Blackwood Farm Part 54

" 'I'm going the way any mortal would go,' I responded.

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" 'And what will you do when you get there!' demanded Petronia, looking up at me.

" 'Live in my house as I've always done,' I said. 'Live in my room where I've always lived. Be with my family as I've always been. I'll do that as long as I can. I won't give them up.'

"Petronia rose slowly. 'But you don't know how to pretend to be human. You don't have the faintest idea.'

" 'Yes, I do,' I said. 'I watched you do it, and you're ancient by your stories and yet you managed in a roomful of people. Why should it be so hard for me? Besides, I'm determined to do it. I won't relinquish the life I had.'

" 'Won't you realize," Petronia said, 'that if you take those mortals into your secret, you'll destroy them?'

" 'I'll protect them from it with my whole heart,' I said. 'You won't make me lose my nerve.'

" 'You can't just leave here and do this, Quinn,' said Arion gently. 'Besides, why would you?

You don't belong with humans now.'

" 'Must I ask your permission?' I countered, looking him directly in the eye.

"He shrugged gracefully, just as I knew he would.

" 'No, you don't have to ask me.'

" 'I don't give a d.a.m.n what you do!' said Petronia, just as I knew she would.

"I smiled. 'Then the Hermitage is now mine?' I asked.

" 'Take it as a present from me,' she said venomously.

"I looked down at the Old Man. 'Manfred, we'll meet another night.'

" 'Be careful, my son,' he said.

"I left the room, and, finding the grand stairs of the palazzo, was soon out, walking down a narrow winding path to the city below.

"Within twenty minutes I walked into the lobby of the Hotel Excelsior, where we had stayed on three occasions on our trips to Naples, and went to the desk of the concierge. He remembered me and immediately asked after Aunt Queen.

" 'I've been robbed. Everything's gone,' I said. 'I need to make a collect call to my aunt.'

"The phone was at once placed at my disposal. And a suite was being prepared.

"It was Jasmine who answered. She began to sob. When Aunt Queen came on the line, she was d.a.m.n near hysterical.

" 'Listen,' I said. 'I can't explain this, but I'm in Naples, Italy. I need my pa.s.sport, and I need funds badly.' I told her over and over again how much I loved her and how unexpected this was, even for me, and that I would never be able to explain, but the thing now was for me to spend a decent night in the hotel and then start the flight home tomorrow evening.

"Finally Nash came on the line to give all the appropriate numbers to the cas.h.i.+er, and I was officially set up with every convenience, and I was told that airline tickets would be delivered to me. I explained to Nash that I would only travel at night --that I wanted to fly from here to Milan on an evening flight, then from Milan to London on another evening flight, and from thence to New York in one evening. From there, of course, I'd return to New Orleans.

"When I shut the door of the suite, I went into a state of shock.

"It seemed my life had been a series of escalating fears, and this fear I knew now was the worst. It was quiet and cold and worse than panic, and I felt my heart throbbing in my throat. It seemed there would never be any relief from this fear, never any relief from this pain.

"Tarquin Blackwood was dead, this I knew perfectly well. But a great remnant of me existed still, and that remnant, dazzled as I was by so many unwelcome gifts, longed only to be with Aunt Queen, with Tommy, with Jasmine, with all my beloved witnesses, my irreplaceable and adored kith and kin.

"No, I wouldn't let go of my family. No, I wouldn't go quietly from my place at Blackwood 280.

Manor and from all those whom I so loved!

"No --not without a struggle would I leave them, not without the n.o.blest attempt to remain with them for as long as I could.

"As for Mona, my beloved witch, I would never, never see her again or let her hear my voice over a phone. Never would my evil touch her, never would my true fate be known to her. Never would my pain be mixed with her pain.

"An hour must have pa.s.sed as I stood there, my back to the door, unable to move. I tried to breathe deeply. I tried not to clench my fists. I tried not to be afraid. I tried not to be in a rage.

"It was over and done with, this transformation. And I must go on. I must go home. I must do everything gently and with great conviction and love those who loved me with all my heart.

"Finally, I lay down on the bed, my throat tight, and my body full of tremors and I felt a sudden overwhelming exhaustion, and fell into a mortal sleep.

