The witching hour - By Anne Rice Page 0,464

so it was begun.

It was three o’clock when she reached the house. In the full heat of the day, though the sky was still overcast. The warmth seemed collected and stagnant beneath the oaks. As she stepped out of the cab, she could see the tiny insects swarming in the pockets of shadow. But the house caught her up instantly. Here alone again. And the jars are gone, thank God, and the dolls, and very soon all that belonged to Carlotta. Gone.

She had the keys in her hand. They had shown her the papers pertaining to the house, which had been entailed with the legacy in the year 1888 by Katherine. It was hers and hers alone. And so were all the other billions which they wouldn’t speak of aloud. All mine.

Gerald Mayfair, a personable young man with a bland face and nondescript features, came out the front door. Quickly he explained that he was just leaving, he had only just placed the last carton of Carlotta’s personal possessions in the trunk of his car.

The cleaning team had finished about a half hour before.

He eyed Rowan a little nervously as she offered her hand. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, and did not resemble Ryan’s family. His features were smaller and he lacked the poise she’d observed in the others. But he seemed nice—what one would call a nice young guy.

His speaking voice was certainly agreeable.

Carlotta had wanted his grandmother to have her things, he explained. Of course the furniture would remain. It belonged to Rowan. It was all quite old, dating from the time that Carlotta’s grandmother, Katherine, had furnished the house.

Rowan thanked him for taking care of things so quickly. She assured him she would be at the Requiem Mass for Carlotta.

“Do you know if she’s been … buried?” Was that the proper word for being slipped into one of those stone drawers?

Yes, he said, she had been interred this morning. He’d been there with his mother. They’d gotten her message to come for the things when they returned home.

She told him how much she appreciated it, how much she wanted to meet all the family. He nodded.

“It was nice of your two friends to come,” he said.

“My friends? Come to what?”

“This morning at the cemetery, Mr. Lightner and Mr. Curry.”

“Oh, of course. I … I should have been there myself.”

“Doesn’t matter. She didn’t want any fuss, and frankly … ”

He stood quiet for a moment on the flagstone walk, looking up at the house, and wanting to say something, but seemingly unable to speak.

“What is it?” Rowan asked.

Perhaps he’d wandered up there and seen all that broken glass before the cleaning team had arrived. Surely he would have wanted to see where the “skeleton” had lain, that is, if he’d read the papers, or if the other Mayfairs had told him, which maybe they had.

“You plan to live in it?” he asked suddenly.

“To restore it, to bring it back to the old splendor. My husband … the man I’m going to marry. He’s an expert on old houses; he says it’s absolutely solid. He’s eager to begin.”

Still he stood quiet in the simmering air, his face glistening slightly, and his expression full of expectation and hesitancy. Finally he said:

“You know it has seen so many tragedies. That’s what Aunt Carlotta always said.”

“And so did the morning paper,” she said, smiling. “But it’s seen much happiness, hasn’t it? In the old days, for decades at a stretch. I want it to see happiness again.”

She waited patiently, and then finally, she asked:

“What is it you really want to say to me?”

His eyes moved over her face, and then with a little shift to his shoulders, and a sigh, he looked back up at the house.

“I think I should tell you that Carlotta … Carlotta wanted me to burn the house after her death.”

“You’re serious?”

“I never had any intention of doing it. I told Ryan and Lauren. I told my parents. But I thought I should tell you. She was adamant. She told me how to do it. That I was to start the fire in the attic with an oil lamp that was up there, and then move down to the second floor and start the drapes burning and finally come down to the first. She made me promise. She gave me a key.”

He handed this key to Rowan.

“You don’t really need it,” he said. “The front door hasn’t been locked in fifty years, but she was afraid