She shook her head. She rested back in the chair, and her eyes filled with visible tears. I could see them in the flicker of the candles. I was becoming genuinely frantic.
I stood up, marched into the dining room, found the bottle of twenty-five-year-old Macallan Scotch and the lead crystal glasses on the sideboard, and poured myself a good drink. I returned to her. Then I went back and got the bottle. I brought it with me, settled in the chair, and put it on the nightstand to my left.
The Scotch tasted wonderful. I didn't drink on the plane at all, wanting to be alert for my reunion, and it took the edge off my nerves beautifully.
She was still crying.
"All right, you're going to call up Honey, and you think for some reason Honey knows the name of the town or the village."
"Honey liked those places," she said, unperturbed by my urgent voice. "Honey liked the name of the village from which we hiked to the cave." She turned to me. "Don't you see, these names are like jewels embedded in her conscious; she's there with all she ever knew! She doesn't have to remember like a living being. The knowledge is in her and I have to make her give it to me."
"All right, I see, I understand everything. I maintain that it's too dangerous, and besides, why hasn't the spirit of Honey gone on?"
"She can't until I tell her what she wants to know."
This baffled me completely. What could Honey want to know?
Suddenly Merrick rose from the chair, rather like a slumbering cat instantly propelled into predatory action, and she closed the door to the hall. I heard her turn the key.
I was on my feet. But I stood back, uncertain of what she meant to do. Certainly she wasn't drunk enough to be interfered with in any dramatic authoritarian fashion, and I wasn't surprised when she abandoned her glass for the bottle of rum and took it with her into the center of the room.
Only then did I realize there was no carpet. Her naked feet were soundless on the polished floor, and, with the bottle clutched in her right hand to her breast, she began to turn in a circle, humming and throwing back her head. I pressed myself against the wall.
Round and round she spun, the violet cotton skirt flaring and the bottle sloshing rum into the air. She paid no attention to the spilt liquor, and, slowing her turns only for a moment, she took another deep drink and then turned so fast that her garments slapped against her legs.
Stopping dead as she faced the altar, she spit the rum between her teeth into a fine spray at the waiting saints. A high-pitched wail came out of her clenched teeth as she continued to issue the rum from her mouth. Once again she began to dance, almost deliberately slapping her feet and murmuring. I couldn't catch the language or the words. Her hair was tangled over her face. Again a swallow, again the rum flying, the candles sputtering and dancing as they caught the tiny droplets and ignited them.
Suddenly she hurled a stream of rum from the bottle all over the candles, and the flames went up before the saints in a dangerous flare. Mercifully the fire went out.
Head back, she screamed between her teeth in French:
"Honey, I did it! Honey, I did it. Honey, I did it!"
The room seemed to shake as she bent her knees and circled, pounding her feet in a loud dance.
"Honey, I put the curse on you and Cold Sandra!" she screamed. "Honey, I did it." Suddenly she lunged at the altar, never letting go of her bottle, and, grabbing the green jade perforator in her left hand, she slashed a long cut into her right arm.
I gasped. What could I do to stop her, I thought, what could I do that wouldn't enrage her?
The blood streamed down her arm and she bowed her head, licked at it, drank the rum, and sprayed the offering on the patient saints once again.
I could see the blood flowing down her hand, over her knuckles. Her wound was superficial but the amount of blood was awful.
Again she lifted the knife.
"Honey, I did it to you and Cold Sandra. I killed you, I put the curse on you!" she screamed. I resolved to grab hold of her as she went to cut herself again. But I couldn't move. As God is my witness, I couldn't move. I was rooted to the spot. I tried with all my resources to overcome the paralysis, but it was useless. All I could do was cry to her,
"Stop it, Merrick!"
She slashed at her arm across the first cut, and again the blood flowed.
"Honey, come to me, Honey, give me your rage, give me your hatred, Honey, I killed you, Honey, I made the dolls of you and Cold Sandra, Honey, I drowned them in the ditch the night you left. Honey, I killed you. Honey, I sent you to the swamp water, Honey, I did it," she was screaming.
"For the love of Heaven, Merrick, let go!" I cried. Then suddenly, unable to watch her slash her arm again, I began to pray frantically to Oxalá:
"Give me the power to stop her, give me the power to divert her before she harms herself, give me the power, I beg you, Oxalá, I'm your loyal David, give me the power." I shut my eyes. The floor was trembling beneath me. Suddenly the noise of her screams and her bare feet stopped.
I felt her against me. I opened my eyes. She stood in my embrace, both of us facing the doorway, which was indisputably open, and the shadowy figure who stood with her back to the light of the hall. It was a graceful young girl with long tightly curling blond hair lathered all over her shoulders, her face veiled in shadow, her yellow eyes piercing in the candle glow.
"I did it!" Merrick whispered. "I killed you."
I felt Merrick's whole pliant body against me. I wrapped my arms tightly around her. Again, but silently, I prayed to Oxalá.
Protect us from this spirit if evil is the intent of this Spirit. Oxalá, you who made the world, you who rule in high places, you who are among the clouds, protect us, do not look at my faults as I call on you, but give me your mercy, protect us if this spirit would do us harm.
Merrick wasn't trembling, she was quaking, her body covered in sweat, as it had been during the possession so many years before.
"I put the dolls in the ditch, I drowned them in the ditch, I did it. I drowned them. I did it. I prayed, 'Let them die!' I knew from Cold Sandra that she was going to buy that car, I said, 'Let it go off a bridge, let them drown.' I said, 'When they drive across the lake, let them die.' Cold Sandra was so afraid of that lake, I said, 'Let them die.' " The figure in the doorway appeared as solid as anything I'd ever beheld. The shadowy face showed no expression, but the yellow eyes remained fixed.
Then a voice issued from it, low, and full of hatred.
"Fool, you never caused it!" said the voice. "Fool, you think you caused that to happen to us? You never caused anything. Fool, you couldn't make a curse to save your soul!"
I thought Merrick would lose consciousness, but somehow she remained standing, though my arms were ready to hold her should she fail.
She nodded. "Forgive me that I wanted it," she said in a hoarse whisper that seemed entirely her own. "Forgive me, Honey, that I wanted it. I wanted to go with you, forgive me."
"Go to God to get your forgiveness," came the low voice from the darkened countenance. "Don't come to me." Again Merrick nodded. I could feel the stickiness of her spilt blood coming down over my right fingers. Again I prayed to Oxalá! But my words were coming automatically. I was riveted heart and soul to the being in the doorway, who neither moved nor dissolved.
"Get down on your knees," said the voice. "Write in blood what I tell you."
"Don't do it!" I whispered.
Merrick sprang forward, falling on her knees on the floor that was wet and slippery with blood and spilt rum. Once again, I tried to move, but I couldn't. It was as if my feet had been nailed to the boards. Merrick's back was to me, but I knew she was pressing her left fingers to the wounds to make them bleed ever more deeply, and then I heard the creature in the doorway give two names.
I heard the first distinctly, "Guatemala City, there's where you land," said the spirit, "and Santa Cruz del Flores is as close as you can get to the cave."
Merrick sat back on her heels, her body heaving, her breaths coming rapid and hoarse as she squeezed the blood onto the floor and began to write with her right first finger the names now repeated from her own lips. On and on I prayed for strength against the figure, but I cannot claim that it was my prayers which made the being begin to fade.
A horrid scream broke from Merrick:
"Honey, don't leave me!" she cried. "Honey, don't go. Honey, come back, please, please, come back," she sobbed.
"Honey in the Sunshine, I love you. Don't leave me here alone."
But the spirit was gone.