"It must have been dreamless. No Patsy, no Rebecca, though it did seem that I heard Rebecca laughing again, and that I didn't care.

"The early light awakened me like scalding water.

"At once I pulled all the draperies and their under curtains, and was soon in a sweet chilled darkness. Then I crawled under the bed, and soon lost consciousness.

"The following evening I had a temporary pa.s.sport, money in my pockets, a new American Express card and the tickets to commence the journey. As soon as I reached London I realized I had to chart a different course for home, so I made stops in Nova Scotia, Canada, and finally Newark. Then at last I was bound for New Orleans.

"During all this time, I practiced, fearfully, my skill at the Little Drink in airports, prowling the big crowds like a swamp cat, stalking this or that victim for hours before the opportune moment, that sweet moment, loving it and loathing it at the same time. There was no doubt in my mind that I looked human to people. I even looked agreeable. And in my hunting, I made no blunders. I made no kills. I never spilt a drop.

"Oh, it was an agony of fear and pleasure, drifting through a humanity I could only penetrate as a monster. And the swarming airports became h.e.l.lish, like vast sets for some existential drama. But I was fast becoming as addicted to the hunt as to the blood.

"Finally, I came down the concourse in New Orleans and Aunt Queen opened her arms and then Nash did the same and then my lovely Jasmine and my little son, Jerome, whom I picked up and kissed, crus.h.i.+ng him to me totally. And then there was Tommy, my reserved thirteen-year-old uncle, whom I so adored. I had to hug Tommy.

"If any of them found anything strange about me it was totally overwhelmed by my enthusiasm. As for how I had gotten to Italy, I promised only that someday I would tell them. Of course they raised b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, but that was all I would say.

"As we piled into the limousine to go home, they broke the news to me that Patsy had fullblown AIDS but was responding well to the medicines; however, Seymour was suing her. He had it too, and he claimed she had never told him she had it and that she had given it to him. I didn't know what to say. I thought of that dream I had, that awful dream. I couldn't get the images of the dream out of my head.

" 'How's she feel?' I asked. They said fine.

" 'How's she look?' I asked. They said fine.

" 'How's the band?' I asked. They said fine.

"That was the end of it.

"As soon as I reached the house I hugged Big Ramona and I told her I was too old to be sleeping with her anymore, and she said it was about high time for me to be saying that, that she was just waiting. She couldn't believe it when I turned down her pancakes.

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"When I finally reached my room and shut and locked the door, I felt faint and mad. But I had fooled them. I had fooled them and I was back with them. I was with them and I had their love. I began to cry.

"I cried and cried. I went into the bathroom and I saw the blood streaming down my face, and that's how I learned that we cry blood tears, and I wiped away the blood with a paper handkerchief, and I finally stopped crying, and then I realized Goblin was there.

"Goblin was sitting in my desk chair, facing me, and Goblin was a full duplicate of me right to the blood in his eyes and the blood tears streaming down his face.

"I almost cried out in terror, it was such a sight. My heart stopped beating for a moment and then caught up.

"I wiped and wiped at my face. I ran at him.

" 'Look,' I said, 'I'm wiping them away, can't you see? I'm wiping them away! Look, they're gone, the blood is gone, can't you see?' I was shouting at him, I was thundering. I had to lower my voice. 'Don't you see! The blood's gone. I wiped it away!'

"He just sat there with the blood in his eyes and the blood dripping down his cheeks and then he ran at me. He ran into me. He merged with me, and I felt myself pushed backwards against the round table and then to the side and to the foot of the bed, and I couldn't fight him off, he was in me, he was merged with me, and it felt like a pure fatal electric shock, and when he withdrew I saw him huge and filled with tiny droplets of blood, and I collapsed."

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"NOW YOU HAVE my story. You know my greatest shame, that I killed the innocent bride. You know how Goblin began his attacks on me.

"You can guess the events that happened after my homecoming. You know from this story how much I love my family. You know how much my life is enmeshed with theirs.

"I felt a great and terrible hatred for Petronia and what she had done to me! With a pa.s.sion that can only be called vengeance I pitched myself back into my human life, my mortal world, my family existence. I would not have it otherwise, unless proved to me that all suspected me and shunned me. But nothing of that sort happened.

