"It seemed at times that the men singing the Christmas carols made me cry. I expected the women to sing, it seemed natural, but for the men to join in, men of all ages, and to do it with such stout hearts, that seemed especially reassuring and wonderful. I cried every year. It was that and the purity of the soprano who sang 'O Holy Night,' and 'What Child Is This?' Of course I joined in the singing myself.
"And lest I overlook it, there was the Spring Festival, when the azaleas planted all around Blackwood Manor were blooming, in pink and white and red, and we would have a huge buffet, almost like that of a wedding, outside on the lawn. There was always an Easter Buffet as well.
"Then I suppose I should throw in all the weddings again and the commotion they brought, and the fascinating waiters I would meet in the kitchen, who to a one felt the 'vibrations' of spirits, and the brides becoming hysterical because their hair was not done right and the hairdresser had already gone, and Sweetheart, my darling Sweetheart, portly and ever solicitous, huffing and puffing up the stairs to the rescue and snatching up her electric curling iron and doing a few excellent tricks she knew to make everything right.
"There was Mardi Gras too, when, even though we're an hour and a half from New Orleans, we were booked solid, and we decorated in the traditional colors of purple, green and gold.
"Sometimes, a very few times, I went into the city to see some of the Mardi Gras parades. Sweetheart's sister, Aunt Ruthie, lived on St. Charles Avenue, which you know is the main parade route. But she wasn't a Blackwood, and her sons, though probably normal, appeared to me to be monsters with too much body hair and overly deep voices, and I felt uncomfortable there.
"So Mardi Gras didn't penetrate to me very much except for all the gaiety out here at the house, and the inevitable costume ball we held on the night of Fat Tuesday itself. It was amazing how many revelers came back at sunset from New Orleans, after hours of watching Zulu, Rex and the interminable truck parades, to drink themselves sick at our festive bar.
"Of course I did very occasionally encounter other children here -- at the Halloween party and at the Christmas party in particular, and sometimes at the weddings -- but I didn't take to them. They seemed to me to be freaky little people. I have to laugh at myself for thinking such a thing. But as I've said, my world was made up of spirits and adults, and I just didn't know what to do with children.
"I think I feared children as treacherous and even a little dangerous. I'm not sure why exactly, except that Goblin didn't like them, but Goblin really didn't like me to be with anyone very long.
"I hung with the adults by natural inclination and strong choice.
"I can't think about the weddings now, as we talk together, without thinking of something ghastly that I have to confess to you -- something that happened far from Blackwood Manor, and on the night I was made a Blood Hunter. But the time will come for that, I know.
"That's the family history, as it came down to me when I was innocent and protected by the umbrella of Pops and Sweetheart, and Aunt Queen, who was ever like a fairy godmother, dipping down to Earth only now and then with her stacked heels and invisible wings.
"There are other family members -- connections of William's wives -- he had two, the first of whom was the mother of Gravier, and the second, the mother of Aunt Queen, and of Gravier's wife, and, of course, connections of Sweetheart's. But though I've seen such cousins from time to time, they are not part of this story, and they had no impact on me whatsoever, except perhaps a feeling on my part of being unordinary and hopelessly strange.
"It's time now for me to move on to the tale of me and Goblin, and the account of how I got educated.
"But before I do, let me trace the Blackwood lineage, for what it's worth. Manfred was the patriarch, and William was his son. William begat Gravier. Gravier begat Pops. And Pops, late in life when he and Sweetheart had despaired of having a child, begat Patsy. At age sixteen, Patsy gave birth to me