“ ‘Get away from this place, Tarquin,’ she said. Her voice had such tender resonance. ‘Go on, Tarquin, leave this place. There is an evil here. That evil wants you.’

“I woke, sitting up, covered with sweat, staring forward. I saw Goblin in the corner near the computer merely watching me.

“Mona slept soundly beside me.

“I got into the shower and when I saw Goblin’s shadow outside the glass I finished up and dried off and dressed quickly. He stood behind me looking at me in the mirror over my shoulder. His expression was not as mean as it had been before, and I prayed he couldn’t sense my apprehension. He didn’t seem as solid here, even with the moisture in the air, as he had been in New Orleans. I was grateful for that.

“ ‘You love Mona, too?’ I asked as if I meant it.

“ ‘Mona is good. Mona is strong,’ he said. ‘But Mona will hurt you.’

“ ‘I know,’ I said. ‘You hurt me when you’re unkind to me, when you say unkind things. We have to love each other.’

“ ‘You want to be with Mona alone,’ he said.

“ ‘Wouldn’t you if you were me?’ I asked. I turned around and faced him.

“I had never seen such a face of trouble on him as I saw then. I had stung him and I was sorry for it.

“ ‘I am you,’ he answered.”

CHAPTER 26

26

“THE LATE AFTERNOON WAS heavenly. To be that in love, to know that frenzy of the heart—even now, young as I still am, I look back on it as something that was part of the innocence of childhood. That it could come again, I don’t even dream of, that I should ever know such consuming happiness is impossible.

“After Mona woke, had her bath and put on her fresh Wal-Mart white pants and shirt we went down to walk around Blackwood Farm, and it seemed our roaming is what kept me sane as I spilled out my soul to Mona. I told her all about Goblin, all about Lynelle, all about my strange life as I perceived it.

“She was an eager listener. Also she was charmed by the house and the long drive lined by the pecan trees. It didn’t seem vulgar or overdone to her. She said she saw a symmetry and harmony in everything.

“Yes, it was bigger and more overbearing than a Garden District house, she conceded, but she could see why Manfred Blackwood didn’t want to be constrained and so he had found his perfect spot in the country.

“ ‘Quinn,’ she said, ‘we live in houses that were built by people’s dreams, and we have to accept that. We have to revere the dream and realize that someday the house will go to others after us. These houses are personalities in our lives. They have their roles to play.’