The Witching Hour (Lives of the Mayfair Witches 1)

Taking the leather folder from the bed, he set it on the desk. He collected his cigarettes, and he took his seat in the leather desk chair. Almost absently he reached for the silver coffeepot, and poured himself a cup of coffee, and then added the hot milk.

The sweet aroma filled the room.

He opened the cover, and took up the manila folder inside it, marked simply "THE MAYFAIR WITCHES: Number One." It contained a thick bound typescript, and an envelope marked "Photocopies of the Original Documents."

His heart ached for Rowan.

He began to read.

Twelve

IT WAS AN hour later that Rowan called the hotel. She had packed the few light summery things she had. In fact, her packing had been a bit of a surprise to her, as she watched her own choices and actions, seemingly from a remove. Light silk things had gone into the suitcases, blouses and dresses bought for vacations years back and never worn since. A load of jewelry, neglected since college. Unopened perfumes. Delicate high-heel shoes never taken out of the box. Her years in medicine had left no time for such things. Same with the linen suits she'd worn a couple of times in the Hawaiian Islands. Well, they would serve her well now. She also packed a cosmetic kit which she hadn't opened for over a year.

The flight was arranged for midnight that night. She would drive in to the hospital, go over all the patient histories in detail with Slattery, who would be filling in for her, and then go on to the airport from there.

Now she must make her reservation at the hotel and leave word for Michael that she was coming in.

An amiable southern voice answered her at the hotel. Yes, they did have a suite vacant. And no, Mr. Curry was not in. He had left a message for her, however, that he was out but he would call within twenty-four hours. No, no word on where he was or when he'd return.

"OK," Rowan said with a weary sigh. "Please take this message down for him. Tell him I'm coming in. Tell him my mother died. That the funeral is tomorrow at Lonigan and Sons. Have you got that?"

"Yes, ma'am. And let me tell you how sorry we all are to hear about your mother. I got kind of used to seeing her on that screened porch whenever I passed."

Rowan was amazed.

"Tell me something, if you will," Rowan said. "The house where she lived is on First Street?"

"Yes, Doctor."

"Is that in a neighborhood called the Garden District?"

"Yes, Doctor, it sure is."

She murmured her thanks and hung up. Then it is the same stretch that Michael described to me, she thought. And how is it they all know about it, she wondered. Why, I didn't even tell that woman my mother's name.

But it was time to go. She went out on the north deck and made sure the Sweet Christine was thoroughly secured, as she might be for the worst weather. Then she locked the wheelhouse and went back into the house. She set the various household alarm systems, which she had not used since Ellie died.

Time now to take one last look about.

She thought of Michael standing before that graceful old Victorian on Liberty Street, talking of foreboding, of never coming back. Well, she had no such clear feeling. But merely to look at everything here made her feel sad. The house felt cast off, used up. And when she looked at the Sweet Christine she felt the same way.

It was as if the Sweet Christine had served her well, but did not matter anymore. All the men she'd made love to in the cabin below deck no longer mattered. In fact, it was quite remarkable really that she had not taken Michael down the little ladder into the snug warmth of the cabin. She had not even thought of it. Michael seemed part of a different world.

She had the strongest urge to sink the Sweet Christine suddenly, along with all the memories attached to it. But that was foolish. Why, the Sweet Christine had led her to Michael. She must be losing her mind.

Thank God she was going to New Orleans. Thank God she was going to see her mother before the burial, and thank God she'd soon be with Michael, telling him everything, and having him there with her. She had to believe that would happen, no matter why he hadn't called. She thought bitterly of the signed document in the safe. But it didn't matter to her now, not even enough to go to the safe, look at it, or tear it up.

She shut the door without looking back.

