“I didn’t respond, then I spoke my mind: ‘It’s not good for Pops to go out in the swamp right now. Pops isn’t himself. Pops isn’t hale and hearty; Pops hasn’t been eating for days, and the heat out there, and the mosquitoes—no, I can’t take Pops—.’

“ ‘Who then, Tarquin? For as God is my witness, you shall not go alone.’

“ ‘Aunt Queen,’ I said, ‘nothing’s going to stop me from going out there in the morning. I’d go now, if it wasn’t pitch-dark.’

“She leaned across the table. ‘Tarquin, I forbid it,’ she said. ‘Need I remind you that you’ve described a mausoleum made of gold, and signs of habitation in the Hermitage—a desk and a golden chair! Somebody’s using the island. And why, pray tell, if this tomb is made of gold—.’

“ ‘I don’t know all the answers, but I have to go back out there, and don’t you see, I have to have the freedom to invoke this ghost, and to let her speak to me—.’

“ ‘A ghost that seduced you! A ghost that used her charm and sensuality so palpably that you actually lost your virginity with her? Is this what I’m hearing—and you mean to invoke her?’

“ ‘I have to go, Aunt Queen, and frankly, I think you know that if you were me, you would.’

“ ‘I’d speak to Fr. Kevin first, that’s what I’d do and that’s what I want you to do. Now, we’ll call Father in the morning.’

“ ‘Father!’ I scoffed. ‘He just said his first Mass. He’s a kid!’

“And I was exaggerating but I was right that Fr. Kevin Mayfair was young, meaning around thirty-five or so, and though I liked him enormously, I didn’t think of him with the same respect I felt for the old gray-haired priests of the pre–Vatican II days who said Mass with so much more flair.

“She rose from the table in such a little huff that she knocked over her chair backwards and then went striding in her dazzling high heels to her dressing table where she rummaged through her top drawer.

“Then she turned and I saw a rosary swinging in the light. ‘This isn’t blessed, but it will have to do for now,’ she said. ‘I want you to put this around your neck, under your shirt, over your shirt, on your bare chest, I don’t care, but you’re to wear it from now on.’

“I didn’t bother to put up a fight. The rosary was small with perfectly round gold beads, and I didn’t mind having it, though it did disappear under my shirt.