Merrick

Two other rather vicious little characters flanked the large statue of St. Peter. And there before them lay the green jade hummingbird perforator, or knife, one of the most beautiful artifacts in Merrick's large cache. The gorgeous axe of obsidian which I had seen years ago was given a place of prominence between the Virgin Mary and the Arc Angel Michael. It had a lovely luster in the dim light.

But perhaps the most surprising contents of the altar were the daguerreotypes and old photographs of Merrick's people, ranged thickly as any display upon a parlor piano, the multitude of faces lost in the gloom. A double row of candles burned before the entire array, and there were fresh flowers aplenty, in numerous vases. Everything appeared dusted and quite clean. That is, until I realized that the shriveled hand had its place among the offerings. It stood out against the white marble, curled and hideous, very much as it had seemed when I first saw it long ago.

'For old times' sake?' I asked, gesturing to the altar.

'Don't be absurd,' she said under her breath. She lifted a cigarette to her lips. I saw by the box on the little table that it was Rothmans, Matthew's old brand. My old brand as well. I knew her to be a smoker now and then, rather like I was myself.

Nevertheless, I found myself looking hard at her. Was she really my beloved Merrick? My skin had begun to crawl, as they say, a feeling I detest.

'Merrick?' I asked.

When she looked up at me, I knew it was she and no one else inside her handsome young body, and I knew that she wasn't very drunk at all.

'Sit down, David, my dear,' she said sincerely, almost sadly. 'The armchair's comfortable. I'm really glad you came.' I was much relieved by the familiarity of her tone. I crossed the room, in front of her, and settled in the armchair from which I could easily see her face. The altar loomed over my right shoulder, with all those tiny photographic faces staring at me, as they had long ago. I found that I did not like it, did not like the many indifferent saints and the subdued Wise Men, though I had to admit that the spectacle was dazzling to my eyes.

'Why must we go off to these jungles, Merrick?' I asked. 'Whatever made you decide to drop everything for such an idea?'

She didn't answer immediately. She took a drink of rum from her glass, her eyes focused on the altar. This gave me time to note that a huge portrait of Oncle Vervain hung on the far wall beside the door through which I'd entered the room.

I knew it at once to be an expensive enlargement of the likeness Merrick had revealed to us years ago. The processing had been true to the sepia tones of the portrait, and Oncle Vervain, a young man in his prime, resting his elbow comfortably on the Greek column, appeared to be staring directly at me with bold brilliant light eyes. Even in the shuddering gloom, I could see his handsome broad nose and beautifully shaped full lips. As for the light eyes, they gave the face a certain frightening aspect, though I wasn't certain whether or not I ought to have felt such a thing.

'I see you came to continue the argument,' Merrick said. 'There can be no argument for me, David. I have to go and now.'

'You haven't convinced me. You know very well I won't let you journey into that part of the world without the support of the Talamasca, but I want to understand—.'

'Oncle Vervain is not going to leave me alone,' she said quietly, her eyes large and vivid, her face somewhat dark against the low light of the distant hall. 'It's the dreams, David. Truth is, I've had them for years, but never the way they come now. Maybe I didn't want to pay attention. Maybe I played, even in the dreams themselves, as if I didn't understand.'

It seemed to me that she was three times as fetching as I had remembered. Her simple dress of violet cotton was belted tightly at the waist, and the hem barely covered her knees. Her legs were lean and exquisitely shaped. Her feet, the toenails painted a bright shiny violet to match the dress, were bare.

'When precisely did the onslaught of dreams begin?'

'Spring,' she replied a little wearily. 'Oh, right after Christmas. I'm not even sure. Winter was bad here. Maybe Aaron told you. We had a hard freeze. All the beautiful banana trees died. Of course they came right back up as soon as the spring warmth arrived. Did you see them outside?'

'I didn't notice, darling. Forgive me,' I replied.

She resumed as if I hadn't answered.

'And that's when he came to me the most clearly,' she said. 'There was no past or future in the dream, then, only Oncle Vervain and me. We were in this house together, he and I, and he was sitting at the dining room table —.' She gestured to the open door and the spaces beyond it, '—and I was with him. And he said to me, 'Girl, didn't I tell you to go back there and get those things?' He went into a long story. It was about spirits, awful spirits that had knocked him down a slope so that he cut his head. I woke up in the night and wrote down everything I remembered, but some of it was lost and maybe that was meant to be.'

'Tell me what else you remember now.'

'He said it was his mother's great-grandfather who knew of that cave,' she responded. 'He said that the old man took him there, though he himself was scared of the jungle. Do you know how many years back that would be? He said he never got to go back there. He came to New Orleans and got rich off Voodoo, rich as anybody can get off Voodoo. He said you give up your dreams the longer you live, until you've got nothing.'

I think I winced at those choice and truthful words.

'I was seven years old,' she said, 'when Oncle Vervain died under this roof His mother's great-grandfather was a brujo among the Maya. You know, that's a witch doctor, a priest of sorts. I can still remember Oncle Vervain using that word.'

'Why does he want you to go back?' I asked her.

She had not removed her eyes from the altar. I glanced in that direction and realized that a picture of Oncle Vervain was there too. It was small, frameless, merely propped at the Virgin's feet.

'To get the treasure,' she said in her low, troubled voice. 'To bring it here. He says there's something there that will change my destiny. But I don't know what he means.' She gave one of those characteristic sighs of hers. 'He seems to think I'll need it, this object, this thing. But what do spirits know?'

'What do they know, Merrick?' I asked.

'I can't tell you, David,' she replied raggedly. 'I can only tell you that he haunts me. He wants me to go there and bring back those things.'

'You don't want to do this,' I said. 'I can tell by your entire manner. You're being haunted.'

'It's a strong ghost, David,' she said, her eyes moving over the distant statues. 'They're strong dreams.' She shook her head. 'They're so full of his presence. God, how I miss him.' She let her eyes drift. 'You know,' she said, 'when he was very old, his legs were bad. The priest came; he said Oncle Vervain didn't have to go to Sunday Mass anymore. It was too hard. Yet every Sunday, Oncle Vervain got dressed in his best three-piece suit, and always with his pocket watch, you know, the little gold chain in front and the watch in the little pocket—and he sat in the dining room over there listening to the broadcast of Mass on the radio and whispering his prayers. He was such a gentleman. And the priest would come and bring him Holy Communion in the afternoon.

'No matter how bad his legs were, Oncle Vervain knelt down for Holy Communion. I stood in the front door until the priest was gone and the altar boy. Oncle Vervain said that our church was a magic church because Christ's Body and Blood was in Holy Communion. Oncle Vervain said I was baptized: Merrick Marie Louise Mayfair— consecrated to the Blessed Mother. They spelled it the French way, you know: M-e-r-r-i-q-u-e. I know I was baptized. I know.' She paused. I couldn't bear the suffering in her voice or in her expression. If only we had located that baptismal certificate, I thought desperately, we might have prevented this obsession.

'No, David,' she said aloud, sharply correcting me. 'I dream of him, I tell you. I see him holding that gold watch.' She settled back into her reverie, though it gave her no consolation. 'How I loved that watch, that gold watch. I was the one who wanted it, but he left it to Cold Sandra. I used to beg him to let me look at it, to let me turn its hands to correct it, to let me snap it open, but no, he said, 'Merrick, it doesn't tick for you, cherie, it ticks for others.' And Cold Sandra got it. Cold Sandra took it with her when she left.'

'Merrick, these are family ghosts. Don't we all have family ghosts?'

'Yes, David, but it's my family, and my family was never very much like anyone else's family, was it, David? He comes in the dreams and tells me about the cave.'