On the night she was killed, Eve had called her daughter and told her everything. They had never spoken before. Every birthday and Christmas, Eve had sent her something.

That night Eve took a picture of herself in front of Faerwood with her camera phone, and sent it to her daughter. She had told Graciella of Mr. Ludo, and her quest for the truth about Caitlin O’Riordan, right before she disappeared.

Two months later, when Eve’s body was discovered in a shallow grave in Fairmount Park, Graciella took what little money she had and came to Philadelphia.

Graciella had been adopted when she was eight weeks old, by a couple named Ellis and Catherine Monroe. Graciella had gone by the name Grace Monroe all her life, until the night she talked to her mother.

When Graciella was nine, her adoptive father had left, and her mother Catherine had sleepwalked through life after that. The woman had never been that close to her adopted daughter, leaving her to live in a world of her own. It wasn’t until three days after Graciella had run away to Philadelphia that the woman reported her missing.

Joseph Swann could never have known that he had always been on a collision course with Graciella Galvez.

According to letters and journals found in Laura Somerville’s strongbox, Laura had met Karl Swann, the Great Cygne, when she was only twenty-three. They had met in Baton Rouge and Laura agreed to become his assistant. They toured the southern United States in the sixties and seventies, and for years she had been Odette—playing nurse and mother to young Joseph, playing the occasional lover to Karl Swann, but more important, playing accomplice to young Joseph’s murderous past. According to her diary, there were six young people found dead around the Great Cygne’s traveling show over the years. Laura’s journal detailed where they were buried. The District Attorney’s office passed along this information to the state police departments in Texas, Louisiana, and New Mexico.

At least ten pages of Laura Somerville’s diary were a confession. When Jessica and Byrne showed up at her apartment, she apparently believed her past had caught up to her. It was she who had made the calls about Shiloh Street after all, having shadowed Joseph Swann for months, hoping to anonymously tip the police.

When Karl Swann hanged himself in 1988, his son Joseph rescued him just in time, nursing him back to health, but locking the man in a dark, cold wing in Faerwood.

As far as the investigators could determine, Karl Swann never again left Faerwood. He had essentially lived in that room on the third floor for twenty years. It appeared his son had cooked for him and attended to his basic needs. In time, Karl Swann’s mental illness brought him back to 1950 again. He lived through his son’s re-creation of his world. He had watched, via television monitor, everything that happened downstairs on Joseph’s secret stage.

If Eve Galvez had been obsessed with Caitlin O’Riordan, Joseph Swann was obsessed with the prism of his own madness—magic, puzzles, and the dark history of Faerwood.

In the days following the fire, investigators unearthed the remains of six other victims on the grounds of the mansion. All were as yet unidentified. All were buried in brightly colored boxes.

Fire investigators reported that the fire would have spread quickly enough through the old, mostly wood structure, but was accelerated by the explosion of the small oil furnace in the basement.

Joseph Swann’s charred skeleton was found in the east wing of the attic. It appeared he tried to hang himself, but the ME’s office believed the fire had gotten to him first.

His father, Karl Martin Swann, the Great Cygne, was found in his room on the third floor.

In his hand was a beautiful mahogany wand.

ONE HUNDRED EIGHT

THEY LEFT THE cemetery at noon. Eve Galvez’s service had been for family and coworkers only. Her family was small, but nearly a hundred people from the District Attorney’s office had shown up.

JESSICA AND GRACIELLA stood near the river. It was only early September, but already the air whispered of the coming fall.

“Did you know your mother well?” Graciella asked.

“Not really,” Jessica said. “She died when I was five.”

“Wow. Five. That’s pretty small.”

“It is.”

Graciella looked out over the river. “What do you remember most about her?”

Jessica had to think about this. “I guess it would be her voice. She used to sing all the time. I remember that.”

“What did she sing?”

“All kinds of things. Whatever was popular on the radio, I guess.” The songs came back, found their place in Jessica’s heart. “What do you remember?”

“My mom’s handwriting. She used to send things to my house. Birthdays, Christmas, Easter. I never opened the boxes. I was so mad at her. I didn’t even know her, but I hated her. Until the night she called me and explained everything. She was sixteen when she had me. I’m sixteen. Geez, I can’t imagine.”

Jessica recalled the photographs in the photo cube at Eve’s apartment, the high-school shot of Eve in which she looked heavy. She had not been overweight. She had been pregnant.

“When I hung up that night, after talking to my mom, I opened all the boxes she sent me. She sent me this.” Graciella held out a sterling silver pendant on a fine chain. It was an angel.

“It’s very pretty.”

“Thank you.” She slipped the pendant over her head, positioned the angel over her heart. “I wonder if you could take me someplace.”

“Sure,” Jessica said. “Anywhere you want to go.”

“I’d like to go where my mother was found.”

Jessica looked at the young woman. She seemed to have matured in the past few days. Her hair was brushed, her skin impossibly clear. She wore a white cotton dress. She’d told Jessica she’d worn nothing but black for years. She said she’d never wear black again. Graciella had given the police a full statement about the last moments she had spent in Faerwood. She said that after she stepped onto the stage, and saw the Fire Grotto, she didn’t remember anything. All the video equipment had been destroyed in the fire. There was no record of what happened.

“You sure that’s a good idea?” Jessica asked. “I mean, there’s not much there. It’s all been smoothed over. They’ve planted grass there.”

Graciella nodded.

“Plus, you’re supposed to meet with your uncle,” Jessica added.

“My uncle. It sounds so weird,” Graciella said. “Can he meet us there? In the park?”

“Sure,” Jessica said. “I’ll call.”

They drove to Belmont Plateau in silence. Byrne followed in his own car.

JESSICA AND BYRNE watched the young woman cross the street, step into the shallow woods. When she stepped out, Graciella turned to someone on Belmont Avenue, waved. Jessica and Byrne looked.

Enrique Galvez stood next to his car. He wore a dark suit, his hair was trimmed and combed. He looked as nervous as Jessica felt, as fallen and needy as he had looked at the funeral.

When Graciella approached, the two embraced tentatively—strangers, family, blood. They talked a long while.

At noon, with an autumn moon already in the sky, Detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano got into their cars, and headed to the city.

“WOW. I’M FINALLY INSIDE Casa di Kevin.” They had stopped by Byrne’s apartment on the way to the Roundhouse. Incredibly, he asked her if she wanted to come in.

“What are you talking about?” Byrne asked.

“I’ve never been here before.”

“Yes, you have.”

“Kevin. Between the two of us, who would you trust on this?”

Byrne looked at her, then out the window, onto Second Street. “You’ve never been here?”

“No.”

“Man.” He began to absently straighten up the place. When he was done, he got what he came home for—that being his service weapon and holster. “I have a date with Donna this Friday.”