Merrick (13 page)

I must have flinched because a tiny smile settled on her lips for a moment. Then she went on.

“By the time I was six years old, she started calling herself Cold Sandra. She’d say to me, ‘Merrick, you come here to Cold Sandra.’ I’d jump in her lap.”

There was a slight break in her voice as she continued.

“She was nothing like Great Nananne,” Merrick said. “And she smoked all the time and she drank, and she was always restless, and when she drank she was mean. When Cold Sandra came home after being gone for a long time, Great Nananne would say, ‘What’s in your cold heart this time, Cold Sandra? What lies are you going to tell?’

“Great Nananne used to say there was no time for black magic in this world. You could do all you had to do with good magic. Then Matthew came, and Cold Sandra was the happiest she’d ever been.”

“Matthew,” I said coaxingly, “the man who gave you the parchment book.”

“He didn’t give me that book, Mr. Talbot, he taught me to read it,” she answered. “That book we already had. That book came from Great-Oncle Vervain, who was a terrible Voodoo Man. They called him Dr. Vervain from one end of the city to the other. Everybody wanted his spells. That old man gave me lots of things before he passed on. He was Great Nananne’s older brother. He was the first person I ever saw just up and die. He was sitting at the dining room table with the newspaper in his hand.”

I had more questions on the tip of my tongue.

In all of this long unfolding tale there had been no mention of that other name which Great Nananne had uttered: Honey in the Sunshine.

But we had arrived at the old house. The afternoon sun was quite strong but the rain had thinned away.

8

I
WAS SURPRISED
to see so many people standing about. Indeed they were everywhere, and a very subdued but attentive lot. I observed at once that not one, but two small paneled trucks had come from the Motherhouse, and that there stood guard a small group of Talamasca acolytes, ready to pack up the house.

I greeted these youngsters of the Order, thanking them in advance for their care and discretion, and told them to wait quietly until they were given the signal to begin their work.

As we went up the stairs and walked through the house, I saw, where the windows permitted me to see anything, that people were loitering in the alleyways, and as we came into the backyard, I noticed many persons gathered far off to the right and to the left beyond the heavy growth of the low-limbed oaks. I could see no fences anywhere. And I do not believe there were any at that time.

All was dimness beneath a canopy of luxuriant leaf, and we were surrounded by the sound of softly dripping water. Wild red hyacinth grew where the sun could penetrate the precious gloom. I saw thin yew trees, the species so sacred to the dead and to the magician. And I saw many lilies lost in the choking grass. It could not have been more lulling and dreamy had it been a purposeful Japanese garden.

As my eyes became accustomed to the light, I realized that we were standing on a flagstone patio of sorts, punctuated by several twisted yet flowering trees, and much cracked and overwhelmed by slippery shining moss. Before us stood a huge open shed with a central pillar holding its corrugated tin roof.

The pillar was brightly painted red to the midpoint and green to the top, and it rose from a huge altar stone quite appropriately heavily stained. Beyond in the darkness stood the inevitable altar, with saints even more numerous and magnificent than those in Great Nananne’s bedroom.

There were banks upon banks of lighted candles.

It was, I knew from my studies, a common Voodoo configuration—the central pillar and the stone. One could find it all over the island of Haiti. And this weedy flagstone spot was what a Haitian Voodoo doctor might have called his peristyle.

Cast to the side, among the close and straggling yew trees, I saw two iron tables, small and rectangular in shape, and a large pot or cauldron, as I suppose it is properly called, resting upon a brazier with tripod legs. The cauldron and the deep brazier disturbed me somewhat, possibly more than anything else. The cauldron seemed an evil thing.

A humming sound distracted me somewhat, because I was afraid that it came from bees. I have a very great fear of bees, and like many members of the Talamasca, I fear some secret regarding bees which has to do with our origins, but there is not room enough to explain here.

Allow me to continue by saying only that I quickly realized that the sound came from hummingbirds in this vast overgrown place, and when I stood quite still beside Merrick, I fancied I saw them hovering as they do, near the fiercely sprawling flower-covered vines of the shed roof.

“Oncle Vervain loved them,” said Merrick to me in a hushed voice. “He put out the feeders for them. He knew them by their colors and he called them beautiful names.”

“I love them, too, child,” I said. “In Brazil they had a beautiful name in Portuguese, ‘the kisser of flowers,’ ” I said.

“Yes, Oncle Vervain knew those things,” she told me. “Oncle Vervain had been all over South America. Oncle Vervain could see the ghosts in the middle air all around him all the time.”

