Merrick Page 0,48

this house."

"I'm sorry for what I said to you," I answered quickly. "I had no right." I meant it from my heart.

She gave a rattling sigh as she looked at the ceiling.

"I'm in pain now," she said. "I want to die. I'm in pain all the time. You'd think I could stop it, that I had charms that could stop it. I have charms for others, but for me, who can work the magic? Besides, the time has come, and it's come in its own fashion. I've lived a hundred years."

"I don't doubt you," I said, violently disturbed by her mention of her pain and her obvious veracity. "Please be assured you can leave Merrick with me."

"We'll bring you nurses," said Aaron. It was Aaron's way to pursue the practical, to deal with what could be done. "We'll see to it that a doctor comes this very afternoon. You mustn't be in pain, it isn't necessary. Let me go now to make the proper calls. I won't be long."

"No, no strangers in my house," she said as she looked at him and then up at me. "Take my godchild, both of you. Take her and take all that I have in this house. Tell them, Merrick, everything that I told you. Tell them all your uncles taught, and your aunts, and your greatgrandmothers. This one, this tall one with the dark hair - ," she looked at me, " - he knows about the treasures you have from Cold Sandra, you trust in him. Tell him about Honey in the Sunshine. Sometimes I feel bad spirits around you, Merrick. . . . " She looked at me. "You keep the bad spirits from her, English man. You know the magic. I see now the meaning of my dream."

"Honey in the Sunshine, what does it mean?" I asked her.

She shut her eyes bitterly and tightened her lips. It was extraordinarily expressive of pain. Merrick appeared to shudder, and for the first time to be about to cry.

"Don't you worry, Merrick," said the old woman finally. She pointed with her finger, but then dropped her hand again as if she was too weak to go on.

I tried suddenly with all of my might and main to penetrate the old woman's thoughts. But nothing came of it, except perhaps that I startled her when she should have been in peace.

Quickly I tried to make up for my little blunder.

"Have faith in us, Madam," I said again adamantly. "You sent Merrick on the right path."

The old woman shook her head.

"You think magic is simple," the old woman whispered. Once more our eyes met. "You think it's something you can leave behind when you cross an ocean. You think les mystères aren't real."

"No, I don't."

Once again she laughed, a low and mocking laugh.

"You never saw their full power, English man," she said. "You made things shake and shiver, but that was all. You were a stranger in a strange land with your Candomble. You forgot Oxalá, but he never forgot you."

I was fast losing all composure.

She closed her eyes and her fingers curled around Merrick's smallboned wrist. I heard the rattle of the priest's rosary, and then came the fragrance of freshbrewed coffee mingled with the sweetness of newly falling rain.

It was an overwhelming and soothing moment - the close moist air of the New Orleans springtime, the sweetness of the rain coming down all around us, and the soft murmur of thunder far off to the right. I could smell the candle wax and the flowers of the shrine, and then again there came the human scents of the bed. It seemed a perfect harmony suddenly, even those fragrances which we condemn as sour and bad.

The old woman had indeed come to her final hour and it was only natural, this bouquet of fragrances. We must penetrate it and see her and love her. That was what had to be done.

"Ah, you hear it, that thunder?" asked Great Nananne. Once again her little eyes flashed to me. She said, "I'm going home."

Now, Merrick was truly frightened. Her eyes were wild and I could see her hand shaking. In fact, as she searched the old woman's face she appeared terrified.

The old woman's eyes rolled and she appeared to arch her back against the pillow, but the quilts seemed far too heavy for her to gain the space she craved.

What were we to do? A person can take an age to die, or die in one