"Reason," she said scornfully.

  "Purpose," he said. "I'm not saying it's rational, but maybe if we could figure out what the house wants, it would let you go."

  "It isn't a letting-go kind of place," she said.

  "So you'd rather stay here? What if you're supposed to be in heaven?"

  "Don't be silly," she said. "God's forgotten me, if he ever knew I was here."

  "Maybe you're the lost sheep, and he's out looking for you."

  "Maybe you're the one he sent to find me." She giggled.

  "The repairs I made," he said. "The room upstairs. The house didn't want me to do that. But when I finished, it made the house stronger, didn't it? It made you more real and solid, didn't it?"

  She got up, took a few short steps out into the room. "I took a shower, Don! I felt the water against my body! I washed. And that Coke you brought me, I tasted it. Oh, Don, I felt it in my mouth, fizzing. I felt the sheets of the bed you moved for me. I ate that pizza. A bite of it, anyway. I chewed it. The cheese was stringy, Don. How would I feel that if I'm not alive?"

  She turned around slowly, around and around.

  "How would I dance here in this room if I weren't real?" She closed her eyes, her face upturned, spinning slowly. "O house, big old house, why did you keep me alive? Why didn't you let me go?"

  He saw her turning and turning, and he imagined seeing her by candlelight, reflected in mirrors between the windows. A very clear picture. Why would he imagine something like that? Then it suddenly came to him, the reason why this house was shaped so oddly.

  "It's a ballroom," he said.

  "What?"

  "This room. Look. It isn't a parlor. It never was."

  "But it's too small."

  "No," he said. He ran to the back wall of the room, thumped it with his hand. "It's plaster," he said. "But that doesn't prove anything. When it was a speakeasy, they didn't need the ballroom. They needed more walls, more private rooms. The two bedrooms—they're both part of this. That narrow hall, it's part of the ballroom."

  She walked over to join him. She touched the wall. "When I read about the Bellamys, back in college, when I read about them they were having dances all the time. They had ball after ball. It's what they did. Dancing."

  Of course. It was dancing that they loved. It was for dancing that the house was built. "The wall's not tied to the house, is it? Nothing's resting on this wall."

  She leaned her head against it. "You're right," she said. "It's just... it's nothing. This wall is in the way."

  "And the next one? Between the bedrooms?"

  They went down the hall, verifying that the bedroom walls were add-ins, just like the north wall of the passage. But the south wall was real, as was the wall between the kitchen and the back bedroom.

  "It was a huge room," said Don.

  "He built it for her," said Sylvie. "Can't you feel it? She loved to dance, and he built her a dancing place."

  "Well, now we know," he said. "Why the house is so off-center. I can't believe I'm worrying about that right now, though. I mean—what does it matter? After what happened to you?"

  "But I'm tied to the house," she said. "Now that I'm facing the truth, I might start fading. So the house needs to be stronger."

  "If you want to stay," said Don. "The Weird sisters next door, they kept telling me to let the house go. Leave it alone or tear it down. What if they were trying to set you free?"

  "Free?" said Sylvie. "I don't want to be free, Don, I want to be alive!"

  "But I can't do that."

  "Yes you can," she said. "The stronger the house, the realer I get. Tear out these walls, Don. Please."

  He studied her face. Her body. Incredible that this might be only spirit. He reached out and touched her again. Her cheek. She brought up her hand and held his.

  "Let me dance in this room," she said. "Make me real."

  He let go of her and went in search of his wrecking bar.

  It took until well after dark. Past midnight, into the small of the morning. Tearing down huge chunks of plaster, then prying out every lath. Then the skillsaw through the timbers—though these were nothing like as heavy as the great masts of that bearing wall beside the stairs. The sledgehammer blows shivered him to the shoulders, to the spine, but the timbers came free of the ceiling, came up from the floor, and he hauled it all outside, a huge pile of junk out by the curb.

