Blackwood Farm - Anne Rice [31]
I was hurt through no fault of hers. I prayed I could soon confess to Lestat or someone in this world that her warnings were now too late. They had been timely once, but a veil had fallen over all the past, with its impetuosity and sense of invincibility. The mysterious he was no mystery whatsoever to me.
“Don’t think about it, Aunt Queen,” I said as gently as I could. “What did your father tell you? That there was no devil in Sugar Devil Swamp.”
“Ah, yes, Quinn,” she responded, “but then my father never set out in a pirogue in those dark waters to roam that island as you do. Nobody ever found that island before you, Quinn. That wasn’t my father’s nature, and it wasn’t your grandfather’s nature to do anything so impractical himself. Oh, he hunted near the banks and trapped the crawfish, and we do that now. But he never went in search of that island, and I want you to put it behind you now.”
Keenly, I felt her need of me, as vividly as if I’d never felt it before.
“I love you too much to leave you,” I said quickly, the words rolling from me before I thought of precisely what they meant. And then as suddenly: “I’ll never leave you, I swear it.”
“My dear, my lovely dear,” she said, musing, her left hand playing with the cameos, lining up Rebecca at the Well, one, two, three, four and five.
“They have no taint, Aunt Queen,” I said looking at those particular cameos, remembering discordantly but quite definitely that a ghost can wear a cameo. I wondered, Did a ghost have a choice? Did a ghost pillage its trunks in the attic?
Aunt Queen nodded and smiled. “My boy, my beautiful Little Boy,” she said. Then she looked to Lestat again. His demeanor, his kindliness towards her had not changed one jot.
“You know, Lestat, I can’t travel anymore,” she said quite seriously, her words saddening me. “And sometimes I have the horrid thought that my life is finished. I must realize that I’m eighty-five. I can’t wear my beloved high heels any longer, at least not out of this room.”
She looked down at her feet, which we could still plainly see, at the vicious sequined shoes of which she was so proud.
“It’s even an undertaking to go into New Orleans to the jewelers who know I’m a collector,” she pressed on. “Though I have out back at all times the biggest stretch limousine imaginable, certainly the biggest limousine in the parish, and gentlemen to drive me and accompany me and Jasmine, darling Jasmine of course. But where are you these days, Quinn? It seems if I do wake at a civil hour and make some appointment you can’t be found.”
I was in a haze. It was a night for shame and more shame. I felt as cut off from her as I was near to her, and I thought of Stirling again, of the taste of his blood and how close I had come to swallowing his soul, and I wondered again if Lestat had worked some magic on both of us—Aunt Queen and me—to make us feel so totally without guile.
But I liked it. I trusted Lestat, and a sudden mad thought came to me, that if he was going to hurt me, he would never have gone so far in listening to Aunt Queen.
Aunt Queen went on with a lovely animation, her voice more pleasant though the words were still sad.
“And so I sit here with my little talismans,” she said, “and I watch my old movies, hoping that Quinn will come, but understanding if he doesn’t.” She gestured to the large television to our left. “I try not to think bitterly about my weaknesses. Mine has been a rich, full life. And my cameos make me happy. The pure obsession with them makes me happy. It always has, really. I’ve collected cameos since that long-ago day. Can you see what I mean?”
“Yes,” said Lestat, “I understand you perfectly. I’m glad that I met you. I’m glad to be received in your house.”
“That’s a quaint way to put it,” she said, obviously charmed by him, and her smile brightened and so did her deep-set eyes. “But you are most graciously welcome here.”
“Thank you, Madam,” Lestat replied.
“Aunt Queen,