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. I'm going to do it if it kills me. And maybe then, when she had 
him, she'd know what he knew about Rowan, why Rowan and he had fought on Christmas Day, 
and why Rowan had disappeared. After all, this wasn't really a betrayal of Rowan. Rowan 
had gone off with someone, that was almost for sure, and everybody in the family, whether 
they would talk about it or not, was terrified for Rowan.
  
  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 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."
  
  It certainly had been an honor. The greatest family wedding ever.  And Mona had loved 
it. If it hadn't been for Aunt Gifford watching her, Mona would have made a sneaky search 
of the whole First Street house that very afternoon, while everyone else swilled 
champagne and talked about the wholesome side of things, and speculated about Mr.  
Lightner, who had not yet revealed his history to them.
  
  But Mona would not have been in the wedding at all if Ancient Evelyn had not risen from 
her chair to overrule Gifford. "Let the child walk up the aisle," she had said in her dry