“The best way I know how,” she said. “My loving friends, the Troop of Beloveds, don’t call me a witch for nothing.”

CHAPTER 49

49

I THIRSTED and I was alone.

I stood beneath the oak tree at the edge of the cemetery. I looked at the tomb which would be our altar tomorrow night.

Clem had known just where he would get our firewood—an old dead oak on the very boundary of the pasture. Tomorrow he’d come back and cut it with the chain saw, and the coal he’d buy in Mapleville. I wasn’t to worry about a thing.

And for now he was gone with the rest of them. They had been glad to be going. There had been a positive excitement to their packing and laughter and talking, and rushing out to the limousine with suitcases, and hollering in the middle of the night.

Tommy had pleaded desperately to be allowed to watch the exorcism. Nash had finally guided him to the car.

Only Patsy had refused to go. Only Patsy had cursed at me and told me she wouldn’t go along with my self-centered schemes to get rid of Goblin, only Patsy had remained behind. Finally I had sent Cindy the nurse away.

“I’ll take care of her,” I had said.

And so the moment had come. It had been so quiet, actually, with the closing of the door of her room.

“What are you doing in here?” she had asked me. “You spoilt brat.”

Like a little child she looked in her cream-colored flannel nightgown, with her beauty parlor blond hair in rivulets down each side of her face.

“Get out of here,” she had said, “I don’t want you here. Get going. I won’t leave this house no matter what you do, you little bastard.”

And from her mind came the pure stream of animosity and jealousy, the pure hate she had so keenly expressed.

“I told you I don’t want your money! I hate you.”

And then behind her, the filmy figure of Rebecca, my long-ago ghost. Hateful ghost, vengeful ghost. Why had she been there?—Rebecca, in her pert lace blouse and full taffeta skirt, smiling. Get away from me, vengeful ghost. Why had she dared to be there? A life for my life. I will not hear you!

I had picked up Patsy and snapped her neck before she had even become frightened. Killed my mother, my own mother. Big empty eyes. Lipstick. Dead Patsy.

Not a drop of her blood had I drunk.

Did anyone see me carry her over the threshold like a bride? No one, except for Rebecca, vengeful, hateful Rebecca hovering near the graveyard, Rebecca, just a vapor, smiling, exultant, in her pretty dress. A death for my death.