“At one point it seemed that everybody was talking about Patsy’s absence but I was probably imagining it. I had just said too many times that Patsy couldn’t possibly make it, and each time I found myself saying it I felt myself disliking Patsy a little more.

“As for the confession of her being HIV, I didn’t know whether or not I believed her.

“At last the long funeral day was over.

“The paying guests checked out early, insisting that they were more than happy to do it and wanted to go off to gamble at the casinos on the Gulf Coast anyway.

“A quiet fell over Blackwood Manor. The armed guards took their positions, but the house and the land seem to swallow them.

“The dusk came on, with the grinding song of the cicadas in the oak trees and the rising of the evening star.

“Aunt Queen lay crying on her bed. Cindy, her nurse, sat beside her holding her hand. Jasmine lay behind her, rubbing her back.

“Big Ramona packed up food into the refrigerator in the kitchen.

“I went upstairs alone. I sat down in my reading chair, there, by the fireplace, and I fell into a doze. The panic was never bad enough to stop a doze. And hard as it had been, I was deliciously tired now and elated to be alone.

“At once, as sleep came down over me, Rebecca was with me and she said in my ear, ‘I know how bad you feel.’ Then the scene dissolved and I saw her being dragged by a shadowy figure towards the chains, I saw her lace-up shoe bouncing on the bare floorboards and I heard her scream.

“I woke with a start.

“The computer keys were clicking.

“I stared at the computer desk. The gooseneck lamp was on! I could see my double sitting there—see his back, the back of his head and his shoulders and arms as he worked, and there persisted: the clicking.

“Before I could rise the sound stopped, and he turned, turned as a human couldn’t turn, and looked at me over his right shoulder. He wore no grin or mournful expression, only a vaguely startled look.

“As I rose from my chair he vanished.

“The message on the computer screen was long:

“ ‘I know all the words you know, words you type. Pops dead like Lynelle and Sweetheart. Dead, gone, not in the body. Sadness. Spirit gone. Body left. Body washed. Body painted. Body empty. Spirit is life. This life. Life gone. Why does life leave body? People say don’t know. I don’t know. Quinn sad. Quinn cry. Aunt Queen cry. I am sad. But danger is coming. Danger on island. I see danger. Don’t forget. Rebecca is bad. Danger to Quinn. Quinn will leave Goblin.’