The witching hour

“I thought we wouldn’t leave till this afternoon,” he said sleepily. “But sure, we can go now, if you want to.” Ever her agreeable hero. He gave her a soft kiss on the cheek, his unshaven beard deliciously scratchy. “How do you feel?” he whispered.

“I’m fine now,” she said. She reached out and touched the little gold crucifix tangled in the dark hair of his chest. “It was bad for about half an hour. Probably it will come again. I’ll sleep when it does. I’d love to get to Destin in time to walk on the beach in the sunshine.”

“But what about seeing a doctor before we leave?”

“I am a doctor,” she said with a smile. “And remember the special sense? It’s doing just fine in there.”

“Does the special sense tell you if he’s a boy or a girl?” he asked.

“If he is a boy or a girl?” She laughed. “I wish it did. But then maybe I want to be surprised. What about you?”

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it were twins?”

“Yes, that would be great,” she said.

“Rowan, you’re not … unhappy about the baby, are you?”

“No, God no! Michael, I want the baby. I’m just a little sick still. It comes and goes. Look, I don’t want to tell the others just yet. Not until we come back from Florida. The honeymoon will be ruined if we do.”

“Agreed.” Tentatively, he placed his warm hand on her belly. “It’s awhile yet before you feel it in there, isn’t it?”

“It’s a quarter of an inch long,” she said, smiling again. “It doesn’t weigh an ounce. But I can feel it. It’s swimming in a state of bliss, with all its tiny cells multiplying.”

“What does it look like now?”

“Well, it’s like a tiny sea being. It could stretch out on your thumbnail. It has eyes, and even clubby little hands, but no real fingers or even arms yet. Its brain is already there, at least the rudiments of the brain, already divided into two halves. And for some reason which nobody on earth can divine, all its tiny cells know what to do- they know exactly where to go to continue forming the organs which are already there, and only have to perfect themselves. Its tiny heart has been beating inside me for over a month now.”

He gave a deep, satisfied sigh. “What are we going to name it?”

She shrugged. “What about Little Chris? Would that be … too hard for you?”

“No, that would be great. Little Chris. And it will be Christopher if it’s a boy, and Christine if it’s a girl. How old will it be at Christmas?” He started to calculate.

“Well, it’s probably six to seven weeks now. Maybe eight. As a matter of fact, it could very well be eight. So that means … four months. It will have all its parts, but its eyes will still be closed. Why? You’re wondering whether it would prefer a red fire engine to a baseball bat?”

He chuckled. “No, it’s just that it’s the greatest Christmas gift I could ever have dreamed of. Christmas has always been special to me, special in almost a pagan way. And this is going to be the grandest Christmas I ever had, that is, until next year when she’s walking around and banging her little fire engine with her baseball bat.”

He looked so vulnerable, so innocent, so completely trusting in her. When she looked at him, she could almost forget what had happened last night. She could almost forget everything. She gave him a quick kiss, slipped into the bathroom, and stood against the locked door with her eyes closed.

You devil, she whispered, you’ve really timed it well, haven’t you? Do you like my hate? Is it what you’ve been dreaming of?

Then she remembered the face in the darkened kitchen, and the soft heartbroken voice, like fingers touching her. What is there in all the world for me, but pleasing Rowan?

*

They got away at about ten o’clock. Michael drove. And she felt better by that time, and managed to go to sleep for a couple of hours. When she opened her eyes, they were already in Florida, driving down through the dark pine forest from the interstate to the road that ran along the beach. She was clearheaded and refreshed, and when she caught the first glimpse of the Gulf, she felt safe, as if the dark kitchen in New Orleans and its apparition no longer existed.

The weather was cool, but no more so than any bracing summer day in northern California. They put on their heavy sweaters and strolled on the deserted beach. At sunset, they ate their supper by the fire, with the windows open to the Gulf breeze.

Some time around eight o’clock, she went to work on the plans for Mayfair Medical, continuing her study of the great “for profit” chains of hospitals, in comparison to the “not for profit” models which interested her more keenly.

But her mind was wandering. She couldn’t really concentrate on the dense articles about profit and loss, and abuses within the various systems.

At last she made a few notes and went to bed, lying for hours in the darkened bedroom while Michael worked on his restoration plans in the other room, listening to the great roar of the Gulf through the open doors, and feeling the breeze wash over her.

What was she going to do? Tell Michael and Aaron, as she had sworn to do? And then he would retreat, and play his little tricks perhaps, and the tension would increase with every passing day.

She thought of her little baby again, her fingers lying on her stomach. Probably conceived right after she’d asked Michael to marry her. She’d always been highly irregular in her seasons, and she felt that she knew the very night it had happened. She’d dreamed of a baby that night. But she couldn’t really remember.

Was it dreaming inside her? She pictured the tiny circuitry of its developing brain. No longer embryo by now, but an entire fetus. She closed her eyes, listening, feeling. All right. And then her own strong telepathic sense began to frighten her.

Had she the power within her to hurt this child? The thought was so terrifying that she couldn’t bear it. And when she thought of Lasher again, he too seemed a menace to this frail and busy little being, because he was a threat to her, and she was her baby’s entire world.

How could she protect it from her own dark powers, and from the dark history that sought to ensnare it? Little Chris. You will not grow up with curses and spirits, and things that go bump in the night. She cleared her mind of dark and turbulent thoughts; she envisioned the sea outside, crashing endlessly on the beach, no one wave like another, yet all part of the same great monotonous force, full of sweet and lulling noise and incalculable variation.

Destroy Lasher. Seduce him, yes, as he is trying to seduce you. Discover what he is and destroy him! And you’re the only one who can do it. Tell Michael or Aaron and he will retreat. You’ve got to deceive with a purpose and do it.

Four A.M. She must have slept. The irresistible hunk was lying there against her, his big heavy arm cradling her, his hand hugging her breasts. And a dream was just winking out, all full of misery and those Dutchmen in their big black hats, and a mob outside screaming for the blood of Jan van Abel.

“I describe what I see!” he had said. “I am no heretic! How are we to learn if we do not throw out the dogmas of Aristotle and Galen?”

Right you are. But it was gone now, along with that body on the table with all the tiny organs inside like flowers.

Ah, she hated that dream!

She rose and walked across the thick carpet, and out on the wooden deck. Oh, was ever a sky more vast and clear, and full of tiny twinkling stars. Pure white the foam of the black waves. As white as the sand which glowed in the moonlight.

But far down on the beach stood a lone figure, a lean tall man, looking towards her. Damn you. She saw the figure slowly thin and then vanish.

Bowing her head, she stood trembling with her hands on the wooden rail.

You’ll come when I call you.

I love you, Rowan.

With horror she realized the voice came from no direction. It was a whisper inside of her, all around her,