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king to Julien,' I said 'We were just having hot chocolate and visiting here ' I turned and gestured to the right but Julien wasn't there I glanced at the table and then looked back to it Except forthere No ther

"The breath went out of me

" 'My God,' I said Ito hiue on the second cup of hot chocolate The pitcher, it was silver He letme that I couldn't be with Mona, he said ere related I' I stopped I sank down in the chair

"Nobody knew better than arden for hiain I stared at the empty table I laid my hand on the bouquet And where was Goblin? Why hadn't Goblin warned me? How impatient I'd been with Goblin, and Goblin had let me fend for myself!

"Dr Rowan Mayfair came behind me and put her hands on my shoulders I felt soothed ied me She actually bent down and kissed h me Oh, the pure sweetness of it Michael Curry sat opposite and he took my hand and held it firmly He was like the uncle I never knew

"God, how I loved them Hoanted to be connected to the Desperately, I needed their comfort now

" 'I' to be locked up,' I stammered 'Julien Mayfair Was he ever a real man?¡¯

" 'He was real, all right,' said Rowan Mayfair in her patient and sincere husky voice 'He's a legend in the Mayfair clan He died in 1914 ' "

Chapter31

31

"THEY BROUGHT nificent They showed me the shadowy double parlor with its carved archway and shining floors and they tookrooo sacrificed to the curvature of the Mississippi River as it changed its fickle path

"Roas the tour guide, pointing out details with a low-key siray eyes were always cold She was very shapely in her white shirt and pants and see in a dream

"Then it was in the sunlit kitchen that we settled at a glass table with brass dolphins as a base to it, and ere ranged in comfortable brushed-steel chairs There was a cozy back stairs in the corner and a sas fireplace for cold days, but this wasn't one of them, and beyond the French doors we could see the rarew around the wall of the rear garden where I had sat with Julien, so oblivious to the real world

" 'But how do I know you're real?' I asked theically 'He seemed in those moments as real as anybody, except -- ' And then I had to ad, that he had been a friend to my ancestor Manfred, a sheer impossibility in terms of his appearance, and then there was the matter of his old-fashioned nineteenth-century clothes

" 'Ghosts tip you off and then distract you,' I confessed