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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.
Get out, get out, get out! I commanded her with all the strength of my soul. I felt myself against her. I felt her collective power, as though there were no body to house it. I felt her resist. I had lost all contact with my own body. Get out of Merrick. Go!
A sob broke loose from her.
"There's no grave for us, you bastard, you devil," she cried. "There's no grave for me or my mother! You can't make me leave here!"
I looked down into her face, though where my own body had fallen¡ªonto the floor or onto the bed¡ªI didn't know.
Call on God under any name and go towards him! I told her. Leave those bodies wherever they lie, do you hear me, leave them and go on. Now! It's your chance!
Suddenly the strength that was resisting me contracted, and I felt its intense pressure dissolve. For one moment I thought I saw it, an amorphous shape rising above me. Then I realized I was lying on the floor.
I was staring up at the ceiling. And I could hear Merrick, our Merrick crying once more.
"They're dead, Mr. Talbot, they're dead, Cold Sandra's dead and so is Honey in the Sunshine, my sister, Mr. Talbot, they're both dead, they've been dead since they left New Orleans, Mr. Talbot, all those four years of waiting, and they were dead the first night in Lafayette, Mr. Talbot, they're dead, dead, dead. "
Slowly I climbed to my feet. There were cuts from the broken glass on my hands. I was physically sick.
The child on the bed had shut her eyes. Her lips weren't sneering, they were stretched back as she continued her plaintive wails.
Mary was quick to lay a thick robe over her. Aaron was at her side. She rolled on her back and made a face suddenly.
"I'm sick, Mr. Talbot," she said hoarsely.
"This way," I turned her over, away from the perilous glass, and lifted her and carried her into the bathroom in my arms. She leant over the sink, and the vomit poured out of her.
I was shuddering all over. My clothes were drenched.
Mary urged me to step aside. It seemed quite outrageous to me for a moment, and then I realized how it must have seemed to Mary.
And so I withdrew.
When I glanced at Aaron I was amazed at the expression on his face. He had seen many cases of possession. They are all terrible, each in its own way.
We waited in the hallway until Mary told us we might come in.
Merrick was dressed in a white cotton gown to receive us, her hair brushed to a marvelous brown luster, and her eyes rimmed in red, but otherwise quite clear. She was in the armchair in the corner, under the light of the tall lamp.
Her feet were safely protected with white satin slippers. But all the glass was gone. Indeed the dressing table looked quite fine with only one lamp and all of its intact bottles.
Merrick was still trembling, however, and when I approached her, she reached out and clasped my hand.
"Your shoulders will hurt for a little while," I said apologetically.
"Here's how they died," she said, looking at me and then at Aaron. "They went with all that money to buy a new car. The man who sold it to them picked them up, you know, and he went with them to Lafayette, and there he killed them for the cash they had. He knocked them both hard over the head. "
I shook my head.
"Four years ago, it happened," she said, going on intently, her mind on her story and nothing else. "It happened the very next day after they left. He beat them in a motel room in Lafayette and put their bodies in that car and drove it into the swamps. That car just filled up with water. If they woke up, they drowned. There's nothing left of either one of them now. "
