being with you. You have a story to tell, yes, or we have a story to live together. Right now my greedy heart is fastened to you."
I was overcome. I cried like a silent baby. I blew my nose and tried to remain calm. Blood on the handkerchief. Body of Blood. Mind of Blood. Flash of his eyes on me. Violet.
"I should take my good fortune," I said, "and not question it, but I can't resist. What's kept you from destroying me, from punishing me for coming into your flat, for doing what I did to Stirling? I have to know."
"Why do you have to know?" he asked, laughing softly. "Why is it so very important to know?"
I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders. I wiped at my eyes again.
"Is it vanity in me to press the question?" I asked.
"Probably," he said, grinning. "But shouldn't I understand? I, the most vain of creatures?" He chuckled. "Didn't you see me preening for your aunt downstairs?"
I nodded.
"All right," he said. "Here comes the litany of reasons I didn't kill you. I like you. I like that you have a woman's lineaments and a man's body, a boy's curious eyes and a man's large easy gestures, a child's frank words and a man's voice, a blundering manner and an honest grace."
He smiled at me quite deliberately, and winked his right eye, and then went on.
"I like that you loved Stirling," he said. "I like that you honor your glorious Aunt Queen so candidly." He smiled mischievously. "Maybe I even like it that you went down on your knees and kissed her feet, though that gesture came rather late in the game of my deciding. I like that you love so many around you. I like it that you're more generous than I am. I like that you hate the Dark Blood, and that your Maker wronged you. Now -- isn't that pretty? Isn't that enough?"
I was quietly delirious with gratitude.
"Don't think it so very unselfish of me to be here," he went on, eyes widening, voice gaining a little heat. "It's not. I need you or I wouldn't be here. I need your need of me. I need to help you, positively need it. Come, Little Brother, carry me deep into your world."
"My world," I whispered.
"Yes, Little Brother," he said. "Let's proceed together. Tell me the history you inherited and the life you've lived. Tell me about this beastly and beguiling Goblin and how he has gained his strength. I want to hear everything."
"I'm in love with you," I responded.
He laughed the most beguiling and gentle laugh.
"Of course you are," he replied. "I understand perfectly because I'm in love with myself. The fact that I'm not transfixed in front of the nearest mirror takes a great deal of self-control."
It was my turn to laugh.
"But your love for me," he went on, "is the reason why you'll tell me all about yourself and Blackwood Farm. Start with the family history and then go into your own."
I sighed. I pondered. I took the plunge.
Chapter 7
7
"CHILDHOOD FOR ME INVOLVED two distinct polarities -- being with Goblin, and listening to adults talk.
"Goblin and I were the only children here at Blackwood Manor because the tourists who came almost never brought children with them, and so I soon learned the vocabulary of adults and that it was fun to play in the kitchen and listen to their endless storytelling and arguing, or to tag after the tour guides -- my great-grandfather Gravier and later my grandfather Pops -- as they went through the house detailing its riches and its legends, including the gloomy tale of Manfred, the Great Old Man.
"Great-grandfather Gravier was truly the very best at this, having a deep sonorous voice and being a dignified man in a black suit with a white silk tie to match his white shirt, but he was very old when I was little and he went away to a hospital and died there, before I was five I think, and I have no clear memory of his funeral. I don't think I went to his funeral. But he had made an indelible impression upon me.
"And he at once became a famous family ghost apparently, on the sole authority of my having come down the stairs one morning and seen him standing by the front door, smiling at me placidly and waving his right hand. He was gone in an instant.
"Everybody told me to stop telling such stories, Great-grandfather