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brazier disturbed me somewhat, possibly more than anything else. The cauldron seemed an evil thing.
A humming sound distracted me somewhat, because I was afraid that it came from bees. I have a very great fear of bees,
and like many members of the Talamasca, I fear some secret regarding bees which has to do with our origins, but there is
not room enough to explain here.
Allow me to continue by saying only that I quickly realized that the sound came from hummingbirds in this vast
overgrown place, and when I stood quite still beside Merrick, I fancied I saw them hovering as they do, near the fiercely
sprawling flower-covered vines of the shed roof.
"Oncle Vervain loved them," said Merrick to me in a hushed voice. "He put out the feeders for them. He knew them by
their colors and he called them beautiful names."
"I love them, too, child," I said. "In Brazil they had a beautiful name in Portuguese, 'the kisser of flowers,' " I said.
"Yes, Oncle Vervain knew those things," she told me. "Oncle Vervain had been all over South America. Oncle Vervain
could see the ghosts in the middle air all around him all the time."
She left off with these words. But I had the distinct feeling that it was going to be very difficult for her to say farewell to
this, her home. As for her use of the phrase "ghosts in the middle air," I was suitably impressed, as I had been by so much
else. Of course we would keep this house for her, of that I'd make certain. We'd have the place entirely restored if she so
wished.
She looked about herself, her eyes lingering on the iron pot on its tripod.
"Oncle Vervain could boll the cauldron," she said softly. "He put coals under it. I can still remember the smell of the
smoke. Great Nananne would sit on the back steps to watch him. Everybody else was afraid."
She went forward now and into the shed, and stood before the saints, staring at the many offerings and glittering
candles. She made the Sign of the Cross quickly and laid her right two fingers on the naked foot of the tall and beautiful
Virgin.
What were we to do?
Aaron and I stood a little behind her, and at her shoulders, like two rather confused guardian angels. There was fresh
food in the dishes on the altar. I smelled sweet perfume and rum. Obviously some of those people crowded about in the
shrubbery had brought these mysterious offerings. But I shrank back when I realized that one of the curious objects
heaped there in seeming disarray was in fact a human hand.
It was cut right before the wrist bone, and it had dried into a dreadful clench of sorts, but that was not the full horror. It
was overrun with ants, who had made a little massacre of the entire feast.
When I realized that the loathsome insects were everywhere, I felt a peculiar horror that only ants can bring.
Merrick, much to my amazement, picked up this hand rather daintily in her thumb and forefinger, and shook off the
hoodlum ants with several small fierce gestures.
I heard nothing from the audience in the crowd beyond, but it seemed to me that they pressed closer. The humming of
the birds was becoming hypnotic, and again there came a low hiss of rain.
Nothing penetrated the canopy. Nothing struck the tin of the roof.
"What do you want us to do with these things?" asked Aaron gently. "You don't want anything left, as I understand it."
"We're going to take it down," said Merrick, "if it's all right with you. It's past its time. This house should be closed up
now, if you will keep your promises to me. I want to go with you."
"Yes, we'll have everything dismantled."
She suddenly looked at the shriveled hand which she held in her own. The ants were crawling onto her skin.
"Put it down, child," I said suddenly, startling myself.
She gave it a wring or two again and then did what I said. "It must come with us, everything must," she said. "Some
day, I'll take out all these things and I'll see what they are." She brushed off the unwelcome ants.
Her dismissive tone filled me with relief, I must confess it.
"Absolutely," said Aaron. He turned and gave a signal to the Talamasca acolytes who had come as far as the edge of the
patio behind us. "They will begin packing everything," he told Merrick.
"There's one thing in this backyard that I have to take myself," she said, glancing at me and then at Aaron. She seemed
not purposefully or playfully mysterious as much as troubled.
She backed away from us and moved slowly towards one of the gnarled fruit trees that sprang up in the very middle of
the patio flagstones. She dipped her head as she moved under the low green branches, and lifted her arms almost as if she
was trying to embrace the tree.
In a moment, I saw her purpose. I should have guessed it. A huge snake had descended, coiling itself about her arms and
her shoulders. It was a constrictor.
I felt a helpless shudder and a total revulsion. Not even my years in the Amazon had made me a patient liker of snakes.
Quite to the contrary. But I knew what they felt like; I knew that eerie silky weight, and the strange current of feeling they
sent through one's skin as they moved very rapidly to encoil one's arms.
I could feel these things as I watched her.
Meanwhile, out of the overgrown tangle of green there came low whispers from those who watched her as well. This is
what they had gathered to see. This was the moment. The snake was a Voodoo god, of course. I knew it. But I was still
amazed.
"It's definitely harmless," Aaron said to me hastily. As if he knew! "We'll have to feed it a rat or two, I suppose, but to
us, it's quite ."
"Never mind," I said with a smile, letting him off the hook. I could see he was quite uncomfortable. And then to tease
him a little, and to fend off the deep melancholy of the place, I said, "You know of course the rodents must be alive."
He was appropriately horrified and gave me a reproving glance, as if to say, you needn't have told me that! But he was
far too polite to say a word.
Merrick was talking to the snake in a low voice in French.
She made her way back to the altar, and there found a black iron box with barred windows on all sides I know no
other words for it which she opened with one hand, the hinges of its lid creaking loudly; and into this box she let the
serpent slowly and gracefully settle itself, which fortunately for all of us, it did.
"Well, we'll see what stalwart gentlemen want to carry the snake," Aaron said to the closest of the assistants who stood
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