The witching hour - By Anne Rice Page 0,315

for the child, she had come into the room, and stood barefoot staring at her mother. And then she too began to scream. Her voice rose high and piercing over the others. ‘Mama, Mama, Mama,’ as though with each new burst her realization of what had happened deepened helplessly.

“ ‘Someone take her out!’ I cried. And indeed, others had gathered around her, and were attempting to draw her away. I moved out of their path, only climbing to my feet when I reached the side porch window. In another crackle of white light, I saw someone pick up the gun. It was then handed to another person, and then to another, who held it as if it were alive. Fingerprints were no longer of consequence, if ever they were, and there had been countless witnesses. There was no reason for me not to get out while I could. And turning, I made my way out onto the side porch and into the downpour, as I stepped onto the lawn.

“Dozens of people were huddled there, the women crying, the men doing what they could to cover the women’s heads with their jackets, everyone soaked and shivering and quite at a loss. The lights flickered on for a second, but another violent slash of lightning signaled their final failure. When an upstairs window suddenly burst in a shower of glittering shards, panic broke out once more.

“I hurried towards the back of the property, thinking to leave unobserved through a back way. This meant a short rush along a flagstone path, a climb of two steps to the patio around the swimming pool, and then I spied the side alley to the gate.

“Even through the dense rain I could see that it was open, and see beyond it the wet gleaming cobblestones of the street. The thunder rolled over the rooftops, and the lightning laid bare the whole garden hideously in an instant, with its balustrades and towering camellias, and beach towels draped over so many skeletal black iron chairs. Everything was helplessly thrashing in the wind.

“I heard sirens suddenly. And as I rushed towards the waiting sidewalk, I glimpsed a man standing motionless and stiff, as it were, in a great clump of banana trees to the right of the gate.

“As I drew closer, I glanced to the right, and into the man’s face. It was the spirit, visible to me once more, though for what reason under God I had no idea. My heart raced dangerously, and I felt a momentary dizziness and tightening in my temples as if the circulation of my blood were being choked off.

“He presented the same figure he had before; I saw the unmistakable glint of brown hair and brown eyes, and dim unremarkable clothing save for its primness and a certain vagueness about the whole. Yet the raindrops glistened as they struck his shoulders and his lapels. They glistened in his hair.

“But it was the face of the being which held me enthralled. It was monstrously transfigured by anguish, and his cheeks were wet with soundless crying as he looked into my eyes.

“ ‘God in heaven, speak if you can,’ I said, almost the same words I’d spoken to the poor desperate spirit of Stuart. And so crazed was I by all I had seen that I lunged at him, seeking to grab hold of him by the shoulders and make him answer if I could.

“He vanished. Only this time I felt him vanish. I felt the warmth and the sudden movement in the air. It was as if something had been sucked away, and the bananas swayed violently. But then the wind and the rain were knocking them about. And suddenly I did not know what I had seen, or what I had felt. My heart was skipping dangerously. I felt another wave of dizziness. Time to get out.

“I hurried up Chestnut Street past scores of wandering, weeping, dazed individuals and then down Jackson Avenue out of the wind and the rain, into a fairly clear and mild stretch where the traffic swept by without the slightest knowledge, apparently, of what had happened only blocks away. Within a matter of seconds, I caught a taxi for the hotel.

“As soon as I reached it, I gathered up my belongings, lugging them downstairs myself without the aid of a bellboy, and immediately checked out. I had the cab take me to the train station, where I caught the midnight train for New York, and I am