Blackwood Farm Part 24

"The funeral was enormous. It began with a long evening wake in Ruby River City to which all manner of people came, including shop owners, repairmen, carpenters, woodworkers --in summary, the many, many people in all walks of life whom Pops had known and who were devoted to him.

"I was staggered by the sheer number of young boys and young men who looked up to Pops and said he'd been like a father or uncle to them. It seemed that everyone respected Pops and he was much more well known than I had ever imagined.

"Ugly Henderson and his whole clan were there, and so were the Dirty Hodges, all cleaned up, which had never happened before, their only bathtub being full of greasy auto parts. Sheriff Jeanfreau was crying.

"As for Patsy's absence, it was a total scandal. And the excuse that she had a show she had to work in Tennessee didn't cut her any slack with anybody. People had not only expected her to be at the funeral, they had expected her to sing.

"As it was, we hired an elderly woman who all but worshiped Pops for the handyman favors he'd done for her over the years, and she did just fine.

"Next morning when the procession set out for St. Mary's a.s.sumption Church in New Orleans, the church in which Sweetheart and Pops had been married, people everywhere on the sidewalks of Ruby River City stopped out of respect.

"There was an old workman in a straw hat up on a ladder fixing something on the side of his house, and he stopped and took off his hat and held it to his chest as we pa.s.sed. That single gesture will remain in my mind forever.

"Then to the Requiem Ma.s.s in St. Mary's there came another horde, many of them the country people who'd been at the wake, and hundreds of them being Sweetheart's side of the family, the New Orleans Mardi Gras crowd, and the procession had more cars than I could count when it went to the Metairie Cemetery to leave Pops' coffin with all the appropriate prayers at the open chapel vault.

"The sun was pounding down on us out there, in spite of the few lovely oaks that gave a little 136.

shade, but mercifully Fr. Kevin Mayfair was brief, and everything that he said, both at the church and at the cemetery, was heartfelt and fresh. I think when I heard him speak of it I believed again in eternal life, and I felt my panic was a sin against G.o.d, a sin of atheism.

"Optimism was a virtue; and the despair, the terror I often felt --it was a sin. As for the ghosts I saw, maybe that was somehow a gift from G.o.d. Maybe there would be a use for it.

"As for the mysterious stranger, he would be apprehended. Or he would move on, away from Sugar Devil Island to some other out-of-the-way place.

"I know how melodramatic that sounds, but I didn't fully understand my panic, and I don't now.

"Of course, Goblin was at the funeral --just as he had been at Sweetheart's funeral --he knelt beside me in church and he stood right at my side when others would permit, but I came to realize something as we stood before the little family mortuary chapel.

"What I came to understand was that Goblin's face was becoming more and more reflective of complex emotions. He had always made faces of sorts, but in general he looked blank and amazed. Only now, this was changing.

"What I remember from the funeral was that he seemed to have the face of a distinct character, a mingled confusion and wonder and a sharp attention to others present, his eyes roaming the crowd and frequently settling on Fr. Kevin Mayfair.

"Watching Goblin's eyes move, watching him take the measure of the crypt, all this had a hypnotic fascination for me. And when he looked back at me, to see that I watched, he smiled in a rather sad and sophisticated fashion.

"That's what it was --a sophisticated fashion. And when had Goblin ever seemed more than a clown? Out there in the Metairie Cemetery he didn't look like a clown at all, and he seemed also rather detached from me and my emotions.

"I didn't think too much more about it.

"But before we leave the funeral, let me dwell on Fr. Kevin Mayfair. Fr. Kevin Mayfair was superb. He was an inspiration. He looked too young to be a priest, as I've more or less already noted, and on that day he didn't look any older.

"And for the first time I noticed how really handsome he was. I felt awakened to his red hair and green eyes and his good build. I'd say he's six feet tall about. And his manner of speaking was utterly convincing. That he believed Pops had gone to Heaven was beyond doubt.