  Still he wasn't done. He gathered up all his tools, his boxes of supplies, his suitcases, his cot, and moved them all into the south parlor. The real parlor. So nothing was left on the floor but the fragments of plaster and a few eight-penny nails from the laths.

  And still there was a job to do. He found his broom and swept the whole floor, it felt like acres of wood, but he swept it all till it was clean.

  Only one more job. He found all the nailholes where the new walls had been fastened down to the polished wooden ballroom floor, then filled them with putty and sanded them smooth. It was three in the morning. He was exhausted. He turned to her, there in the alcove, where she had sat as she watched the whole job, her eyes shining.

  "How's that?" he asked.

  In reply she smiled at him. "Aren't you going to ask me to dance?"

  He laughed. "I'm a sack of sweat right now. I must have chalkdust sticking to me all over."

  "It just makes you all the more real."

  "I'm not the one who felt unreal," he said. But the moment he said it, he wasn't altogether sure it was true. How real had he been, before he found this house?

  He walked over to her and held out a filthy hand. "Miss Sylvie Delaney would you be so kind?"

  "I think it's a waltz," she said.

  "Could well be."

  "I'd love to waltz with you."

  He pulled her up from the bench. Her hand was solid in his. So was her delicate hand resting lightly on his shoulder, her girlish waist under his hand. He pressed with the heel of his right hand, to let her feel which way they were going, and she followed his lead. One-two-three.

  "We need music," she said.

  "So sing," he said.

  She began to hum, then to sing wordless tunes. He recognized them. The Emperor Waltz. Blue Danube. And others that he didn't know. They danced around and around. He should have been too tired to dance. Or maybe he was only just now as tired as he needed to be, to forget his exhaustion and go on dancing and dancing.

  And in his mind, in his weariness, he began to hear, not Sylvie's voice, but an orchestra. And to see, not the light from the worklamp, but the light of a hundred candles in sconces on the walls, in three great chandeliers overhead. Around and around the room, great sweeps of movement, and Sylvie's dress swayed as if there were a bustle under it, exaggerating the movements of the dance. So did all the other dresses in the room, all the men in tails, whirling, whirling. No faces, Don couldn't see any faces because everything was moving so fast; nor could he see the musicians, though he caught the movement of a bow, the flash of light on a trombone slide every time he passed the bandstand against the wall separating the ballroom from the serving room. Servants moved in and out of that room with drinks on trays, hors d'oeuvres on platters. Onlookers smiled and laughed, and Don wasn't just imagining it, they did look up whenever he and Sylvie danced past them. Thank you for this party, they were saying with their silent eyes. Thank you for inviting us. For the lights, the food, the champagne, the music, and above all the grace of the dancers, skittering over the floor as lightly as the crisp leaves of autumn, around and around, caught in a whirlwind, making a whirlwind, churning all the air of the world...

  And then they clung to each other, no longer dancing. The room still turned dizzily around them, but then even that held still. The music was over. The orchestra had disappeared, and all the onlookers, and the other dancers. Only Sylvie and Don remained, holding each other in the middle of the room. Don looked at the windows and saw that a gray light was now showing.

  "We danced until dawn," he said.

  She said nothing. He looked down at her and saw tears in her eyes. "They danced again in their house tonight," she said.

  "And the house is strong," he said.

  She nodded. "It's the Bellamy house again. It has the right shape for its real name."

  "And you," he said. "You're strong, too." Her face so ethereal, her skin so pure, so translucent. Her lips still caught in the memory of a smile. He bent and kissed her lightly. She laughed, a low chuckle deep in her throat.

  "I felt that," she said.

  He kissed her again.

  "I felt it to my toes," she whispered.

  He wrapped his arms around her, picked her up, spun around and around. Her legs swung away from his body. Like a child, around and around, flying. Then he carried her to the threshold of the front door. Reached down and opened it.

  "Don," she said.

  "This is the only test that matters, Sylvie," he said.

  "No, it's the one that doesn't matter."

  "If you can leave, then you're alive," he said.

