“Maybe it is.”
“Oh, but I know they are good.” Michael stubbed out the cigarette. “I know. I know that it was Deborah I saw. And that she wants me to oppose that spirit, Lasher. I know that as surely as I know … who I am. Remember what Llewellyn told you? I just finished reading it. Llewellyn told you that when Julien came to him in a dream Julien was different. Julien was wiser than he had been when he was alive. Well, that’s how it was with Deborah in my vision. Deborah wants to stop this thing that she and Suzanne brought into the world and into this family!”
“Then comes the question. Why has Lasher shown himself to you?”
“Yes. We’re going in a circle.”
Aaron switched off the light in the corner, and then the lamp on the desk. This left only the lamp on the bedside table. “I’ll have them call you at eight. I think you can finish the entire file by late afternoon, perhaps a little sooner. Then we can talk, and you can come to some sort of … well … decision.”
“Have them call me at seven. That’s one good thing about being this age. I get sleepy but I sleep less. I’ll be fine if they ring me at seven. And Aaron … ”
“Yes?”
“You never really answered me about last night. Did you see that thing when he was standing right in front of me on the other side of the fence! Did you or didn’t you?”
Aaron opened the door. He seemed reluctant to speak. Then he said, “Yes, Michael. I saw him. I saw him very clearly and distinctly. More clearly and distinctly than ever before. And he was smiling at you. It even seemed he was … reaching out for you. I would say from what I saw that he was welcoming you. Now, I must go, and you must go to sleep. I’ll talk to you in the morning.”
“Wait a minute.”
“Lights out, Michael.”
The phone woke him up. The sunlight was pouring through the windows on either side of the head of the bed. For one moment he was completely disoriented. Rowan had just been talking to him, saying something about how she wanted him to be there before they closed the lid. What lid. He saw a dead white hand lying against black silk.
Then he sat up, and he saw the desk, and the briefcase, and the folders heaped there, and he whispered: “The lid of her mother’s coffin.”
Drowsily he stared at the ringing phone. Then he picked up the receiver. It was Aaron.
“Come down for breakfast, Michael.”
“Is she on the plane yet, Aaron?”
“She’s just left the hospital. As I believe I told you last night, she’ll have a layover. I doubt she’ll reach the hotel before two o’clock. The funeral begins at three. Look, if you won’t come down we’ll send something up, but you must eat.”
“Yes, send it up,” he said. “And Aaron. Where is this funeral?”
“Michael, don’t bolt on me after you’ve finished. That wouldn’t be fair to anyone.”
“No, I’m not going to do that, Aaron. Believe me. But I just want to know. Where is the funeral?”
“Lonigan and Sons. Magazine Street.”
“Oh, yeah, do I ever know that place.” Grandmother, grandfather, and his father, too, all buried from Lonigan and Sons. “Don’t worry, Aaron, I’ll be right here. Come up and keep me company if you want. But I’ve got to get started.”
He took a quick shower, put on fresh clothes, and came out of the bathroom to find his breakfast waiting for him under a series of high polished silver domes on a lace-covered tray. The old sandwiches were gone. And the bed was made. There were fresh flowers by the window. He smiled and shook his head. He had a flash of Petyr van Abel in some fine little chamber in the seventeenth-century Motherhouse in Amsterdam. Was Michael a member now? Would they enfold him with all these trappings of security and legitimacy and safety? And what would Rowan think of that? There was so much he had to explain to Aaron about Rowan …
Drinking his first cup of coffee absently, he opened the next folder, and began to read.
Eighteen
IT WAS FIVE thirty in the morning as Rowan finally headed to the airport, Slattery driving the Jaguar for her, her eyes glassy and red as she instinctively and anxiously watched the traffic, uncomfortable to have given over the control of the car to anyone else. But Slattery had agreed to keep the Jag in her absence, and he ought to get used to it, she figured. And besides, all she wanted now was to be in New Orleans. The hell with the rest.
Her last evening at the hospital had gone almost as planned. She had spent hours making the rounds with Slattery, introducing him to patients, nurses, interns, and residents, doing what she could to make the transition less painful for everyone involved. It had not been easy. Slattery was an insecure and envious man. He made random deprecating remarks under his breath continuously, ridiculing patients, nurses, and other doctors in a manner that suggested Rowan was in complete sympathy with him when she was not. There was a deep unkindness in him towards those he believed to be inferior. But he was far too ambitious to be a bad doctor. He was careful, and smart.
And much as Rowan disliked turning it all over to him, she was glad he was there. The feeling was growing ever stronger in her that she wasn’t coming back here. She tried to remind herself that there was no reason for such a feeling. Yet she couldn’t shake it. The special sense told her to prepare Slattery to take over for her indefinitely, and that was what she had done.
Then at eleven P.M., when she was scheduled to leave for the airport, one of her patients-an aneurysm case-began to complain of violent headaches and sudden blindness. This could only mean the man was hemorrhaging again. The operation which had been scheduled for the following Tuesday-to be performed by Lark-had to be performed by Rowan and Slattery right then.
Rowan had never gone into surgery more distracted; even as they were tying on her sterile gown, she had been worried about her delayed flight to New Orleans, worried about the funeral, worried that somehow she’d be trapped for hours during the layover in Dallas, until after her mother had been lowered into the ground.
Then looking around the OR, she had thought, This is the last time. I’m not going to be in this room again, though why I don’t know.
At last the usual curtain had fallen, cutting her off from past and future. For five hours, she operated with Slattery beside her, refusing to allow him to take over though she knew he wanted to do it.
She stayed in recovery with her patient for an additional forty-five minutes. She didn’t like leaving this one. Several times she placed her hands on his shoulders and did her little mental trick of envisioning what was going on inside the brain. Was she helping him or merely calming herself? She had no idea. Yet she worked on him mentally, as hard as she had ever worked on anyone, even whispering aloud to him that he must heal now, that the weakness in the wall of the artery was repaired.
“Long life to you, Mr. Benjamin,” she whispered under her breath. Against her closed eyes, she saw the brain circuitry. A vague tremor passed through her. Then, slipping her hand over his, she knew he would be all right.
Slattery was in the doorway, showered and shaved, and ready to take her to the airport.
“Come on, Rowan, get out of here, before anything else happens!”
She went to her office, showered in the small private bathroom, put on her fresh linen suit, decided it was much too early to call Lonigan and Sons in New Orleans, even with the time difference, and then walked out of University Hospital, with a lump in her throat. So many years of her life, she thought, and the tears hovered. But she didn’t let them come.
“You all right?” Slattery had asked as he pulled out of the parking lot.
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Just tired.” She was damned sick of crying. She’d done more of it in the last few days than in all her life.