The Old

“And how would you feel?” Lewis said, “If I became head of the Clan and you no longer were?”

“It was meant to happen, power received from one to another, as it has always been,” Owen said. “I am still Owen and still Master. That never changes, and, at any road, it was not as if I planned to hold the office until I died. It is your time, though you do not believe it. The real question is not how I feel, but if you think it is time to rise to your… Destiny is a inaccurate word. More honest to say… inevitability?”

Once past the old house, the road opened up to a town larger than Laurie imagined. Near the heart of it was a large brick Catholic church, and the procession which had started out small grew longer and longer, the black hearse at the head of it. How strange the grey white day was with its bare trees and leaves, once red and gold, now brown and faded yellow, against the first white snow. Winter was the strangest time to him, the time of death looked upon by one who did not die. And today the church was draped in death, death of the year, the death of this woman who had so apparently defied the years until she felt it was time for her to go. The church was hung with pink and purple banners, and near the altar was a wreath with four candles, one of them burning faintly. Advent had begun, and in a few days another purple candle would be lit to announce the second week. Another year was nearly wrapping up.

You shall cross the barren desert
But you shall not die of thirst
You shall wander far in safety
Though you do not know the way
You shall speak your words in foreign lands
And all will understand
You shall see the face of God and live

Be not afraid
I go before you always
Come follow me
And I will give you rest.

He had read somewhere that what motivated all humanity, and what gave people fear as well as hope and meaning and definition, was the knowledge that everyone would die. But Laurie disagreed. Some would have even said that what tinged life with sorrow was the knowledge of eventual death, but this was not true either. For Laurie, in this church, as the old mahogany coffin was marched in ahead of the rest of the procession, and lain on the catafalque before the altar, it was this winter time knowledge of death not coming for him, the knowledge that while death did come, while the leaves faded and the air cooled and rain turned to ice turned to snow, like a tree, he still was, he endured and these things had no effect on him. Everything one looked upon passed, and still you remained to see it come again.

Blessed are your poor
For the kingdom shall be theirs
Blessed are you that weep and mourn
For one day you shall laugh
And if wicked men insult and

Hate you all because of me…

What then was it like for the witches? Was it like this for Lewis, who seemed to have a life far different from that of a tree, a life which was much less tangible, that came in the leaf that budded and lived and reigned and fell and rotted and left this realm to return when it suited in another season entirely? And how did Chris feel, who sat right beside him, for funerals were things all drinkers avoided. Did they not love, were there not attachments, and did not everyone dear to you pass as quickly and inevitably as the metaphorical leaf or the blade of grass?

Lawrence Malone had thought himself a traditionalist, one who loved the Tantum Ergo, who loved the stateliness of the ancient hymns that were the hymns of his childhood. But this vaguely folky song, and the voices of the congregation singing as they went up to take Communion, passing the casket, sometimes patting it, made him rise too.

Be not afraid
I go before you always
Come follow me
And I will give you rest.

He had found himself there, before the priest he did not entirely believe in, but could not disbelieve either, and behind that priest and over the altar, suffering sinewy arms open, bleeding face woebegone, one who had died long ago, and whose blood gave life, and who had returned from the grave, offering his renewing blood.

“Body of Christ,” the priest said, and to Laurie it seemed like a question. “Body of Christ?”

He could not really answer, but he said “Amen,” ate, and then approached the chalice.

“The Blood of Christ.”

“Amen.”

While Lewis sat on the sofa watching the mourners move about the great room, Loreal sat down beside him. She reached out her hand, and he ashed the cigarette and passed it to her. She took a puff and handed it back.

“Well, that’s a done thing and now we’re on to Christmas.”

“Grandpa didn’t come.”

“Are you surprised?”

“I don’t know,” Loreal said. “On one hand, nothing he does surprises me. On the other hand, it’s awfully tacky.”

“Yes,” Lewis said, taking a very long inhale and handing her back the cigarette. “It is.”

“She was three hundred years old,” Loreal said, matter of factly.

“I knew she was old,” Lewis said. “That shit, though, I did not know.”

“I guess she just decided it was time to go. She could have lived forever.”

“I doubt anyone can live forever,” Lewis said. “I don’t think anyone should. I… Well, there goes that cigarette.”

He crushed out the butt and, looking across the room noted, “It was very good of Mr. Malone to bring you here.”

“Laurie is… a good friend. Isn’t it funny that you can meet someone you don’t really know and know they’re a good friend?”

“Especially if they’re a vampire.”

“Chris is a vampire.”

“I’m well aware of that,” Lewis said, “And equally aware that this should probably be whispered and not said so loudly.”

Then Lewis said, “You know that he likes you, right?”

“Hum?”

“Don’t hum me. You know Laurie likes you. Fancies you, he would probably say.”

“I…” Loreal colored and turned her face away. “I don’t really know that at all.”