  "Isn't it enough that I'm alive inside?"

  "No," he said. "It's enough for me, but it's not enough for you. Unless I can give you back what Lissy took from you."

  "You can't," she said. "Put me down, Don."

  "Flesh and bone," he said. "Heart's blood and mind's eye."

  "Oh, Don," she said. "Is it true?"

  In answer, he opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch. It wasn't true dawn yet. Just the faintest of the early light. No lights shone in the neighborhood except the streetlights, and they were shrouded in the morning mist. Don stepped down, one, two, three steps. Onto the mown weeds of the yard. Out toward the junkpile, out toward the street. She clung around his neck.

  And then she didn't.

  There was nothing in his arms.

  "Sylvie!" he cried out.

  Almost he let his arms drop, because he couldn't see her. But he knew: If she was anywhere, she was here, in his arms. He had to get back to the house. "Sylvie, hold on to me! Hold on!" He ran back.

  "Don!" he heard her call. As if from a distance.

  He looked and couldn't see her. Not in his arms, not anywhere.

  "Don, wait!"

  He retraced his steps, felt with his arms. Brushed against something. Nothing he could see, but something. "Hold on to me," he said.

  "Slow," she whispered. It sounded like her voice was in his ear. "Slow."

  Trying to gather her like wind, he walked backward, slowly, toward the house. And the closer he got, the more he could feel her. Her hands, clawing at his sleeves, her feet dragging in the weeds. Now he could get his arms around her. Could hold her. Draw her along, then get his arms under her, lift her up again, carry her up the stairs. He could do that, he did it, he brought her to the front door and took her inside and closed the door and then they collapsed on the floor, exhausted, clinging to each other, crying, laughing in relief.

  "I thought I lost you," he said.

  "I thought I was lost," she said.

  "The house can't make you real except inside."

  "That's enough for me," she said.

  "Not for me," he said. "Not while she's alive."

  "Who, Lissy?"

  "She killed you with her bare hands. Not just one blow struck in anger. It takes a long time to strangle somebody to death, five minutes of tightly gripping your throat. She could have stopped any time, Sylvie. But she never stopped. She hung on even after you were unconscious. She hung on till she knew you were dead."

  "So what can we do about it?" she said. "We have this house."

  "I want you to have your life back."

  "How?"

  "I don't know," he said. "But I know who might, if anyone does." He got up and walked to the door.

  "Where are you going?" she asked.

  "Next door," he said. "The Weird sisters." He turned away, started through the door, then stopped, turned back inside.

  "Please," he said. "Be here when I get back."

  "Cross my heart," she said.

  17

  Questions

  Don walked around the fence, then slogged through the damp mass of leaves that covered the front lawn of the carriage-house. Autumn had struck with a vengeance. He was a little surprised they didn't have the door open for him before he mounted the porch. What, were they slacking off on their spying?

  He rang the doorbell. Nothing. Knocked. No answer.

  He waited, knocked, rang, knocked again. Nothing.

  Around the back it was the same. The curtains were drawn. No sign of life within. These were elderly women. Was something wrong? He tried the doorknob, just to peer in. It was locked.

  Back to the front porch. That door was also locked. He knocked again, louder, rattling the windows. "Miss Judea!" he called. "Miss Evelyn!"

  Then he realized. It was barely dawn. Old people didn't sleep all that much, he knew, but maybe they still slept past first light. And he couldn't keep shouting, he'd wake the neighbors. He shouldn't be here. And yet he had to ask them what they knew. What they understood about the house. What hope there was for Sylvie cutting loose from the place.

  One last ring of the doorbell, and he turned away to head back to the Bellamy house. Naturally, that was when he heard the door being unbolted behind him.

  It opened only a crack. No one peered out at him.

  "Go away," said an aged, weary voice. He couldn't be sure which of the Weird sisters it was. It didn't sound like either of them.

  "I need to talk with you," he said. "You told me if I had any questions—"

  No answer.