She left off with these words. But I had the distinct feeling that it was going to be very difficult for her to say farewell to this, her home. As for her use of the phrase “ghosts in the middle air,” I was suitably impressed, as I had been by so much else. Of course we would keep this house for her, of that I’d make certain. We’d have the place entirely restored if she so wished.

She looked about herself, her eyes lingering on the iron pot on its tripod.

“Oncle Vervain could boil the cauldron,” she said softly. “He put coals under it. I can still remember the smell of the smoke. Great Nananne would sit on the back steps to watch him. Everybody else was afraid.”

She went forward now and into the shed, and stood before the saints, staring at the many offerings and glittering candles. She made the Sign of the Cross quickly and laid her right two fingers on the naked foot of the tall and beautiful Virgin.

What were we to do?

Aaron and I stood a little behind her, and at her shoulders, like two rather confused guardian angels. There was fresh food in the dishes on the altar. I smelled sweet perfume and rum. Obviously some of those people crowded about in the shrubbery had brought these mysterious offerings. But I shrank back when I realized that one of the curious objects heaped there in seeming disarray was in fact a human hand.

It was cut right before the wrist bone, and it had dried into a dreadful clench of sorts, but that was not the full horror. It was overrun with ants, who had made a little massacre of the entire feast.

When I realized that the loathsome insects were everywhere, I felt a peculiar horror that only ants can bring.

Merrick, much to my amazement, picked up this hand rather daintily in her thumb and forefinger, and shook off the hoodlum ants with several small fierce gestures.

I heard nothing from the audience in the crowd beyond, but it seemed to me that they pressed closer. The humming of the birds was becoming hypnotic, and again there came a low hiss of rain.

Nothing penetrated the canopy. Nothing struck the tin of the roof.

“What do you want us to do with these things?” asked Aaron gently. “You don’t want anything left, as I understand it.”

“We’re going to take it down,” said Merrick, “if it’s all right with you. It’s past its time. This house should be closed up now, if you will keep your promises to me. I want to go with you.”

“Yes, we’ll have everything dismantled.”

She suddenly looked at the shriveled hand which she held in her own. The ants were crawling onto her skin.

“Put it down, child,” I said suddenly, startling myself.

She gave it a wring or two again and then did what I said. “It must come with us, everything must,” she said. “Some day, I’ll take out all these things and I’ll see what they are.” She brushed off the unwelcome ants.

Her dismissive tone filled me with relief, I must confess it.

“Absolutely,” said Aaron. He turned and gave a signal to the Talamasca acolytes who had come as far as the edge of the patio behind us. “They will begin packing everything,” he told Merrick.

“There’s one thing in this backyard that I have to take myself,” she said, glancing at me and then at Aaron. She seemed not purposefully or playfully mysterious as much as troubled.

She backed away from us and moved slowly towards one of the gnarled fruit trees that sprang up in the very middle of the patio flagstones. She dipped her head as she moved under the low green branches, and lifted her arms almost as if she was trying to embrace the tree.

In a moment, I saw her purpose. I should have guessed it. A huge snake had descended, coiling itself about her arms and her shoulders. It was a constrictor.

I felt a helpless shudder and a total revulsion. Not even my years in the Amazon had made me a patient liker of snakes. Quite to the contrary. But I knew what they felt like; I knew that eerie silky weight, and the strange current of feeling they sent through one’s skin as they moved very rapidly to encoil one’s arms.

I could feel these things as I watched her.

Meanwhile, out of the overgrown tangle of green there came low whispers from those who watched her as well. This is what they had gathered to see. This was the moment. The snake was a Voodoo god, of course. I knew it. But I was still amazed.

“It’s definitely harmless,” Aaron said to me hastily. As if he knew! “We’ll have to feed it a rat or two, I suppose, but to us, it’s quite—.”

“Never mind,” I said with a smile, letting him off the hook. I could see he was quite uncomfortable. And then to tease him a little, and to fend off the deep melancholy of the place, I said, “You know of course the rodents must be alive.”

He was appropriately horrified and gave me a reproving glance, as if to say, you needn’t have told me that! But he was far too polite to say a word.

Merrick was talking to the snake in a low voice in French.

She made her way back to the altar, and there found a black iron box with barred windows on all sides—I know no other words for it—which she opened with one hand, the hinges of its lid creaking loudly; and into this box she let the serpent slowly and gracefully settle itself, which fortunately for all of us, it did.

“Well, we’ll see what stalwart gentlemen want to carry the snake,” Aaron said to the closest of the assistants who stood speechless, watching.

