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."
  
  All that had been very clear and understandable when she dreamed it but even by the 
next day the "mad scheme" was largely lost. OK. The Victrola. Oncle Julien wants me to 
have it. Witchcraft, my favorite thing.
  
  And look what had happened to the damned Victrola, so far.  He'd gone to all that 
trouble in 1914 to get it out of the house-assuming that sleeping with thirteen-year-old 
Ancient Evelyn had been trouble-and when Ancient Evelyn tried to pass on that Victrola to 
Mona, Gilford and Alicia had had a terrible quarrel. Oh, that was the worst of days.
  
  Mona had never seen such a fight as happened then between Alicia and Gifford. "You're 
not giving her that Victrola," Gifford had screamed. She'd run at Alicia and slapped her 
over and over, and tried to push her out of the bedroom where she had taken the Victrola.
  
  "You can't do this, she's my daughter, and Ancient Evelyn said it is to be hers!" 
Alicia had screamed.
  
  They had fought all the time like that as girls, think nothing of it, Ancient Evelyn 
had said. She had remained in the parlor. "Gifford will not destroy the Victrola. The 
time will come when you may have the Victrola. No Mayfair would destroy Oncle Julien's 
Victrola. As for the pearls, Gifford can keep them for now."
  
  Mona didn't care about the pearls.
  
  That had pretty much been Ancient Evelyn's quota of speech for the next three or four 
weeks.
  
  Gifford had been sick after that, sick for months. Strife exhausted Gifford, which was 
only logical. Uncle Ryan had had to take her to Destin, Florida, to rest at the beach 
house. Same thing had happened after Deirdre's funeral; Aunt Gifford had been so sick 
that Ryan had taken her up to Destin. Aunt Gifford always fled to Destin, to the white 
beach and the clean water of the Gulf, to the peace and quiet of a little modern house 
with no cobwebs and no stories.
  
  But the truly awful part for Mona was that Aunt Gifford had never given her the 
Victrola! When Mona had finally cornered her and demanded to know where it was, Aunt 
Gifford had said, "I took it up to First Street. I took the pearls there too. I put them 
back in a safe place.  There's where all Oncle Julien's things belong, in that house, 
along with his memory." And Alicia had screamed and they'd started fighting again.
  
  In one of the dreams, Oncle Julien had said, dancing to the record on the Victrola: 
"The waltz is from La Traviata, my child, good music for a courtesan." Julien danced, and 
the pinched little soprano voice sang on and on.
  
  She had heard the melody so distinctly. Rare to be able to hum a song that you hear in 
a dream. Lovely scratchy sound to the Victrola.  Ancient Evelyn had later recognized the 
song Mona was humming. It was from Verdi Violetta's waltz.
  
  "That was Julien's record," she'd said.
  
  "Yes, but how am I going to get the Victrola?" Mona had asked in the dream.
  
  "Can't anyone in this family figure out anything for herself!" Oncle Julien had almost 
wept. "I'm so tired. Don't you see? I'm getting weaker and weaker. Cherie, please wear a 
violet ribbon. I don't care for pink ribbons, though it is very shocking with red hair. 
Wear violet for your Oncle Julien. I am so weary"
  
  "Why?" she'd asked. But he had already disappeared.
  
  That had been last spring, that dream. She had bought some violet ribbon, but Alicia 
swore it was bad luck and took it all away. Mona's bow tonight was pink, like her cotton 
and lace dress.
  
  Seems poor Cousin Deirdre had died last May right after Mona had had that dream, and 
First Street had come into the hands of Rowan and Michael, and the great restoration had 
begun. Every time she'd passed she'd seen Michael up there on the roof, or just climbing 
a ladder, or climbing over a high iron railing, or walking right on the parapet with his 
hammer in hand.
  
  "Thor!" she'd called out to him once. He hadn't heard her, but he'd waved and smiled. 
Yes, to die for, all right.
  
  She wasn't so sure about the times of all the dreams. When they'd started, she hadn't 
known there would be so many of them. Her dreams floated in space. She hadn't been smart 
enough in the beginning to date them, and to make a chronology of Mayfair events. She had 
that now in \WS\MAYFAIR\CHRONO. Every month she learned more tricks in her computer 
system, more ways of keeping track of all her thoughts and feelings, and plans.
  
  She opened the bathroom door and stepped into the kitchen.  Beyond the glass doors the