“I saw the mysterious stranger’s eyes shoot to my left where Goblin stood, but she could not see Goblin. She only knew that Goblin was there.

“ ‘So you think of me as a woman,’ she said to me now. ‘Forgive me for reading your mind, it’s a trait I can’t seem to keep in harness. Once one is blessed with such a gift it runs rampant.’

“ ‘Really,’ said Aunt Queen, ‘you mean it’s quite spontaneous? You simply hear people’s thoughts.’

“ ‘Some people more than others,’ she said. ‘Quinn’s thoughts come rather glaringly clear to me. And what a brilliant young man you are.’

“ ‘So people tell me,’ I said. ‘And how is it that the mausoleum on Sugar Devil Island bears your name?’

“ ‘It’s the name of Petronia’s great-great-grandmother, Quinn,’ said Aunt Queen, obviously trying to take the sharp edge off my foray into the conversation. ‘We’ve been talking about this very person, and about the subject of reincarnation. Petronia is a great believer in it, and that it happens over and over in her family, and of a time in ancient Pompeii, she has strange dreams.’

“A terrible sense of foreboding came over me. Ancient Pompeii.

“Goblin was squeezing my hand. The mysterious stranger was looking at me, and I could have sworn I saw Mount Vesuvius above the city as it roared and belched its fatal cloud Heavenward, pitching the city into panic far below. People ran screaming through the narrow streets. The earth moved. The cloud covered the sky. I saw it. Petronia was staring at me. We were there and we were here. Aunt Queen was talking. The rain of ash became a torrent.

“I was dizzy. Yes, dizzy, the fatal symptom.

“ ‘What are your strange dreams of ancient Pompeii?’ asked Nash in his wonderful deep voice.

“ ‘Oh, they’re truly tragic,’ came her low voice in response. ‘I see myself a slave girl in those times, a worker of cameos, the chief among a shop of such craftsmen, and my master has warned us all of the coming eruption, and I run through the streets trying to warn the citizens. Get out of the city. The mountain will bring disaster. But they don’t believe. They don’t heed.’

“I could see it as she spoke. I could see her, with her long full black hair, yet in a male’s tunic, running through the narrow stone streets, banging on doors, grabbing people by the shoulders. ‘Get out, get out now. The mountain’s erupting. It will destroy the city. There’s no time left.’

“I could see the buildings close around her, a little city of plastered walls, and she such a curious tall monstrous beauty. And no one listening. And finally, she took the slaves from their workbench. No. I didn’t just see it. I was there!