"Yes. I remember," I said.

"Well, that's how it will be when they're here.

Noble. Obviously, it will be for a longer time than when I have a customer stop by. You might be up there with Baby Celeste all day."

"All day?"

"I'll bring you lunch, but you'll have to keep her especially quiet when they're working on my bedroom. I'm having a few things done, including new carpet. I would say you could come down when she's asleep, but if she wakes up and you're not there with her, she would be upset. If s a small sacrifice for you to make."

I was quiet.

"What is it. Noble? I can see your mind spinning like a leaf caught in the creek."

"You told me they said we cannot keep Baby Celeste locked away from the world too much longer."

"I know what I said. Don't you think I remember what I say?" she snapped.

"I didn't mean you don't remember. I meant maybe we could let her be seen finally,"

Blood rushed into her face, but she closed her eves and with the power she could will like a fairy goddess waving her wand, she forced the blood back.

"When the time is right, when the time comes, we will." she said slowly, punching out her words like my hammering nails. "The time is not yet right." She shook her head, "I just thought it would make it easier for us all and..."

"Don't... think," she ordered. "Just listen and do what you're told. Do you understand? Do you?

Because if you don't, if you feel like something is preventing you, some dark force is cloggi.ng your ears and mixing you up inside your head, I want to know right now. I don't want to put Baby Celeste in any unnecessary danger," she added, the heaviness of the underlying threat not lost on me.

"I understand. Mama. I understand." "Good.

Good."

Afterward, she went to her piano and played a musical piece I had never heard her play. Mama had very little sheet music. She once told me the music, all the notes, melodies, were already in the piano. When she sat on the stool and brought her fingers to the keyboard, she had no idea what she would play until she heard the first note. Then, she said, it all came up to her through her fingers, into her arms, into her heart.

All of the women who had lived in our house had played this piano, and cousins had often played when they had visited. I remember Mama talking about them when I was little, and about the piano never forgetting. She made it sound magical, a conduit through which she could reach back in time.

Perhaps that was why she often had new thoughts, new revelations, to announce after she had finished playing.

When I was younger, many nights I awoke and heard the piano being played. Noble never did and slept through it always. I would get up and tiptoe to the top of the stairway to listen. I knew Mama would be angry if I went downstairs and snuck up on her. Daddy used to say she played in her sleep.

She rose, went downstairs, and played, then returned to bed and denied having done it.

"It wasn't me. Arthur Madison Atwell," she would tell him. She always pronounced his entire name when she wanted to stress something or when he made her angry.

"Right, Sarah. It was your great-great-aunt Mabel," he would joke.

"I had no Aunt Mabel and you know very- well I didn't," she would say. Mama had no sense of humor when it came to her spiritual family.

Daddy would shake his head. If I was standing nearby and heard the conversation, he would wink at me and point to his ear. He once told me that when Mama talked about her spirits, you had to listen with half an ear.

Sometimes when she finished playing, she looked exhausted, drained, and sometimes she looked revived, even younger. This night she played with an intensity I had rarely heard. Her hair fell about her face and her face became flushed, her eyes bright.

Even Baby Celeste stopped doing what she was doing and stared up at her in awe.

When she was finished, she lowered her head to the piano for a long moment, then sat up and smiled at us.

"It will all be well. Noble. I am confidant now.

I have seen Baby Celeste."

"You have seen her?" I looked at her and then at Mama. "What do you mean? She's been here beside me all the while."

"I have seen her older, much older, and she is everything I dreamed she would be.

"Tomorrow." Mama declared, rising, "tomorrow it will all begin again,"

She lifted Baby Celeste into her arms and carried her off toward the stairway.

With wonder I looked at the piano and then I followed her. We put Baby Celeste to bed and then we both went to bed ourselves.

Hours after I had fallen asleep, I woke just as I often had as a young girl, and I heard the music below. It was the same music Mama had played earlier. I rose, confused, wondering why she had gotten up and returned to the piano. However, when I went out to the hallway, the music stopped and I could see through Mama's open door that she was in bed.

But I had heard the music. I had. To the day I died. I would swear to it. I wished Daddy would appear so I could confirm it_ but he didn't.

I returned to my room and called for him in the darkness, but he didn't come.

Something's wrong, I thought. There's a reason he's not coming to me anymore. There's a reason he fled into the woods and he stays in the dark places.

Surely it had to do with these dramatic changes in Mama. I thought. How I need him now, I fell asleep again, hoping at least to find him in my dreams. But I found nothing but deep darkness.

4.

Never Be Resurrected .

Right after breakfast the following morning.

Mama told me to take Baby Celeste up to the turret room.

"I'll come for you when the drapery man leaves," she said. "He'll be here soon."

This first time we weren't locked away that long. He was only coming to measure the windows, but two days later. Mama had the carpet people scheduled and they would be at the house most of the day because they were doing three rooms. She had decided to have my room done as well as hers and the living room, and she had picked out the carpet, a rich almond color.

Baby Celeste had always been good for the short stays, but this first seemingly unending one was far more difficult for both of us. For one thing. Mama and I had forgotten we would be locked away for too long without going to the bathroom. The turret room had no bathroom, so we would have to go down a flight and the carpet people might be working on my room or Mama's. I began to panic as soon as I realized our oversight, Baby Celeste had been toilet trained before she was quite two. She was truly advanced in every which way. Just before lunch, she asked to go potty. I opened the door and waited at the top of the short stairway in anticipation of Mama coming up with lunch. As soon as she saw me, her eyes flared with anger.

