The Witching Hour (Lives of the Mayfair Witches 1)

The food was highly spiced and very delicious, the soup being a seafood stew filled with much pepper, and the meats being garnished with fried yams and fried bananas and much rice and beans and other delicious things.

All the while everyone conversed with vigor except for the old women, who seemed nevertheless to be amused and content.

Charlotte spoke of the weather and the business of the plantation, and how her husband must ride out with her to see the crops tomorrow, and how the young slave girl bought last winter was now coming along well with her sewing, and so forth and so on. This chatter was in French for the most part, and the young husband was spirited in his response, breaking off to ask me many polite questions as to the conditions of my voyage, and my liking of Port-au-Prince, and how long I would be staying with them, and other polite remarks as to the friendliness of the country, and how they had prospered at Maye Faire and meant to buy the adjacent plantation as soon as the owner, a drunken gambler, could be persuaded to sell.

The drunken brothers were the only ones prone to argument and several times made sneering remarks, for it seemed to the youngest, Pierre, who had none of the good looks of his ailing brother, that they had enough land and did not need the neighboring plantation, and Charlotte knew more about the business of the planter's life than a woman should.

This was met with cheers by the loud and nasty Andre, who spilt his food all down his lace shirtfront, and ate with his mouth stuffed, and put a greasy stain from his mouth upon his glass when he drank. He was for selling all this land when their father died and going back to France.

"Do not speak of his death," declared the eldest, the crippled Antoine. To which the others sneered.

"And how is he today?" asked the doctor, belching as he did so. "I fear to inquire if he is any better or worse."

"What can be expected?" asked one of the female cousins, who had once been beautiful and was still pleasing to look at, handsome one might say. "If he speaks a word today, I shall be surprised."

"And why shouldn't he speak?" asked Antoine. "His mind is as it always was."

"Aye," said Charlotte, "he rules with a steady hand."

There ensued a great verbal brawl, with everyone talking at once, and one of the feeble old ladies demanding to be told what was going on.

Finally the other old woman, a crone if ever there was one, who had nibbled at her plate all the while with the fixed attention of a busy insect, suddenly raised her head and cried to the drunken brothers, "You are neither of you fit to run this plantation," to which the drunken brothers replied with boisterous laughter, though the two younger females regarded this with much seriousness, their eyes passing over Charlotte fearfully and then sweeping gently the near paralyzed and useless husband, whose hands lay like dead birds beside his plate.

Then the old woman, apparently approving of the response to her words, issued another pronouncement. "It is Charlotte who rules here!" and this produced even more fearful looks from the women, and more laughter and sneering from the drunken brothers, and a winsome smile from the crippled Antoine.

Then the poor fellow became most agitated, so that he in fact began to tremble, but Charlotte hastily spoke of pleasant things. Once again I was questioned about my journey, about life in Amsterdam, and the present state of things in Europe, which related to the importation of coffee and indigo, and told that I should become very weary of life in the plantations, for nobody did anything but eat and drink and seek pleasure, and so forth and so on, until suddenly Charlotte broke off gently and gave the order to the black slave, Reginald, that he should go and fetch the old man and bring him down.

"He has been talking to me all day," she said quietly to the others, with a vague look of triumph.

"Indeed, a miracle!" declared the drunken Andre, who now ate in slovenly fashion without the aid of a knife or fork.

The old doctor narrowed his eyes as he regarded Charlotte, quite indifferent to the food he had slopped down his lace ruff, or the wine spilling from the glass which he held in his uncertain hand. That he should drop it was a distinct possibility. The young slave boy behind him looked on anxiously.

"What do you mean spoken to you all day?" asked the doctor. "He was stuporous when last I saw him."

"He changes hourly," said one of the cousins.

"He'll never die!" roared the old woman, who was again nibbling.

Then into the room came Reginald, holding a tall gray-haired and much emaciated man, with one thin arm flung about the slave's shoulder, and head hanging, though his bright eyes fixed all of us one by one.

