The Witching Hour (Lives of the Mayfair Witches 1)

I wrote further about the power of daimons. That they can create illusions for us; that they can enter bodies as in possession; that they can move objects; that they can appear to us, though whence they gather their bodies we do not know.

As for Lasher, it was my belief that his body was made of matter and held together by his power, but this could only be done by him for a short spell.

I did further describe how the daimon had appeared to me, and the strange words he said to me, and how I had puzzled over them, and how she must be aware that this thing might be the ghost of some long dead person--earthbound and vengeful, for all the ancients believed that the spirits of those who died in youth, or by violence, might become vengeful daimons, whereas the spirits of the good go out of this world.

Whatever else I wrote--and there was much--I no longer now remember, for I was utterly given over to drunkenness, and perhaps what I placed into her tender hands the next day was no more than a sorry scrawl. But many things I did attempt to explain to her, over her protests, though she claimed I had said them all before.

As for Lasher's words to me that morning, his strange prediction, she only smiled at this, and told me whenever I did mention it, that Lasher took his speech from us in fragments and much that he said did not make sense.

"That is only partly true," I warned her. "He is unaccustomed to language, but not to thinking. That is your mistake."

More and more as the days passed, I gave myself over to the rum and to sleeping. I would open my eyes only to see if she was there.

And just when I was maddened by her absence, nay, ready to beat her in a rage, she would appear without fail. Beautiful, yielding, soft in my arms, the embodiment of all poetry, the very face I would endlessly paint were I Rembrandt, the very body the Succubus would take to win me to the Devil complete and entire.

I was satiated in all ways, yet always craving for more. I did crawl from bed now and then to watch the sea. And I woke often to see and study the falling of the rain.

For the rain in this place was most warm and gentle, and I loved the song of it on the rooftop, and the sheet of it, catching the light as the breeze carried it at an angle past the doors.

Many thoughts came to me, Stefan, thoughts nourished by loneliness and warmth and the singing of the birds in the distance and the sweet fresh air from the waves roaring gently on the beach below.

In my little prison, I knew what I had wasted in life, but it is so simple and sad to put it into words. At times I fancied myself mad Lear on the moors, putting the flowers in his hair, having become king of nothing but the wilderness.

For I, in this savage place, had become so simplified, the grateful scholar of the rain and of the sea.

At last one afternoon late when the light was just dying, I was wakened by the savory aroma of a hot supper, and I knew that I had been drunk for a full day round the clock, and that she had not come.

I devoured the supper, as liquor never stops my hunger, and then I dressed in fresh clothes, and sat to thinking of what had become of me, and trying to calculate how long I had been in this place.

I thought it was twelve days.

I resolved then that no matter how despondent I became, I would drink nothing further. That I must be released or go mad.

And feeling disgust for all my weakness, I put on my boots, which I had not touched in all this time, and the new coat brought to me long ago by Charlotte, and went to the balustrade to look out over the sea. I thought, surely she will kill me rather than let me go. But it must be known one way or the other. This I can no longer endure.

Many hours passed; I drank nothing. Then Charlotte came. She was weary from her long day of riding and tending to the plantation, and when she saw that I was dressed, when she saw that I wore my boots and my coat, she sank down into the chair and wept.

I said nothing, for surely it was her decision whether or not I should leave this place, not mine.

Then she said: "I have conceived; I am with child."

Again, I made no answer. But I knew it. I knew that it was the reason she had been away for so long.

Finally when she would do nothing but sit there, dejected, and sad, with her head down, crying, I said:

"Charlotte, let me go."

At last she said that I must swear to her to leave the island at once. And that I must not tell anyone what I knew of her or her mother or of anything that had passed between us.

"Charlotte," I said, "I will go home to Amsterdam on the first Dutch ship I can find in the harbor, and you will see me no more."

"But you must swear to tell no one--not even your brethren in the Talamasca."

"They know," I said. "And I shall tell them all that has taken place. They are my father and my mother."

"Petyr," she said. "Haven't you the good sense even to lie to me?"

"Charlotte," I said. "Either let me go or kill me now."

Again, she wept, but I felt cold towards her, cold towards myself. I would not look at her, lest my passion be aroused again.

At last she dried her eyes. "I have made him swear that he will never harm you. He knows that I shall withdraw all love and trust from him if he disobeys my command."

"You have made a pact with the wind," I said.

"But he protests that you will tell our secrets."

"That I shall."

"Petyr, give me your pledge! Give it to me so that he can hear."

I considered this, for I wanted so to be free of this place, and to live, and to believe that both were still possible, and finally I said:

"Charlotte, I will never do you harm. My brothers and sisters in the Talamasca are not priests or judges. Nor are they witches. What they know of you is secret in the true sense."

She looked at me with sad tear-filled eyes, and then she came to me, and kissed me, and though I tried to make of myself a wooden statue, I could not do it.

"Once more, Petyr, once more, from your heart," she said, her voice full of sorrow, and longing. "And then you may leave me forever, and I will never look into your eyes again until I look some day into the eyes of our child."

I fell to kissing her again, for I believed her that she would let me go. I believed her that she did love me; and I believed for that last hour as we lay together, that perhaps there were no laws for us, as she had said, and that there was a love between us which perhaps no one else would ever understand.

"I love you, Charlotte," I whispered to her as she lay beside me, and I kissed her forehead. But she would not answer. She would not look at me.

And as I dressed once more, she turned her face into the pillow and cried.

Going to the door, I discovered that it had never been bolted behind her, and I wondered how many times that had been the case.

But it did not matter now. What mattered was that I go, if that damnable spirit would not stop me, and that I not look back, or speak to her again, or catch the scent of her sweetness, or think about the soft touch of her lips or her hand.

And on this account I asked her for no horse or coach to take me into Port-au-Prince, but resolved that I should simply leave without a word.

It had been an hour's ride out and so I fancied that it not being yet midnight I should easily make the city by dawn. Oh, Stefan, thanks be to God, I did not know what that journey would be! Would I have ever had the courage to set out!

But let me break my story here, to say that for twelve hours I have been scribbling. And now it is midnight once more, and the thing is near.

For that reason I shall shut up in my iron box this and all the other pages I have written, so that at least this much of my tale will reach you, if what I write from here on is lost.

I love you, my dear friend, and I do not expect your forgiveness. Only keep my record. Keep it, for this story is not finished and may not be for many a generation. I have that from the spirit's own voice.

Yours in the Talamasca,

Petyr van Abel

Port-au-Prince

r /> Sixteen

THE FILE ON THE MAYFAIR WITCHES