"I just do. I just do. Stop asking me and do what I tell you." she said angrily.

I had never seen Mama so visibly shaken. Her body trembled and she was pale. I hurried to put the box behind the dresser in the corner.

"You opened it." Mama said more to herself than to me. She looked about the room fearfully, then scooped Baby Celeste into her arms. Had the little music box called to some spirit she feared?

"Everyone's gone." Mama said. "You can come downstairs now Bring the chamber pot to empty, too.

Quickly!"

She turned and fled the turret room. I glanced back at the small box and then got the chamber pot and followed. My heart was thumping from Mama's reaction. Why couldn't we touch it, open it? Nothing in this house frightened her. If anything bothered her, she got rid of it or washed it in candle smoke.

I heard her descending the stairway quickly, more like someone fleeing. She was already down to the main stairway when I reached the second-floor landing. I went into the bathroom. emptied the pot in the toilet, then placed it on the floor. After that I paused to look into my room to admire the new rug. It did make the room brighter, and the rug in Mama's room gave it a new, fresh look as well, as did the new carpet in the living room. It made it look warmer.

"All the rugs are very nice. Mama." I said.

She had put Baby Celeste down and was standing by the window gazing out. She acted as if she hadn't heard me. Baby Celeste plopped on the rug and smiled up at me, pleased with the feel and the color.

"With the new curtains you're getting and the other things we're doing, the house is Going to look so much better. Mama. You were right about that," I told her, hoping to get her to stop behaving so strangely.

"What?" she finally said. turning.

"The rugs are very nice. I was just saving how warm and wonderful the house is going to be when you're finished with your redecorating."

"No." She shook her head. "It's not warm and wonderful. -We're in some danger."

"Danger? In our house?" How could we be in danger in the house? The house was our sanctuary." She hurried past me and out of the room. I heard her rummaging about in the kitchen. then I heard her start for the stairway.

"Mama?" I said, stepping into the hallway.

"What are you doing?"

She paused and turned to me. For a moment she just stared at me, her eyes blinking rapidly.

"Take the baby out for a while." she said.

"Out? Take her out?"

"It's dark enough. Take her over toward the shed, away from the front of the house. Go on. Do it.

Noble. Her little sweater is on the sofa. I"ll call you when I want you to come back inside with her."

"Okay," I said, and watched her charge up the stairway.

Baby Celeste couldn't be happier. She clapped her hands with joy when I carried her out of the house. I walked toward the shed and the gardens just as Mama had commanded, and then I set Baby Celeste down, folded my arms over my strapped-down bosom, and looked back at the house.

Twilight draped a dark gray veil around us. To me this time of day always looked sad. It was as if the sun were caught in indecision. Should it go? Should it stay? Reluctantly, it would soon blink and sink below the mountains. Did it drown every day and was it resurrected every morning?

Baby Celeste tugged on my hand. She realized we had a limited time in the softened light and she was hungry for everything she could see. I walked about with her, talking and showing her plants we were growing, wildflowers, and even milkweeds. Her curiosity was limitless. She was so taken pith insects that she almost grabbed a bumblebee.

Periodically. I paused and looked back at the house. All of the rooms were still in darkness. What could Mama be doing? More and more stars appeared in the night sky. It was getting cooler and cooler. The wind came in from the north. I could hear it threading its way through the forest, rushing toward us. When would Mama call to us? I was trembling now from both the cooler air and her strange behavior.

Suddenly. I saw a glow building in the living room. It grew brighter and brighter, but not as it would if Mama had turned on the lamps. This was different. The light flickered, too.

Candles! I thought. She has lit candles. But so many in one room? Why?

I lifted Baby Celeste into my arms and slowly walked back to the house. Just as I reached the porch steps. Mama came out, closing the door behind her.

She leaned back against it. Although we were standing right before her, her gaze went past us or even through us. Actually, she looked like a blind woman.

"Mama? What are you doing? Shouldn't we go in for dinner? It's getting late for the baby. Mama?" I said in a raised voice when she didn't respond.

She blinked rapidly and looked at us. When she shifted a little to the right, the illumination was enough for me to see how flushed her face had become. She continued to stare without speaking.

"Mama?"

"Take her inside but don't go into the living room until I tell you. Now," she said. stamping. I felt myself jump inside as if I had another whole body under the one people saw, She stepped aside and I opened the door and carried Baby Celeste in' . I hesitated just enough at the living room doorway to look in. I had never seen Mama do something like this as extensively. Set up all over the living room were pictures of all the ancestors we had, at least two dozen pictures. Before each picture, she had placed a black candle. I realized she had formed a circle with the pictures, but what surprised and even shocked me more was seeing the small ebony wood box in the center of the floor.