"And a young priest that strong --well, it's an inspiration. I felt drawn to him, I felt I could go to Confession to him and tell him some of the things that were wrong with me.

"After the funeral we returned to Blackwood Manor for a huge reception to which dozens of the country folk came. The buffets overflowed with ca.s.serole dishes of food which the neighbors had brought, and fabulous dishes which Big Ramona and Jasmine had cooked up, and the two paying guests we had on the premises were honored to be asked to join in with us.

"Big Ramona's two sons, who had gone out into the world, as we always said --George, a dentist in Shreveport, and Yancy, a lawyer in New Orleans --were there with their wives, lending us all a hand with the food. And there were some half dozen or more of the black cousins there too.

"The security guards were everywhere, un.o.btrusively eyeing anyone or everyone and conferring with me repeatedly as to the 'mysterious stranger,' but I saw no one whom I could connect to that being.

"Repeatedly throughout the long ordeal Aunt Queen broke down and sobbed and said that n.o.body should have to bury a great-nephew and she didn't know why she had lived so long. I'd never seen her so broken. She made me think of a lily trod underfoot.

"At one point it seemed that everybody was talking about Patsy's absence but I was probably imagining it. I had just said too many times that Patsy couldn't possibly make it, and each time I found myself saying it I felt myself disliking Patsy a little more.

"As for the confession of her being HIV, I didn't know whether or not I believed her.

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"At last the long funeral day was over.

"The paying guests checked out early, insisting that they were more than happy to do it and wanted to go off to gamble at the casinos on the Gulf Coast anyway.

"A quiet fell over Blackwood Manor. The armed guards took their positions, but the house and the land seem to swallow them.

"The dusk came on, with the grinding song of the cicadas in the oak trees and the rising of the evening star.

"Aunt Queen lay crying on her bed. Cindy, her nurse, sat beside her holding her hand. Jasmine lay behind her, rubbing her back.

"Big Ramona packed up food into the refrigerator in the kitchen.

"I went upstairs alone. I sat down in my reading chair, there, by the fireplace, and I fell into a doze. The panic was never bad enough to stop a doze. And hard as it had been, I was deliciously tired now and elated to be alone.

"At once, as sleep came down over me, Rebecca was with me and she said in my ear, 'I know how bad you feel.' Then the scene dissolved and I saw her being dragged by a shadowy figure towards the chains, I saw her lace-up shoe bouncing on the bare floorboards and I heard her scream.

"I woke with a start.

"The computer keys were clicking.

"I stared at the computer desk. The gooseneck lamp was on! I could see my double sitting there --see his back, the back of his head and his shoulders and arms as he worked, and there persisted: the clicking.

"Before I could rise the sound stopped, and he turned, turned as a human couldn't turn, and looked at me over his right shoulder. He wore no grin or mournful expression, only a vaguely startled look.

"As I rose from my chair he vanished.

"The message on the computer screen was long: " 'I know all the words you know, words you type. Pops dead like Lynelle and Sweetheart. Dead, gone, not in the body. Sadness. Spirit gone. Body left. Body washed. Body painted. Body empty. Spirit is life. This life. Life gone. Why does life leave body? People say don't know. I don't know. Quinn sad. Quinn cry. Aunt Queen cry. I am sad. But danger is coming. Danger on island. I see danger. Don't forget. Rebecca is bad. Danger to Quinn. Quinn will leave Goblin.'

"Immediately I typed out the answer. 'Listen to me,' I said aloud as I wrote. 'I will never leave you. The only thing that could part us is for me to die, and then, yes, my spirit would leave my body and I would be gone, I don't know where. Now ask yourself again, Where did the spirit of Lynelle go?

Where did the spirit of Sweetheart go? Where did the spirit of Pops go?'

"I sat waiting and there was no answer.

"Then the keys before me began to move. He typed out: 'Where did these spirits come from?'