"On the contrary, people needed me and I knew it. My strange disappearance had severely wounded Aunt Queen, Tommy, Jerome, Jasmine and even Clem and Big Ramona. I made amends with my endless apologies, though I couldn't and wouldn't explain how my disappearance had come about.

"All I could do is what I did --promise that I would never disappear again, that though I had become something of a secretive bachelor and a night creature, and though I might from time to time be off for a night or two or even three, I would always be home afterwards. And no one should ever fear for me.

"And so 'Quinn is going through a phase,' they said with laughter. But Quinn was around a lot.

"I had my room outfitted as you see it, with heavy velvet draperies, so that the light can be shut out, and there's a heavy lock on the door; but usually I spend the daylight hours in the mausoleum on Sugar Devil Island, where I feel completely safe from prying eyes, since I alone can open the crypt with ease, it having taken some five men to open it on the long-ago exciting day when we examined it.

"In a house where Aunt Queen is accustomed to rising at three p.m. and taking her six a.m.

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const.i.tutional before going to bed, my habits proved normal, and so everyone has come to a.s.sume.

"Now, Aunt Queen has admitted that she's actually eighty-five years old, not eighty, a nice little secret she kept from us when we stumbled through the ruins of Pompeii with her, but she's spry and curious and full of the capacity to enjoy life in all its richness, as you saw for yourself, and she holds court in her room every night with Cindy, the nurse, and Jasmine and various other a.s.sorted attendants, including me, especially if it's earlier in the evening, as I usually do not disappear on my nightly errands until the stroke of twelve.

"As far as the bed-and-breakfast is concerned, Jasmine was plum tuckered out, as we say around here, and simply did not want to go on with the running of it. And once we gave Tommy one of the bedrooms upstairs, and set up another one for Brittany when she came to visit, and put Nash in Pops'

old room, that left only one room for a guest, so it seemed pointless to be renting it.

"And then Patsy, who is on the frail side now, took to staying in that last front bedroom. So the bed-and-breakfast was therefore crowded right out.

"But the parish all around couldn't do without the big Christmas banquet and the Easter buffet and the azalea festival and an occasional wedding, so Jasmine still sees to that with a tremendous amount of pride, though she complains about it as if she were the local saint.

"I was in the background when the carols were sung this last year, not daring to weep, but weeping in my soul as the soprano sang 'O Holy Night' twice just for me.

"Being a madman, I also instigated a midnight dinner on Holy Sat.u.r.day-Easter Sunday morning, just because I couldn't attend the Easter buffet, and that went splendidly this year, right along with the usual afternoon buffet, drawing a whole different body of after-church guests. And I've been conniving to instigate some other late-night charity affairs and fund-raisers, it's just my brain has been a bit distracted of late.

"Tommy astonished all of us by asking of his own free will to be sent off to boarding school in England, to Eton no less, and Nash took him over and got him established, and when he calls us we all marvel that he is acquiring a British accent, and we are overjoyed. I miss him terribly. He will be coming home for the holidays sometime soon. He's now fourteen and growing tall. He still wants to lead an expedition to find the lost continent of Atlantis. I clip every article I read on the subject and mail it to him. And Nash does the same.

"Terry Sue and her children are doing well. The nanny and the housekeeper have made all the difference in their lives and things run smoothly there. Brittany and the other children are in good schools, and they will have a real chance in life. Terry Sue herself is happy. As soon as she gets her check every two weeks she goes to Wal-Mart to buy clothes and artificial flowers. Her house is absolutely chock-full of artificial flowers. It's a virtual rain forest of artificial flowers. You can't find a spot in her house to put another artificial flower. As soon as you walk in she tries to give you some old artificial flowers so she can get some new artificial flowers. She has had an operation to prevent the birth of any more children. Charlie, her gun-wielding boyfriend, after holding the entire family and the sheriff at bay with a three fifty-seven Magnum, finally shot himself in the head.

"Aunt Queen has decided that she's to be a finis.h.i.+ng school for Terry Sue, and about twice a week Terry Sue comes over to discuss clothing purchases with Aunt Queen, and Aunt Queen gives her advice on her nail polish and how to have her hair done. Brittany has also become the pet of Aunt Queen and now has a doll collection as the result of it.

