"Mercedes Lackey - Dumb Feast" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

house that was gone now; a life that was no longer there. His house was a home
no longer, and his life a barren, empty thing.

In the months since her death, the need to see her again became an obsession.
Visits to the cemetery were not satisfactory, and his desultory attempt to
interest himself in the young widows of the parish came to nothing. And that
was when the old tales from his childhood, and the stories his grandmother
told, came back toтАФliterallyтАФhaunt him.

He surveyed the table; everything was precisely in place, just as it had been
when he and Elizabeth dined alone together. The two candles flickered in a
draft; they were in no way as satisfactory as the gaslights, but his
grandmother, and the old lady he had consulted from the Spiritualist Society,
had been adamant about thatтАФthere must be two candles, and only two. No
gaslights, no candelabra.

From a chafing dish on the sideboard he took the first course: Elizabeth's
favorite soup. Tomato. A pedestrian dish, almost lower-class, and not the
clear consummes or lobster bisques that one would serve to impressтАФbut he was
not impressing anyone tonight. These must be Elizabeth's favorites, and not
his own choices. A row of chafing dishes held his choices ready: tomato soup,
spinach salad, green peas, mashed potatoes, fried chicken, apple cobbler. No
wine, only coffee. All depressingly middle-class . . .

That was not the point. The point was that they were the bait that would bring
Elizabeth back to him, for an hour, at least.

He tossed the packet of herbs and what-not on the fire, a packet that the old
woman from the Spiritualists had given him for just that purpose. He was not
certain what was in it; only that she had asked for some of Elizabeth's hair.
He'd had to abstract it from the lock Rebecca kept, along with the picture of
her mother, in a little shrine-like arrangement on her dresser. When Rebecca
had first created it, he had been tempted to order her to put it all away, for
the display seemed very pagan. Now, however, he thought he understood her
motivations.

This little drama he was creating was something that his grandmotherтАФwho had
been born in DevonshireтАФcalled a "dumb feast." By creating a setting in which
all of the deceased's favorite foods and drink were presented, and a place
laid for herтАФby the burning of certain substancesтАФand by doing all this at a
certain time of the yearтАФthe spirit of the loved one could be lured back for
an hour or two.

The times this might be accomplished were four. May Eve, Midsummer, Halloween,
and Christmas Eve.

By the time his need for Elizabeth had become an obsession, the Spring Equinox
and Midsummer had already passed. Halloween seemed far too pagan for Aaron's
tasteтАФand besides, he had not yet screwed his courage up to the point where he
was willing to deal with his own embarrassment that he was resorting to such