“He likes you as much as you like him.”

“Stop!” Loreal said.

“Stop what? The truth?”

“Laurie said he’s afraid of you. He said you see right through everything and when you look at him it’s like you can see through him.”

“God forbid that I should ever actually be able to see into the depths of Laurie Malone,” Lewis said, taking out his cigarette roller. “This much I can see, that he likes you. But this only takes having eyes.”

“And anyway,” Loreal continued, “aside from being what he is…”

“A Republican?”

“He’s a Republican? Oh,” she sounded disappointed. “Nevermind, you know I wasn’t talking about that. Aside from everything, he’s got a girlfriend.”

“Girlfriend,” Lewis pronounced. “The weakest word in the English language.”

At the department of records, Lynn was carrying a stack of envelopes that reached almost over her head. She put them down on the table, and began to examine the genealogies again. She looked out of the window. Even in the approaching winter, the broad street leading to Michigan Avenue and then the Park and the lake beyond was wonderful. She thought with pride, looking through the corridor of high buildings, “I have roots here.”

It was work that brought her from California back to the middle of the country. But her mother had been from Pennsylvania. She liked it well enough, but everything in that industrial land was like a poor cousin to this great burning city of wind and light. Her grandmother always told her about this place.

“We had family back there even before the Great Fire,” Grandma had said. And even though she talked about it, and even though a very zealous cousin on her father’s side had showed her a fanned out more than long family tree of her German-Italian side, only now did she realize that all her grandmother had said was that they had lived here for a long time, that her grandmother’s mother had lived here. Even her name was gone, except that it had to have been Loughlin. No, but that was her married name. In these last few days, Lynn had learned that her first name was Catherine, so that was something. Catherine O’Loughlin, her great-grandmother. And here, in another record, it said Catherine M. O’Loughlin of Bridgeport. She had known they came from Bridgeport. Driving around the modern neighborhood, of mixed races, three story thin houses, viaducts decorated with graffiti, she looked for the old Bridgeport of that time. Now she fingered through print outs of photographs the kind woman had been all too excited to show her.

“Here!” the archivist called out. There were only a few people in this room and Lynn thought, “But she is much too glamorous to be an archivist, to be hidden back here.” Or maybe that’s what archivist looked like, slender and blonde, flashing eyes, golden hair tied in a bun, walking with elegant efficiency.

“Here are some things you might like,” she said, “and here is something I found that is… I think, interesting.”

Lynn invited her to sit down, and the woman did while she fingered through old reproductions of sepias full of large families, woebegone looking women, hair in great buns, Irish husbands, square shouldered, sallow cheeked, overworked. Boys in black robes and white surplices, the tallest bearing a crosier.

“Saint Patrick’s Ordination of Father Michael Kindly, April 6th, 1871.”

And then the woman said, “But it’s this I thought you might find fascinating.”

Lynn nodded and she looked at the census record. She was used to them now, how there were many families listed on one sheet, and the 1930 record read, “Husband, Roddy O’ Loughlin, wife Catherine M. O’Loughlin, Dorothy, daughter, Andrew, son.”

Ah, Lynn stopped. “This is my great grandmother. Dorothy was my grandmother.”

“Well, there’s more,” the blond woman said, urging her to read on.

“Paddy Malone, brother-in-law and boarder. Nessie Malone, sister in law and boarder.”

“So the M must mean Malone,” Lynn said, delightedly, “and won’t that be a thing to tell my boyfriend when he gets home from where he’s gone.”

“Not only that,” the woman said, “but because we know her maiden name and her brother and sister, it can help, as you know, with earlier records.”

“Yes,” Lynn smiled, clasping her hands together, “and it seems from what you’re saying, and I cannot thank you enough if this is true—I can’t really thank you enough any way—that you have found that record.”

“That record and more,” the woman said.

“Pictures! Pictures!” Lynn clapped her hands. “But first…”

She opened the familiar census record and read from the back, looking for the names, “Patrick Malone, son. Vanessa Malone, daughter, Catherine Malone, daughter, aged 1. Veronica, wife. Laurence, father, aged 30.”

“Laurence!” Lynn clapped her hands. “My great-great grandfather’s name was Laurence Malone! I wonder if his wife called him Laurie. I wonder if I could get a picture of him. I wonder if Laurie and me are… long lost relatives. Fifth cousins or something. Say, do you think if I told him he would believe any of this?” Lynn demanded, gesturing over the papers in amazement.

“There’s only one way to find out,” the archivist said, smiling. “Won’t it be something to see the look on his face?”

She stood up now, but Lynn said, “I’m so sorry, you’ve been such a help to me, and I didn’t even get your name. When I tell Laurie about this, I’ll have to let him know who helped me.”

“That would be wonderful,” the woman said. “Well, let him know my name is Evangeline. Evangeline. And this was all my pleasure.”