The Witching Hour (Lives of the Mayfair Witches 1)

"I'm sorry, Deirdre, I'm so sorry I disturbed you. I'm so sorry ... "

"Mr. Lightner, can't you make him go away! Can't you people do that? My aunt says no, only the priest can do it, but the priest doesn't believe in him, Mr. Lightner. And you can't exorcise a demon when you have no faith."

"He doesn't show himself to the priest, does he, Deirdre?"

"No," she said bitterly with a trace of a smile. "What good would if do if he did? He's no lowly spirit who can be driven off with holy water and Hail Marys. He makes fools of them."

She had begun to cry. She reached for the emerald and pulled it by its chain from my fingers, and then flung it as far as she could through the underbrush. I heard it strike water, with a dull short sound. She was shaking violently. "It'll come back," she said. "It will come back! It always comes back."

"Maybe you can exorcise him!" I said. "You and only you."

"Oh, yes, that's what she says, that's what she always said. 'Don't look at him, don't speak to him, don't let him touch you!' But he always comes back. He doesn't ask my permission! And ... "

"Yes."

"When I'm lonely, when I'm miserable ... "

"He's there."

"Yes, he's there."

This girl was in agony. Something had to be done!

"And what if he does come, Deirdre? What I am saying is, what if you do not fight him, and you let him come, let him be visible. What then?"

Stunned and hurt she looked at me. "You don't know what you're saying."

"I know it's driving you mad to fight him. What happens if you don't fight him?"

"I die," she answered. "And the world dies around me, and there's only him." She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

How long she has lived with this misery, I thought. And how strong she is, and so helpless and so afraid.

"Yes, Mr. Lightner, that's true," she said. "I am afraid. But I am not going to die. I'm going to fight him. And I'm going to win. You're going to leave me. You're never going to come near me again. And I'm never going to say his name again, or look at him, or invite him to come. And he'll leave me. He'll go away. He'll find someone else to see him. Someone ... to love."

"Does he love you, Deirdre?"

"Yes," she whispered. It was growing dark. I could no longer see her features clearly.

"What does he want, Deirdre?" I asked.

"You know what he wants!" she answered. "He wants me, Mr. Lightner. The same thing you want! Because I make him come through."

She took a little knot of handkerchief out of her pocket and wiped at her nose. "He told me you were coming," she said. "He said something strange, something I can't remember. It was like a curse, what he said. It was 'I shall eat the meat and drink the wine and have the woman when he is moldering in the grave.' "

"I've heard those words before," I answered.

"I want you to go away," she said. "You're a nice man. I like you. I don't want him to hurt you. I'll tell him that he mustn't--" She stopped, confused.

"Deirdre, I believe I can help you ... "

"No!"

"I can help you fight him if that's your decision. I know people in England who ... "

"No!"

I waited, then said softly, "If you ever need my help, call me." She didn't answer. I could feel her utter exhaustion. Her near despair. I told her where I was staying in Denton, that I would be there until tomorrow, and that if I didn't hear from her I would go. I felt an utter failure, but I could not hurt her any more! I gazed off into the whispering bamboo. It was getting darker and darker. And there were no lights in this rank garden.

"But your aunt is wrong about us," I said, unsure of her attention. I stared up at the little bit of sky above which was now quite white. "We want to tell you what we know. We want to give you what we have. It's true we care about you because you are a special person, but we care far more about you than we care about him. You could come to our house in London. Stay there as long as you like. We'll introduce you to others who've seen such things, battled them. We'll help you. And who knows, perhaps we can somehow make him go away. And any time you want to go, we'll help you to go." (She didn't answer.) "You know I'm speaking the truth," I said. "And I know that you know."

I looked at her, quite afraid to see the pain in her face. She was staring at me exactly the way she had been before, her eyes sad and glazed with tears, and her hands limp in her lap. And directly behind her, he stood, not even an inch from her, brilliantly realized, staring with his brown eyes at me.

I cried out before I could stop myself. Like a fool, I leapt to my feet.

"What is it!" she cried. She was terrified. She sprang up off the bench and threw herself in my arms. "Tell me! What is it?"

He was gone. A gust of heated breeze moved the towering shoots of bamboo. Nothing but shadows there. Nothing but the rank closeness of the garden. And a gradual drop in temperature. As if the door to a furnace room had been swung shut.

I closed my eyes, holding her as firmly as I could, trying not to shake right out of my shoes, and to comfort her, while I memorized what I had seen. A malicious young man, smiling coldly as he stood behind her, clothes prim and dark and without detail as if the entire energy of the being were absorbed in the lustrous eyes and the white teeth and the gleaming skin. Otherwise he had been the man whom so many others had described.

She was now quite hysterical. Her hand was clamped over her mouth, and she was swallowing her sobs. She pushed away from me roughly. And ran up the small overgrown stairs to the path.

"Deirdre!" I called out. But she was already out of sight in the darkness. I glimpsed a smear of white through the distant trees, and then I did

not even hear her footfall any longer.

I was alone in the old botanical garden, and it was dark, and I was mortally afraid for the first time in my life. I was so afraid that I became angry. I started to follow her, or rather the path she had taken, and I forced myself not to run, but to take one firm step after another until at last I saw the distant lights of the dormitories, and the service road behind them, and heard the traffic, and felt once again that I was safe.

Entering the freshman dormitory, I inquired of the gray-haired woman at the desk as to whether Deirdre Mayfair had just come in. She had. Safe and sound, I thought.

"It's supper now, sir. You can leave a message if you like."

"Yes, of course, I'll call her later." I took out a small plain envelope, wrote Deirdre's name on it, then wrote a note explaining once more that I was at the hotel if she wished to contact me, and placing my card in the envelope with the note, I sealed the envelope and gave it to the woman for delivery, and went out.

Without mishap I reached the hotel, went to my room, and rang London. It was an hour before my call could be put through, during which time I lay there on the bed, with the phone beside me, and all I could think was, I've seen him. I've seen "the man." I've seen "the man" for myself. I've seen what Petyr saw and what Arthur saw. I've seen Lasher with my own eyes.

Scott Reynolds, our director, was calm but adamant when I finally made the connection.

"Get the hell out of there. Come home."

"Take a deep breath, Scott. I haven't come this far to be frightened off by a spirit we have studied from afar for three hundred years."

"This is how you use your own judgment, Aaron? You who know the history of the Mayfair Witches from beginning to end? The thing isn't trying to frighten you. It's trying to entice you. It wants you to torment the girl with your inquiries. It's losing her, and you're its hope of getting her back. The aunt, whatever else she may be, is on to the truth. You make that girl talk to you about what she's been through and you'll give that spirit the energy it wants."

"I'm not trying to make her do anything, Scott. But I don't think she is winning her battle. I'm going back to New Orleans. I want to be near at hand."