Meanwhile, the crowd had begun to break up and slip away. There was much rustling in the trees. Leaves fell all around us. Somewhere, unseen in the lush garden, the birds continued to hover, beating the air with their tiny busy wings.

Merrick stood for a long moment looking up, as though she’d found a chink in the rooftop of foliage.

“I’ll never be coming back here, I don’t think,” she said softly to both of us or to no one.

“Why do you say that, child?” I asked. “You can do as you like, you can come every day if you wish. There are so many things we must talk over together.”

“It’s ruined, this whole place,” she said, “and besides, if Cold Sandra ever comes back, I don’t want her to find me.” She looked at me in a level manner. “You see, she is my mother and she could take me away, and I don’t want that ever to happen.”

“It won’t happen,” I responded, though no one on earth could give the child such a guarantee against a mother’s love, and Merrick knew it. I could only do my best to see that we did what Merrick wanted.

“Now, come,” she said, “there are some things up in the attic that only I want to move.”

The attic was in fact the second story of the house, a very deep sloped roof affair, as I have described, with four dormer windows, one for each point of the compass, assuming the house was correctly oriented. I had no idea whether it was or not.

We made our way up by a narrow back stairs that doubled once upon itself and then entered a place of such delicious woody fragrances that I was caught off guard. It had a snugness and a cleanness about it, despite the dust.

Merrick turned on a grim electric bulb and we soon found ourselves amid suitcases, ancient trunks, and leather-bound packing cases. It was vintage luggage. An antiques dealer would have loved it. And I, having seen one book of magic, was very much ready for more.

Merrick had but one suitcase that mattered above all else, she explained, and she set this down on the dusty rafters beneath the dangling light.

It was a canvas bag with leathered patched corners. She opened it with ease, as it wasn’t locked, and stared down at a series of loosely wrapped cloth bundles. Once again, white sheeting had been used for these items, or perhaps to put it more simply, cotton pillowcases past their time.

It was obvious that the contents of this case were of very special importance, but how special I could not have guessed.

I was astonished now as Merrick, whispering a little prayer, an Ave, if I’m correct, lifted one bundle and moved back the cloth to reveal a startling object—a long green axe blade, heavily incised with figures on both sides.

It was easily two feet in length and quite heavy, though Merrick held it easily. And Aaron and I both could see the likeness of a face in profile carved deeply into the stone.

“Pure jade,” said Aaron reverently.

It had been highly polished, this object, and the face in profile wore an elaborate and beautifully realized headdress, which if I’m not mistaken, involved both plumage and ears of corn.

The carved portrait or ritual image, whichever it might be, was as large as a human face.

As Merrick turned the object, I saw that a full figure was etched into the other side. There was a small hole near the narrow tapering end of the object, perhaps to allow suspension from a belt.

“My God,” said Aaron under his breath. “It’s Olmec, isn’t it? It must be priceless.”

“Olmec, if I have any guess,” I answered. “Never have I seen such a large and exquisitely decorated object outside of a museum.”

Merrick showed no surprise.

“Don’t say things you don’t mean, Mr. Talbot,” she said gently. “You have some like this in your own vault.” She locked her eyes on me for a long dreamy moment.

I could scarcely breathe. How could she know such a thing? But then I told myself she might have learnt such information from Aaron. Only, a glance at him let me know I was quite wrong.

“Not as beautiful, Merrick,” I answered her quite truthfully. “And ours are fragments, as well.”

When she gave me no reply, when she merely stood there holding the gleaming axe blade with both hands out before her, as if she liked to look at the light on it, I went on.

“It’s worth a fortune, child,” I said, “and I never expected to see such a thing in this place.”

She thought for a long second, and then gave me a solemn forgiving nod.

“In my opinion,” I went on, struggling to redeem myself, “it comes from the oldest known civilization in Central America. And I can feel my heart thumping as I look at it.”

“Maybe even older than Olmec,” she said, looking up at me again. Her wide gaze swept lazily over Aaron. The gold light of the bulb spilled down upon her and the elaborately dressed figure. “That’s what Matthew said after we took it from the cave beyond the waterfall. That’s what Oncle Vervain said when he told me where to look.”

I looked down again on the splendid face of shining green stone with its blank eyes and flattened nose.

“You don’t need me to tell you,” I said, “that it’s all very likely so. The Olmec come from nowhere, or so the textbooks tell us.”

She nodded.

“Oncle Vervain was born from one of those Indians who knew the deepest magic. Colored man and red woman made Oncle Vervain and Great Nananne, and Cold Sandra’s mother was Great Nananne’s grandchild, so it’s inside of me.”