Part 16 (1/2)

”A faint protest voiced itself in my mind that there was no rose garden on Blackwood Farm, that the rose garden was long gone for the swimming pool, but this seemed incomprehensible and unimportant, and to have mentioned such a thing seemed rude.

”I turned to tell her I couldn't hold off of kissing her, and I bent down and closed my mouth over hers. Ah. I never in my dreams felt that. I never tasted that. I never knew that. I felt the heat of her body through her clothes. It was so intense, I almost came. I put my arms around her and lifted her, and I put my knee against her skirts and pushed against her s.e.x, and I put my tongue into her mouth.

”When she drew back, it took all my self-control to let her put her hand firmly on my chest.

'Light the lamps for me, Quinn,' she said. 'You know, the oil lamps. Light them. And then I'll make you the happiest young man there ever was.'

” 'Oh, yes,' I said. I knew right where they were. We always kept oil lamps at Blackwood Manor because, being out in the country like we were, we never knew when the electricity was going to go out, and so I found the oil lamp in the sideboard and I lifted it up and put it on the dining table. I raised the gla.s.s shade and lighted the wick with the cigarette lighter I always carried just for such things.

” 'Put it on the window, darling,' she said, 'yes, right there, on the sill, and let's go into the parlor and light the lamp there too.'

”I did what she told me, putting the lamp onto the windowsill. 'But that looks dangerous,' I said, 'with it under the lace panels and so near to the draperies.'

” 'Don't you worry, darling,' she said. She led me briskly across the hallway and into the parlor. I took the lamp out of the high Chinese chest between the two hall doorways. After it was lighted, I put it on the windowsill in the same manner as I had done across the hall. Now, that harp, that harp was the same, the big gold harp, I thought, but everything else was changed.

”This was the strangest dizziness. I didn't dare to think of having her, of her finding out that I didn't know how.

” 'You're my darling,' she said. 'Don't stare at the pretty furniture, it doesn't matter.' But I couldn't help it because only a moment ago --when I'd taken the lamp from the chest --it had been familiar and now it was different again, all those violet satin black-framed chairs, and there came a sudden chorus of voices, of people saying the Rosary!

”Candlelight flickered on the ceiling. Something was wrong, and terribly terribly sad.

”I was off balance. I was about to fall. I turned around. The sound of the voices was an inundation. And the room was full of people --people in black, seated on chairs and couches and in little gold folding chairs --and a man was sobbing.

”Others were crying. Who was the little girl who stared at me?

”There was a coffin lying before the front windows, an open coffin, and the air was heavy with flowers, drenched with flowers, the waxy smell of lilies, and then up out of this coffin there rose a blond-haired woman in a blue dress. In one swift gesture, as if she rode an invisible tide, she had come up out of the coffin and stepped down on the polished floor.

” 'Lynelle,' I cried out. But it wasn't. It was Virginia Lee. How could I not know the lovely little face of Virginia Lee! Our blessed Virginia Lee. The little girl let out a baleful cry, 'Mamma!' How 94.could a woman rise from a coffin?

” 'You leave this house alone!' she cried, and she reached out in a perfect fury at the woman who stood with me, her white hands almost touching her, but the woman at my side drove her back with a great hissing sound, a flash and sputtering, and the figure of Virginia Lee, our blessed sweet Virginia Lee, our household saint, the figure of Virginia Lee, and the coffin, and the bawling child, the mourners --all of it blinkered and went out.

”The chorus of voices died away, as if it were a wave on the beach being sucked back into the ocean. Hail Mary Full of Grace and then nothing. Breeze and the flicker of the oil lamp in the shadows, and that smell of burning oil.

”I was too dizzy to stand. She clung to me.

”The silence crashed around us, and I wanted to say something, I wanted to ask something; I tried to form the thought, Virginia Lee had been here, but I was holding the woman again and kissing her --and I was so hard it was painful, I couldn't keep it back much longer, it was worse than waking from a wet dream --and saying, 'No, I won't let it go on, I can't do that. That's a mortal sin.' But she said, ” 'Quinn, my darling Quinn. Quinn, you are my destiny.' It was so inexpressibly tender. 'Take me to my room.'

”Smoke was rising behind the thick lace. A woman was crying softly, brokenheartedly. The child's sobs came like coughs. But the woman beside me was smiling.

” 'I'm light, I'm little,' she said. 'See my small waist? See how small I am. Carry me up the stairs.'

”Round and round and up and up. You can't fall down from dizziness if you are going up and up. Never in my life had I felt such exultation. Never had I felt so strong.

”We were in a bedroom, and though the configuration of the walls and the archway made it seem that it was my room, it wasn't, it was hers, and we were lying under her lace canopy and the bed was airy and the breeze was coming in from the windows and the lace was moving in the air.

