This domestic vision was short, supplanted in a couple of heartbeats by something entirely stranger. The moths grew more agitated, and the flickering darkness of their wings unsealed the scene from ceiling to floor. The only form that remained was that of Cesaria, who now, instead of lying on the bed, hung suspended in a limitless darkness.

Galilee experienced a sudden, piercing loneliness: whatever void this was-real or invented-he had no wish to be there.

"Mother…" he murmured.

The vision remained, his gaze hovering uncertainly above Cesaria's body as though at any moment it, and he, might lose their powers of suspension and fall away into the darkness.

He called to his mother again, this time by name. As he called to her, the form before him shimmered and the third and final vision appeared. The darkness didn't alter, but Cesaria did. The robes in which she was wrapped darkened, rotted, and fell away. She was not naked beneath; or at least his eyes had no chance to witness her in that state. She was molten, laval; her humanity, or the guise of that humanity, flowing out of her into the void, trailing brightness as it went.

He glimpsed her face as it melted into light; saw her eyes open and full of bliss; saw her burning heart fall like a star, brightening the abyss as it went.

The insufferable loneliness was burned away in the same ecstatic moment. The fear he'd felt hanging in this nowhere seemed suddenly laughable. How could he ever be alone in a place shared with so miraculous a soul? Look, she was light! And the darkness was her foil, her other, her immaculate companion; they were lovers, she and it, partners in a marriage of absolutes.

And with that revelation, the vision went out of him, and he was back on the deck of The Samarkand.

Cesaria had gone. Whether in the process of tending him her strength had exhausted her, and she'd withdrawn her spirit to a place of rest-the bedroom where he'd seen her lying, perhaps-or she'd simply made her departure because she was done with him and had nothing more to say (which was perfectly in keeping with her nature) he didn't know. Nor did he have time to ponder the question. The storm she'd stirred up was upon him, in all its ferocity. The waves would have been high enough to match the mast, if he'd had a mast, and the wind enough to tatter his sails, if he'd had sails. As it was-and by his own choosing-he had nothing. Just his limbs, no longer wasted by denial, and his wits, and the creaking hull of his boat.

It would be enough. He threw back his head, filled with a fierce exhilaration, and yelled up at the roiling clouds.

"RACHEL! WATT FOR ME!"

Then he fell down on his knees and prayed to his father in heaven to deliver him safely from the storm his mother had made.

There was a great commotion in the house a few hours ago; laughter, for once. L'Enfant hasn't heard a lot of laughter in the last few decades. I got up from my desk and went to see what the cause was, and encountered Marietta-holding the hand of a woman in jeans and a T-shirt-ambling down the hallway toward my study. The laughter I'd heard were still on their faces.

"Eddie!" she said brightly. "We were just coming to say hello."

"This must be Alice," I said.

"Yes," she replied, beaming with pride.

She had reason. The girl, for all her simple garb, was slim and pretty; small-boned and small-breasted. Unlike Marietta, who enjoys painting herself up with kohl and lip gloss, Alice wore not a scrap of makeup. Her eyelashes were blonde, like her hair, and her face, which was milky white, dusted with pale, pale freckles. The impression such coloring sometimes lends is insipid, but such was not the case with this woman. There was a ferocity in her gray eyes, which made her, I suspected, a perfect foil for Marietta. This was not a woman who was going to take orders from anybody. She might look like buttermilk, but she most likely had an iron soul. When she took my hand to shake it, I had further proof. Her grip was viselike.

"Eddie's the writer in the family," Marietta said proudly.

"I like the sound of that," I said, extricating the hand that did the writing before my fingers were crushed.

"What do you write?" Alice asked.

"I'm writing a history of the Barbarossa family."

"And now you'll be in it," Marietta said.

"I will?"

"Of course," Marietta said. Then to me: "She'll be in the book, won't she?"

"I guess so," I responded. "If you really intend to bring her into the family."

"Oh we're going to marry," Alice said, laying her head fondly on Marietta's shoulder. "I ain't lettin' this one out of my sight. Not ever."

"I'm going to take her upstairs," Marietta said. "I want to introduce her to Mama."

"I don't think that's a good idea right now," I told her. "She's been traveling a lot, and she's exhausted."

"It don't matter, honey," Alice said to Marietta. "I'm goin' to be here all the time soon enough."

"So you two are going to live here at L'Enfant?"

"Sure are," Marietta said, her hand going up to her beloved's face. She stroked Alice's smooth cheek with the outer edge of her forefinger. Alice was in bliss. She closed her eyes languidly, snuggling her face deeper into the curve of Marietta's neck. "I told you, Eddie," Marietta said. "I'm in this for keeps. She's the one… no question."

I couldn't help hearing an echo of Galilee's conversation with Cesaria on the deck of The Samarkand; how he'd promised that Rachel would be the idol of his heart hereafter; that there would be no other. Was it just a coincidence, or was there some pattern in this? Just as the war begins, and the future of our family is in doubt, two of its members (both notably promiscuous in their time) put their wild ways behind them and declare that they have found their soulmates.

Anyway, the conversation with Marietta and Alice meandered on for a little while, pleasantly enough, before Marietta announced that she was taking Alice outside to look at the stables. Did I want to come? she asked me. I declined. I was tempted to ask if Marietta thought a visit to the stables was wise, but I kept my opinion to myself. If Alice was indeed going to be a resident here, then she was going to have to know about the history of the house-and the souls who've lived and died here-sooner or later. A visit to the stables would be bound to elicit questions: why was the place so magnificent and yet deserted? Why was there a tomb in thejr midst? But perhaps that was Marietta's purpose. She might reasonably judge by Alice's response to the atmosphere of palpable dread which clings about the stables how ready her girlfriend is for the darkest of our secrets. If she seems untroubled by the place, which well she might, then perhaps Marietta would sit her down for a couple of days and tell her everything. If on the other hand Alice seemed fearful. Marietta might decide to dole the information out in easy portions, so as not to drive her away. We'll see.

The point is they departed to go walk about, and I went back to my study to begin the chapter which will follow this, dealing with the arrangements for the funeral of Cadmus Geary, but the words refused to flow. Something was distracting me from the business at hand. I set down the pen, sat back in my chair and tried to work out what the problem was. I didn't have to puzzle over it for very long. I was fretting about Marietta and Alice. I looked at the clock. It was by now almost an hour since they'd left the house to visit the stables. Should they not be back by now? Perhaps they were, and I hadn't heard them. I decided to go and find out; plainly I wasn't going to get a stroke of work done until I laid my unease to rest.

It was by now the middle of the evening, and I found Dwight in the kitchen, sitting watching the little black-and-white television. Had he seen Marietta lately? I asked him. He told me no; then-obviously seeing my anxiety-asked if there was a problem. I explained that she had a guest and that the two of them had gone to visit the stables. He's a smart man; he didn't need any further information. He rose, picked up his jacket and said: