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" 'Wouldn't you if you were me?' I asked. I turned around and faced him.

"I had never seen such a face of trouble on him as I saw then. I had stung him and I was sorry for it.

" 'I am you,' he answered. "

Chapter26

26

"THE LATE AFTERNOON WAS heavenly. To be that in love, to know that frenzy of the heart -- even now, young as I still am, I look back on it as something that was part of the innocence of childhood. That it could come again, I don't even dream of, that I should ever know such consuming happiness is impossible.

"After Mona woke, had her bath and put on her fresh Wal-Mart white pants and shirt we went down to walk around Blackwood Farm, and it seemed our roaming is what kept me sane as I spilled out my soul to Mona. I told her all about Goblin, all about Lynelle, all about my strange life as I perceived it.

"She was an eager listener. Also she was charmed by the house and the long drive lined by the pecan trees. It didn't seem vulgar or overdone to her. She said she saw a symmetry and harmony in everything.

"Yes, it was bigger and more overbearing than a Garden District house, she conceded, but she could see why Manfred Blackwood didn't want to be constrained and so he had found his perfect spot in the country.

" 'Quinn,' she said, 'we live in houses that were built by people's dreams, and we have to accept that. We have to revere the dream and realize that someday the house will go to others after us. These houses are personalities in our lives. They have their roles to play. ¡¯

"She looked at the big columns. She liked the feeling of the place.

" 'Even the house I grew up in,' she said, 'poor as it was, it was a huge Victorian on St. Charles Avenue. It was chock-full of ghosts and people. You know, I didn't grow up rich. I was a poor kind of down-at-the-heel Mayfair when it comes right down to it. My parents were both spineless drunks. They gave their lives to the bottle. And now I'm the technical owner of a private plane and the designated heiress to billions of dollars. It makes me crazy sometimes, the switch, but there I go again talking about dreams, because I always dreamed I'd be the Design¨¦e of the Mayfair Legacy. ¡¯

"She started to look a little bit sad, which alarmed me.

" 'Someday I have to tell you all about our family,' she said. 'But right now I'm with you. Tell me about you. ¡¯

"I thought she was absolutely brilliant. I had never thought much about the kind of woman I'd marry, if any, and now it seemed perfectly right that she be brilliant as well as beautiful. And her beauty, it was natural. She wore no lipstick or eyebrow pencil. She had come out of the shower pure and young. I was totally captivated.

"It was getting dusk. The sky was streaked with amethyst and burning gold. I took her down to the old cemetery. I explained to her how the West Ruby River fed our lonely two hundred acres of Sugar Devil Swamp.

"I told her about Sugar Devil Island and the Hermitage, about the strange inscription on the mausoleum and about the strange trespasser breaking into the house, and that it was his attack which got me taken to Mayfair Medical.

" 'Can we go to the island, Quinn?' she asked. 'Can you show me? I have to see this place for myself. How can I be Ophelia forever if I fear to travel ever-flowing streams?¡¯

" 'Well, not now, my precious immortal Ophelia,' I said. 'It's getting dark and I'm not macho enough to be going into the swamp in the dark. But I can take you there in the day. You saw the security guys all around? We'll take two of them with us. That way if the stranger shows his face we can blast him. ¡¯

"She was very curious. She wanted to know more about the Hermitage and its circular structure. Had there been a stairs up to the cupola?

" 'Yes, there is, and you know I never went up there. It was a circular iron stairs, and I hardly took notice of it, and I'm sure if you go up there you can have a better view over the swamp to Blackwood Manor. ¡¯

" 'I just have to see it,' she said. 'It's too grandly mysterious. And what do you plan to do about the trespasser?¡¯

" 'I'm moving him out!' I said. 'He's already in a rage that I burnt his books. Well, when I get back out there with my men we're throwing out his marble table and his golden chair. He'll find them sunk in the muck where he dumped the bodies. ¡¯

" 'What bodies?' She was amazed.

"I doubled back and told her that part -- of how I'd first seen him in the moonlight, dumping the bodies. She was very intrigued.

" 'But this is a killer, this person,' she said.

" 'I'm not afraid of him,' I countered. 'And after what happened when he attacked me upstairs, I know that Goblin can and will protect me. ¡¯

"I glanced back at Goblin who was coming behind us at a distance. I nodded at him. My brave companion.

"She looked at the darkening purple sky. The cicadas were singing everywhere. It seemed the Earth was purring. 'Boy, I wish there was time for us to go out there,' she said.

"I laughed. 'Neither of us has the sense to be afraid!' I admitted. She began laughing and then both of us were laughing, unable to stop it. I put my arms around her finally and just held her, happier than I'd ever been in my whole existence.