Blackwood Farm (The Vampire Chronicles 9)

"There was something so eternally intimate about Goblin's attentions that they had to be sinful.

"Whatever the case, I did nothing but brood about it, and try to keep busy, and the panic grew in me, rising and falling, and it began to come at its very worst at twilight each day.

"Now that summer was coming and the days were longer, I knew the waves of panic longer -- sometimes from about four p. m. till eight. There came that image to my mind of me putting a gun to my head and the thought that the bullet would make the pain end. Then I thought of what that would do to Pops and Aunt Queen and I put it out of my mind.

"It was around that period that I made everybody turn on certain lights at four o'clock, come hell or high water, and whether we had any guests at Blackwood Manor or not.

"I was becoming the Lord of Blackwood Manor -- the Little Lord Fauntleroy, I suppose.

"Each evening, like a creature driven, I turned on classical music in the parlors and the dining room, and then I checked on the flower arrangements and the placement of furniture and went about straightening out all the pictures on the walls; and, as the panic went away a little, I sat in the kitchen with Pops.

"But Pops didn't talk anymore. He sat in a straight-back chair, staring out the screen door at nothing. It was awful to be with Pops. His eyes were more and more empty. He wasn't snapping back the way that Big Ramona had snapped back. There was no consolation I could give or take.

"Then one night, when the panic was on me heavy and it was mixed up with gloom and fear of being queer and mostly with gloom, I said to Pops:

" 'Do you think Patsy will get pregnant again just to sell you the baby?¡¯

"This was a very uncommon kind of thing for me to say to Pops. Pops and I spoke in rather formal terms with each other. And one of the things we had never done was discuss Patsy.

"He answered in a quiet flat voice, 'No. It was just something of the moment. I figured I could save that one. I thought that that was something to do, to bring up that one. But the truth is, I don't even think she could carry one to term if she wanted to. She's gotten rid of too many, and that makes a woman's womb weak. ¡¯

"I was amazed at his candor.

"I wondered why I was alive. Maybe he'd given her money to carry me. But I didn't say anything. I'd rather be afraid of it than know. And Pops' voice had sounded too dead and metallic. I wasn't easy with Pops. I felt sorrow for him. Neither of us said another word about it.

"And then at last -- at last -- it was eight o'clock and I could sit down on the bedside with Big Ramona and she'd brush her long white hair and slowly braid it and I'd be safe, safe in the shadows, and we would talk, and then lie down to sleep.

"One afternoon, around three p. m. , I was sitting out on the front steps of the house, looking down the long avenue of pecan trees at the changing of the light. It was a Tuesday, I'm almost sure, and we had no company, the last of the weekend guests having gone away, and the guests for the coming weekend not yet arrived.

"I hated the stillness. I saw that image of the gun at my head. What could I do, I thought, to stop thinking of putting that pistol to my head? It was too late to go out fishing in the pirogue, and I didn't want to get all dirty in the swamps anyway, and everything -- absolutely every single thing -- was done in the house.

"Goblin was nowhere about. Goblin had learned to shy away from me when I got in these dark moods, when his influence to get me to do things was at its lowest. And though he would probably have come had I called him, I didn't want to see him. When I thought of putting the gun to my head, I wondered if one bullet would kill us both.

"No, I didn't want the company of Goblin.

"Then it occurred to me that I had not inflicted myself as Lord of the Manor on the attic; the attic was in fact an undiscovered territory, and I was too old to be forbidden to go up there, and I didn't need to ask anybody. So I went inside and up the stairs.

"Now, at three o'clock there was plenty of light coming in the dormer windows of the attic, and I could see all the wicker furniture -- whole sets of it, it seemed to me, with couches, chairs, et cetera -- and the various trunks.

"I inspected first a wardrobe trunk that had belonged to Gravier Blackwood and was now standing open with its little hangers and drawers all vacant and clean.

"Then there were suitcases with old clothes in them that did not seem to be all that fascinating, and more trunks, all stamped with the name of Lorraine McQueen. New things. What were they to me? Surely there was something older, something that had belonged perhaps to Manfred's sainted wife, Virginia Lee.

"Then I came upon a big canvas steamer trunk with leather straps to it, so big that the lid came almost to my waist, and I was already six feet tall. The lid was open a little, and the clothes were bulging out of it, the whole smelling strongly of mold, and the label on the top of the trunk read in faded ink 'Rebecca Stanford,' with the address of Blackwood Farm.

" 'Rebecca Stanford,' I said aloud. Who could this be? Very distinctly, I heard a rustling noise behind me, or was it ahead of me? I stopped and listened. It could have been rats, of course, but we really didn't have rats in Blackwood Manor. Then it seemed the rustling was a conversation between a man and a woman and someone arguing. . . Just doesn't happen. I heard those words very distinctly, and then the woman's voice. . . Believe in him, he will do it!

"She had pasted on the label, I thought. She'd packed her trunk and pasted on the label. She'd been waiting for him to come get her. Miss Rebecca Stanford.

"But where did all these thoughts come from?

"Then the noise came again. It had a rather deliberate sound to it. I felt the hair stand up on my neck. I liked the excitement. I loved it. It was infinitely better than depression and misery, than thoughts of guns and death.

"I thought, A ghost is going to come. Voices. No, a rustling. It will be stronger than the apparition of William. It

will be stronger than the vaporous ghosts that hover over the cemetery. It's going to come because of this trunk. Maybe it will be Aunt Camille, who has been seen so often on the stairs, coming up to the attic.

" 'Who are you, Rebecca Stanford?' I whispered. Silence. I opened the trunk. A mess of clothing was inside it and mildew had grown all over it, and there were other articles all tumbled with the fabrics -- an old silver-backed hairbrush, a silver-edged comb, bottles of perfume in which the contents had dried up and a silver-backed mirror, all splotched and darkened and no good anymore.