” 'Now, my big boy,' she said as she opened my pants and pushed to get them down and lifted up her skirts. Her skin was hot. 'It's perfect now.' I slid inside of her! First time! The heat, the pressure, the tight sheath. I came in her, I flooded into her, I came, and felt her s.h.i.+vering and pus.h.i.+ng her hips up against me, and her s.e.x holding me, and then she was dying back, spent, with a short gasping laugh coming from her lips.

”I lay back. It didn't matter, the smell of smoke, the sight of it. It didn't matter, people rus.h.i.+ng. She turned to me, and, rising up on her elbow, she said, ” 'Find what's left of me out there, Quinn. Find the island. Find what they did to me.' How pa.s.sionate and exquisite she was, how wronged and frail. The cameo earrings s.h.i.+vered beside her delicate face. I touched her ear. I touched the place where the gold pierced it. I touched the handsome black-and-white cameo at her throat.

” 'Rebecca,' I said. Beyond her stood Goblin shaking his head No. Goblin was so vivid, Goblin was using all his power.

” 'Do that for me,' she said. 'Do that and I'll come back to you, Quinn. And it will be sweet, always so sweet. I was a creature born to make others happy. That's what I believe in, Quinn. I've given you your first time, Quinn. Don't ever forget me. To give pleasure. That's all I've ever tried to do.'

”The cameo at her throat, it was so like those in Aunt Queen's collection yet it was different. But all of this made sense. She'd died out there wearing this cameo. Yes. Yes. I reached out to touch her soft brown hair. I reached out to touch her soft brown hair.

” 'Tawquin, Tawquin, Taw-quin,' Jasmine shouted. She was running up the steps. I could feel it, the vibration of the floorboards.

”I was alone.

95.”I sat up. My pants were open. The s.e.m.e.n was all over my jeans and on the bedspread. I saw to myself immediately, and then, grabbing for a wad of paper tissue from the nightstand, I wiped up the evidence and stood staring at Jasmine as she came into the room.

” 'You crazy boy,' Jasmine cried. 'Why did you put those lamps on the windowsills? Are you stupid? You set the curtains on fire! What was going on in your mind?'

”I flew into action. On fire! Blackwood Manor! Never. But she grabbed my arm as I tried to pa.s.s her.

” 'We put it out!' she said. 'Why did you do it?'

”It could have been a disaster.

”As it was, Lolly and Big Ramona, with the help of the Shed Men, replaced the burnt lace panels that afternoon. The heavy draperies were all right. They hadn't caught.

”I was in a state of terror. I sat numb in my room. I hadn't answered a single question. Goblin had come around. Goblin sat in the other chair on the other side of the fireplace and wore a worried look on his face. The computer switched itself on. But I wouldn't go to it. I didn't want him to take my hand. I didn't have answers for him.

”Finally, in pure weariness of his being there and staring at me, I said, 'Why did she come?

Where did she come from?'

”He couldn't answer. He was confused.

”I went to the computer and let him take my left hand. He tapped out: 'Rebecca was very bad. Burn down the house. Evil Rebecca.'

”I tapped out: 'Tell me something I don't know, like where did she come from?'

”Long silence. Nothing. I went back to brooding in my chair.

”Over supper, with Pops, Jasmine, Lolly and Big Ramona, I told them all pretty much what had happened. I told them the erotic part of it, that the ghost and I had been intimate. I tried to describe how very 'real' it had all seemed, and how reasonable to light those lamps as Rebecca had wanted, and I told them the things Rebecca said.

”I showed them a cameo that I had found in the attic trunk, one that I'd put in the case in the living room, one that had belonged to Rebecca Stanford, no doubt.

” 'Rebecca at the Well,' don't you see? And she was named Rebecca. Who was she, why did she come?'

”I felt a sudden dizziness. I looked down at the cameo on the kitchen table. It seemed I heard her saying something to me or I was remembering something. I tried to clear my head. I tried to remember. I strained to remember: Died out there with the cameo on, died out there. Died out there with the cameo on, died out there. I s.h.i.+vered all over. I s.h.i.+vered all over. So many pretty lace blouses. That's what he had always liked, white lace. So many pretty lace blouses. That's what he had always liked, white lace.

”I tried to talk clearly. I told them what she said about me finding the island, and the promise that she drew from me, that I would find 'what was left of her' out there.

”Pops looked as grave as ever when he spoke. His voice was listless. 'Don't go looking for that island. You can pretty d.a.m.n well gauge that by now that island's gone. The swamp's swallowed it, and if you see this d.a.m.ned ghost again, you make the Sign of the Cross.'

” 'That's what you should have done, all right,' said Big Ramona, 'and she wouldn't have had any power because she came from h.e.l.l.'

” 'But how could she get out of h.e.l.l to come to me?' I asked.