"Quite right," I answered. "I was wrong to send Jesse. Jesse was too young. Jesse was 
never-." It was difficult for me to finish. "Jesse was never quite as clever as you."
  "People read it among Lestat's published tales and think it's fancy," she said, musing, 
thinking, "all that about a diary, a rosary, wasn't it, and an old doll. And we have 
those things, don't we? They're in the vault in England. We didn't have a Louisiana 
Motherhouse in those days. You put them in the vault yourself "
  "Can you do it?" I asked. "Will you do it? That's more to the point. I have no doubt 
that you can."
  She wasn't ready to answer. But we had made a great beginning here, she and I.
  Oh, how I had missed her! This was more tantalizing than I'd ever expected, to be 
locked once more in conversation with her. And with pleasure I doted upon the changes in 
her: that her French accent was completely gone now and that she sounded almost British, 
and that from her long years of study overseas. She'd spent some of those years in 
England with me.
  "You know that Louis saw you," I said gently. "You know that he sent me to ask you. You 
know that he knew of your powers from the warning he caught from your eyes?"
  She didn't respond.
  "'I've seen a true witch,'" he said when he came to me. 'She wasn't afraid of me. She 
said she'd call up the dead to defend herself if I didn't leave her alone.'"
  She nodded, regarding me with great seriousness.
  "Yes, all that's the truth," she answered under her breath. "He crossed my path, you 
might say." She was mulling it over. "But I've seen Louis de Pointe du Lac many a time. I 
was a child when I first saw him, and now you and I speak of this for the first time."
  I was quite amazed. I should have known she would surprise me at once.
  I admired her immensely. I couldn't disguise it. I loved the simplicity of her 
appearance, her white cotton scoop neck blouse with its simple short sleeves and the 
necklace of black beads around her neck.
  Looking into her green eyes, I was suddenly overcome with shame for what I'd done, 
revealing myself to her. Louis had not forced me to approach her. I had done this of my 
own accord. But I don't intend to begin this narrative by dwelling on that shame.
  Let me say only that we'd been more than simple companions in the Talamasca together. 
We'd been mentor and pupil, I and she, and almost lovers, once, for a brief while. Such a 
brief while.
  She'd come as a girl to us, a vagrant descendant of the clan of the Mayfairs, out of an 
African American branch of that family, coming down from white witches she scarcely knew, 
an octoroon of exceptional beauty, a barefoot child when she wandered into the 
Motherhouse in Louisiana, when she said, "I've heard of you people, I need you. I can see 
things. I can speak with the dead."
  That had been over twenty years ago, it seemed to me now.
  I'd been the Superior General of the Order, settled into the life of a gentlemanly 
administrator, with all the comforts and drawbacks of routine. A telephone call had 
wakened me in the night. It had been from my friend and fellow scholar, Aaron Lightner.
  "David," he'd said, "you have to come. This is the genuine article. This is a witch of 
such power I've no words to describe it. David, you must come...."
  There was no one in those days whom I respected any more deeply than Aaron Lightner. 
I've loved three beings in all my years, both as human and vampire. Aaron Lightner was 
one of them. Another was, and is, the Vampire Lestat. The Vampire Lestat brought me 
miracles with his love, and broke my mortal life forever. The Vampire Lestat made me 
immortal and uncommonly strong for it, a nonpareil among the vampires.
  As for the third, it was Merrick Mayfair, though Merrick I had tried my damndest to 
forget.
  But we are speaking of Aaron, my old friend Aaron with his wavy white hair, quick gray 
eyes, and his penchant for southern blue-and-white-striped seersucker suits. We are 
speaking of her, of the long ago child Merrick, who seemed as exotic as the lush tropical 
flora and fauna of her home.
  "All right, old fellow, I'm coming, but couldn't this have waited till morning?" I 
remembered my stodginess and Aaron's good-natured laughter.
  "David, what's happened to you, old man?" he'd responded. "Don't tell me what you're 
doing now, David. Let me tell you. You fell asleep while reading some nineteenth-century 
book on ghosts, something evocative and comforting. Let me guess. The author's Sabine 
BaringGould. You haven't been out of the Motherhouse in six months, have you? Not even 
for a luncheon in town. Don't deny it, David, you live as if your life's finished."
  I had laughed. Aaron spoke with such a gentle voice. It wasn't Sabine Baring-Gould I'd 
been reading, but it might have been. I think it had been a supernatural tale by Algernon 
Blackwood. And Aaron had been right about the length of time since I'd stepped outside of 
our sanctified walls.
  "Where's your passion, David? Where's your commitment?" Aaron had pressed. "David, the 
child's a witch. Do you think I use such words lightly? Forget the family name for a 
moment and all we know about them. This is something that would astound even our 
Mayfairs, though she'll never be known to them if I have my say in matters. David, this 
child can summon spirits. Open your Bible and turn to the Book of Samuel. This is the 
Witch of Endor. And you're being as cranky as the spirit of Samuel when the witch raised 
him from his sleep. Get out of bed and cross the Atlantic. I need you here now."
  The Witch of Endor. I didn't need to consult my Bible. Every member of the Talamasca 
knew that story only too well.
  King Saul, in fear of the might of the Philistines, goes, before the dreaded battle, to 
"a woman with a familiar spirit" and asks that she raise Samuel the Prophet from the 
dead. "Why has thou disquieted me, to bring me up?" demands the ghostly prophet, and in 
short order he predicts that King Saul and both his sons will join him in death on the 
following day.
  The Witch of Endor. And so I had always thought of Merrick, no matter how close to her 
I'd become later on. She was Merrick Mayfair, the Witch of Endor. At times I'd addressed 
her as such in semi-official memos and often in brief notes.
  In the beginning, she'd been a tender marvel. I had heeded Aaron's summons, packing, 
flying to Louisiana, and setting foot for the first time in Oak Haven, the splendid 
plantation home which had become our refuge outside of New Orleans, on the old River Road.
  What a dreamy event it had been. On the plane I had read my Old Testament: King Saul's 
sons had been slain in battle. Saul had fallen on his sword. Was I superstitious after 
all? My life I'd given to the Talamasca, but even before I'd begun my apprenticeship I'd 
seen and commanded spirits on my own. They weren't ghosts, you understand. They were 
nameless, never corporeal, and wound up for me with the names and rituals of Brazilian 
Candomble magic, in which I'd plunged so recklessly in my youth.
  But I'd let that power grow cold inside me as scholarship and devotion to others 
claimed me. I had abandoned the mysteries of Brazil for the equally wondrous world of 
archives, relics, libraries, organization, and tutelage, lulling others into dusty 
reverence for our methods and our careful ways. The Talamasca was so vast, so old, so 
loving in its embrace. Even Aaron had no clue as to my old powers, not in those days, 
though many a mind was open to his psychic sensibility. I would know the girl for what 
she was.
  It had been raining when we reached the Motherhouse, our car plunging into the long