Into the chair at the foot of the table he was put, a mere skeleton, and as he could not sit upright, bound to it with sashes of silk. Then the slave Reginald, who seemed a very artist at all this, lifted the man's chin as he could not hold up his head on his own.

At once the female cousins began to chatter at him, that it was good to see him so well. But they were amazed at him, and so was the doctor, and then as the old man began to speak so was I.

One hand lifted off the table with a floppy, jerky movement and then came crashing down. At the same moment his mouth opened, though his face remained so smooth that only the lower jaw dropped, and out came his hollow and toneless words.

"I am nowhere near death and will not hear of it!" And again, the limp hand rose in a spasm and came down with a bang.

Charlotte was studying this all the while with narrow and glittering eyes. Indeed for the first time I perceived her concentration, and how every particle of her attention was directed to the man's face and his one flopping hand.

"Mon Dieu, Antoine," cried the doctor, "you cannot blame us for worrying."

"My mind is as it ever was!" declared the old creature in the same toneless voice, and then turning his head very slowly as though it were made of wood and grinding away in a socket, he looked from right to left and then at Charlotte and gave a crooked smile.

Only now as I bent forward, escaping the dazzle of the nearest candles and marveling at this strange performance, did I perceive that his eyes were bloodshot, and that indeed his face appeared frozen, and the expressions that broke out upon it were like cracks in ice.

"I trust in you, my beloved daughter-in-law," he said to Charlotte, and this time his total lack of modulation resulted in a great noise.

"Yes, mon pere," said Charlotte with sweetness, "and I shall take care of you, be assured of it."

And drawing closer to her husband, she gave a squeeze to his useless hand. As for the husband, he was staring at his father with suspicion and fear.

"But, Father, are you in pain?" he asked now softly.

"No, my son," said the father, "no pain, never any pain." And this seemed as much a reassurance as an answer, for this picture was surely what the son saw as a prophecy. Or was it?

For as I beheld this creature, as I saw him turn his head again in that odd way, very like a doll made of wooden parts, I knew that this was not the man at all speaking to us, but something inside of him which had gained possession of him, and at the moment of recognition, I perceived the true Antoine Fontenay

trapped within this body, unable to command his vocal chords any longer, and peering out at me with terrified eyes.

It was but a flash, yet I saw it. And in the same instant, I turned to Charlotte, who stared at me coldly, defiantly, as if daring me to acknowledge what I had realized, and the old man himself stared at me, and with a suddenness that startled everyone gave forth a loud cackling laugh.

"Oh, for the love of God, Antoine!" cried the handsome female cousin.

"Father, take a little wine," said the feeble eldest son.

The black man Reginald reached for the glass, but the old man suddenly lifted both hands, bringing them down upon the table with a crash, and then lifting them again, his eyes glittering, took the wineglass as if between two paws and, bringing it to his mouth, slopped the contents onto his face so that it washed into his mouth and down his chin.

The company was appalled. The black Reginald was appalled. Only Charlotte gave a small steely smile as she beheld this trick, and then said, "Good, Father, go to bed," as she rose from the table.

Reginald tried to catch the glass as it was suddenly released and the old man's hand thumped down beside it. But it fell to one side, the wine splattering all over the tablecloth.

Once more the frozen mouth cracked open and the hollow voice spoke. "I weary of this conversation. I would go now."

"Yes, to bed," said Charlotte, approaching his chair, "and we will come to see you by and by."

Did no one else perceive this horror? That the useless limbs of the old man were being worked by the demonic agency? The female cousins stared at the man in silence and revulsion as he was drawn up out of the chair, his chin flopping down on his chest, and taken away. Reginald was now quite completely responsible for the old man's movements and took him towards the door. The drunken brothers appeared angry and petulant, and the old doctor, who had just downed another entire glass of red wine, was merely shaking his head. Charlotte quietly observed all this and then returned to her place at the table.

Our eyes met. I would swear it was hatred I saw staring back at me. Hatred for what I knew. In awkwardness I took another drink of the wine, which was most delicious, though I had begun to notice already that it was uncommonly strong or I was uncommonly weak.