The witching hour - By Anne Rice Page 0,230

he had always wanted to do it when I was a boy, and even that he did do it, in the night, coming into my room, and laughing afterwards about it, and letting others watch.

Like a statue, I must have appeared, staring into the face of this monster, who with Roemer’s smile whispered like an old bawd to me, such filth, and then finally this creature’s mouth ceases to move, but merely grows bigger and bigger, and the tongue inside it becomes a black thing, big and shining like the humpback of a whale.

Like a puppet, I reach for my pen and dip it and begin to write the above description, and now the thing is gone.

But you know what it has done, Stefan? It has turned my mind inside out. Let me tell you a secret. Of course, my beloved Roemer never took such liberties with me! But I used to pray that he would! And the fiend drew that out of me, that as a boy I lay in my bed in the Motherhouse dreaming that Roemer would come and pull down the covers and lie with me. I dreamed those things!

Had you asked me last year, did I ever have such a dream, I would have said never, but I had it, and the fiend remembered me of it. Should I thank him?

Maybe he can bring my mother back and she and I will sit by the kitchen fire once more and sing.

I go now. The sun is fully risen. The thing is not near. I will entrust this to our agent before I go on towards Maye Faire—that is, if I am not stopped by the local constables, and thrown into jail. I do look like a vagabond and a madman. Charlotte will help me. Charlotte will restrain this demon.

What else is there to say?

Petyr

NOTE TO THE ARCHIVES:

This was the last letter ever received from Petyr van Abel.

On the Death of Petyr van Abel

SUMMARY OF TWENTY-THREE LETTERS, AND NUMEROUS REPORTS

TO THE FILES

(SEE INVENTORY):

Two weeks after Petyr’s last letter reached the Motherhouse, a communication was received from a Jan van Clausen, Dutch merchant in Port-au-Prince, that Petyr was dead. This letter was dated only twenty-four hours after Petyr’s last letter. Petyr’s body had been discovered some twelve hours after he was known to have rented a horse at the livery stables and to have ridden out of Port-au-Prince.

It was the assumption of the local authorities that Petyr had met with foul play on the road, perhaps coming upon a band of runaway slaves in the early morning, who might have been in the process of again desecrating a cemetery in which they had wreaked considerable havoc only a day or two before. The original desecration had caused a great disturbance among the local slaves, who, much to the dismay of their masters, were reluctant to participate in the restoration of the site, and it was still in a state of considerable disarray and deserted when the assault upon Petyr occurred.

Petyr was apparently beaten and driven into a large brick crypt where he was trapped by a fallen tree and much heavy debris. When he was found, the fingers of his right hand were entangled in the debris as if he had been trying to dig his way out. Two fingers from his left hand had been severed and were never found.

The perpetrators of the desecration and the murder were never discovered. That Petyr’s money, his gold watch, and his papers were not stolen added to the mystery of his death.

Ongoing repairs to the site led to the early discovery of Petyr’s remains. In spite of extensive head wounds, Petyr was easily and undeniably identified by van Clausen, as well as by Charlotte Fontenay, who rode into Port-au-Prince when she heard tell of it, and was violently disturbed by Petyr’s death, and “took to her bed” in grief.

Van Clausen returned Petyr’s possessions to the Motherhouse, and at the behest of the order undertook a further investigation of Petyr’s death.

The files contain letters not only to and from van Clausen, but also to and from several priests in the colony, and other persons as well.

Essentially, nothing of any real importance was discovered, except that Petyr was thought to be mad during his last day and night in Port-au-Prince, what with his repeated requests for letters to be mailed to Amsterdam, and repeated instructions that the Motherhouse be notified in the event of his death.

Several mentions are made of his