The witching hour - By Anne Rice Page 0,261

… well, I feel I have to tell you.”

I said I believed him. He went on to say that Julien in the dream wasn’t the Julien he remembered. Something was definitely changed. “He seemed wiser, kinder, just the way you hope someone would be who has crossed over. And he didn’t look old. Yet he wasn’t exactly young either. I shall never forget that dream. It was … absolutely real. I could swear he was standing at the foot of my bed. And I do remember one thing he said. He said that certain things were destined but that they could be averted.”

“What sort of things?” I asked.

He shook his head. He would say nothing more after that, no matter how I pressed. He did admit that he could recall no censure from Julien on account of our conversation. But the sense of Julien’s being there again had made him feel disloyal. I could not even get him to repeat the story when next I asked him about it.

The last time I saw him was in late August 1959. He had obviously been ill. He had a bad tremor affecting both his mouth and his left hand, and his speech was no longer entirely distinct. I could understand him, but it was difficult. I told him frankly that what he had told me of Julien meant a great deal to me, that I was still interested in the Mayfair history.

At first I thought he did not remember me or the incident in question, so vague did he seem. Then he appeared to recognize me. He became excited.

“Come in the back with me,” he said, and as he struggled to rise from the desk I lent him a hand. He was unsteady on his feet. We passed through a dusty curtained doorway into a small storage room, and there he stopped just as if he were staring at something, but I could see nothing.

He gave a strange little laugh and made a dismissive gesture with his hand. Then he took out a box, and with trembling hands, he removed a packet of photographs. These were all of Julien. He gave them to me. It seemed he wanted to say something but he couldn’t find the words.

“I cannot tell you what this means to me,” I said.

“I know,” he answered. “That is why I want you to have them. You are the only person who has ever understood about Julien.”

I felt sad then, dreadfully sad. Had I understood? I suppose I had. He had caused the figure of Julien Mayfair to come to life for me, and I had found it a seductive figure.

“My life might have been different,” he said, “had I not met Julien. No one ever after seemed to measure up, you see. And then the store, well, I fell back on the store, and didn’t really accomplish very much in the long run.”

Then he appeared to shrug it all off, and he smiled.

I put several questions to him but he only shrugged them off too. Finally one caught his attention.

“Did Julien suffer when he died?” I asked.

He became absorbed, then he shook his head. “No, not really. He didn’t much care for being paralyzed, of course. Who would? But he loved books. I read to him all the time. He died in the early morning. I know because I was with him till two o’clock, and then I blew out the lamp and went downstairs.

“Well, around six o’clock a storm waked me. It was raining so hard it was coming in at the windowsills. And the limbs of the maple tree outside were making quite a racket. I ran up at once to see to Julien. His bed was right by the window.

“And what do you think? He had somehow managed to sit up, and open the window; and there he was, dead, across the windowsill, his eyes closed, looking quite peaceful, as if he’d wanted a breath of fresh air, and when he had had it he gave up, just like that, falling dead as if he were falling asleep, with his head to one side. Would have been a very peaceful scene if it hadn’t been for the storm, for the rain pouring in on him and even the leaves blowing into the room.

“They said later it was a massive stroke. They couldn’t figure how he had ever managed to open the window. I never said anything, but you know it occurred to me … ”

“Yes?”