Blackwood Farm - Anne Rice [127]
“A quiet fell over Blackwood Manor. The armed guards took their positions, but the house and the land seem to swallow them.
“The dusk came on, with the grinding song of the cicadas in the oak trees and the rising of the evening star.
“Aunt Queen lay crying on her bed. Cindy, her nurse, sat beside her holding her hand. Jasmine lay behind her, rubbing her back.
“Big Ramona packed up food into the refrigerator in the kitchen.
“I went upstairs alone. I sat down in my reading chair, there, by the fireplace, and I fell into a doze. The panic was never bad enough to stop a doze. And hard as it had been, I was deliciously tired now and elated to be alone.
“At once, as sleep came down over me, Rebecca was with me and she said in my ear, ‘I know how bad you feel.’ Then the scene dissolved and I saw her being dragged by a shadowy figure towards the chains, I saw her lace-up shoe bouncing on the bare floorboards and I heard her scream.
“I woke with a start.
“The computer keys were clicking.
“I stared at the computer desk. The gooseneck lamp was on! I could see my double sitting there—see his back, the back of his head and his shoulders and arms as he worked, and there persisted: the clicking.
“Before I could rise the sound stopped, and he turned, turned as a human couldn’t turn, and looked at me over his right shoulder. He wore no grin or mournful expression, only a vaguely startled look.
“As I rose from my chair he vanished.
“The message on the computer screen was long:
“ ‘I know all the words you know, words you type. Pops dead like Lynelle and Sweetheart. Dead, gone, not in the body. Sadness. Spirit gone. Body left. Body washed. Body painted. Body empty. Spirit is life. This life. Life gone. Why does life leave body? People say don’t know. I don’t know. Quinn sad. Quinn cry. Aunt Queen cry. I am sad. But danger is coming. Danger on island. I see danger. Don’t forget. Rebecca is bad. Danger to Quinn. Quinn will leave Goblin.’
“Immediately I typed out the answer. ‘Listen to me,’ I said aloud as I wrote. ‘I will never leave you. The only thing that could part us is for me to die, and then, yes, my spirit would leave my body and I would be gone, I don’t know where. Now ask yourself again, Where did the spirit of Lynelle go? Where did the spirit of Sweetheart go? Where did the spirit of Pops go?’
“I sat waiting and there was no answer.
“Then the keys before me began to move. He typed out: ‘Where did these spirits come from?’
“I felt a tightening, a keen sense that I had to be careful. I wrote: ‘Bodies are born into the world. Remember when I was a newborn? A baby? Bodies are born into the world with the spirit in them, and when those bodies die the spirit leaves.’
“Silence.
“Then the keys moved again: ‘Where did I come from?’
“I felt a dull fear. It was the panic breaking through, but it was something more as well. I typed out:
“ ‘Don’t you know where you came from? Don’t you know who you were before you became my Goblin?’
“ ‘No.’
“ ‘You must remember something,’ I typed. ‘You must have been somewhere.’
“ ‘Were you somewhere?’ he asked. ‘Before you were Quinn?’
“ ‘No. I had my beginnings when I was born,’ I wrote. ‘But you are a spirit. Where were you? Were you with somebody else? Why did you come to me?’
“There was a long pause, very long, so long that I almost rose from the desk and moved off, but then the clicking keys came again:
“ ‘I love Quinn,’ the writing said. ‘Quinn and Goblin one together.’
“ ‘Yes,’ I said out loud. ‘We are, one together.’
“The machine was clicked off. The gooseneck lamp flicked on and off twice and then went dark.
“My heart was pounding. What was happening to Goblin? And how could I confide to anyone in this world about him, what with Pops dead and everything at Blackwood Farm hanging in the balance? To whom could I go to say this spirit is taking on new strength?
“For some period of time I sat there, and then I turned on the machine and asked:
“ ‘Danger, this danger you speak of, is it from the stranger who