“She’s upstairs in the bathtub,” Lura said. “She’s got to stay hydrated. Go on. I don’t think she’s modest, but if you hurt her …” the shotgun was still pointed at me, “I won’t let you out of here alive. Understand?”

I nodded and walked to the front door. Flickering water reflections circled the doorknob. When I pushed open the door water lapped over the threshold like a cat that had been waiting to get in. The glass and tin wind chimes floated in the wavy light like fish. The ceiling, too, was soaked through, water dripping from bulging blisters of plaster and streaming down the walls. It looked as if the creek was rising to take back this house. I just hoped it waited until I got out of here.

I climbed the narrow staircase, my feet sinking into spongy damp floral carpet. Old photographs hung framed on the walls: sepia colored prints of stern, square jawed men and women standing in stiff, formal rows in front of this house. A livelier picture was a group shot of men in fishing waders, each holding a huge fish up to the camera. I looked closer and noticed that some of the men wore the Stewart plaid and had the Stewart family features. So the Trasks and the Stewarts had been friends once. At the top of the stairs was a picture of a seated woman with a baby on her lap, a man standing behind her. I looked closer at this cozy domestic scene. The woman wore a high-necked white blouse and her blonde hair was gathered on her head in a puffy Gibson girl up-do. One hand cradled the baby’s head; the other grasped the man’s hand resting on her shoulder. Her smile somehow seemed to be for both of them, her eyes full of love. I almost didn’t recognize Lorelei, but that’s who it was.

As I walked down the hall I saw more pictures of mother and child. I stopped at one of a slim woman holding a two-year-old toddler by the hand. Again I almost didn’t recognize Lorelei. She was rail thin, her blonde hair turned silver and scraped back on her head in thin wisps, her face deeply lined with wrinkles, her shoulders stooped. I recalled what Duncan had said about how after an undine laid her eggs she was depleted of Aelvesgold. Lorelei had begun to fade fast after giving birth to Lura.

I lifted the picture off the wall, exposing a patch of wallpaper that still held the original bright cheerful colors it had when Sullivan Trask decorated the house for his beloved bride and newborn daughter, and carried it down the hall toward the sound of splashing water. The bathroom door was open. “Can I come in?” I called.

“I suppose you will if I say yes or no,” Lorelei answered.