Merrick - Anne Rice [85]
“Tell me what else you remember now.”
“He said it was his mother’s great-grandfather who knew of that cave,” she responded. “He said that the old man took him there, though he himself was scared of the jungle. Do you know how many years back that would be? He said he never got to go back there. He came to New Orleans and got rich off Voodoo, rich as anybody can get off Voodoo. He said you give up your dreams the longer you live, until you’ve got nothing.”
I think I winced at those choice and truthful words.
“I was seven years old,” she said, “when Oncle Vervain died under this roof. His mother’s great-grandfather was a brujo among the Maya. You know, that’s a witch doctor, a priest of sorts. I can still remember Oncle Vervain using that word.”
“Why does he want you to go back?” I asked her.
She had not removed her eyes from the altar. I glanced in that direction and realized that a picture of Oncle Vervain was there too. It was small, frameless, merely propped at the Virgin’s feet.
“To get the treasure,” she said in her low, troubled voice. “To bring it here. He says there’s something there that will change my destiny. But I don’t know what he means.” She gave one of those characteristic sighs of hers. “He seems to think I’ll need it, this object, this thing. But what do spirits know?”
“What do they know, Merrick?” I asked.
“I can’t tell you, David,” she replied raggedly. “I can only tell you that he haunts me. He wants me to go there and bring back those things.”
“You don’t want to do this,” I said. “I can tell by your entire manner. You’re being haunted.”
“It’s a strong ghost, David,” she said, her eyes moving over the distant statues. “They’re strong dreams.” She shook her head. “They’re so full of his presence. God, how I miss him.” She let her eyes drift. “You know,” she said, “when he was very old, his legs were bad. The priest came; he said Oncle Vervain didn’t have to go to Sunday Mass anymore. It was too hard. Yet every Sunday, Oncle Vervain got dressed in his best three-piece suit, and always with his pocket watch, you know, the little gold chain in front and the watch in the little pocket—and he sat in the dining room over there listening to the broadcast of Mass on the radio and whispering his prayers. He was such a gentleman. And the priest would come and bring him Holy Communion in the afternoon.
“No matter how bad his legs were, Oncle Vervain knelt down for Holy Communion. I stood in the front door until the priest was gone and the altar boy. Oncle Vervain said that our church was a magic church because Christ’s Body and Blood was in Holy Communion. Oncle Vervain said I was baptized: Merrick Marie Louise Mayfair—consecrated to the Blessed Mother. They spelled it the French way, you know: M-e-r-r-i-q-u-e. I know I was baptized. I know.”
She paused. I couldn’t bear the suffering in her voice or in her expression. If only we had located that baptismal certificate, I thought desperately, we might have prevented this obsession.
“No, David,” she said aloud, sharply correcting me. “I dream of him, I tell you. I see him holding that gold watch.” She settled back into her reverie, though it gave her no consolation. “How I loved that watch, that gold watch. I was the one who wanted it, but he left it to Cold Sandra. I used to beg him to let me look at it, to let me turn its hands to correct it, to let me snap it open, but no, he said, ‘Merrick, it doesn’t tick for you, chérie, it ticks for others.’ And Cold Sandra got it. Cold Sandra took it with her when she left.”
“Merrick, these are family ghosts. Don’t we all have family ghosts?”
“Yes, David, but it’s my family, and my family was never very much like anyone else’s family, was it, David? He comes in the dreams and tells me about the cave.”
“I can’t bear to see you hurt, my darling,” I said. “In London, behind my desk, I isolate myself emotionally from the Members all over the world. But from you? Never.”
She nodded. “I don’t want to cause you pain, either, boss,” she said, “but I need you.