Merrick - Anne Rice [132]
“How can you be so sure?” I asked. I shrugged my shoulders. “God knows, I wish you were right. But you yourself called on Honey; is not Honey lost in the same realm that this spirit of Claudia described? Doesn’t Honey’s presence prove there’s nothing better for either one of them? You saw the shape of Honey out there before the altar—.”
She nodded.
“—and you went on to call Claudia from the same realm.”
“Honey wants to be called,” she declared, looking up at me, her fingers driven into her hair, tugging it cruelly back, away from her tormented face. “Honey’s always there. Honey’s waiting for me. That’s how I knew for certain that I could call on Honey. But what about Cold Sandra? What about Great Nananne? What about Aaron Lightner? When I opened the door none of those spirits came through. They’ve long since gone on into the Light, David. If they hadn’t they would have long ago let me know. I would have felt them the way I feel Honey. I would have hints of them, as Jesse Reeves had of Claudia when she heard the music in the Rue Royale.”
I was puzzled by this last statement. Very puzzled. I shook my head in an emphatic no.
“Merrick, you’re holding back from me,” I said, deciding I must address it directly. “You have called Great Nananne. You think I don’t remember what happened only a few nights ago, the night we met in the café in the Rue St. Anne?”
“Yes? What about that night?” she asked. “What are you trying to say?”
“Maybe you don’t know what happened,” I said. “Is that possible? You called down a spell and didn’t know how strong it was yourself?”
“David, talk straight to me,” she responded. Her eyes were clearing and she had stopped trembling. Of this I was glad.
“That night,” I said, “after we met and spoke together, you put a spell on me, Merrick. On my way back to the Rue Royale, I kept seeing you everywhere; to the right of me, and to the left of me, Merrick. And then I saw Great Nananne.”
“Great Nananne?” she asked in a subdued voice, but one which couldn’t conceal her disbelief. “What do you mean, you saw Great Nananne?”
“When I reached the carriageway of my town house,” I said, “I saw two spirits behind the iron bars—one in the image of you, a girl of ten, the way you were when I first met you, and the other, Great Nananne in her nightgown, as she was on the only day I was ever to know her, the day of her death. These two spirits stood in the carriageway and spoke together, intimately, tête à tête, their eyes fixed on me. And when I approached them, they disappeared.”
For a moment, she said nothing. Her eyes were narrow and her lips slightly parted, as if she was pondering this with extreme concentration.
“Great Nananne,” she said again.
“Just as I’ve told you, Merrick,” I said. “Am I to understand now that you yourself didn’t call her? You know what happened next, don’t you? I went back to the Windsor Court, to the suite where I’d left you. I found you dead drunk on the bed.”
“Don’t use such a charming expression for it,” she whispered crossly. “You came back, yes, and you wrote me a note.”
“But after I wrote that note, Merrick, I saw Great Nananne there in the hotel, standing in the door of your bedroom. She was challenging me, Merrick. She was challenging me by her very presence and posture. It was a dense and undeniable apparition. It endured for moments—chilling moments, Merrick. Am I to understand this wasn’t part of your spell?”
Merrick sat silent for a long moment, her hands still splayed in her hair. She lifted her knees and drew them close to her breasts. Her sharp gaze never left me.
“Great Nananne,” she whispered. “You’re telling me the truth. Of course you are. And you thought that I called my godmother? You thought I could call her and make her appear like that?”
“Merrick, I saw the statue of St. Peter. I saw my own handkerchief beneath it with the drops of blood on it. I saw the candle you’d lighted. I saw the offerings.