Emaleth knew when the sun rose.
  
  The color of everything brightened, and she saw Mother's hand high above her, dark and 
thin and immense, covering the whole world.
  
  Two
  
  THE HOUSE was all dark now. The cars were gone, and only one light burned in Michael 
Curry's window, in the old room where Cousin Deirdre had died. Mona understood exactly 
what had happened tonight and had to admit she was glad. She had almost planned it, 
almost...
  
  She'd told her father she would go back to Metairie with Uncle Ryan and Cousin Jenn and 
Clancy, but then she hadn't told Uncle Ryan. And Uncle Ryan was long gone, assuming as 
everyone would that Mona had gone home to Amelia Street with her father, which of course 
she had not.
  
  She'd been in the cemetery losing her bet that David wouldn't do it with her, right 
there on Mardi Gras Night in front of the Mayfair tomb. David had done it. Not so very 
great, actually, but for a fifteen year old not bad. And Mona had loved it sneaking away 
with him, his fear and her excitement, their climbing the whitewashed wall of the 
cemetery together and creeping through the alleyways of high marble tombs. To lie right 
down on the gravel path in the dampness and cold, that had been no small part of the 
dare, but she'd done it, smoothing her skirt under her, so that she could pull down her 
panties without getting dirty. "Now do it!" she'd said to David, who hadn't needed any 
more encouragement, or direct orders, by that time at all. She'd stared past him at the 
cold cloudy sky, at a single visible star, and then let her eyes move up the wall of 
little rectangular tombstones to the name:
  
  Deirdre Mayfair.
  
  Then David had finished. Just like that.
  
  "You're not afraid of anything," he had said after.  "Like I'm supposed to be afraid of 
you?" She'd sat up, cheated, having not even pretended to enjoy it, overheated and really 
not much liking her cousin David, but still satisfied that it had been done.
  
  Mission accomplished, she would write in her computer later, in the secret directory \ 
WS\ MONA \ AGENDA, where she deposited all her confessions of the triumphs she could not 
share with anyone in the world. No one could crack her computer system, not even Uncle 
Ryan or Cousin Pierce, each of whom she had caught, at various times, firing up her 
system, and searching through various directories - "Some setup, Mona." All it was, was 
the fastest 386 IBM clone on the market, with max memory and max hard drive. Ah, what 
people didn't know about computers. It always amazed Mona. She herself learned more about 
them every day.
  
  Yes, this was a moment that only the computer would witness.  Maybe they would start to 
be a regular occurrence now that her father and mother were truly drinking themselves to 
death. And there were so many Mayfairs to be conquered. In fact, her agenda did not even 
include non-Mayfairs at this point, except, of course, for Michael Curry, but he was a 
Mayfair now, most definitely. The whole family had him in its grip.
  
  Michael Curry in that house alone. Take stock. It was Mardi Gras Night, ten p.m., three 
hours after Comus, and Mona Mayfair was on her own, and on the corner of First and 
Chestnut, light as a ghost, looking at the house, with the whole soft dark night to do as 
she pleased.
  
  Her father was surely passed out by now; in fact somebody had probably driven him home. 
If he'd walked the thirteen blocks up to Amelia and St. Charles, that was a miracle. He'd 
been so drunk before Comus even passed that he'd sat right down on the neutral ground on 
St. Charles, knees up, hands on a naked bottle of Southern Comfort, drinking right in 
front of Uncle Ryan and Aunt Bea and whoever else cared to look at him, and telling Mona 
in no uncertain terms to leave him alone.
  
  Fine with Mona. Michael Curry had picked her up just like she weighed nothing and put 
her on his shoulders for the entire parade.  How good it had felt to be riding that 
strong man, with one hand in his soft curly black hair. She'd loved the feeling of his 
face against her thighs, and she'd hugged him just a little, much as she dared, and let 
her left hand rest against his cheek.
  
  Some man, Michael Curry. And her father much too drunk to notice anything that she did.
  
  As for Mona's mother, she'd passed out Mardi Gras afternoon. If she ever woke up to see 
Comus pass St. Charles and Amelia, that was a miracle too. Ancient Evelyn was there of 
course, her usual silent self, but she was awake. She knew what went on. If Alicia set 
the bed on fire, Ancient Evelyn could call for help. And you really couldn't leave Alicia 
alone anymore.
  
  The point was, everything was covered. Even Michael's Aunt
  
  Vivian was not at home at First Street. She'd gone uptown for the night with Aunt 
Cecilia. Mona had seen them leave right after the parade.  And Aaron Lightner, that 
mysterious scholar, he'd taken off with Aunt Bea. Mona had heard them planning it. Her 
car? His? It made Mona happy to think of Beatrice Mayfair and Aaron Lightner together.  
Aaron Lightner sloughed off ten years when he was around Beatrice, and she was that kind 
of gray-haired woman who can make men look at her anywhere and everywhere she goes. If 
she went into Walgreen's, the men came out of the stock room to help her. Or some 
gentleman asked her opinion on a good dandruff shampoo. It was almost a joke, the way 
Aunt Bea attracted men, but Aaron Lightner was a man she wanted, and that was new.
  
  If that old maid, Eugenia, was there, that was OK because she was tucked away in the 
farthest back bedroom and they said, once she drank her nightly glass of port, nothing 
could wake her up.
  
  Nobody in that house practically speaking but her man. And now that Mona knew the 
history of the Mayfair Witches - now that she had finally got her hands on Aaron 
Lightner's long document - there was no keeping her out of First Street any longer. Of 
course she had her questions about what she'd read; thirteen witches descended from a 
Scottish village called Donnelaith where the first, a poor cunning woman, had been burnt