The witching hour - By Anne Rice Page 0,544

they do? It’s over, Aaron. I may fight, and I may dance back a few steps, and I may gain an occasional advantage. But it’s over. Michael was meant to bring me back and keep me here and he did.”

She started to rise, but he caught her hand. She looked down at his fingers. So old. You can always tell age by a person’s hands. Were people staring at them? Didn’t matter. Nothing mattered in this little room. She started to pull away.

“What about your child, Rowan?”

“Michael told you?”

“He didn’t have to tell me. Michael was sent to love you so that you would drive that thing away, once and forever. So that you wouldn’t fight this battle alone.”

“You knew that without being told also?”

“Yes. And so do you.”

She pulled her hand free.

“Go away, Aaron. Go far away. Go hide in the Motherhouse in Amsterdam or London. Hide. You’re going to die if you don’t. And if you call Michael, if you call him back here, I swear, I’ll kill you myself.”

Forty-four

ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING HAD gone wrong. The roof at Liberty Street had been leaking when he arrived and somebody had broken into the Castro Street store for a pitiful handful of cash in the drawer. His Diamond Street property had also been vandalized, and it had taken four days to clean it out before he could put it up for sale. Add to that a week to crate Aunt Viv’s antiques, and to pack all her little knickknacks so that nothing would be broken. And he was afraid to trust the movers with these things. Then he’d had to sit down with his accountant for three days to put his tax records in order. December 14 already and there was still so much work to be done.

About the only good thing was that Aunt Viv had received the first two boxes safely and called to say how delighted she was to have her cherished objects with her at last. Did Michael know she’d joined a sewing circle with Lily, in which they did petit point and listened to Bach? She thought it was the most elegant thing. And now that her furniture was on the way, she could invite all the lovely Mayfair ladies over to her place at last. Michael was a darling. Just a darling.

“And I saw Rowan on Sunday, Michael, she was taking a walk, in this freezing weather, but do you know she has finally started to put on a little weight. I never wanted to say it before, but she was so thin and so pale. It was wonderful to see her with a real bloom in her cheeks.”

He had to laugh at that, but he missed Rowan unbearably. He had never planned to be gone so long. Every phone call only made it worse, the famous butterscotch voice driving him out of his mind.

She was understanding about all the unforeseen catastrophes but he could hear the worry behind her questions. And he couldn’t sleep after the calls, smoking one cigarette after another, and drinking too much beer, and listening to the endless winter rain.

San Francisco was in the wet season now, and the rain hadn’t stopped since his arrival. No blue skies, not even over the Liberty Street hill, and the wind ripped right through his clothes when he stepped outside. He was wearing his gloves all the time just to keep warm.

But now at last the old house was almost empty. Nothing but the last two boxes in the attic, and in a strange way, these little treasures were what he had come to retrieve and take with him to New Orleans. And he was eager to finish the job.

How alien it all looked to him, the rooms smaller than he remembered, and the sidewalks in front so dirty. The tiny pepper tree he’d planted seemed about to give up the ghost. Impossible that he could have spent so many years here telling himself he was happy.

And impossible that he might have to spend another back-breaking week, taping and labeling boxes at the store, and going through tax receipts, and filling out various forms. Of course he could have the movers do it, but some of the items weren’t worth that kind of trouble. And then the sorting was the nightmare, with all the little decisions.

“It’s better now than later,” Rowan had said this afternoon when he called. “But I can hardly stand it. Tell me, have you had any second thoughts? I