Treasure Box Page 0,99

mind. Comparing her to me. So I made you see her. Drove you crazy with it."

Quentin glanced at Rowena, sitting in her chair, and Ray Duncan, who had followed his daughter down the stairs and was now sitting on the couch. How were they taking this?

They both sat staring off into space.

"I shut them down," said Roz. "There's no reason for them to know all this."

"You created Madeleine just to torture me for daring to think what's obvious to everyone who sees you?"

"No, stupid. I showed you your sister because of that. But then, when you were sitting there watching the vision I made for you, what should happen but she turns up!"

"Who?"

"Lizzy," said Roz. "Your dead sister. Her spirit. Well, I wasn't calling her. She didn't even notice me. It was you who called her. What a joke on me! You had some of the power! Who would have guessed it?"

"Nothing like what you can do."

"Yeah, well, I'm kind of remarkable. The way Uncle Paul was. Only Mother didn't kill me the way Grandmother killed her precious baby boy. That's a nice thing to find in the family closet."

"You only got your mother's memory of it, with all her misunderstandings."

"I would have gotten Grandmother's memories directly, but I knew how strong the old lady is. She and Mother were battling it out constantly. That's how I learned half of what I know, watching their struggles to keep each other from watching them. It was easy to take control of Mother - she was completely off her guard. And Father, of course, is just a human."

"And therefore not worth considering."

"I need him for a phone call now and then."

"You're telling me you just improvised all this?"

"Come on, why not?" said Roz. "You were stronger than most humans. I thought about that for a few minutes and I realized that maybe I could use you to open the treasure box for me."

"Is that what your mother calls it?"

"Mother has no idea what it really is or how to use it. Power beyond belief. Grandmother filled her with horror stories about it, but that's because neither of them has a spark of creativity. Me, I think of all kinds of things that no one has ever thought of before. Least of all the dragon. It can be killed, which only sets it free to possess somebody else. It can also be captured, which is what Grandmother did. But I've done research neither of them thought of doing. There are books, if you know how to sort the nonsense from the truth. I'm only eleven, but I'm - how to say it mildly? - the school system calls me 'gifted.' "

Quentin wanted to smack that smug little mouth.

"So much for your being a nonviolent kind of guy, right, Quentin?"

He also hated the way she called him by his first name.

"What would be better?" she asked. "Should I call you 'Tin'?"

In that instant, she stopped being a little girl. She was transformed into Madeleine. Quentin's heart leapt in spite of all he knew.

And then she was Madeleine naked, prancing around the room like a stripper in some cheap movie.

He had done it before; he could do it now. He forced himself to know that she wasn't real.

She didn't go away.

"It's harder to get rid of me," said Madeleine, sitting in Ray's lap and twirling his hair, "when there's a real person inside the shell."

Harder but not impossible. Quentin remembered the bratty little girl and after a shimmering moment there she was, sitting on her father's lap, twirling his hair.

"You're a terrible lover, you know, Quentin. Any woman who ever sleeps with you is going to have to fake every orgasm."

It was obscene hearing language like that from a child.

"Your fault, Quentin," she said. "I wasn't interested in any of that stuff till you started pawing at Madeleine that night in your living room. It was obvious I was blowing it, so I had to read up and spy on Mom and Dad and figure out what this sex crap was all about. I finally got it, though, didn't I? Made all your fantasies come true, didn't I?"

Quentin looked away from her in shame.

"Oh, come on, here you are, you wanted to face me, didn't you? So face me. Be a man. Buck up."

"You don't want me to be a man," said Quentin. "You want me to be a tool."

"But we did have fun, didn't we? Playing with politics like we did. We made a