"I felt a tightening, a keen sense that I had to be careful. I wrote: 'Bodies are born into the world. Remember when I was a newborn? A baby? Bodies are born into the world with the spirit in them, and when those bodies die the spirit leaves.'

"Silence.

"Then the keys moved again: 'Where did I come from?'

"I felt a dull fear. It was the panic breaking through, but it was something more as well. I typed out: " 'Don't you know where you came from? Don't you know who you were before you became my Goblin?'

'No.'

" 'You must remember something,' I typed. 'You must have been somewhere.'

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" 'Were you somewhere?' he asked. 'Before you were Quinn?'

" 'No. I had my beginnings when I was born,' I wrote. 'But you are a spirit. Where were you?

Were you with somebody else? Why did you come to me?'

"There was a long pause, very long, so long that I almost rose from the desk and moved off, but then the clicking keys came again: " 'I love Quinn,' the writing said. 'Quinn and Goblin one together.'

" 'Yes,' I said out loud. 'We are, one together.'

"The machine was clicked off. The gooseneck lamp flicked on and off twice and then went dark.

"My heart was pounding. What was happening to Goblin? And how could I confide to anyone in this world about him, what with Pops dead and everything at Blackwood Farm hanging in the balance? To whom could I go to say this spirit is taking on new strength?

"For some period of time I sat there, and then I turned on the machine and asked: " 'Danger, this danger you speak of, is it from the stranger who came into this room?'

"No answer.

" 'What did you see when you saw the stranger? What did he look like to you? You must remember that to my eyes he was only a dark shape. Goblin, listen. Tell me.'

"A breeze sifted through the room, something chilling against my cheek --but no answer. He didn't have the strength. He had done enough for one day. Or he didn't want to answer. Whatever the case, there was only the silence now.

"I was no longer sleepy, only tired, and a deep sweet exhaustion swallowed up my grief and my panic. I wanted to fold down into my wing chair by the fireplace and sleep again, safe in the knowledge that there were armed guards around the property and the mysterious stranger couldn't harm me. But I couldn't do that.

"No, Little Lord Tarquin was the man of Blackwood Manor now.

"I went downstairs to see to Aunt Queen.

"Fr. Kevin Mayfair was in her room, seated by the bed, talking softly to her. He was wearing his severe and spotless clerical black along with his white Roman collar.

"And when I watched him from the door, I knew for the first time that I found both men and women erotically beautiful. Rebecca in the lace-trimmed bed, Goblin in the warm steamy thunderstorm of the shower. Fr. Kevin Mayfair with that dark curly red hair and those green eyes and not a freckle on his pale face. Men and women.

"I went out back and walked way over to the right to the bungalow in which Jasmine, Ramona, Clem and Lolly lived. Jasmine was in her green-painted rocking chair, just rocking and smoking.

"I was in a daze. I tried not to notice Jasmine's b.r.e.a.s.t.s in her tight shirt. I tried not to look at the front seam of her jeans. When she turned away from me to exhale I saw the light down the line of her throat to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Beautiful woman. Aged thirty-five. What were my chances? Like, maybe if I sold her a bill of goods that I doubted my manhood???

"Oh, that was a lovely thought. Wonderfully comforting. And where could we do it? Just go over to the shed, go up the steps and do it in Patsy's bed? I rolled that dream around for a moment. You don't get HIV from a bed. What if --and then --and so --and I felt the panic when I looked at the dim house --they had forgotten the four o'clock lights.

" 'What's going to happen now?' I asked.

" 'Come sit with me, little boy lost,' she said. 'I've been asking myself that very question.' "

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17.

"FOR THE NEXT WEEK I was under lock and key, or armed escort.

"I didn't find out about it until the morning after Pops' funeral, when I tried to leave my room and discovered I had a security guard with me, pledged to go where I would go.

