The Witching Hour (Lives of the Mayfair Witches 1)

Rita laughed. "It was like you read my mind," she said.

"Don't worry anymore," he said. "I'll see that Rowan Mayfair knows her mother didn't want to give her up; I'll see she knows all that you want her to know. I owe that much to Deirdre, don't you think? I wish I'd been there when she needed me."

Well, that was plenty enough for Rita.

Every Sunday after that, when Rita was at Mass, she flipped to the back of her prayer book and looked at the phone number for the man in London. She read those words "In connection with Deirdre Mayfair." Then she said a prayer for Deirdre, and it didn't seem wrong that it was the prayer for the dead, it seemed to be the right one for the occasion.

"May perpetual light shine upon her. O Lord, and may she rest in peace, Amen."

*

And now it was over twelve years since Deirdre had taken her place on the porch, over a year since the Englishman had come and gone--and they were talking of putting Deirdre away again. It was her house that was tumbling down all around her in that sad overgrown garden and they were going to lock her away again.

Maybe Rita should call that man. Maybe she should tell him. She just didn't know.

"It's the wise thing, them putting her away," Jerry said, "before Miss Carl is too far gone to make the decision. And the fact is, well, I hate to say it, honey. But Deirdre's going down fast. They say she's dying."

Dying.

She waited till Jerry had gone to work. Then she made the call. She knew it would show on the bill, and she probably would have to say something eventually to Jerry. But it didn't matter. What mattered now was getting the operator to understand that she had to call a number all the way across the ocean.

It was a nice woman who answered over there, and they did reverse the charges just as the Englishman had promised. At first Rita couldn't understand everything the woman said--she spoke so fast--but then it came out that Mr. Lightner was in the United States. He was out in San Francisco. The woman would call him right away. Would Rita care to leave her number?

"Oh, no. I don't want him to call here," she said. "You just tell him this for me. It's real important. That Rita Mae Lonigan called in connection with Deirdre Mayfair. Can you write that down? Tell him that Deirdre Mayfair is very sick; that Deirdre Mayfair is going down fast. That maybe Deirdre Mayfair is dying."

It took the breath out of Rita to say that last word. She couldn't say any more after that. She tried to answer clearly when the woman repeated the message. The woman would call Mr. Lightner right away at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. Rita was in tears when she put down the phone.

That night she dreamed of Deirdre, but she could remember nothing when she woke up, except that Deirdre was there, and it was twilight, and the wind was blowing in the trees behind St. Rose de Lima's. When she opened her eyes, she thought of wind blowing through trees. She heard Jerry tell of how it had been when they went to get the body of Antha. She remembered the storm in the trees that horrible day when she and Miss Carl had fought for the little card that said Talamasca. Wind in the trees in the garden behind St. Rose de Lima's.

Rita got up and went to early Mass. She went to the shrine of the Blessed Virgin and lighted a candle. Please let Mr. Lightner come, she prayed. Please let him talk to Deirdre's daughter.

And she realized as she prayed that it was not the inheritance that worried her, or the curse upon that beautiful emerald necklace. For Rita did not believe Miss Carl had it in her to break the law, no matter how mean Miss Carl was; and Rita did not believe that curses really existed.

What she believed in was the love she felt in her heart of hearts for Deirdre Mayfair.

And she believed a child had a right to know that her mother had once been the sweetest and kindest of creatures, a girl that everybody loved--a beautiful girl in the spring of 1957 when a handsome, elegant man in a twilight garden had called her My beloved.

Six

HE STOOD IN the shower ten full minutes, but he was still drunk as hell. Then he cut himself twice with the razor. Nothing major, just a clear indication that he had to play it very careful with this lady who was coming here, this doctor, this mysterious someone who'd pulled him out of the sea.

Aunt Viv helped him with the shirt. He took another quick swallow of the coffee. Tasted awful to him, though it was good coffee, he'd brewed it himself. A beer was what he wanted. Not to have a beer right now was like not breathing. But it was just too great a risk.