PART TWO

THE MAYFAIR

WITCHES

Thirteen

THE FILE ON THE MAYFAIR WITCHES

Translator's Foreword to Parts I through IV:

The first four parts of this file contain material written by Petyr van Abel expressly for the Talamasca--in Latin, and primarily in our Latin code, a form of Latin used by the Talamasca in the fourteenth through the eighteenth centuries to keep its epistles and diary entries secret from prying eyes. Enormous amounts of material were written in English as well, as it was Petyr van Abel's custom to write in English when he was among the French, and in French when he was among the English, to render the dialogue and certain thoughts and feelings more naturally than the old Latin code would allow.

Almost all of this material is in the form of epistles, as this was, and still is, the primary form in which reports to the archives of the Talamasca are made.

Stefan Franck was at this time the head of the order, and most of the following material is addressed to him in an easy and intimate and sometimes informal style. However, Petyr van Abel was always aware that he was writing for the record, and he took great pains to explain and to clarify for the inevitable uninformed reader as he went along. This is the reason that he might describe a canal in Amsterdam, though writing to the man who lived on the very canal.

The translator has omitted nothing. The material is adapted only where the original letters and diary entries have been damaged and are no longer legible. Or where words or phrases in the old Latin code elude the modern scholars within the order, or where obsolete words in English obscure the meaning for the modern reader. The spelling has been modernized, of course.

The modern reader should take into account that English at this time--the late seventeenth century--was already the tongue that we know. Such phrases as "pretty good" or "I guess" or "I suppose" were already current. They have not been added to the text.

If Petyr's world view seems surprisingly "existential" for the period, one need only reread Shakespeare, who wrote nearly seventy-five years before, to realize how thoroughly atheistic, ironical, and existential were the thinkers of those times. The same may be said of Petyr's attitude towards sexuality. The great repression of the nineteenth century sometimes causes us to forget that the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were far more liberal in matters of the flesh.

Speaking of Shakespeare, Petyr had a special love of him and read the plays as well as the sonnets for pleasure. He often said that Shakespeare was his "philosopher."

As for the full story of Petyr van Abel, quite a tale in its own right, it is told in the file under his name, which consists of seventeen volumes in which are included complete translations of every report he ever made, on every case which he investigated, in the order in which those reports were written.

We also possess two different portraits painted of him in Amsterdam, one by Franz Hals, done expressly for Roemer Franz, our director of the period, showing Petyr to be a tall, fair-haired youth--of almost Nordic height and blondness--with an o

val face, prominent nose, a high forehead, and large inquisitive eyes; and the other, dated some twenty years later and painted by Thomas de Keyser, reveals a heavier build and a fuller face, though still distinctly narrow, with a neatly trimmed mustache and beard and long curling blond hair beneath a large-brimmed black hat. In both pictures Petyr appears relaxed and somewhat cheerful, as was so typical of the men featured in Dutch portraits of the time.

Petyr belonged to the Talamasca from boyhood until he died in the line of duty at the age of forty-three--as this, his last complete report to the Talamasca, will make clear.

By all accounts, Petyr was a talker, a listener, and a natural writer, and a passionate and impulsive man. He loved the artistic community of Amsterdam and spent many hours with painters in his leisure time. He was never detached from his investigations, and his commentary tends to be verbose, detailed, and at times excessively emotional. Some readers may find it annoying. Others may find it priceless, for not only does he give us florid pictures of what he witnessed, he provides more than a glimpse of his own character.

He was himself a limited mind reader (he confessed that he was not competent in the use of this power because he disliked and distrusted it), and he possessed the ability to move small objects, to stop clocks, and do other "tricks" at will.

As an orphan wandering the streets of Amsterdam, he first came into contact with the Talamasca at the age of eight. The story goes that, perceiving that the Motherhouse sheltered souls who were "different" just as he was different, he hung about, finally falling asleep one winter night on the doorstep, where he might have frozen had not Roemer Franz found him and brought him in. He was later discovered to be educated and able to write both Latin and Dutch, and to understand French as well.

All his life his memory of his early years with his parents was sporadic and unreliable, though he did undertake the investigation of his own background, and discovered not only the identity of his father, Jan van Abel, the famous surgeon of Leiden, but also voluminous writings by the man containing some of the most celebrated anatomical and medical illustrations of the time.