"Jasmine, after a knock-down drag-out fight, allowed me to give Jerome my name, and even to have him call me Dad, but she wasn't happy about it. And then she gave in on having him driven every day into New Orleans to go to Trinity School. Jerome is very bright. Aunt Queen loves to read to him. Nash spent considerable time tutoring him. He's already making up stories of his own, which he dictates into a little tape recorder. He does it like a radio broadcast with all the sound effects.

"It deeply moves me that he's my son, and the only one I'll ever have, but I also feel a similar 283.

affection for Tommy, and I think back to what Petronia said to me in Napoli, that I could do honorable or decent things. I don't know whether or not she was thinking of such things as being the patron of mortals, but I think of it, and I feel that my work is just begun. I dream of being the patron of a pianist - you know, buying him sheet music, and paying for his records, and helping with his tuition and lessons, and things of this sort. It's a dream, but I think I can do it. I don't see why not.

"But I'm becoming distracted. Let me continue. The epilogue, yes.

"For nine months, Nash and I read d.i.c.kens together. We spent the early part of every evening at it, before I went to hunt, and while I was still safe from Goblin's attacks. We occupied the two chairs by the fireplace in Nash's room and traded off reading out loud to one another. We went back through Great Expectations Great Expectations, David Copperfield David Copperfield and and The Old Curiosity Shop The Old Curiosity Shop. We also read Hamlet Hamlet, which set me to secretly weeping about Mona, and Macbeth Macbeth, King Lear King Lear and and Oth.e.l.lo Oth.e.l.lo. We usually parted company by eleven p.m. and on those few days when Aunt Queen forced herself to endure daylight in order to shop for cameos or clothes, Nash accompanied her.

"Other nights Nash watched films with Aunt Queen, Jasmine, and Cindy, the nurse, and other a.s.sorted folks. Even Big Ramona got into the spirit of it.

"Then Nash went back out to California to finish his Ph.D. and when he returns he'll be Aunt Queen's escort again. She sorely misses him, and, as she's told you herself, she has no one just now and it hurts her.

"Patsy is doing well on the drug c.o.c.ktail they're giving her for AIDS and she's been able to do a little work with her band. We settled out of court with Seymour for a huge sum of money, but he died shortly after receiving it. Patsy's sworn she doesn't infect people. Two more lawsuits have been brought against her by former members of her band.

"All this has worn out Patsy. She likes being in the big house in the front bedroom across the hall. I don't talk to her very much because every time that I come up those steps I have the overpowering urge to kill her. Every night. I can read her mind without wanting to, and I know she has negligently run the risk of infecting numerous people with AIDS and even now she would do it except that everyone is wise to her. I feel the urge so strongly to take her life that I stay away from her.

"But let me go on.

"From the first night of my return, I have tried to increase my skill and learn my powers.

"I control my telepathy around my family, and around everyone but my victims, really, because it feels obscene to me, and also it feels like noise.

"I have traveled through the air, I have practiced speed. I have come and gone from the Hermitage to far-flung taverns and highway beer joints to hunt for drifters and Evil Doers, or to make a staple of the Little Drink, and I've been successful. Even when I've drunk my fill I've almost always left the victim alive. I've learned, as Arion said, to go with the evil, to make it part of myself for those important moments.

"I never go to hunt before midnight, and of course Goblin always attacks right afterwards. I usually don't come back to the house until his attack is over. I don't want the family in any way disturbed by what Goblin means to do. But sometimes I miscalculate.

"There have been no moral blunders on my part until tonight when I almost killed Stirling Oliver.

"But Goblin's attacks have grown ever more virulent, and as for communication with him, it is nil. He will say nothing to me. He seems to feel that in becoming what I am I have in some ma.s.sive way betrayed him, and he will take from me what he wants --the blood. And no affection or conversation is needed.

"Of course, he may also feel that he was betrayed by my long absence in Europe.

"I've tried to talk to him, but to no avail. He seldom appears. He is present only right after I feed.

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"And during this last year, as I proved to myself that I could hunt, that I could survive, that I could live with Aunt Queen and Nash and with Jasmine, that I could be with my son, that I could sneak into the human world every night of my life and then pa.s.s out of it into my grave, Goblin has grown far stronger and far more vicious, and so at last I've come to you to beg your help, and I think I've come to you out of loneliness.