So you're alone in there, big boy, she thought. Not scared to be in the very room where 
Deirdre died. And let's not forget Great-aunt Mary Beth and all the people who saw the 
ghosts around her when she lay in that very same bed, and who knows what went on before 
that?
  
  Gifford had thought it a deplorable decision for Michael to move back into that 
accursed room. But Mona understood. Why would he want to stay in the bridal chamber after 
Rowan had left him? Besides, it was the prettiest and fanciest room in the house, the 
north master bedroom. He himself had restored the plaster ceilingy-and the medallion. He 
had polished the enormous half tester bed.
  
  Oh, she understood Michael. Michael liked darkness too, in his own way. Why else would 
anyone have married into this family? she thought. Something in him was seduced by 
darkness. He felt good in the twilight and good in the dark, just like she did. She knew 
that when she watched him walk in the nighttime garden. His thing. If he liked the early 
morning at all, which she doubted, it was only because it was dim and distorting.
  
  "He is simply too good." Oncle Julien's words came back to her.
  
  Well, we'll see.
  
  She crept to the doorframe and saw the tiny nightlight, plugged directly into the 
outlet over on the far wall. The light of the street lamps filtered softly through the 
lace curtains, and there lay Michael, his head turned away from her, in his immaculate 
white cotton pajamas, pressed so carefully by Henri that they had a perfect seam down the 
arm. Michael's hand lay half open on the top of the comforter as though ready to accept a 
gift. She heard him take a long, raw and uneasy breath.
  
  But he hadn't heard her. He was dreaming. He turned on his side away from her, and sank 
deeper into a murmuring sleep.
  
  She slipped into the room.
  
  His diary was on the bedside table.
  
  She knew it by the cover; she had seen him writing in it this very night. Oh, it was 
unconscionable to look into it. She couldn't do it, but how she wanted just to glimpse a 
few words.
  
  What if she just took a little peek?
  
  Rowan, come back to me. I'm waiting.
  
  With a silent sigh she let it close.
  
  Look at all the bottles of pills. They were bombing him with this stuff. She knew most 
of the names because they were common and other old Mayfairs had taken them often enough. 
Blood pressure medicines mostly, and then Lasix, that evil diuretic which probably pulled 
all the potassium out of him the way it had out of Alicia, when she'd straightened up and 
tried to lose weight, and three other dangerous-sounding potions that were probably what 
made him look all the time like he was trying to wake up.
  
  Ought to do you a big favor and throw this junk in the garbage for you, she thought. 
What you need is Mayfair Witches' Brew. When she got home, she'd look up all these drugs 
in one of the big pharmaceutical books she had in her library. Ah, look, Xanax. That 
could make anyone into a zombie. Why give him that four times a day? They'd taken Xanax 
away from her mother, because Alicia took it in handfuls with her wine and her beer.
  
  Hmmm, this did feel like a very unlucky room. She liked the fancy decorative work above 
the windows, and the chandelier, but it was an unlucky room. And that smell was in here 
too.
  
  Very faint, but it was here, the delicious smell, the smell that didn't belong in the 
house, and had something to do with Christmas.
  
  She came close to the bed, which was very high like so many old-fashioned beds, and she 
looked at Uncle Michael lying there, his profile deep in the snow-white cotton cover of 
the down pillow, dark lashes and eyebrows surprisingly distinct. Very much a man, just a 
smidgen more testosterone and you would have had a barrel-chested ape with bushy 
eyebrows. But there had not been the smidgen. Perfection had been the result.
  
  "O brave new world," she whispered, "that has such people in it!"
  
  He was drugged, all right. Totally out of it.
  
  That was probably why he'd lost that gift with his hands. He'd worn gloves most of the 
time up till Christmas, telling people his hands were very sensitive. Oh, Mona had tried 
hard to get to talk to him about that! And tonight, he'd remarked several times he didn't 
need the gloves anymore at all. Well, of course not if you were taking two milligrams of 
Xanax every four hours on top of all this other crap! That's how they'd shut down 
Deirdre's powers, drugging her.
  
  Oh, so many opportunities had passed by. Well, this opportunity wouldn't.
  
  And what was this cute little bottle, Elavil? That had a sedative effect too, didn't 
it? And wow, what a dose. It's a wonder Michael had been able to come downstairs tonight. 
And to think he'd held her on his shoulders for Comus. Poor guy. This was damn near 
sadistic.
  
  She touched his cheek lightly. Very clean-shaven. He didn't wake.  Another long deep 
breath came out of him, almost a yawn, sounding very male.
  
  She knew she could wake him, however, he wasn't in a coma after all, and then the most 
disturbing thought came to her! She'd been with David already tonight! Damn! It had been 
safe, sanitary but still messy.  She couldn't wake Michael, not till she'd sunk down into 
a nice warm bath.
  
  Hmmm. And she hadn't even thought of that till now. Her clothes were still soiled. That 
was the whole trouble with being thirteen. Your brilliance was uneven. You forgot