foliage against her face and not liking it. Pushing her pink skirt down, she tiptoed out of the dampish earth and onto the flagstone path.
Lamps burned dim on either side of the big keyhole doorway. The porch lay in darkness, its rocking chairs barely visible, painted black as they were to match the shutters. The garden seemed to gather round and press in.
The house itself looked to her as it always had, beautiful, mysterious, and inviting, though she had to admit in her heart of hearts she had liked it better when it was a spidery ruin, before Michael came with his hammer and nails. She had liked it when Aunt Deirdre sat forever on the side porch in a rocker, and the vines threatened to swallow the whole place.
Of course Michael saved it, but oh, if only she’d gotten into it once while it was still ruined. She’d known all about that body they found in the attic. She’d heard her mother and Aunt Gifford arguing about it for years and years. Mona’s mother had been only thirteen when Mona was born, and Gifford had been there from the time of Mona’s earliest memories.
In fact there had actually been a time when Mona wasn’t sure which one was her mother-Gifford or Alicia. And then there had been Ancient Evelyn always holding Mona on her lap, and even though Ancient Evelyn wouldn’t talk very much she still sang those old melancholy songs. Gifford had seemed the logical choice for a mother, because Alicia by that time was already a prodigious drunk, but Mona had it right and had for years. Mona was the woman of the house at Amelia Street.
They’d talked a lot in those days about that body upstairs. They’d talked about Cousin Deirdre, the heiress, who wasted away in her catatonia. They’d talked about all the mysteries of First Street.
The first time Mona had ever come into First Street-right before Rowan’s marriage to Michael-she had fancied she could smell that body still. She’d wanted to go up and lay her hands on the spot. Michael Curry had been restoring the house, and workmen were up there painting away. Aunt Gifford had said for Mona to “Stay put!” and given her a stern look every time Mona tried to wander.
It had been a miracle to watch Michael Curry’s work. Mona dreamed such a thing would someday happen to the house on St. Charles and Amelia.
Well, Mona would get to that third-floor room now. And thanks to the history she knew who the dead man had been, a young investigator from the Talamasca called Stuart Townsend. Still wasn’t clear who had poisoned the man. But Mona’s bet was it had been her Uncle Cortland, who really wasn’t her uncle at all, but actually her great- great-grandfather, which was really one of the most fun puzzles in the family history to figure out.
Smells. She wanted to investigate that other smell-the scent that lingered in the hallway and the living room of First Street. Nothing to do with a dead body, that one. The smell that had come with disaster at Christmas. The smell which no one else could smell, it seemed, unless Aunt Gifford had been lying when Mona asked her.
Aunt Gifford did that. She wouldn’t admit to “seeing things” or picking up strange scents. “I don’t smell anything!” she’d said with annoyance. Well, maybe that was true. Mayfairs could read other people’s minds a lot of the time, but they were good at blocking out each other.
Mona wanted to touch everything. She wanted to look for the Victrola. She did not care about the pearls. She wanted the Victrola. And she wanted to know THE BIG FAMILY SECRET-what had happened to Rowan Mayfair on Christmas Day. Why had Rowan left her new husband, Michael? And why had they found him drowned in the ice- cold swimming pool? Just nearly dead. Everybody had thought he was going to die after that, except Mona.
Of course Mona could conjecture what happened like everyone else. But she wanted more than that. She wanted the Michael Curry version. And to date, there was no such version. If he’d told anyone what happened on Christmas Day, it was his friend Aaron Lightner, from the Talamasca, who would not tell anyone else. But people felt too sorry for Michael to press it. They’d thought he was going to die from what happened to him.
