"You know what's happened!" she had said.
"That's superstition and madness," Ryan had answered. "I won't listen to it. I won't let you speak of it in front of the children."
"I don't want to talk about it in front of the children," Aunt Gifford had said, her jaw trembling. "I don't want the children to know! Keep them away from that house, I'm begging you. I've been begging you all along."
"Like it's my fault!" Uncle Ryan had whispered. Poor Uncle Ryan, the family lawyer, the family protector. Now that was a fine example of what conformity could do to one, because Uncle Ryan was in every respect a super-looking male animal, of the basically heroic type, with square jaw, and blue eyes, and good strong shoulders and a flat belly and a musician's hands. But you never noticed it. All you saw when you looked at Uncle Ryan was his suit, and his oxford-cloth shirt, and the shine on his Church's shoes. Every male at Mayfair and Mayfair dressed in exactly this fashion. It's a wonder the women didn't, that they had evolved a style which included pearls and pastel colors, and heels of varying height. Real wingdings, thought Mona. When she was a multimillionaire mogul, she would cut her own style.
But during that argument in the hallway, Uncle Ryan had showed how desperate he was, and how worried for Michael Curry; he hadn't meant to hurt Aunt Gifford. He never did.
Then Aunt Bea had come and quieted them both. Mona would have told Aunt Gifford then and there that Michael Curry wasn't going to die, but if she had she would have frightened Gifford all the more. You couldn't talk to Aunt Gifford about anything.
And now that Mona's mother was pretty much drunk all the time, you couldn't talk to her either, and Ancient Evelyn often did not answer at all when Mona spoke to her. Of course when she did, her mind was all there. "Mentation perfect," said her doctor.
Mona would never forget the time she'd asked to visit the house when it was still ruined and dirty, when Deirdre sat in her rocker. "I had a dream last night," she'd explained to her mother and to Aunt Gifford. "Oncle Julien was in it, and he told me to climb the fence, whether Aunt Carlotta was there or not, and to sit in Deirdre's lap."
This was all true. Aunt Gifford had gotten hysterical. "Don't you ever go near Cousin Deirdre." And Alicia had laughed and laughed and laughed. Ancient Evelyn had merely watched them.
"Ever see anybody with your Aunt Deirdre when you pass there?" Alicia had asked.
"CeeCee, how could you!" Gifford had demanded.
"Only that young man who's always with her."
That had put Aunt Gifford over the edge. After that Mona was technically sworn to stay away from First and Chestnut, to never set eyes on the house again. Of course she didn't pay much attention. She walked by whenever she could. Two of her friends from Sacred Heart lived pretty close to First and Chestnut. Sometimes she went home with them after school, just to have the excuse. They loved to have her help with their homework, and she was glad to do it. And they told her things about the house.
"The man's a ghost," her mother had whispered to her right in front of Gifford. "Don't ever tell the others that you've seen him. But you can tell me. What did he look like?" And then Alicia had gone into shrieking laughter again until Gifford had actually begun to cry. Ancient Evelyn had said nothing, but she'd been listening to all of this. You could tell when she listened by the alert look in her small blue eyes. What in God's name did she think of her two granddaughters?
Gifford had taken Mona aside later, as they walked to Gifford's car (Jaguar sedan, very Gifford, very Metairie). "Please believe me when I tell you to stay away from there," she'd said. "Nothing but evil comes out of that house."
Mona had tried to promise. But it hadn't interested her much at all; indeed, the die was cast for her. She had to know all about that place even then. And now, after the quarrel of Rowan and Michael, it was top priority: get inside and find out.
Finding the Talamasca document on Ryan's desk downtown had only tripled her curiosity. The File on the Mayfair Witches. She'd scooped it up and hurried out to a lunch counter to read the whole thing, there had been no stopping her, before anybody caught on to what she'd done. Donnelaith, Scotland. Didn't the family own property there still? Oh, what a history. The details about Antha and Deirdre of course were the real scandal. And it was perfectly clear to her that this document, in its original form, had gone on to include Michael and Rowan Mayfair. But it didn't anymore.
Aaron Lightner had broken off "the narrative," as he referred to it in those pages, before the birth of "the present designee." This was not to violate the privacy of the living, though the Order feels that the family has every right to know its history, insofar as such a history is known by anyone and recorded anywhere.
