“ ‘I have none, so rest where you are,’ she said. ‘We’ll part soon enough in my time, though not in yours, and then you may have this house as your Hermitage, and I even bequeath the tomb to you. Yes, you may have that, and you may take your chances with it, and you may crave this dark, lively swamp as I so often craved it. I think I’ve been waiting for you these long three and a half years, knowing I would relinquish everything to you when I saw you. Yes, waiting. Why is it that this must be done I can’t answer—.’

“ ‘What? What must be done? What are you saying?’ I pleaded. ‘I don’t understand you.’

“ ‘It’s as though the evil builds up,’ she said, ‘and then it must be siphoned off into a new one, and I give birth as I never could in life.’

“ ‘I can’t follow you.’

“She turned and looked down at me, and there spread across her face the most transcendent smile.

“ ‘Why do I get the feeling that you’re a giant cat?’ I asked suddenly, ‘even to your lovely eyes, and I’m some luckless prey that you’ve randomly selected?’

“ ‘Never random,’ she said, her face exquisitely serious. ‘No, never random. But carefully, out of circumstance, and on merit, and out of loneliness. But never random, no, never that. You are much loved. You have been long awaited.’

“A wave of sheer drunkenness passed over me. I was about to slip into unconsciousness.

“The figure before me started flashing on and off, as if someone had ahold of the light switch and meant to drive me mad. I tried to stand up but I couldn’t.

“I put the ciborium on the edge of the desk and pushed it back with my right fingers. I saw her fill it again with wine. No more, I thought, but then she lifted it and put it to my lips. I took it. I tried to decline. She tipped it and I drank it as it spilled down my neck and into my shirt. It was delicious, much more so now than in the beginning. I fell back. I saw the ciborium lying on the floor. I saw the red wine on the marble.

“ ‘No, not on the beautiful white marble,’ I said. ‘It’s too like blood, look at it.’ Again, I tried to stand up. I couldn’t.

“She knelt down in front of me.

“ ‘I have cruelty in me,’ she said. ‘I have cruelty in me which will be answered. Don’t expect anything else from me. You’ll have the gifts I choose to give and those only, and I’ll make no mewling bastards such as others make, fodder for the old ones, but I’ll leave you strong when I leave you, and with all the gifts you need.’

“I couldn’t answer her. My lips would no longer move.