The witching hour - By Anne Rice Page 0,386

green Jaguar sedan. Off she drove without glancing back.

Was I ill? Had I suffered a severe pain somewhere? Was I about to die? Of course not. Nothing like that had happened. Yet I knew what she could do. I knew and she knew and she had told me! But why?

By the time I reached the Campton Place Hotel in San Francisco, I was thoroughly confused. I decided I would do nothing further for the present.

When I met with Gander, I said: “Keep up the surveillance. Get as close as you dare. Watch for anything that indicates she is using the power. Report to me at once.”

“Then you’re not going to make contact.”

“Not now. I can’t justify it. Not until something else happens and that could be either of two things: she kills someone else, deliberately or accidentally. Or her mother dies in New Orleans and she decides to go home.”

“Aaron, that’s madness! You have to make contact. You can’t wait until she goes back to New Orleans. Look, old man, you have pretty much told me the whole story over the years. And I don’t claim to know what you people know about it. But from everything you’ve told me, this is the most powerful psychic the family has ever produced. Who’s to say she’s not a powerful witch as well? When her mother finally goes, why would this spook Lasher miss an opportunity like this?”

I couldn’t answer, except to say what Owen already knew. There were absolutely no sightings of Lasher in Rowan’s history.

“So he’s biding his time. The other woman’s still alive. She has the necklace. But when she dies, they have to give it to Rowan. From what you’ve told me, it’s the law.”

I called Scott Reynolds in London. Scott is no longer our director, but he is the most knowledgeable person in the order on the subject of the Mayfair Witches, next to me.

“I agree with Owen. You have to make contact. You have to. What you said to her in the cemetery was exactly what you should have said, and on some level you know it. That’s why you told her you knew her family. That’s why you offered her the card. Talk to her. You have to.”

“No, I disagree with you. It isn’t justified.”

“Aaron, this woman is a conscientious physician, yet she’s killing people! Do you think she wants to do that sort of thing? On the other hand … ”

“ … what?”

“If she does know, this contact could be dangerous. I have to confess, I don’t know how I would feel about all this if I were there, if I were you.”

I thought it over. I decided that I would not do it. Everything that Owen and Scott had said was true. But it was all conjecture. We did not know whether Rowan had ever deliberately killed anyone. Possibly she was not responsible for the six deaths.

We could not know whether she would ever lay her hands on the emerald necklace. We did not know if she would ever go to New Orleans. We did not know whether or not Rowan’s power included the ability to see a spirit, or to help Lasher to materialize … ah, but of course we could pretty well conjecture that Rowan could do all that … But that was just it, it was conjecture. Conjecture and nothing more.

And here was this hardworking doctor saving lives daily in a big city Operating Room. A woman untouched by the darkness that shrouded the First Street house. True, she had a ghastly power, and she might again use it, either deliberately or inadvertently. And if that happened, then I would make contact.

“Ah, I see, you want another body on the slab,” said Owen.

“I don’t believe there is going to be another,” I said angrily. “Besides, if she doesn’t know she’s doing it, why should she believe us?”

“Conjecture,” said Owen. “Like everything else.”

SUMMATION

As of January 1989, Rowan has not been connected with any other suspicious deaths. On the contrary, she has worked tirelessly at University Hospital at “working miracles,” and will very likely be appointed Attending Physician in neurosurgery before the end of the year.

In New Orleans, Deirdre Mayfair continues to sit in her rocking chair, staring out over the ruined garden. The last sighting of Lasher—“a nice young man standing beside her”—was reported two weeks ago.

Carlotta Mayfair is nearing ninety years of age. Her hair is entirely white, though the style of it has not changed in fifty years. Her