Treasure Box Page 0,98

started for the kitchen. "I'm calling the police."

"Stop, Ray," said Rowena.

"The man's insane, Ro."

"No, we have to hear him out," she said. "We have to find out what's been going on."

Ray leaned against the wall, clearly furious at having been vetoed by his wife.

"You believe your wife Madeleine is a succubus created by a witch, Mr. Fears?" asked Rowena.

"She took me to the house you grew up in. I was made to believe that it was occupied. I met several of your dead relatives, and a couple not so dead. Your mother was there, in spirit if not in body. And your brother Paul, though of course Madeleine called him 'Uncle Paul.' Just as she called Mrs. Tyler 'Grandmother.' " And then Quentin stopped. Because, while his words clearly caused Rowena great pain, it was just as clear that she was hearing of all this for the first time. And now it finally dawned on Quentin that if Madeleine had been created by Rowena, why wouldn't Rowena have made her a woman of her own age? She was more or less the same age as Quentin. And Rowena could easily have supplied all the memories needed to make Madeleine completely convincing as a child of the sixties and seventies, like Quentin.

Instead Madeleine had been ignorant of many things she should have known. She covered it by pretending to have had a sheltered childhood, but in fact Madeleine could not have been the creation of a grown woman. Especially not in the parlor, where she had become a petulant, spoiled brat, acting like a child of... ten.

"Your daughter," Quentin said softly. "Of course she's also... one of you."

"A witch," said Rowena miserably. "Ray, go wake up Roz."

"Ro, you know how she hates us to waken her from a nap."

"What's she doing?" Quentin asked. "Flying around spying on people?"

"She doesn't understand how dangerous it all is," said Rowena.

Ray was at the foot of the stairs. "What are you talking about?"

"Please, Ray. Go get her."

Ray sighed and trotted on up the stairs.

Rowena faced Quentin and spoke earnestly. "My daughter is a remarkable girl, Mr. Fears. Very talented and... strong. Maybe if I had let my mother teach me, I could have controlled her the way my mother was able to control me during my child-hood. A child with such powers, such knowledge - it takes extraordinary care to keep them from running amok. But I couldn't trust my mother on anything, not after what she did to Paul."

"You never knew Paul."

"Yes I did," said Rowena. "He came to me every day as I was growing up."

Quentin knew the truth at once. "That wasn't Paul, Rowena. That was the beast."

She shook her head, then burst into tears. "I don't know," she said. "I just knew that I didn't want Mother to... if she was the kind of woman who killed disobedient children, then how could I bring my daughter under her care? I haven't been able to control Roz for years now. I'm afraid sometimes that she's controlling me. She studies things, figures them out, and... whole days disappear and I don't know what happened. I know she rules her father. He's completely enthralled. When I did that to Mike, I had no idea, I didn't know what I was doing. I've left him alone ever since - "

"Then who's been sending him to try to murder your mother?"

Rowena's hand flew to her mouth. "Oh, no. No, she couldn't."

"Yes I could, Mother," said a petulant child's voice from the stairs.

A young girl slowly came down the stairs, her hair looking a bit slept-in, but otherwise neat as a pin. Quentin could imagine how she had looked during her nap - arms at her sides in perfect symmetry, nothing moving, the way Mrs. Tyler lay while her spirit was off keeping watch or whatever it was she did with it. Rewriting traffic signs, for instance.

Then the girl's face became visible as she finally got to a low enough step, and Quentin realized why Mr. and Mrs. Duncan had looked so familiar. He had seen all three of them before. In the Giant food store on Elden Street, right before his first hallucination of Lizzy.

"That's right, Quentin," said Roz. "You didn't like me, as I recall."

"I thought you were an insufferable spoiled brat."

Roz gave her best cutey-pie grin. "Well, I showed you, didn't I?"

"Showed me I was right."

"Showed you what real power is!" Her smile turned vicious. "You had your treasure of a sister in your