"You died here in the States, in Miami Beach, that was the story. And they'd flown the remains back to England before they even called to tell me you were gone. You know what I did, David? I made them hold the casket for me. It was sealed shut when I got to London but I made them open it. I made them do it. I screamed and carried on until they gave in to me. Then I sent them out of the room and I stayed alone with that body, David, that body all powdered and prettied up and nestled in its satin. I stayed there for an hour perhaps. They were knocking on the door. Then finally I told them to proceed."

There was no anger in her face, only a faint wondering expression.

"I couldn't let Aaron tell you," I said, "not just then, not when I didn't know whether I'd survive in the new body, not when I didn't understand what life held for me. I couldn't. And then, then it was too late." She raised her eyebrows and made a little doubting gesture with her head. She sipped the rum.

"I understand," she said.

"Thank God," I answered. "In time, Aaron would have told you about the body switching," I insisted. "I know he would have. The story of my death was never meant for you."

She nodded, holding back the first response that came to her tongue.

"I think you have to file those papers of Aaron's," I said. "You have to file them directly with the Elders and no one else. Forget the Superior General of the moment."

"Stop it, David," she responded. "You know it is much easier to argue with you now that you are in the body of a very young man."

"You never had difficulty arguing with me, Merrick," I retorted. "Don't you think Aaron would have filed the papers, had he lived?"

"Maybe," she said, "and maybe not. Maybe Aaron would have wanted more that you be left to your destiny. Maybe Aaron wanted more that whatever you had become, you'd be left alone."

I wasn't sure what she was saying. The Talamasca was so passive, so reticent, so downright unwilling in interfere in anyone's destiny, I couldn't figure what she meant.

She shrugged, took another sip of ram, and rolled the rim of the glass against her lower lip.

"Maybe it doesn't matter," she said. "I only know that Aaron never filed the pages himself." She went on speaking:

"The night after he was killed I went down to his house on Esplanade Avenue. You know he married a white Mayfair, not a witch by the way, but a resilient and generous woman—Beatrice Mayfair is her name, she's still living—and at her invitation I took the papers marked 'Talamasca.' She didn't even know what they contained.