Angel Time - By Anne Rice Page 0,32

in the mire of the deep, and there is nowhere to set my foot. I am come into deep waters, and the waves overwhelm me. I have grown weary from crying, my throat has become hoarse; my eyes have failed while I await my God.

Finally, he whispered, "Dear God, will you not end this pain!"

He had over six hundred dollars now to pay the bills. He was way ahead. But what did it matter if he couldn't save her?

"Dear God," he prayed. "I don't want for her to die. I'm sorry I prayed for her to die. Dear Lord, save her."

A beggar came up to him as he left the cathedral. She was poorly dressed and murmured under her breath of her need for medicine to save a dying child. He knew she was lying. He'd seen her many a time, and heard her tell the same story. He stared at her for a long time, then silenced her with a wave of his hand and a smile, and he gave her twenty dollars.

Tired as he was, he walked through the Quarter rather than spend the few bucks for a cab, and he rode the St. Charles car up home, staring dumbly out the window.

He wanted desperately to see Liona. He knew that she had come last night to see him graduate--she and her parents, in fact--and he wanted to explain to her why he had not been there.

He remembered that they had had plans afterwards, but now it seemed remote and he was too tired to think of what he would say to her when he finally spoke to her. He thought of her large loving eyes, of the ready wit and sharp intellect she never concealed, and her ringing laugh. He thought of all the wondrous traits she had, and he knew that as the college years passed, he would surely lose her. She had a scholarship at the Conservatory too, but how could he compete with the young men who would inevitably surround her?

She had a glorious voice, and in the production at Jesuit, she had seemed a natural star, loving the stage, and graciously but confidently accepting applause and flowers and compliments.

He didn't understand why she had bothered with him at all. And he felt he had to draw back, let her go, and yet he almost cried thinking about her.

As the rattling clanking streetcar moved uptown, he hugged his lute and even went to sleep against it for a little while. But he woke with a start at his stop, and got off and dragged his feet as he went down the pavement.

As soon as he entered the apartment he knew something was wrong.

He found Jacob and Emily drowned in the bathtub. And she, with her wrists slit, lay dead on the bed, the blood soaking the spread and half of the pillow.

For a long time, he stared at the bodies of his brother and sister. The water had drained out but their pajamas were in moist wrinkles. He could see the bruises all over Jacob. What a fight he had put up. But the face of Emily at the other end of the tub was smooth and perfect, with eyes closed. Maybe she hadn't been awake when their mother had drowned her. There was blood in the water. There was blood on the waterspout where Jacob must have cracked his head as she pushed him down.

The kitchen knife lay beside his mother. She'd all but chopped off her left hand, so deep was the wound, but she'd bled to death from both wrists.

All this had happened hours ago, he knew it.

The blood was dry or at best sticky.

Yet still he lifted his brother out of the tub and actually tried to breathe life into him. His brother's body was icy cold, or so it seemed. And it was soggy.

He couldn't bear to touch his mother or his sister.

His mother lay with her lids half shut, her mouth open. She looked already dried out, like a husk. A husk, he thought, exactly. He stared at the rosary in the blood. The blood was all over the painted wood floor.

Only the smell of wine hung over all these pitiable visions. Only the smell of the malt in the beer. Outside cars passed. A block away, there came the roar of the passing streetcar.

Toby went into the living room, and sat for a long time with his lute on his lap.

Why hadn't he known such a thing