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David knelt beside me, holding me by my arms.
"Look at me, don't fade out on me now!" he said. "I want us toleave here, we're to go away. You understand? We'll go back home.
And then I want you to tell me the whole story again, dictate it to me,word for word.""For what?""In the words we'll find the truth, in the details and in the plotwe'll discover who did what for whom. Whether God used you, orMemnoch did! Whether Memnoch was lying the whole time!
Whether God....""Ah, it makes your head ache, doesn't it? I don't want you to writeit down. There will only be a version if you write it down, a version,and there are already so many versions, what has she told them of hernight visitors who brought her the Veil, her benign demons whobrought her the Veil? And they took my clothes! What if there istissue from my skin on those clothes?""Come now, take the books, here, I'll help you, here, there arethree sacks here but we need only two, you put this bundle in yours,and I'll take the other."robeyed his orders. We had the books in the two sacks. We couldgo now.
"Why did you leave them here when you sent all the other thingsback?""She wanted you to have them," he said. "I told you. She wantedme to see that they were put in your hands. And she's given you allthe rest. All ties are cut for her. This is a movement drawingfundamentalist and fanatic, cosmic Christians and Christians from Eastand West.""I have to try to get near her again.""No. Impossible. Come. Here. I have a heavy coat. You must putthis on.""Are you going to care for me forever?" I asked.
"Perhaps.""Why don't I go to her now in the church and burn up the Veil! Icould do it. I could do it with the power of my mind, make the Veilexplode.""Then why don't you?"I shuddered. "I... I....""Go ahead. You don't even have to go in the church. Your powersgo before you. You could burn it up, maybe. It would be interesting ifit didn't burn, wouldn't it? But suppose it did, suppose it just wentblack and burnt up like the wood in a grate when you light it with thetelekinetic power of your mind. What then?"I broke into weeping. I couldn't do such a thing. I couldn't do it. Ididn't know for sure! I just didn't. And if I had been the dupe of God,was that God's will for all of us?
"Lestat!" He glared at me, or rather I should say, he fixed me withhis authoritative gaze. "I'm telling you now, listen to what I say.
Don't get that close to them again! Don't make any more miraclesfor them. There is nothing more that you can do. Let her tell the taleher way with her angel messenger. It's passed into history already.""I want to talk one more time to the reporters!""No!""This time I'll be soft-voiced, I promise, I won't frighten anyone,I swear I won't, David.. ..""In time, Lestat, if you still want... in time... ." He bent downand smoothed my hair. "Now come with me. We're going."25THE ORPHANAGE was cold. Its thick brick walls, bare of allinsulation, held the cold, and made it colder within than thewinter outside. Seems I remembered that from before. Whyhad she given it to me? Why? She had given over the deed to me, andall his relics. What did it mean? Only that she was gone like a cometacross the sky.
Was there a country on earth where the news networks had notcarried her face, her voice, her Veil, her story?
But we were home, this was our city, New Orleans, our little land,and there was no snow falling here, only the soft scent of the sweetolive trees, and the tulip magnolias in the old neglected conventgarden throwing off their pink petals. Look at that, pink petals on theground.
So quiet here. No one knew of this place. So now the Beast couldhave his palace and remember Beauty and ponder forever whetherMemnoch was weeping in Hell, or whether both of them梩he Sonsof God梬ere laughing in Heaven!
I walked into the chapel.
I had thought to find drapery and heaps and cartons and crates.
Rather, it was a completed sanctuary. Everything was placedproperly as it should be, unwrapped, and dusted, and standing therein the gloom. Statues of St. Anthony, St. Lucy with her eyes on aplate, the Infant Jesus of Prague in his Spanish finery, and the iconshanging on the walls, between the windows, look, all neatly hung.
"But who has done this?"David was gone. Where? He'd be back. It didn't matter. I had thetwelve books. I needed a warm place to sit, perhaps on the altar steps,and I needed light. With this one eye, I needed just a little more thanthe night's light leaking in through the tall stained-glass windows.
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