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"No. I watched the house for an hour or so, too. There were no cars. I don't even know how anyone would get here, except . . ."

"Except what?" I said.

"Except through the canals, of course. It was too dark to go down there and check. You want something to drink--cold water, juice?" he offered moving toward the small kitchen.

"No. I'm fine. I'd like to go into the house immediately and look where you saw the light."

"Sure. Let me get us a couple of flashlights," he said and went to a cabinet. "I really didn't mean for you to come up here so late. Tomorrow would probably be just as good. Does your father know you've come?"

"He doesn't know yet, but I left him a note. It's all right."

Jack nodded, but he looked skeptical.

"It's very important that I find my mother quickly. My brother needs her desperately," I said.

He stared for a moment, his eyes softening. "I understand. Okay, let's go, then." He opened the door for me, and we stepped out. "Might as well drive over to the house," he said, nodding at my car. We got in and I drove over, describing how bad the rain had been at the start of my trip.

"Didn't get much here," he said. "That's the way these summer storms are. Sometimes we get them bad and you don't and vice versa."

We got out of the car and walked up the steps to the gallery. He flipped on his flashlight and I did the same. Then, we entered the house. Please, I prayed, please let Mommy be here. If I found her, I would take her directly to the hospital. In hours we could be at Pierre's bedside.

The small amount of illumination our flashlights provided elongated the shadows and made the rooms and corridors look deeper than they were. Furniture draped in sheets resembled spirits waiting patiently to be reanimated, and the silhouettes created by our flashlights slid across the walls and ceilings like phantoms gathering around us. Our own footsteps made the floorboards creak. Our shoes clicked over the tiles, a small sound amplified in the emptiness.

"The light was upstairs," Jack said. "Be careful."

He led the way up the grand staircase. The steps groaned under our weight. It had been a long time since anyone had walked up or down regularly. I felt a rippling sensation on the back of my neck, as if someone had stepped up behind me. I paused and spun around. As we were moving forward, the darkness, pushed aside by our beams of light, was rushing back in behind us. I decided to stay as close to Jack as I could. When we reached the landing, he directed me to the right and we entered what I knew was Uncle Paul's bedroom.

"I might be wrong," Jack said. "But I'm pretty sure the light was in here. I counted the windows from the end of the house. If there was someone in this room, that person was standing about here." He moved to the window. "The light lingered awhile and then grew smaller. My guess is that the person moved deeper into the house, away from the window. I called and called, but no one responded. Could have been a prowler or a burglar, as I said," he added.

"There isn't much here for a burglar to steal, is there?" I asked.

"Well, there are good furnishings, works of art, bric-a-brac, kitchenware . . sure, there's good loot, especially for some of these swamp pirates. We don't have urban crime, but we do have some lowlifes meandering about the canals, breaking into other people's shacks. This place is so far out that it's not easy to rob, but desperate people do desperate things."

Our flashligh

ts were like candles. They threw a glow over our faces as we stood talking.

"Why would your mother come back here by herself in the middle of the night?" he asked. "You obviously thought she would or you wouldn't have come. I don't mean to poke my nose where it don't belong," he added quickly.

I shook my head and bit down on my lower lip. If Mommy was in the house, she would have heard us, but I couldn't be sure she would let us know she was here. I had no idea what state of mind she was in at this point.

"I told you about my brother's death and how upset my mother was, but I didn't tell you that my mother blamed herself for the tragedy. She went to a voodoo mama and was told to enact certain rituals. The next thing we knew, she had left to do something else mysterious. She sent a letter telling us she wouldn't be coming home for quite a while, if ever. We suspected she had returned to the bayou and found something she left in the shack where she and my great-grandmother lived when my mother was a little girl."

"And then she lived in this house after she married Paul Tate," he said.

"Yes."

"So you think she's coming back here to perform some voodoo ritual?"

"She's returning to wherever she thinks she did something that might have put a curse on us. I'm sure there's some ritual that has to do with driving away evil spirits," I told him.

"You don't believe in any of that, I take it," he said. "No."

He nodded thoughtfully. "I'm really sorry for your troubles."

"It's gotten worse. My little brother, the one who's in a coma, has become very sick. The psychiatrist treating him thinks he believes my mother blames him for my other brother's death because she doesn't go to see him. He doesn't want to live anymore," I concluded sadly.

"That's terrible."