oaks swaying in the wind, hear that loud roar that big trees always made. The branches were lashing the house, scratching at the top of the upstairs porch. She heard the sound of breaking glass suddenly.

She stopped and looked back, and she saw a shower of little green leaves falling all over the property. Tiny branches and twigs were falling. It was like a hurricane. Miss Carl was standing on the path staring up at the trees. At least her arm or leg wasn't broken.

Good Lord, the rain would come any minute. Rita was going to be soaked before she even got to Magazine Street--that on top of everything else, her hair torn to pieces and the tears streaming down her face. She was a sight all right.

But there was no rain. She made it back to Lonigan and Sons without getting wet. And when she sat down in Jerry's office, she broke down completely.

"You shouldn't have gone there, you should never have gone!" he said. He had a funeral going on out front. He should have been helping Red out there. "Honey, they could turn everybody against us, old family like that!"

Rita couldn't do anything but cry. Then she looked at the little white card. "But will you look at this, Jerry! Will you look at it!"

It was all mashed and damp from the sweat of her palm. She broke down again.

"I can't read the numbers on it!"

"Now, just a minute, Rita," Jerry said. He was patient as always, just a really good-hearted man the way he'd always been. He stood over her, unfolding the little card on the desk blotter. He got his magnifying glass.

The middle part was clear enough:

THE TALAMASCA

But you couldn't read anything else. The words below that were just tiny little specks of black ink on the pulpy white cardboard. And whatever had been written along the bottom edge was completely ruined. There was just nothing left of it.

"Oh, Dee Dee!" Rita cried.

Jerry pressed it out under two heavy books, but that hadn't helped. His dad came in and took a look. But he couldn't make anything out of it. Name Talamasca didn't mean anything to Red. And Red knew just about everybody and everything. If it had been an old Mardi Gras society, for instance, he would have known it.

"Now look, you can see something here written on the back in ink," Red said. "Look at that."

Aaron Lightner. But there was no phone number. The phone numbers must have been printed on the front. Even pressing the card with a hot iron didn't help matters.

Rita did what she could.