“The next thing I observed, Fanny, was that since that one fateful night Aunt Norris became a bit peculiar, more crude and lumbering in posture, and every full moon she would be gone at nights; they said livestock disappeared and was later found torn to shreds. That was bad enough, but then I kept my watch on them all, and there was now a difference in my mother, too. Not a werewolf, no . . . But she ate almost nothing and grew very pale, and her silences and distraction grew deeper. The only thing that seemed to matter was the latest arriving Egyptian trinkets and boxes. I observed her wear a very special necklet on her person, practically always—an antique gold thing shaped like an eye of a beast god with lapis and inlaid stones and twisted wings of a bird flared wide. She would fondle it with her fingers and mutter, words that seemed to be of another tongue. My poor father tried to avert his eyes whenever her mutterings grew too overt, but even he could no longer shut himself to the obvious: mother was either mad as a hatter, seriously ill, or possessed by devil’s minions. Or in the least, cats, birds, and crocodiles.”

“Oh!” said Fanny. “Poor Lady Bertram! Which was it?”

“I would say all three. That is, wait—are we talking about creatures or ailments? In which case, all six. Maybe even more—it is likely I am forgetting to catalogue a number of other items of mother’s interest. In any case, at least, one thing seemed to become the other, and as time went on, and a London doctor was brought in to call upon her regularly, it seemed not to make a difference. They tried different diets upon her, leeches and sunshine, and plein air walks, and medicinal herb elixirs. Mother did not respond. The parson was called upon to spend time and deliver sermon upon sermon, and there was some minor responses akin to cringing and even one shriek, I am told, but all came to naught. Father then tried to forbid the artifact purchases and a few of the boxes were returned to sender, but mother had a fit of hysterics that lasted a fortnight, and Aunt Norris had the ghastliest of vapors—seriously, one dared not take a breath of air in the same room, it was so dire—Maria and Julia hid away in closets, Tom left the house, Lord only knows where, and, in short, Mansfield Park became Bedlam.”

“And so you think for certain, cousin, it’s a Curse?”