Mona had managed to get into his room in Intensive Care on Christmas Night and hold his hand. He wasn’t going to die. There was hurt to his heart, yes, because he’d stopped breathing for a long time in the cold water, and he had to rest to heal that hurt, but he was nowhere near dying, she knew that as soon as she felt his pulse. And touching him had been rather like touching a Mayfair. He had something extra to him which Mayfairs always had. He could see ghosts, she knew. The History of the Mayfair Witches had not included him and Rowan, but she knew. She wondered if he’d tell the truth about it. Fact, she’d even heard some maddening whispers to the effect that he had.
Oh, so much to learn, so much to uncover. And being thirteen was kind of like a bad joke on her. She was no more thirteen than Joan of Arc had ever been thirteen, the way she saw it. Or Catherine of Siena. Of course they were saints but only by a hair. They were almost witches.
And what about the Children’s Crusade? If Mona had been there, they would have gotten back the Holy Land, she figured. What if she started a nationwide revolt of genius thirteen-year-olds right now-demand for the power to vote based on intelligence, a driver’s license as soon as you could qualify and see over the dashboard. Well, a lot of this would have to wait.
The point was, she’d known tonight as they walked back from the Comus parade that Michael was quite strong enough to go to bed with her, if only she could get him to do it, which was not going to be an easy thing.
Men Michael’s age had the best combination of conscience and self-control. An old man, like her Great-uncle Randall, that had been easy, and young boys, like her cousin David, were nothing at all.
But a thirteen-year-old going after Michael Curry? It was like scaling Everest, Mona thought with a smile.
It wasn’t like Rowan was dead; it was like she’d gone off and left the barn door open. And here was Mona coming along, mad for Michael Curry, this big woolly mammoth of a man.
Mona stared up at the huge keyhole doorway for one moment, thinking of all the pictures she’d seen of family members in that doorway, over the years. Great-oncle Julien’s portrait still hung at Amelia Street, though Mona’s mother had to take it down every time Aunt Gifford came, even though it was a dreadful insult to Ancient Evelyn. Ancient Evelyn rarely said a word-only drawn out of her reverie by her terrible worry for Mona and Mona’s mother, that Alicia was really dying finally from the drink, and Patrick was so far gone he didn’t know for sure who he even was.
Staring at the keyhole doorway, Mona felt almost as if she could see Oncle Julien now with his white hair and blue eyes. And to think he had once danced up there with Ancient Evelyn. The Talamasca hadn’t known about that. The history had passed over Ancient Evelyn and her granddaughters Gifford and Alicia, and Alicia’s only child, Mona.
But this was a game she was playing, making visions. Oncle Julien wasn’t in the door. Had to be careful. Those visions were not the real thing. But the real thing was coming.
Mona walked along the flagstone path to the side of the house, and then back to the flags, past the side porch where Aunt Deirdre had sat in her rocker for so many years. Poor Aunt Deirdre. Mona had seen her from the fence many a time, but she’d never managed to get inside the gate. And now to know the awful story of the way they’d drugged her.
The porch was all clean and pretty these days, with no screen on it anymore, though Uncle Michael had put back Deirdre’s rocking chair and did use it, as if he had become as crazy as she had been, sitting there for hours in the cold. The windows to the living room were hung with lace curtains and fancy silk drapes. Ah, such riches.
And here, where the path turned and widened, this was where Aunt Antha had fallen and died, years and years ago, as doomed a witch as her daughter, Deirdre, would become, Antha’s skull broken and blood flowing out of her head and her heart.
No one was here now to stop Mona from dropping down to her knees and laying her hands on the very stones. For one flashing instant, she thought she saw Antha, a girl of eighteen, with big dead eyes, and an emerald necklace tangled with blood and hair.
But again, this was making pictures. You couldn’t be sure they were any more than imagination, especially when you’d heard the stories all your life as Mona had, and dreamed so many strange dreams. Gifford sobbing at the kitchen table at Amelia Street. “That house is evil, evil, I tell you. Don’t let Mona go up there.”
“Oh, nonsense, Gifford, she wants to be the flower girl in Rowan Mayfair’s wedding. It’s an honor.”