  "About getting somebody free of that house. I have to talk to you."

  "Talk," she said scornfully. Now he knew the voice. Miz Evelyn. Probably. Maybe.

  "Are you all right?" asked Don.

  "What do you care?" she asked.

  "Of course I care," he said. "Can I get you something?"

  "Are you really that stupid?"

  No. It was definitely Miz Judea.

  Her voice came again, a whisper now, fierce but broken. "Don't you know you're killing us?"

  The door closed. The deadbolt turned.

  Don turned away and surveyed the front yard. Covered with leaves. These ladies spent every waking moment either fixing food for Gladys or working in the yard. And yet the yard had been so neglected that not a leaf had been raked.

  Why? The answer was obvious. Now that he believed in the power of the house, he also had to believe what these women had told him about it. Every bit of work he did on the house had sapped their strength. They had begged him to tear it down, for their sake. He had done the opposite, restoring it closer and closer to its true shape. What would happen when he finished? Would they come feebly staggering around the fence to knock at his door and beg him to let them come inside their prison? Or would they remain stubbornly in the carriagehouse until they were too weak to teed themselves?

  Who would the killer be then?

  And yet if he weakened the house now, what would that do to Sylvie? Now that she knew the truth about herself, now that he also knew, their ignorant faith could no longer help them maintain an illusion. They depended on the strength of the house to keep her there, to make her real, until...

  Until what?

  He couldn't think. He was too tired. He hadn't slept at all last night, had done two days' worth of work, and there was nothing left.

  He turned back to the door and shouted through it. "Can I bring you something!"

  But there was no answer.

  He walked back around the fence and into the Bellamy house. To his surprise, his cot had been moved back into the ballroom. It looked small, almost pathetic compared to the vast space around it. He remembered dancing with Sylvie, how the room had sparkled with the memories of the people who had danced here. Did the house hold all these memories? Had the breaking down of the false walls released them? Why was this house so powerful, when others had no such power? What magic had been done? And how, how could it be undone without hurting Sylvie?

  Or maybe it was being here that was hurting her. Maybe if she had gone on she'd be happier. Instead of being trapped here. Maybe he should tear down the house, burn it right now, let her go, and free the Weird sisters.

  Even the thought of wrecking the house made him sick with grief. He couldn't bear the thought of losing her.

  Is this what it comes down to? My need for her? Is that more important than what the ladies next door need? What Sylvie herself might need?

  He would gladly do whatever it took to set everything to rights. But what was the way things should be? Simple: Sylvie not dead, the Weird sisters free. But Sylvie was dead, except for the power of the house. And the Weird sisters were trapped because of the house. He could not save one without harming the other.

  And somewhere Lissy was free as a bird, unharmed by any of this. He knew that, even though he had no evidence, even though for all he knew she was tormented by guilt and living in a hell of her own making. He knew that she was unharmed because that's the way the world worked. A decent person like Cindy lived in hell for a crime she only almost committed. While Lissy, a selfish, lying, conniving murderer, was probably doing just fine.

  Wasn't there something he could do? Wasn't there some choice that didn't lead to somebody's destruction?

  There was no one to ask. All he could do was lie down on the bed Sylvie had prepared for him and sleep at last.

  He dreamed that he was a house. He dreamed that he felt the bones of it when he moved his hands, his arms. That he knelt to form the foundation, strong and steady, that the wind blew across his body, and inside him a heart was beating strongly, and it was his daughter there. She was in the most beautiful alcove in his body, playing, laughing. He heard her laughing. And then... silence. She was gone, and no heart beat there.

  He grew cold. Snow piled on him, the wind tore at him. He bowed under the blast of the storm, empty. He did not understand why he was still kneeling there, why he hadn't simply ceased to exist. Why he was not dead, with his heart no longer beating.

  And then it beat again. His heart was alive again, only he looked and there was still nothing there, nothing at all, and yet he was coming alive. Where was his heart? Why was he alive when he had no heart?