"But what are you going to do in New Orleans?" Aunt Viv asked plaintively. Her small blue eyes looked watery, sore. She straightened the lapels of his khaki jacket with her thin, gnarled hands. "Are you sure you don't need a heavier coat?"

"Aunt Viv, it's New Orleans in August." He kissed her forehead. "Don't worry about me," he said. "I'm doing great."

"Michael, I don't understand why ... "

"Aunt Viv, I am going to call you when I get there, I swear. And you've got the number of the Pontchartrain if you want to call and leave a message before that."

He had asked for that very suite she had had years ago, when he'd been an eleven-year-old boy and he and his mother had gone to see her--that big suite over St. Charles Avenue with the baby grand piano in it. Yes, they knew the suite he wanted. And yes, he could have it. And yes, the baby grand piano was still there.

Then the airline had confirmed him in first class, with an aisle seat, at six A.M. No problem. Just one thing after another falling into place.

And all of it thanks to Dr. Morris, and this mysterious Dr. Mayfair, who was on her way now.

He'd been furious when he first heard she was a doctor. "So that's why the secrecy," he'd said to Morris. "We don't disturb other doctors, do we? We don't give out their home numbers. You know this ought to be a matter of public record, I ought to--"

But Morris had silenced him quickly enough.

"Michael, the lady is driving over to pick you up. She knows you're drunk and she knows you're crazy. Yet she is taking you home with her to Tiburon, and she's going to let you crawl around on her boat."

"All right," he'd said. "I'm grateful, you know I am."

"Then get out of bed, take a shower and shave."

Done! And now nothing was going to stop him from making this journey, that's why he was leaving the lady's house in Tiburon and going straight to the airport where he'd doze in a plastic chair, if he had to, till the plane for New Orleans left.

"But Michael, what is the reason for all this?" Aunt Viv persisted. "That is what I simply cannot understand." She seemed to float against the light from the hallway, a tiny woman in sagging blue silk, her gray hair nothing but wisps now in spite of the neat curls and the pins in it, insubstantial as that spun glass they would put on the Christmas trees in the old days, what they had called angel hair.

&n

bsp; "I won't stay long, I promise," he said tenderly. But a sense of foreboding caught him suddenly. He had the distinct awareness--that free-floating telepathy--that he was never going to live in this house again. No, couldn't be accurate. Just the alcohol simmering inside him, making him crazy, and months of pure isolation--why, that was enough to drive anyone insane. He kissed her on her soft cheek.

"I have to check my suitcase," he said. He took another swallow of coffee. He was getting better. He polished his horn-rimmed glasses carefully, put them back on, and checked for the extra pair in his jacket pocket.

"I packed everything," Aunt Viv said, with a little shake of her head. She stood beside him over the open suitcase, one gnarled finger pointing to the neatly folded garments. "Your lightweight suits, both of them, your shaving kit. It's all there. Oh, and your raincoat. Don't forget your raincoat, Michael. It's always raining in New Orleans."

"Got it, Aunt Viv, don't worry." He closed the suitcase and snapped the locks. Didn't bother to tell her the raincoat had been ruined because he drowned in it. The famous Burberry had been made for the wartime trenches, perhaps, but not for drowning. Wool lining a total loss.

He ran his comb through his hair, hating the feel of his gloves. He didn't look drunk, unless of course he was too drunk to see it. He looked at the coffee. Drink the rest of it, you idiot. This woman is making a house call just to humor a crackpot. The least you can do is not fall down your own front steps.

"Was that the doorbell?" He picked up the suitcase. Yes, ready, quite ready to leave here.

And then that foreboding again. What was it, a premonition? He looked at the room--the striped wallpaper, the gleaming woodwork that he had so patiently stripped and then painted, the small fireplace in which he had laid the Spanish tiles himself. He was never going to enjoy any of it again. He would never again lie in that brass bed. Or look out through the pongee curtains on the distant phantom lights of downtown.

He felt a leaden sadness, as if he were in mourning. In fact, it was the very same sadness he had felt after the deaths of those he loved.