“This was a very uncommon kind of thing for me to say to Pops. Pops and I spoke in rather formal terms with each other. And one of the things we had never done was discuss Patsy.

“He answered in a quiet flat voice, ‘No. It was just something of the moment. I figured I could save that one. I thought that that was something to do, to bring up that one. But the truth is, I don’t even think she could carry one to term if she wanted to. She’s gotten rid of too many, and that makes a woman’s womb weak.’

“I was amazed at his candor.

“I wondered why I was alive. Maybe he’d given her money to carry me. But I didn’t say anything. I’d rather be afraid of it than know. And Pops’ voice had sounded too dead and metallic. I wasn’t easy with Pops. I felt sorrow for him. Neither of us said another word about it.

“And then at last—at last—it was eight o’clock and I could sit down on the bedside with Big Ramona and she’d brush her long white hair and slowly braid it and I’d be safe, safe in the shadows, and we would talk, and then lie down to sleep.

“One afternoon, around three p.m., I was sitting out on the front steps of the house, looking down the long avenue of pecan trees at the changing of the light. It was a Tuesday, I’m almost sure, and we had no company, the last of the weekend guests having gone away, and the guests for the coming weekend not yet arrived.

“I hated the stillness. I saw that image of the gun at my head. What could I do, I thought, to stop thinking of putting that pistol to my head? It was too late to go out fishing in the pirogue, and I didn’t want to get all dirty in the swamps anyway, and everything—absolutely every single thing—was done in the house.

“Goblin was nowhere about. Goblin had learned to shy away from me when I got in these dark moods, when his influence to get me to do things was at its lowest. And though he would probably have come had I called him, I didn’t want to see him. When I thought of putting the gun to my head, I wondered if one bullet would kill us both.

“No, I didn’t want the company of Goblin.

“Then it occurred to me that I had not inflicted myself as Lord of the Manor on the attic; the attic was in fact an undiscovered territory, and I was too old to be forbidden to go up there, and I didn’t need to ask anybody. So I went inside and up the stairs.