words were spoken in Aaron's presence. Joshua had been young, and one of us.
She laughed a low, carnal laugh. 'Course you can do women, too, if they're young enough, can't you?' she asked viciously.
'Where do you come from, Honey in the Sunshine?' I demanded.
'Don't call her by name,' Aaron whispered.
'Oh, that's good advice, but it don't matter. I'm staying right where I am. Now let's talk about you and that boy, Joshua. Seems he was mighty young when you—.'
'Stop it,' I said sharply.
'Don't talk to it, David,' said Aaron under his breath. 'Don't address it. Every time you talk to it, you give it strength.' A high pealing laughter erupted from the little woman at the dressing table. She shook her head and turned her body to face us completely, the hem of the slip riding up on her naked thighs.
'I'd say he was eighteen maybe,' she said, looking at me with blazing eyes as she took the cigarette off her lip. 'But you didn't know for sure, did you, David? You just knew you had to have him.'
'Get out of Merrick,' I said. 'You don't belong in Merrick.'
'Merrick's my sister!' she flashed. 'I'll do what I want with her. She drove me crazy from the cradle, always reading my mind, telling me what I thought, telling me I made my own trouble, always blaming everything on me!' She scowled at me and leant forward. I could see her nipples.
'You give yourself away for what you are,' I said. 'Or is it what you were?' Suddenly she rose from the dressing table, and the left hand, free of the cigarette, swept all the bottles and the lamp off the right side of the table, with one fine blow.
There was a roar of shattered glass. The lamp went out with a loud spark. Two or more of the bottles were broken. The carpet was littered with sharp fragments. The room was filled with a powerful perfume. She stood before us, her hand on her hip, the cigarette held high. She looked down at the bottles.
'Yeah, she likes those things!' she said.
Her posture became ever more suggestive, mocking. 'And you do like what you see, don't you, David? She's just young enough for you. She's got some of the little boy left in her, don't she? Great Nananne knew you and what you wanted. And I know you too.'
Her face was full of anger and very beautiful.
'You killed Joshua, didn't you?' she said in a low voice, eyes suddenly narrow, as if she was peering into my soul. 'You let him go on that climb in the Himalayas—.' She pronounced the word as I would have said it. 'And you knew it was dangerous but you loved him so much, you couldn't say no.'
I could say nothing. The pain in me was too intense. I tried to banish all thoughts of Joshua. I tried not to think of the day when they had brought his body back to London. I tried to focus on the girl before me.
'Merrick,' I said with all the strength I could muster, 'Merrick, drive her out.'
'You want me, and so do you, Aaron,' she continued, the grin making her checks supple, her face flushing. 'Either one of you'd tack me to that mattress if you thought you could.'
I said nothing.
'Merrick,' said Aaron loudly. 'Cast her out. She means you no good, darling, cast her out!'
'You know what Joshua was thinking about you when he fell off that cliff?' she said.
'Stop it!' I cried.
'He was hating you for sending him, hating you for saying yes, he could go!'
'Liar!' I said. 'Get out of Merrick.'
'Don't you shout at me, Mister,' she blazed back. She glanced down at the broken glass and tapped her ashes into it.
'Now let's just see about fixing her good.'
She took a step forward, right into the mess of broken glass and overturned bottles that lay between us. I advanced on the figure.
'Stay back.'
I seized her by the shoulders and forced her backwards. But it took all of my strength. Her skin was moist with sweat, and she squirmed out of my grasp.
'You don't think I can walk on glass in bare feet? ' she said right in my face as she struggled to resist me. 'You stupid old man,' she went on, 'now why would I want to cut Merrick's foot?' I took hold of her, crushing the glass under my shoes.
'You're dead, aren't you, Honey in the Sunshine? You're dead, and you know it, and this is all the life you can get!' For one moment the beautiful face went blank. The girl appeared to be Merrick. Then the eyebrows were raised again. The lids assumed their languid expression, making the eyes glitter.
'I'm here and I'm staying here.'
'You're in the grave, Honey in the Sunshine,' I answered. 'That is, the body you want is in the grave, and all you've got is a vagrant spirit, now isn't that so!'
A look of fear flittered across her expression, and then the face hardened once more, as she freed herself from my hands.
'You know nothing about me, Mister,' she said. She was baffled, as spirits often are. She couldn't keep the cocky expression on Merrick's face. Indeed, the whole body shuddered suddenly. The true Merrick was struggling.
'Come back, Merrick, throw her off, Merrick,' I said. I stepped forward once again. She moved back and towards the foot of the high bed. She turned the cigarette in her hand. She meant to jab me with it.
'You bet your life I do,' she said, reading my thoughts. 'I wish I had something I could really hurt you with. But I guess I'll have to settle for hurting her!'
She glanced about the room.
It was all I needed. I advanced on her and caught her by the shoulders, desperate to keep hold of her in spite of the sweat that covered her and her writhing to escape.
She shrieked. 'You stop that, lemme go!' And she managed to grind the cigarette into the side of my face. I reached for her hand, grabbed it and twisted it until she dropped the cigarette. She slapped me hard, so that for one moment I felt faint. Nevertheless, I held on to her slippery shoulders.
'That's it,' she cried. 'Hurt her, break her bones, why don't you just do that? Think it will make Joshua come back?
Think he'll be any older for you, David, think it will make everything right?'
'Get out of Merrick!' I shouted. I could still hear the broken glass under my shoes. She was perilously close to it. I shook her hard, her head flopping from side to side.
She convulsed, wrenching free, and again there came a slap of awesome strength that all but knocked me off balance. For one split second I couldn't see.
I lunged at her and lifted her under the arms and threw her back on the bed. I knelt on the bed over her, gripping her still. She was struggling to reach my face.
'Let her go, David,' Aaron cried out behind me. And I heard the voice of Mary, suddenly, that other loyal member, begging me not to twist her wrist so hard.
Her fingers struggled to reach my eyes.
'You're dead, you know you are, you've got no right here,' I roared at her. 'Say it, you're dead, you're dead, and you've got to let Merrick go.'
I felt her knee against my chest.
'Great Nananne, get her out!' I said.
'How dare you!' she screamed. 'You think you can use my godmother against me.' She caught my hair with her left hand and yanked at it.
Still I shook her.
And then I drew back, I let her go, and I called upon my own spirit, my own soul to make itself into a powerful instrument, and it was with that invisible instrument that I plunged towards her, striking her at the heart so that she lost her breath.
