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" 'Do you know where the child is?' I asked. 'Mona, I'll go get the child! I'll bring it back. ¡¯

" 'Quinn, you're so strong, so confident,' she said. 'It's really totally marvelous just being with you. But no, I don't know where the child is. I think the child is in England. But I don't know. And when we were in Europe I was sort of looking for it. There's no word from the man that took it. ¡¯

" 'Mona, this is ghastly. ¡¯

" 'No,' she said, shaking her head, the teardrops hanging in her lashes, 'it's not the way it sounds. The man was a loving man, and the child -- the child was exceptional. ' Her voice broke. 'I didn't want to give it up, but I had to. It had to go with this loving man, this gentle man that could care for it. ¡¯

"I was too perplexed to ask a sensible question.

" 'If you have an inkling where this man is, then I'll go to him. ¡¯

"She shook her head. 'We used to know how to reach him. Rowan and Michael -- those are my cousins and foster parents now, they knew the man very well. But now we don't. ¡¯

" 'Mona, let me protect you in this, let me go after this man and let me go after the baby. ¡¯

" 'Quinn, my family has tried to do it. They've used the resources of the Mayfair Legacy to try to find both the child and the man and they can't do it. I don't need your vow that you'll try. I don't want you even to think about trying. I only need you to listen to me. I only need your vow that you won't ever tell another human being what I told you. ¡¯

"I kissed her.

" 'I understand,' I said. 'We'll have other children, you and I. ¡¯

" 'Oh, that would be so lovely,' she said. 'So very lovely. ¡¯

"We snuggled down into the covers, taking off each other's clothes, button by button and zipper by zipper, and then we were naked where I had always slept so chaste with Little Ida or Big Ramona. I felt the bed was being properly christened, and I was happy.

"Then I slept.

"In my dream Rebecca came knocking on the door. It was as if I was awake, but I knew that I wasn't. And in the dream I told her she had to go away. I told her I had done all that I could do for her. We fought, she and I. We fought at the head of the staircase. She went wild against me, and I forced her down the stairs, telling her she had to leave Blackwood Manor, that she was dead and gone and that she had to accept it.

"She sat down on the last step and began to cry piteously.

" 'You can't come anymore,' I told her. 'The Light's waiting for you. God's waiting for you. I believe in the Light. ¡¯

"The living room was full of mourners again, and I could hear the cadence of the Rosary rising like a tide, the Hail Mary, Full of Grace, and then I saw Virginia Lee sit up from her coffin again, her hands clasped, and at once she made her graceful ballet step to the floor, her skirts billowing, and she came to snatch up Rebecca, and together they were hurtling through the front door of the house, the two ghosts, Virginia Lee and Rebecca, and I heard Virginia Lee cry out, 'You come again to trouble my house, do you? You bring me down from the Light!¡¯

"Rebecca screamed. A life for my life. A death for my death.

"All was silence. I sat on the steps in the dream, wishing I could wake up and be back upstairs in bed where I belonged, but I couldn't.

"A life for my life, she'd said. Did she want mine? Nothing I'd done had satisfied her. It wasn't enough.

"Someone tapped me on the shoulder. I looked up. It was Virginia Lee, very lively and pretty, though she wore her funeral blue dress.

" 'Get away from this place, Tarquin,' she said. Her voice had such tender resonance. 'Go on, Tarquin, leave this place. There is an evil here. That evil wants you. ¡¯

"I woke, sitting up, covered with sweat, staring forward. I saw Goblin in the corner near the computer merely watching me.

"Mona slept soundly beside me.

"I got into the shower and when I saw Goblin's shadow outside the glass I finished up and dried off and dressed quickly. He stood behind me looking at me in the mirror over my shoulder. His expression was not as mean as it had been before, and I prayed he couldn't sense my apprehension. He didn't seem as solid here, even with the moisture in the air, as he had been in New Orleans. I was grateful for that.

" 'You love Mona, too?' I asked as if I meant it.

" 'Mona is good. Mona is strong,' he said. 'But Mona will hurt you. ¡¯

" 'I know,' I said. 'You hurt me when you're unkind to me, when you say unkind things. We have to love each other. ¡¯

" 'You want to be with Mona alone,' he said.