"Go into the kitchen," Mama ordered. and I moved quickly, not saying a word. Her voice sounded on the verge of hysteria. Even Baby Celeste looked speechless.

Mama said nothing about what she had done in the living room and I was afraid to ask her about it.

Seeing the small candle illuminating the photograph of each family member gave me an eerie feeling. I knew she had performed some ritual meant to draw out their spiritual power to overcome something terrible released by opening the small black wooden box. Since I had done it. I was afraid I'd be blamed for whatever she believed had happened and could happen.

Mama worked on dinner in that deep silence she could reach. a silence that seemed to take her away. She came up out of it occasionally to give me an order to do this or that with the bread, the vegetables, or to set the table.

Dinner was almost as quiet. Although I did get her talking about some of the other changes she was making in the house. I avoided any reference to the living room or the wooden box. I saw the way her eyes drifted toward the living room from time to time.

Apparently she was waiting for something, some signal, herself. Just before we finished eating, that signal obviously came and her expression brightened.

Her whole body, stiff and tense for the last hour or so.

relaxed.

"I have to put things away. Noble," she told me.

"Clear off the table and carefully stack the dishes.

Keep the baby occupied, too."

She rose and went to the living room.

One of the truly wondrous things about Baby Celeste was the way she could tune into the mood of the moment and become a part of it, When Mama and I were light and happy, she was. If Mama was melancholy and quiet, she was. If something had made Mama angry, Baby Celeste avoided doing anything that could bring chastisement.

Throughout dinner, she was as quiet and as patient as a panther. She was even careful about how much noise she made clinking her silverware and dishes, and when she was finished, she didn't plead to get down from her chair, but instead sat and waited like an adult.

Before I finished getting things in order in the kitchen, Mama returned. She had been going- around the house, upstairs as well, to put those pictures back where they were. She looked pleased with everything and cheerfully told me we could go into the living room now.

Everything was gone. The scent of the burning candles lingered, but she had opened windows as well to rid the room of that as quickly as possible. I sat on the sofa and opened one of Baby Celeste's books for her. She leaned against me and watched as I turned the pages and permitted her to identify everything on them.

Mama came in and went to the piano as usual.

She played two Mozart sonatas for solo piano, but avoided the sonata captured in the wooden music box.

It wasn't something she played every night, but more than not, she would end with it.

Baby Celeste became drowsy, so Mama took her upstairs to put her to bed. I went outside and sat on the porch. I was still feeling nervous from all that had transpired. I wanted to be alone and relax. Now wearing a light jacket. I could enjoy the night air. The sky was cloudless. The wind I had heard earlier had carried the remnants of clouds away, sweeping the heavens clean so that the unblocked stars twinkled with a brilliance not often seen.

On evenings like this, melancholy would unfold itself inside my heart like a newly hatched bird spreading its wings within the confines of a nest, bringing with it the realization that flight loomed in its near future. It was a promise surely to be realized, a promise so strong it filled the mind of the baby bird with images of itself gliding, turning, rising, and floating on the wind. These were memories it had inherited, memories that were part of who and what it was, memories that could not be denied or buried long in its dark unconscious.

Likewise for me, the melancholy that unfolded brought with it memories, too, girlhood memories, an impressive nostalgia for things dainty and feminine.

Fantasies came galloping back onto the field of my dreams. During a time in my life that was so long ago and now seemed to be truly someone else's life. I could imagine myself falling in love with a handsome and mysterious man. Once. I could see myself as a mother who could unashamedly love her child and did not need to hide her maternal emotions. Scents of perfume filled my nostrils. Dresses and shoes, scarves and ribbons, danced before my eyes.

Noble used to imagine knights and dragons, monsters and heroes, coming out of the forest. He filled his days with stories and games he created in his active boyish imagination. Sometimes, Mama made me play alongside him so he would have companionship. I never once even thought to ask him to play with my teacup set or my dolls with me, not that he would want to do it My playtime was too calm for his bursts of energy. I used to think he would go shouting through the house all the time if Mama didn't stop him. Were all boys like him? I wondered, Were they all afraid of softness and the little silences that invaded our daily lives? Did all of his visions and dreams have to roar and crash against the walls of his imagination? Was reality such a threat?

But I, too, had had fantasies, and just because I was older and life and the world were so different for me now. I didn't stop having them. Even now. tonight.

I envisioned my own version of a handsome knight coming out of the forest that ringed our property, about to do battle with all the demons that chained me to this dark and dismal existence. I longed to be swept away, to be carried afar where I could let my hair grow again. where I could unstrap my bosom and permit my breasts to breathe. and I could once again experience and enjoy all the dainty and beautiful things in a woman's world.

