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instinctively toward his crucifix, while the other gestured abruptly for Erik to leave the room. When we were alone, he looked down on me with an odd mixture of pity and distaste.
    "I think you have been too much alone with your burdens," he said quietly.
    I bit my lip and looked away from him.
    "You think I'm mad."
    "By no means," he replied hurriedly, "but certainly it would seem that your judgment has been affected by the strain of your solitude. Whatever you believe you hear is only the voice of your own confusion. You must try to remember that he is just a young child."
    I got up and went to the bureau which stood in the corner of the room. A shower of papers tumbled out when I opened the glass door, and from the pile at my feet I snatched up a handful of musical scores and architectural sketches and pushed them into the priest's hand.
    "Is this the work of a child?" I demanded coldly.
    He took the papers to the light and examined them carefully.
    "I would not have believed it possible for a child of his age to copy with such astonishing precision," he said after a moment.
    "They're not copies," I said slowly. "They're originals."
    He turned to protest, but was silenced by my expression. Placing the papers on the table, he sat down in a chair and stared at me in awe as I stood clasping my hands around my arms and shivering.
    "It frightens me," I whispered. "Too much, too soon… it isn't natural. I can't believe such gifts are heaven sent."
    The priest shook his head gravely.
    "Doubt is the devil's instrument, Madeleine. You must close your mind to it and pray for the strength to guide the child's soul to God."
    As he leaned forward to take my hand I realized that he was trembling.
    "I have been remiss in my calling," he said feverishly. "I will come as often as my duties permit to instruct him in the doctrine of our Church. The boy must be taught very quickly to accept the will of God without question. It is extremely important that genius of this stature is never permitted to stray from the teachings of our Lord."
    I said nothing. The priest's intense uneasiness was merely a grim echo of my own growing certainty that the forces of evil were steadily closing in around my unhappy child.
    I felt desperately in need of the guidance of the Church, but the inner light of conviction was no longer there. The harder I prayed, the less hope I had of being heard. My crucifix was merely a cunningly carved piece of wood, my rosary just a meaningless string of beads. My faith had weakened to the point where I allowed myself to be seduced by a sung Mass rendered shamelessly and sensually beautiful. I had sunk to a wickedness that I dared not even confess.
    "Tell me what to do," I said in despair. "Show me how to keep him from evil."
    The fire fell into ashes, and as we talked long into the night the priest warned me very seriously against any attempt to muzzle Erik's unique talents.
    "A volcano must have its natural outlet," he said mysteriously, "it must not be driven in upon itself. If you feel that you can no longer train his voice, then you must permit me to do so. Let me teach him as though he were any other chorister in my choir. I will steep him in the music of God and the ways of the Lord, and in time heaven will grant you only pleasure from his voice."
    I stared at the sad, gray remnants of the dead fire.
    How could I tell him it was the pleasure that I feared?
    He was five when we had our confrontation over the mask. Until that terrible summer evening he wore it with unquestioning obedience, removing it only to sleep and never setting foot beyond the confines of the attic bedroom without it. So fiercely unbending was my regime that he would no more have considered appearing without it than he would have considered appearing naked—at least that is what I thought until that night.
    It was the evening of his fifth birthday and I was expecting Marie for supper. I hadn't invited her. With her stubborn grain of well-meaning she