"What are you doing? Where do you think you're going? I told you to stay inside until I came for you. They are all still here," she cried in a loud whisper.

"Baby Celeste has to go potty, Mama. We forgot about that. I"ll have to sneak her down."

I could see from the expression on Mama's face that she had truly forgotten herself. She thought a moment, then shook her head.

"No, you'll use one of the old chamber pots,"

she decided. "I'll get it.."

"Chamber pots?"

She handed me the tray of food, entered the room. and went directly to a large trunk.

"Take it. Noble." she insisted when she found the pot. "Our ancestors did it this way before there was indoor plumbing. You and Baby Celeste certainly can."

"What about toilet paper, Mama?"

"Use the napkins I gave you on the tray."

I shook my head and looked back at Baby Celeste, who was standing anxiously, expecting to be carried down to the bathroom.

"She won't understand," I said.

"Then make her understand and keep it quiet, ea on," Mama said. "Just do it and don't contradict.

And keep from looking out the windows. The carpet men are having their lunch outside and we don't want them to see you pee/sing out and asking me all sorts of questions."

She practically pushed me back into the turret room. This time, she made sure the door was locked, too.

I turned to Baby Celeste.

"Potty," she said.

"I know." I set the chamber pot down. You go potty in there," I said, pointing.

To my utter surprise she turned, lowered her panties and piddled in the pot. She did it like someone who had done nothing else all her short life.

Later. I had no choice but to do the same.

I had never seen a chamber pot before, and that piqued my curiosity about the rest of what had been brought up here and stored away over the years. I was always afraid of disturbing anything, but with all this time on our hands, I sought new ways to keep us both distracted.

Beside the minors and old dressers and tables, cartons of clothing were packed in mothballs. I found baby clothes, too, baby clothes I knew hadn't been mine or Noble's. Baby Celeste stood looking at the garments, touching whatever I touched. There were even old shoes and boots, and in one carton we found all sorts of hats. I amused myself and Baby Celeste by putting on some of the boots and hats. She wanted to wear them as well, and we had a good time with them along with gloves and belts bedecked in costume jewelry.

Suddenly. Baby Celeste turned as if she had heard something. Her eyes grew small the way Mama's did when she was concentrating. I watched her work her way in between an old dresser and some cartons. She stopped when she found something that caught her interest and called to me. I followed and leaned over the dresser to see what she was up to. and I saw she had found a small ebony wood box with gold trim. She held it up so I could see it better. It had been hidden behind everything else so long that a layer of dust covered it. I took it gently from her.

"What have you found, Celeste?"

I turned it around and saw that it had a key to turn on the back of it. "It"s a music box," I explained.

Her eyes brightened. We had one downstairs on a table in the living room. Atop it was a ballerina who danced to the music. Baby Celeste was so taken with it. Mama thought she would wear out the mechanism.

I blew some of the dust off the little wooden box, then squatted beside her to open it.

Amazingly, despite how long it had been up here, it began to play a piece of a Mozart piano sonata that Mama often played. Even Baby Celeste recognized it and said. "Mama. Piano."

"Yes,'" I told her, then I realized it might have been heard below. I held my breath and listened hard.

Baby Celeste saw the look of apprehension on my face and froze as well. Their work made too much noise, I thought confidently, and released my lungs.

Then I smiled at her and looked into the box.

All it held was a small lock of golden blond hair tied with a thin piece of faded pink ribbon. It was certainly not Mama's hair, nor was it Noble's, mine, or Baby Celeste's. It couldn't be my daddy's either. His was raven black. Whose was it? Why had it been left up here, hidden away in a dusty corner? This was something people usually did with their baby's hair, but pressed into family albums.

The music box stopped playing. I studied it further, turning it over and every which way to look for some clue, but I found nothing else. Baby Celeste wanted to hear the music again, so I turned the key and let it play. We brought it back to the center of the room and spent the remainder of our time occupying-ourselves with other things: her picture books and coloring books mainly. She fell asleep on my lap and I dozed off myself. In fact, we were both asleep and didn't hear Mama come up the stairs and open the door at the end of the day. Her gasp woke me.

She was standing over us, her eyes wide, her hands pressed over her breasts. I stirred and Baby Celeste woke up, sat up, and rubbed her eyes.

"Where did you find that?" Mama asked, nodding at the small ebony wood box beside me.

"Baby Celeste found it," I said. "Something made her want to go exploring behind the old dresser.

It was as if she knew it was there."

That seemed to disturb Mama more. Her right hand fluttered up to the base of her throat like a struggling baby bird. She took another deep breath.

"When did she find it?"

"I don't know. About two hours ago. I guess. It was back there." I pointed to the rear of the room.

"What is it? Whose hair is that in it? Why is it up here? Why couldn't it be downstairs in the living room?"

I lifted the box and Mama backed away as if she expected it would explode.

"It's very pretty, and it plays that Mozart piece you play. See," I said, and started to open it so it would play.

"No!" Mama screamed. "Leave it be. Don't open it. Put it back where it was. Go on."

"You mean back on the floor behind the dresser'?"

"Yes, just put it back there," she ordered.

"But whose hair is in it?"

Mama looked at Baby Celeste, who sat there gazing up at her as if she expected to hear the answer, too.

"It doesn't matter. Just put it back."

"How come you want it left up here?" I rose to do what she wanted.