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"I was floored. I felt quite alone. My closest kith and kin had lied to me, as I saw it, and I wished with all my heart that Lynelle had not died. I prayed that somehow the spirit of Lynelle could come to me -- since I possessed such a knack for ghosts and spirits -- and I swore under my breath and to myself alone that I knew Lynelle could tell me what to make of all that had transpired.

" 'Beloved nephew,' Aunt Queen said -- an expression she would use a lot as I got older, and she said it now with sweet formality and intimate devotion -- 'beloved nephew, you have to realize that I take your powers very seriously and always have. But I've never known if they were a good thing. ¡¯

"A sudden revelation came to me, a certainty based upon what she had said, if not everything else, that my powers weren't for good. I told her in a half whisper, the only manly voice I could manage, about the twilight panic, the thoughts of taking Pops' gun and putting an end to my life, and I told her about how on the afternoon of Rebecca's coming to me I had sat on the front steps, watching that golden light go down and saying to the powers that be, Please deliver me from this, please anything but this. I didn't remember my prayer. I don't remember it now. Perhaps I gave her a more nearly accurate version. I don't know.

"There came a tender silence, and when I looked up I saw the tears on her cheeks. Beyond her, by the post of her bed, stood Goblin, vivid once more, and he too was weeping and reaching out to me, as if he would like to cradle my head in his left hand.

" 'Go away, Goblin!' I said sharply. 'I don't want you here now! Leave me. Go find Lynelle for me! Travel the spirit winds for me, but get away. ¡¯

"He flashed brilliant, at his most detailed, his most shining, and his face was full of hurt and insult and pouting lip, and then, snap, no more.

" 'If he's still in this room, I don't know it,' I confessed to Aunt Queen. 'And as for Rebecca, I have to find justice for her. I have to discover, if I can, what they did to her in that house. ¡¯

"Aunt Queen wiped her blue eyes with her napkin, and I felt more than a twinge of guilt that I had made her cry. I loved her, suddenly, no matter what she said or did, and I needed her and was so miserable at having been angry with her that I got up, came around, went down on my knees and embraced her and held her fragile form for some seconds in utter quiet.

"Then I looked at her shimmering, ankle-strap spike-heel shoes, and I laughed and I kissed her insteps. I kissed her toes. I gave her right foot an affectionate squeeze with my left hand.

" 'Tarquin Blackwood, you're certifiably insane, cease and desist,' she declared. 'Now sit down like a good boy, and pour me another glass of champagne. ¡¯

"We had finished one bottle, so I opened another, with the aplomb of a boy who has for years assisted in an elegant bed-and-breakfast hotel, and poured the foaming wine into her tulip glass.

"Of course she then poured out to me her horror at my having thoughts of putting a gun to my head, and I swore to her I would never do it, only think about it, not as long as she lived and Pops lived and Jasmine lived and Big Ramona lived and Lolly lived; and then I rattled off the names of all the farmhands and Shed Men, and I was being perfectly and convincingly sincere.

" 'But you see, what I'm trying to say to you,' I went on, now that we were both calmer and obviously a little drunker, 'is that spirits and ghosts must come from somewhere, and mine was a blasphemous prayer or a dangerous one and out of the darkness Rebecca came. ¡¯

" 'Now you're talking sense, my dear boy,' she responded.

" 'Of course, I know that, Aunt Queen. I've always known it. I'll never forget that she urged me to light the lamps. I'll never be her pawn again. It can't happen. I'm too wary, too in control of it when I see these creatures, I swear it, but I do have to find out what they did to her, and she alone can tell me, and that will be where she's strongest -- on Sugar Devil Island in that strange house. ¡¯

" 'To which you will not go, Tarquin, unless Pops goes with you! Do you understand?¡¯

"I didn't respond, then I spoke my mind: 'It's not good for Pops to go out in the swamp right now. Pops isn't himself. Pops isn't hale and hearty; Pops hasn't been eating for days, and the heat out there, and the mosquitoes -- no, I can't take Pops --. ¡¯

" 'Who then, Tarquin? For as God is my witness, you shall not go alone. ¡¯

" 'Aunt Queen,' I said, 'nothing's going to stop me from going out there in the morning. I'd go now, if it wasn't pitch-dark. ¡¯

"She leaned across the table. 'Tarquin, I forbid it,' she said. 'Need I remind you that you've described a mausoleum made of gold, and signs of habitation in the Hermitage -- a desk and a golden chair! Somebody's using the island. And why, pray tell, if this tomb is made of gold --. ¡¯

" 'I don't know all the answers, but I have to go back out there, and don't you see, I have to have the freedom to invoke this ghost, and to let her speak to me --. ¡¯

" 'A ghost that seduced you! A ghost that used her charm and sensuality so palpably that you actually lost your virginity with her? Is this what I'm hearing -- and you mean to invoke her?¡¯

" 'I have to go, Aunt Queen, and frankly, I think you know that if you were me, you would. ¡¯

" 'I'd speak to Fr. Kevin first, that's what I'd do and that's what I want you to do. Now, we'll call Father in the morning. ¡¯

" 'Father!' I scoffed. 'He just said his first Mass. He's a kid!¡¯

"And I was exaggerating but I was right that Fr. Kevin Mayfair was young, meaning around thirty-five or so, and though I liked him enormously, I didn't think of him with the same respect I felt for the old gray-haired priests of the pre-Vatican II days who said Mass with so much more flair.

"She rose from the table in such a little huff that she knocked over her chair backwards and then went striding in her dazzling high heels to her dressing table where she rummaged through her top drawer.

"Then she turned and I saw a rosary swinging in the light. 'This isn't blessed, but it will have to do for now,' she said. 'I want you to put this around your neck, under your shirt, over your shirt, on your bare chest, I don't care, but you're to wear it from now on. ¡¯

"I didn't bother to put up a fight. The rosary was small with perfectly round gold beads, and I didn't mind having it, though it did disappear under my shirt.