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Ancient Evelyn had said. She had remained in the parlor. “Gifford will not destroy the Victrola. The time will come when you may have the Victrola. No Mayfair would destroy Oncle Julien’s Victrola. As for the pearls, Gifford can keep them for now.”
    Mona didn’t care about the pearls.
    That had pretty much been Ancient Evelyn’s quota of speech for the next three or four weeks.
    Gifford had been sick after that, sick for months. Strife exhausted Gifford, which was only logical. Uncle Ryan had had to take her to Destin, Florida, to rest at the beach house. Same thing had happened after Deirdre’s funeral; Aunt Gifford had been so sick that Ryan had taken her up to Destin. Aunt Gifford always fled to Destin, to the white beach and the clean water of the Gulf, to the peace and quiet of a little modern house with no cobwebs and no stories.
    But the truly awful part for Mona was that Aunt Gifford hadnever given her the Victrola! When Mona had finally cornered her and demanded to know where it was, Aunt Gifford had said, “I took it up to First Street. I took the pearls there too. I put them back in a safe place. There’s where all Oncle Julien’s things belong, in that house, along with his memory.” And Alicia had screamed and they’d started fighting again.
    In one of the dreams, Oncle Julien had said, dancing to the record on the Victrola: “The waltz is from
La Traviata
, my child, good music for a courtesan.” Julien danced, and the pinched little soprano voice sang on and on.
    She had heard the melody so distinctly. Rare to be able to hum a song that you hear in a dream. Lovely scratchy sound to the Victrola. Ancient Evelyn had later recognized the song Mona was humming. It was from Verdi—Violetta’s waltz.
    “That was Julien’s record,” she’d said.
    “Yes, but how am I going to get the “Victrola?” Mona had asked in the dream.
    “Can’t anyone in this family figure out anything for herself!” Oncle Julien had almost wept. “I’m so tired. Don’t you see? I’m getting weaker and weaker.
Chérie
, please wear a violet ribbon, I don’t care for pink ribbons, though it is very shocking with red hair. Wear violet for your Oncle Julien. I am so weary—”
    “Why?” she’d asked. But he had already disappeared.
    That had been last spring, that dream. She had bought some violet ribbon, but Alicia swore it was bad luck and took it all away. Mona’s bow tonight was pink, like her cotton and lace dress.
    Seems poor Cousin Deirdre had died last May right after Mona had had that dream, and First Street had come into the hands of Rowan and Michael, and the great restoration had begun. Every time she’d passed she’d seen Michael up there on the roof, or just climbing a ladder, or climbing over a high iron railing, or walking right on the parapet with his hammer in hand.
    “Thor!” she’d called out to him once. He hadn’t heard her, but he’d waved and smiled. Yes, to die for, all right.
    She wasn’t so sure about the times of all the dreams. When they’d started, she hadn’t known there would be so many of them. Her dreams floated in space. She hadn’t been smart enough in the beginning to date them, and to make a chronology of Mayfair events. She had that now in \WS\MAYFAIR\CHRONO. Every month she learned more tricks in her computersystem, more ways of keeping track of all her thoughts and feelings, and plans.
    She opened the bathroom door and stepped into the kitchen. Beyond the glass doors the swimming pool positively glittered for an instant as if a vagrant wind had touched its surface. As if it were alive. As she stepped forward, a tiny red light flashed on the motion detector, but she could see immediately by the control panel on the kitchen counter that the alarm wasn’t set. That was why it hadn’t gone off when she opened the window. What luck! She’d forgotten about that damned alarm, and it had been the alarm that had saved Michael’s life. He’d have drowned if the