"I didn't too terribly mind, since I alone knew how real the mysterious stranger had been and I didn't want to be shocked by him. But I made a nuisance of myself by warning everyone about the dangers of the island.

"Our investigations proceeded rapidly, and I know that I focused on them to escape the pure horror of Pops' death --the loss of the only man who had ever been my father. We had the reading of his will to attend to, and I was dreadfully concerned that he might have cut out Patsy altogether. If I had been left anything at all I resolved to split it with Patsy or at least to give her some of it.

"Meantime she was still out roaming the South, playing beer joints and small clubs, and Aunt Queen was desperately chasing after her by phone, trying to get her to come back so we could all face what Pops had done, whatever it was.

"Now let me return to the investigation.

"Regarding the mysterious letter, Mayfair Medical's laboratory could find no discernible fingerprints on it and reported that the brand of paper was rare, marketed in Europe and not in the United States, the ink was India ink and that the writing did not indicate any pathology and might have been done by a woman or a man. They noted further that the writer had used a quill pen, pressing down uncommonly hard for such an instrument, implying that the letter writer had been extremely sure of himself.

"In other words, they could tell almost nothing about the letter. And it had been pa.s.sed on to a true graphologist with our happy permission.

"As to the rest of our concerns, we had better luck.

"Mayfair Medical confirmed in short order that the DNA collected from the residue in the Hermitage matched the DNA in the hair found in Rebecca's trunk. The materials were very old but there had been an abundance of both and the testing had been simple.

"Aunt Queen now felt certain that Rebecca had met her death at Manfred's hands, and that my dreams weren't entirely the work of a diseased mind, if she'd ever had any doubt in the matter.

"I cleaned all those cameos found in Rebecca's trunk and the cameos I'd taken from the island. These I placed in the china cabinet on the first floor with a display card, explaining they were gifts from Manfred Blackwood to a woman with whom he had been pa.s.sionately in love. I explained the connection between Rebecca's name and the theme of the cameos, and I felt in so doing --in making this display for the public eye --I had done right by Rebecca.

"After long and intense discussion involving Aunt Queen, Jasmine and me (Aunt Queen had been bedridden since the night of Pops' burial), we agreed that we would include in the tour information that the Old Man, Manfred, was believed to have murdered a young woman with whom he was romantically involved, and her remains had only recently been discovered and properly interred.

"As to this interment, I was going to handle it, if and when allowed to do it. A small marble tombstone was ordered with the name Rebecca Stanford carved on it, and the tombstone guys had it delivered in one day. I put it down in the cemetery to wait until I could bring the remains to the spot.

"Meantime, the FBI could find no DNA material from the site which matched the material of any current missing person. Nevertheless, they were deeply courteous about having been called in, and they did confirm that the DNA of several persons was present in the evil mora.s.s and that the whole resembled an antiquated but gruesome crime scene.

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"Finally, a full week after Pops' funeral, with Aunt Queen still in bed and refusing to take any nourishment, which had me and everyone else in near critical hysteria, I set out for Sugar Devil Island at dawn with all of the eight Shed Men coming in small pirogues behind me. We all had our guns --I now carried Pops' thirty-eight --and two security men brought up the rear. Clem was with us too, and Jasmine was at my side, in her skintight jeans, with her thirty-eight pistol, determined to have a frontrow seat for everything.

"We brought with us plenty of tools to open the grand gold-and-granite tomb, and I had with me a small ornamental casket --a jewelry case, actually, which had been purchased from a gift shop --into which I meant to place whatever remained of Rebecca. The horrid collecting of her remains had to be done with a small spade. There was no way out of it.

"It was a convivial party, with Allen, the nominal leader of the Shed Men, referring to us as the Pirogue Posse, but beneath my smiles and laughter was an absolute dread as we set out to reclaim the Hermitage.

"What could I do but warn all the men of what was involved? The trespa.s.ser had had the gall to come into the house! How much they believed was a matter of conjecture.