Blood Canticle - Anne Rice [101]
Centuries ago, I’d been dumped for dead in the swamp by my fledglings, Claudia, the murderer, Louis, the coward; and I, a hideous and grasping thing, had survived in those stagnant, polluted waters, survived to come back and take my battered and shapeless revenge, sharpened to a fatal point by others.
I don’t care about that.
I don’t know how long I walked.
I took my time.
Patsy. Patsy.
The night sounds were at once particular and at the same time a deep hum on the warm breeze, and the moon was high, sometimes penetrating a break in the swamp that only revealed its jagged hateful chaos more harshly.
Now and then I stopped.
I looked at the scattered stars—so cunningly bright in the country night. And I hated them, as usual. What comfort was it to be lost in the endless universe, a simpleton on a tiny speck of revolving dust, whose forefathers had read patterns and meanings into these countless unknowable points of cold white fire, which only mocked us by their unchanging indifference?
So let them shine over the vast pastureland to my right, over the distant clusters of oaks, over the warmly lighted houses now far behind me.
My soul was with the swamp tonight. My soul was with Patsy.
I walked on.
I hadn’t known so much of Blackwood Farm bordered on the swamp. But I wanted to know. And I kept as close as possible to the water without slipping right into it.
Soon I knew Mona was somewhere near me. She was doing her best to conceal herself, but I heard the little sounds that she made, and I could smell a faint perfume from her that had clung to Aunt Queen’s dresses, a scent I hadn’t noticed before.
After a little while, I knew Quinn was with us, too, staying behind me with Mona. Why they so faithfully followed I didn’t know.
I used my strongest vision to penetrate the reeking darkness to my left.
A strong chill came over me, moving down my back, a chill such as I’d felt when Rowan Mayfair and I had first met, and she had used her power to study me, a chill that was from a source outside of me.
I stopped, and I faced the swamp, and at once I perceived that a female figure was right before me. It was so close that I could have touched it without extending my hand more than a few inches.
It was tangled in the moss and creeper vine, still and lifeless as the cypress tree which appeared to support it, and it was soaked through and through, its hair in dank rivulets on its filthy white gown, and gleaming faintly in a light mortal eyes could not have seen, and it was staring at me.
It was Patsy Blackwood.
Weak, silent, suffering.
“Where is she!” Quinn whispered. He was at my left shoulder. “Where? Patsy, where are you?”
“Be quiet,” I said. I kept my gaze on her, on her large miserable eyes, and the streaks of hair that ran down her face, and her parted lips. Such yearning, such agony.
“Patsy,” I said. “Darling girl, all your tribulation in this place is finished.”
I saw her eyebrows close in a slow listless frown. It seemed I heard a deep long sigh from her.
“You best go on, beautiful girl,” I said. “Go on to glory. Don’t roam this dismal realm, Patsy. Don’t make this darkness your home when you can turn to the Light. Don’t you wander here searching and moaning. You go on. Turn your back on this time and place and beg for the gates to open.”
Something quickened in her face. Her eyebrows went smooth, and it seemed that she shuddered.
“Go on, honey,” I said. “The Light wants you. And here in this world, Quinn will gather all your songs, every song you ever recorded, Patsy, and put them all together, and they’ll go out far and wide, Patsy, every single one, old and new, for always. Isn’t that a splendid thing to leave behind, all those wonderful songs that people love, that’s your gift, Patsy.”
Her mouth opened, but she didn’t speak. Her white cheeks were slick with the water of the swamp, her nightgown torn, her arms scratched and streaked with filth, her fingers struggling to close but unable to do it.
I heard Mona cry out. I felt a force move the damp air around me. Quinn was vowing in a low-running whisper