I would have clothes and dolls and perfumes. I would have jewels and my laughter would be untethered and melodic, instead of guarded and short.

Somewhere and sometime. I would be able to flirt with my eyes, blush, and sigh, and I would be unafraid of the sound of my own name perched on the lips of a handsome young man.

Do I dare wish for such things? I wondered.

Will I be cursed for eternity? Will all our family spirits hate me and stop protecting me?

Most important. would Mama hate me as she has never hated anyone or anything?

I was so lost in these thoughts that I almost didn't hear the front door open slowly. Mama emerged carrying the small ebony wooden box cupped in her right hand like an offering she was going to make to some angry god. I didn't speak. I barely breathed, and incredibly, she didn't look at me or notice me sitting there. I could only watch her, amazed at how she moved. She stepped down the porch stairway like someone walking in her sleep. When she turned. I saw that in her other hand she carried a small garden spade.

I started to stand, to call to her, but she walked faster and went directly toward the cemetery. Both intrigued and a little frightened. I followed far behind her, walking as softly as I could. She went into the cemetery. When I reached the enhance. I saw she was on her knees, digging in front of Infant Jordan's small tombstone. I stood there quietly, watching her dig.

She became more and more determined about it, working faster and more intently.

Finally, she concluded that the hole was deep enough and she placed the wooden box in it. She covered it quickly, smoothing the earth as best she could and replanting the clumps of grass.

Then she stood up slowly, stared at the tombstone a moment, stepped up to it. and placed her hands on the embossed baby hands. I remember how she used to tell Noble and me that she could feel those hands move. We tried, but felt nothing_ or at least Noble never did. I couldn't be sure.

Mama stood with her hands on the tombstone so long, I wondered if she would ever leave. I heard her whimper. Crying was something I rarely heard Mama do, and it was surely something she wouldn't want me to hear. Now I was terrified of being discovered watching her. I had no idea how she would react, but the very fact that I hadn't made her aware I was doing so would surely anger her. She would accuse me of spying on her. Her rage could very well have something to do with why she had just buried the box and the fact that I had opened it.

Slowly, as quietly as I could. I stepped back into the shadows. The more I did that, the more I did look sneaky, but it was too late to reverse my action. I had committed myself to not being seen. I continued to retreat, and then I froze in place when she turned from the tombstone and started out of the cemetery.

Her eyes were down and she was walking quickly.

She paused to flick errant tears from her cheeks, then she continued walking. I held my breath and watched her hurry back to the house.

As soon as she entered. I walked into the cemetery and gazed down at the place where she had buried the black box. Why was she burying it here?

Why did it have to be buried at all? What did all this mean? What deep, dark secret had Baby Celeste uncovered when she found the ebony wooden box?

What had happened when we had opened it?

In deep thought I walked back to the house and stood just outside the door listening. I didn't hear her moving about so I entered as quietly as I could, barely closing the door behind me. When I looked into the living room. I saw Mama sitting in Grandfather Jordan's rocker. She didn't look up at me even though I felt she knew I was standing there, which made me wander if she had realized I had been outside all this time and if she was now furious at me.

"Mama?" I finally said. "Are you all right?"

"Of course all right," she snapped. "I"ll always be all right."

"Are you angry at me?"

"No, I'm angry at myself."

"Why?"

She rocked in the chair. I thought she wasn't going to answer.

"I forgot about it" she finally said. "I should have remembered."

"About what? The wooden box? The lock of baby's hair?"

She spun around so fast that she almost cracked the arm of the rocking chair.

"How do you know it was a lock of baby's hair?

she demanded. Then she relaxed, nodded, and smiled, "He told you, didn't he? Your father whispered it into your ear. Yes, I'm sure."

She threw her head back and rocked harder.

"No, Mama."

She brought her head down again and glared at me. "If you lie to me, I"ll know. I'll always know when you tell lies. Noble."

"I'm not lying, Mama. I haven't heard Daddy for quite a while now."

"Um," she murmured. She rocked and thought.

Then she let out a long, deep breath. "I should have known she would find it someday. I should have known." She stopped the rocking abruptly and spun her head around at me again. "Do you see how special she is?" she asked, flashing her eyes at me. "Do you?"

"You mean Baby Celeste?"

"Of course that's who I mean. Why do you stand there and pretend to be so stupid all the time?"

"I'm not pretending to be stupid, Mama."

"No, you're really stupid, is that it? Oh, the burden, the burden," she wailed, rocking on.

"Sometimes, you have to help me understand things, Mama," I said as calmly as I could manage.