"They're alive! " I said. "They aren't statues! They're vampires just like us! "
"Yes, " Marius said. "That word, however, they wouldn't know. " He was just ahead of me and he was still looking at them, his hands at his sides, just as he had been all along. Slowly, he turned and came up to me and took my right hand. The blood had rushed to my face. I wanted to say something but I couldn't. I kept staring at them. And now I was staring at him and staring at the white hand that held mine.
"It's quite all right, " he said almost sadly. "I don't think they dislike your touching them. " For a moment I couldn't understand him.
Then I did understand. "You mean you . . . You don't know whether... They just sit there and . . . Oooh God! " And his words of hundreds of years ago, embedded in Armand's tale, came back to me: Those Who Must Be Kept are at peace, or in silence. More than that we may never know. I was shuddering all over. I couldn't stop the tremors in my arms and my legs.
"They're breathing, thinking, living, as we are, " I stammered. "How long have they been like this, how long? "
"Calm yourself, " he said, patting my hand.
"Oh God, " I said again stupidly. I kept saying it. No other words sufficed. "But who are they? " I asked finally. My voice was rising hysterically. "Are they Osiris and Isis? Is that who they are? "
"I don't know. "
"I want to get away from them. I want to get out of here. "
"Why? " he asked calmly.
"Because they . . . they are alive inside their bodies and they . . . they can't speak or move! "
"How do you know they can't? " he said. His voice was low, soothing as before.
"But they don't. That's the whole point. They don't- "
"Come, " he said. "I want you to look at them a little more. And then I'll take you back up and I'll tell you everything, as I've already said I would. "
"I don't want to look at them anymore, Marius, honestly I don't, " I said, trying to get my hand free, and shaking my head. But he was holding on to me as firmly as a statue might, it seemed, and I couldn't stop thinking how much like their skin was his skin, how he was taking on the same impossible luster, how when his face was in repose, it was as smooth as theirs! He was becoming like them. And sometime in the great yawn of eternity, I would become like him! If I survived that long.
"Please, Marius... " I said. I was beyond shame and vanity. I wanted to get out of the room.
"Wait for me then, " he said patiently. "Stay here. " And he let my hand go. He turned and looked down at the flowers I had crushed, the spilled water. And before my eyes these things were corrected, the flowers put back in the vase, the water gone from the floor. He stood looking at the two before him, and then I heard his thoughts. He was greeting them in some personal way that did not require an address or a title. He was explaining to them why he had been away the last few nights. He had gone into Egypt. And he had brought back gifts for them which he would soon bring. He would take them out to look at the sea very soon. I started to calm down a little. But my mind was now anatomizing all that had come clear to me at the moment of shock. He cared for them. He had always cared for them. He made this chamber beautiful because they were staring at it, and they just might care about the beauty of the paintings and the flowers he brought. But he didn't know. And all I had to do was look squarely at them again to feel horror, that they were alive and locked inside themselves!
"I can't bear this, " I murmured. I knew, without his ever telling me, the reason that he kept them. He could not bury them deep in the earth somewhere because they were conscious. He would not burn them because they were helpless and could not give their consent. Oh, God, it was getting worse and worse. But he kept them as the ancient pagans kept their gods in temples that were their houses. He brought them flowers. And now as I watched, he was lighting incense for them, a small cake that he had taken out of a silk handkerchief. This he told them had come from Egypt. And he was putting it to burn in a small bronze dish. My eyes began to tear. I actually began to cry. When I looked up, he was standing with his back to them, and I could see them over his shoulder. He looked shockingly like them, a statue dressed in fabric. And I felt maybe he was doing it deliberately, letting his face go blank.
"I've disappointed you, haven't I? " I whispered.
"No, not at all, " he said kindly. "You have not. "
"I'm sorry that I- "
"No, you have not. " I drew a little closer. I felt I had been rude to Those Who Must Be Kept. I had been rude to him. He had revealed to me this secret and I had shown horror and recoiling. I had disappointed myself. I moved even closer. I wanted to make up for what I'd done. He turned towards them again and he put his arm around me. The incense was intoxicating. Their dark eyes were full of the eerie movement of the flames of the lamps. No ridge of vein anywhere in the white skin, no fold or crease. Not even the penstroke lines in the lips which even Marius still had. They did not move with the rise and fall of breath. And listening in the stillness I heard no thought from them, no heartbeat, no movement of blood.
"But it's there, isn't it? " I whispered.
"Yes, it's there. "
"And do you-? " Bring the victims to them, I wanted to ask.
"They no longer drink. " Even that was ghastly! They had not even that pleasure. And yet to imagine it-how it would have been-their firing with movement long enough to take the victim and lapsing back into stillness, ah! No, I should have been relieved. But I was not.
"Long, long ago, they still drank, but only once in a year. I would leave the victims in the sanctuary for them-evildoers who were weak and close to death. I would come back and find that they had been taken, and Those Who Must Be Kept would be as they were before. Only the color of the flesh was a little different. Not a drop of blood had been spilt.
"It was at the full moon always that this was done, and usually in the spring. Other victims left were never taken. And then even this yearly feast stopped. I continued to bring victims now and then. And once after a decade had passed, they took another. Again, it was the time of the full moon. It was spring. And then no more for at least half a century. I lost count. I thought perhaps they had to see the moon, that they had to know the change of the seasons. But as it turned out, this did rot matter.
"They have drunk nothing since the time before I took them into Italy. That was three hundred years ago. Even in the warmth of Egypt they do not drink. "
"But even when it happened, you never saw it with your own eyes? "
"No, " he said.
"You've never seen them move? "
"Not since . . . the beginning. " I was trembling again. As I looked at them, I fancied I saw them breathing, fancied I saw their lips change.
I knew it was illusion. But it was driving me wild. I had to get out of here. I would start crying again.
"Sometimes when I come to them, " Marius said, "I find things changed. "
"How? What? "
"Little things, " he said. He looked at them thoughtfully. He reached out and touched the woman's necklace. "She likes this one. It is the proper kind apparently. There was another which I used to find broken on the floor. "
"Then they can move. "
"I thought at first the necklace had fallen. But after repairing it three times I realized that was foolish. She was tearing it off her neck, or making it fall with her mind. " I made some little horrified whisper. And then I felt absolutely mortified that I had done this in her presence. I wanted to go out at once. Her face was like a mirror for all my imaginings. Her lips curved in a smile but did not curve.