He turned angrily back to Paula. “So you know who I am. Clever girl. Do you also know who-”

He caught himself, but she had followed his eyes.

“Who he is? Yes. He is our father, Kevin Baxter. Not our biological father, of course. But he raised us, and so far as we are concerned he is our true and only father.”

Seth looked at me, but he did not speak. My eyes told him that he was on very dangerous ground. To protect my darlings, I would do anything. But Paula was not finished.

She added, “He is our father. And he is also Dr. Oliver Guest, who in the year 2021 was sentenced to six centuries of judicial sleep for the murder of fifteen teenage girls. That number was later, through his own confession, increased to eighteen.”

If Seth was surprised by that announcement, I was stunned. I made a faint sound in my throat. I think I was trying to offer a denial, stupid as that sounds, but no words came out.

“And,” said Paula, “we know who we are.” She took a step forward out of the line. “I am Paula Baxter. I was once Paula Searle. I was raised in Norfolk and in the Atlanta Scantlingtown. I never knew my father, but my mother was a druggie and a whore, and I was mostly a nuisance to her until I became old enough to go on the game.”

While I gaped-how did she know any of that? There was to my knowledge no written record-she stepped quietly back in line and made a little hand gesture. Amity, standing next to her, moved forward.

“I am Amity Baxter. I was once Amity Carlisle. I was born in San Antonio. My mother was only fourteen, so I was sent to El Paso to live with an aunt and uncle whom I had never met. She beat me most days and when I was ten years old he raped me. I ran away when I was eleven. I lived along the transport strips. Money was short, but I always knew I could get some from older men if I did the right things to them.”

Amity, my magical, innocent Amity who insisted that she believed in fairies and danced with joy when she saw a rainbow. Not even I knew all of what she had said. But she was back in line, and Rose was stepping forward.

“I am Rose Baxter. I was once Rosa Gonzales. I was born in Coral Gables. When I was little we had plenty of money, but my father was ruined in the economic collapse after the Turnabout riots, and he killed himself. Mother had to work, and so she left me home alone . . .”

I knew what was coming, the slow descent and degradation until she sat hopeless by the roadside and I drove past. But Seth did not. It was news to him, the whole tawdry parade, from Paula’s beginning until little Victoria had had her turn. The cavalcade of events that they offered was appalling and bizarre, yet I was oddly proud of them. Each of my darlings spoke so clearly, so confidently, and so calmly.

Finally Paula again stepped forward.

“As you see, Mr. Parsigian, we do indeed know who you are. We also know who our father is, and who we are. It took a great deal of research, and lots of time. But we did it.”

He shot me an accusing glance. “You son of a bitch. You smartened ’em. You never told me that.”

“Minimally. They were intelligent already, every one.”

Paula went on, as though Seth and I had said not a word. “Mr. Parsigian, each of us may seem to you to be helpless and naive. Perhaps we are, considered singly. But a person who seeks to harm any one of us — including our father-will face not just one of the Baxter family. He will have to defend himself against our combined resources. I hope I make myself clear.”

Seth again said, “Son of a bitch.” This time it was addressed to nobody. His eyes went once more along the line. “Son of a bitch.”

“Actually, that’s not much of an answer, Seth,” I said.

“Never intended as one.” His eyes were alight. He was looking not at me but at the serried rank of my darlings, and I believe that in his own way he was enjoying himself. “Young ladies, permit me to assure you of just one thing, and I will leave it at that.” His manner, for Seth, became curiously formal. “I do harm only to those who seek to harm me. Dr. Oliver Guest, or if you prefer it, Mr. Kevin Baxter, will never be troubled by the authorities because of any information revealed to them by me, unless he first seeks to do me injury. I rely upon all of you to make sure that the latter event does not occur. Is that good enough to satisfy?”

He turned his head toward me, but he was watching them from the corner of his eye. “Not only that, with you ladies backing him I wouldn’t dare try any-thin’. Me an’ him have needed each other real bad in the past. The way the world goes, chances are we’ll need each other again.”

“Girls,” I said, “it is time for my guest and me to enjoy a drink in peace. So if you would not mind . . .”

My darlings all looked to Paula, who after a moment’s hesitation nodded. They began to troop out.

“Manners!” I called. They halted and chorused, “Nice to meet you, Mr. Parsigian.”

“Nice to meet you too, ladies.” Seth watched almost all of them leave before he turned back to the low table. He picked up the decanter and did not see Victoria stick her tongue out at him. I would reprimand her later for that unconscionable rudeness.

Seth poured, as usual disdaining water, and hovered the decanter over a second glass. He raised an eyebrow at me.

“I think so,” I said. “It is not yet nine o’clock in the morning, but this surely must count as a special occasion.”

“One in a lifetime-let’s hope.” Seth poured again and handed me the glass. “Don’t know quite when we’ll next meet. But I bet we do. The world is gettin’ stranger all the time. When shall we three meet again, in thunder, lightning, or in rain?”

“There’s only two of us, and you claim to lack all forms of classical erudition. Don’t spoil your image, Seth. This is the second time in ten minutes that you have quoted Shakespeare.”

“I’ll watch out for that.” He raised his glass. “Good luck.”

“Good luck. May the wind be always at your back.”

We clinked glasses. Seth drained his whiskey in a single gulp. He glanced at the door from which my darlings had departed. “Don’t take me wrong, Doc, if I say I think that in a year or two you’re gonna need luck.”

“We all need fortune to smile on us. Another drink?”

“Not for me. If you don’t mind, I oughta be going-before the weather turns bad.”

I could hear the gale, trumpeting like a herd of elephants around the chimneys and false gables of the castle roof. Hail lashed at the shutters. I said gravely, “It would perhaps be wise to do so.”

Seth donned his boots and outer garments and I walked him to the door. In the shadow of the main entrance we stood together for a few moments without speaking. Then he nodded and headed south. The wind was not at his back. It was in his face. He bent low against a howling storm that ripped at his clothes. I watched, foolishly, until the pelting sleet had soaked me.

When I went back inside, Paula was anxiously waiting. She said, “Did we do wrong?”

“You did wonderfully. Every one of you.” I put my arm around her, wetting her blouse. “But I have a question.”

“What?” She sounded worried.

“Do you have any more surprises in store for me?”

She smiled, and in that mobile mouth I saw far across the years to the dimpled face of Paula Searle, holding in triumph her treasured alley-taw blood-orange marble. “We wouldn’t do anything like that, Father,” she said. “We’re too fond of you.”

I nodded and returned to my study. Tomorrow the girls would again be their usual selves, squabbling, conniving, demanding; impetuous, imperious, and inconsistent. Today, however, I refused to see them as anything less than perfect.

Although Seth was not there to provide justification, I poured myself another drink.

God knows, I did not deserve it. But, obscurely, I felt that I and my darlings and perhaps the whole world had earned it.