Cree got control of her breathing. 'I'm sorry, Paul. I'm – I'm upset, I'm in shock. I'm all over the place.'
'I've been wanting to call you.'
The anger flared again, different this time: 'Then why the hell didn't you?
'I wasn't retreating. I wasn't hiding. I just had some things of my own to sort out, and I needed to think about what you told me. I thought you deserved that. I wasn't sure what I'd say when I saw you again.'
'So did you figure it out?' Still angry.
'Some, anyway. But I don't want to talk now. Not here. I'd rather wait for… happier circumstances. One thing at a time.'
Part of her wanted to rage at him again, part of her wanted to give up and cry and put her face against his chest and surrender everything and be comforted. But old reflexes kicked in, holding her back: Mike, and, yes, Edgar, who had sacrificed so many shirts to Cree's tears. Suddenly she missed Ed terribly. If he'd been here, Cree would have let it all go, it would be simple. He'd seen it all, she didn't need to impress him or pretend anything. It was too complex with Paul.
He was right, though: one thing at a time. She nodded, but still he was looking at her warily, as if he were the one needing some reassurance. He did look stubbly and funky.
After a while she reached over and began unbuttoning his shirt. It was tricky with the sore finger. He didn't pull away or try to stop her, though he gave her a questioning eyebrow.
'You've got your shirt buttoned wrong,' she explained.
He let her continue, and the moment felt very intimate.
By general consent a drink was called for, and of course Paul knew a bar for the occasion, even at two A.M. It was a battered-looking place in a charmingly decrepit district on Magazine Street. Even at this hour, there were at least a dozen other customers, making a soothing mutter of conversation. They took a table near the windows in front, and Cree and Paul ordered bottles of Jax beer; Joyce couldn't resist ordering a gaudy, oversized, New Orleans tourist drink. Cree's splinted finger stuck out awkwardly as she gripped her bottle.
The endorphins were wearing off, and the industrial-strength ibuprofen they'd given her hadn't kicked in yet, so every part of her body was starting to stiffen and complain. But that hot little flame still flared, blue-white, at her center – the hunger to understand and the sense that the mystery was at last becoming accessible.
The flame had an ugly green tinge, too: hatred of the boar-headed man.
'Paul, I need you to tell me some more about Mardi Gras. Particularly Epicurus. You're a member, right?'
'Yeah. I'm not the most fanatical participant by any means, though. Some of the society rites and traditions strike me as juvenile and they get old after a few decades. But it can be a lot of fun.'
'So, what,' Joyce asked, 'a krewe is like a secret society? Like the KKK?'
Paul chuckled, shook his head. 'Hardly! More of a civic group. Some of the more historic krewes cling to the trappings of mystery, the image of a secret brotherhood, but nowadays it's a halfhearted effort. Epicurus is like most krewes, pretty straightforward. Mainly, you just plan festivities at Carnival. Anybody can join Epicurus – if they can afford it. Meetings use Robert's Rules of Order, the secretary takes minutes, all very legit. Meetings are full of gossip and pranks, fraternal put-downs, and talk about money. You plan a few parties, build a float, do the Mardi Gras parade. That's it. Really, a krewe here is not so different from, oh, a softball team in other cities. In Seattle, you probably have gay teams and women's teams and office teams and all-lawyer teams, right? Basically the same thing.'
'Give me a more psychological perspective. A more sociological one.' Cree winced at the pain of talking and held the cold bottle against the bruises on her jaw.
Paul made a tired smile through a shadow of beard. 'You know, I've never really thought about it – it's just what we do hereabouts? But let's see… The idea of a period of feasting before Lent is probably a Christian modification of older rites that go way back to pre-Christian times. Probably has roots in ancient fertility rites, that would account for the libidinous overtones here – the tradition of women baring their breasts and so on. Very sexualized. In New Orleans, it's an excuse to get together with people of your social sphere – in Epicurus's case, other rich people, or at least people from established families – and get plastered. You have masked parties at various members' houses. You indulge in extramarital flirtations, maybe even risk a quick fling. You make minor fools of yourselves, enough to show that though you're an aristocrat, your blood still runs hot, you know how to cut loose and have a good time. You provide yourselves with a year's worth of gossip that lubricates business and social transactions. There're status issues, too. You compete with other krewes for public profile and within your own membership for the role of king.'
'The parties get pretty uninhibited?'
'In Epicurus? Not as extreme as some, not by a long shot. But, sure, that's the point. That's the psychology of the mask – you can act out in ways you wouldn't if people knew who you were. Of course, most people settle into the same costumes, the same roles, year after year, so everybody more or less knows who's who after a while. At this point, it's just part of the ritual of license or disinhibition.'
Cree was trying to see how the boar-masked rapist theory fit with the social lives of the Beaufortes of 1971 or '72. Clearly, she didn't yet know enough. Charmian knew the answers, she was sure, but would never reveal them.
Joyce had been frowning, at what Paul was saying or at her own thoughts. 'I've got a question for you, Cree,' she said at last. She sounded reluctant to bring it up. 'We've talked about this over the years, but this boar- headed guy is going to stretch the principle. You always say experiences of the living can linger too, right?'
'If they're intense enough.'
'Paul, you're probably skeptical, but just bear with me here, okay? Cree, this is a very physical ghost. He makes noise when he runs? You felt his hands on you?'
A shiver of revulsion shook Cree. 'Yeah.'
'And that's very rare,' Joyce explained to Paul. 'The most common manifestation of kinetic activity is poltergeists, which can move objects around, throw things, break things – '
'I see where you're going with this!' Cree felt a twinge of excitement. 'Paul, poltergeist activity generally manifests around living adolescents, often girls in their early teens. They don't seem to consciously be doing it, but they are able to manifest psychokinetic activity. It's not a well-understood phenomenon. But Joyce's point is that poltergeists are an example of a living person manifesting a paranormal entity. Or paranormal activity, anyway. There's plenty of historical precedent for the idea – in the old days, it was considered one of the standard activities of witches. The so-called witches of Salem were supposedly able to manifest 'specters' that tormented the witnesses. There are a few contemporary examples in the literature, but I've always taken them with a grain of salt.'
To his credit, Paul was willing to suspend disbelief and entertain the concept. 'Meaning that maybe this ghost is not the… residuum of a dead person – he's an unconscious expression of some living person. Of someone's psychotic sexual sadism and anger.' He tugged absently at his hair, pulling it into standing tufts, and Cree sensed he was frustrated at having his belief tested still further.
She felt the same way. True, the universe was a strange place, and human consciousness was the strangest thing in it. But this idea was getting very far out. It opened up too many possibilities. Yes, Cree felt the accumulated emotions and experiences of the living, but it had always been… impressionistic, a collage of synesthesic sensations, a 'mood,' an intuitive knowledge – not seeing znc feeling a distinct entity! On the other hand, the specter idea would explain the most troubling aspect of the boar-headed ghost, the lack of a perimortem resonance. If Joyce was right, the answer would be that there was no echo of a dying experience because the creature's originator hadn't died.
Just thinking about it, she felt a reprise of that vertigo she'd felt in midair over the stairwell. Free fall.
But it was not without parallels or precedent. Even Paul seemed troubled by the idea, and they all seemed to need a moment to think about it. Then Cree wondered: the boar-headed ghost as an unconscious expression of some living person's psychosis – what had given Joyce the idea in the first place?
After another moment, she turned to Joyce. 'I take it you had an. .. interesting evening with Ronald Beauforte?'