Hmmmm. These Talamasca people were amazing. "And Aunt Bea is about to marry one of them," thought Mona. That was like hearing that a juicy big fly had just been snared in one's sticky web.
That Rowan Mayfair had slipped through Mona's clutches, that Mona had never had five minutes alone with Rowan, that was a tragedy to be filed under WSMONADEFEAT.
But Mona had caught the very strong impression that Rowan was afraid of whatever power she had, just as the others were afraid.
Well, these powers didn't scare Mona. More and more Mona felt like a dancer just coming into a time of perfect strength. So she was only five feet one inch tall, and not likely to grow much taller. Her body was maturing with every passing day.
She liked being strong and unusual. She liked reading people's thoughts and seeing things that other people couldn't see. The fact that the man she'd seen was a ghost thrilled her. And she hadn't really been surprised to hear it. If only she had gotten into the house in those days.
Well, those days were gone, weren't they? And now was now. And now was really quite terrific. The disappearance of Rowan Mayfair had stirred up the family; people were revealing things. And here was this great house, empty except for Michael Curry, and for her.
The smell by the pool had dissipated somewhat, or she'd gotten used to it. But it was still there.
And the moment was all hers.
She proceeded to the back screen porch and checked one by one the locks of the many kitchen doors. If only one door had been forgotten...but no, that stiff-necked Henri had locked up the place like a fort. Well, no problem. Mona knew how to get in this house.
She crept around to the very back of the house, to the end of the old kitchen, which was now a bathroom, and she looked up at the bathroom window. Who would lock a window that high? And how would she get to it? Pull up one of the big plastic garbage cans which weighed almost nothing at all. She went down the alley, caught the can by its handle, and what do you know, it rolled. How efficient! And then she climbed on top of it, knees first, then feet crushing down the flexible black plastic lid, and she pried open the green shutters, and pushed at the sash.
Up it went, just that easy. It didn't jam until there was an opening quite big enough for her to get in. She was going to get her dress dirty on the dusty sill, but it didn't matter. She gave herself a boost with both hands, and slipped through the window, and all but tumbled to the carpeted floor.
Inside First Street! And it had been a slam dunk! For one second she stood there in the little bathroom, staring at the glimmering white porcelain of the old toilet and the marble top of the washstand, and remembering that last dream of Oncle Julien where he had taken her to this house and together they had climbed the stairs.
It was hazy now, as dreams always get, but she had written it in her computer diary under WSDREAMSJULIEN as she did all the dreams in which he came to her. She could remember now the file, which she had reread many times, though not the dream.
Oncle Julien had been playing the Victrola, the one that Mona was supposed to have, and he had been dancing about, in his long quilted satin robe. He'd said that Michael was too good. Angels have their limits. "Pure goodness has rarely defeated me, you understand, Mona," he had said with his charming French accent, speaking English for her as he always did
in her dreams, though she spoke French perfectly, "but it is invariably a nuisance to everyone else but the person who is so perfectly good."
Perfectly good. Mona had typed in "Perfectly Scrumptious, Perfectly Delectable, Perfectly a hunk!" Then she'd gone and made those entries in the file marked "Michael."
"Thoughts on Michael Curry: he is even more attractive now that he has had the heart attack, like a great beast with a wounded paw, a knight with a broken limb, Lord Byron with his club foot."
She had always found Michael "to die for," as the expression went. She hadn't needed her dreams to tell her, though they did embolden her somewhat, all that drama of Oncle Julien suggesting it to her, that Michael was a splendid conquest, and telling her how when Ancient Evelyn was only thirteen--Mona's age--Oncle Julien had bedded her in the attic at First Street, and from that illicit union had been born poor Laura Lee, the mother of Gifford and Alicia. Oncle Julien had given Ancient Evelyn the Victrola then and said, "Take it out of the house before they come. Take it away and keep it..."
"...It was a mad scheme. I never believed in witchcraft, you must understand, Mona. But I had to try something. Mary Beth had started to burn my books even before the end. She burnt them on the lawn outside, as if I were a child without rights or dignity. The Victrola was a little voodoo, magic, a focus of my will."