Merrick - Anne Rice [80]
Enough said on that damned subject! Yes, I desired her, but my task is to return to the story of the woman I know today. Yes, Merrick, the brave and brilliant member of the Talamasca, that is the story I have to tell:
Long before computers were so very common, she had mastered them for her own writing and was soon heard to be tapping away at fantastical speed on her keyboard late into the night. She published hundreds of translations and articles for our members, and many, under a pseudonym, in the outside world.
Of course we are very careful in sharing all such learning. It is not our purpose to be noticed; but there are things which we do not feel we can keep to ourselves. We would never have insisted on a pseudonym, however; but Merrick was as secretive about her own identity as ever she was as a child.
Meanwhile, as regards the “uptown Mayfairs” of New Orleans, she showed little interest in them personally, hardly bothering with the few records we recommended that she read. They were never her people, really, no matter what she might have thought of “Oncle Julien” appearing in Great Nananne’s dream. Also, no matter what one might observe about the “powers” of those Mayfairs, they have in this century almost no interest at all in “ritual magic,” and that was Merrick’s chosen field.
Of course nothing of Merrick’s possessions had ever been sold. There was no reason to sell anything. It would have been absurd.
The Talamasca is so very rich that the expenses of one person, such as Merrick, mean virtually nothing, and Merrick, even when she was very young, was devoted to the projects of the Order and worked of her own free will in the archives to update records, make translations, and identify and label articles very similar to those Olmec treasures which belonged to her.
If ever a member of the Talamasca earned her own way, it was Merrick, almost to a degree which put us to shame. Therefore, if Merrick wanted a shopping spree in New York or Paris, no one was likely to deny it. And when she chose a black Rolls Royce sedan as her personal car, soon establishing a small worldwide collection of them, no one thought it a bad idea at all.
Merrick was some twenty-four years old before she approached Aaron about taking stock of the occult collection she had brought to the Order ten years before.
I remember it because I remember Aaron’s letter.
“Never has she shown the slightest interest,” he wrote:
and you know how this has worried me. Even when she made her family history and sent it off to various scholars, she did not touch upon the occult heritage at all. But this afternoon she confided to me that she has had several “important” dreams about her childhood, and that she must return to Great Nananne’s house. Together with our driver we made the trip back to the old neighborhood, a sad journey indeed.
The district has sunk considerably lower, I think, than she could have imagined, and I believe the shattered ruin of the “corner bar” and the “corner store” took her quite by surprise. As for the house, it has been splendidly maintained by the man who lives on the premises, and Merrick spent almost an hour, alone by choice, in the rear yard.
There the caretaker had made a patio, and the shed is virtually empty. Nothing remains of the temple, naturally, except the brightly painted center post.
She said nothing to me afterwards, absolutely refusing to discuss these dreams of hers in any detail.
She expressed extreme gratitude to me that we’d kept the house for her, during her period of “negligence,” and I hoped this might be the end of it.
But at supper, I was quite astonished to hear that she planned to move back into the house and spend part of her time there from now on. She wanted all the old furniture, she told me. She’d supervise the arrangements herself.
“What about the neighborhood?” I found myself asking weakly, to which she replied with a smile, “I was never afraid of the neighbors. You’ll soon discover, Aaron, that the neighbors will