Was it too late to change all of that, I wondered? Was there still a chance for four ungrateful children to rediscover why we'd been created?

Only Marietta, it seemed to me, had escaped the curse, and she'd done so by reinventing herself. I saw her often, coming back from her visits to the world, dressed like a trucker sometimes in low-slung jeans and a dirty shut, sometimes like a torch-song singer in a slinky dress; sometimes barely dressed at all, running across the lawn as the sun came up, her skin as dewy as the grass.

Oh Lord, what am I admitting to? Well, it's said; for better or worse. To my list of sins (which isn't as long as I'd like it to be) I must now append incestuous desires.

Luman had arranged to come and fetch me at ten. He was late, of course. When he finally turned up, he had the last inch of his havana between his teeth, and the last inch of gin left in the bottle. I suspect he didn't indulge himself with hard liquor very often, because he was much the worse for wear.

"Are you ready?" he slurred.

"More than ready."

"Did you bring something to eat and drink?"

"What do I need food for?"

"You're going to be in there a long time. That's why."

"You make it sound like I'm being locked up."

Luman leered at me, as though he was making up his mind whether to be cruel or not. "Don't be shittin' yourself," he said finally. "The door'll be open all the time, you just won't feel like leaving. It's very addictive once you get going." With that he started off down the passageway, leaving me to trundle behind him.

"Don't go too fast," I told him.

"Afraid of gettin' lost in the dark?" he said, "Brother, you are one nervous son of a bitch."

I wasn't afraid of the dark, but there was good reason to be concerned about getting lost. We turned a couple of corners and I was in a passageway I was pretty certain I'd never visited before, though I'd thought myself familiar with the entire house, barring Cesaria's chambers. Another corner, and another, and a passageway, and a small empty room, and another, and another, and now I knew this was unknown terrain. If Luman decided to play the mischief maker and leave me here, I doubted I could find my way back to anywhere familiar.

"You smell the air here?"

"Stale."

"Dead. Nobody comes here, you see. Not even her."

"Why not?"

"Because it fucks with your head," he said, casting a glance back in my direction. I could barely see his expression in the murk, but I'm certain he had that yellow-toothed leer back on his face. "Of course, you're a saner man than I ever was, so maybe it won't bother you so much 'cause you got better control of your wits. On the other hand… maybe you'll crack, and I'll have to put you in my li'l crib for the night, so's you don't do yourself harm."

I brought the chair to a halt. "You know what?" I said. "I've changed my mind."

"You can't do that," Luman said.

"I'm telling you I don't want to go in there."

"Well ain't this a flip-flop, huh? First I don't want to take you, and now I brought you here, you don't want to go. Make up your fuckin' mind."

"I'm not going to risk my sanity," I said.

Luman drained the gin bottle. "I can see that," he said. "I mean, a man in your condition ain't got but his mind, right? You lose that you ain't got nothin'." He came a step or two toward me. "On the other hand," he said, "if you don't go in, you ain't got no book, so it's a kind of toss-up." He lobbed the gin bottle from hand to hand, and back again, to illustrate his point. "Book. Mind. Book. Mind. It's up to you."

I hated him at that moment; simply because what he said was true. If he left me under the dome and I lost my sanity, I wouldn't be capable of putting words in any sensible order. On the other hand, if I didn't risk the lunacy, and I simply wrote from what I already knew, wouldn't I always wonder how much richer, how much truer, my work would have been if I'd had the courage to see what the room had to show me?

"It's your choice," he said.

"What would you do?"

"You're asking me?" Luman said, sounding genuinely surprised at my interest in his opinion. "Well it ain't pretty being mad," he said. "It ain't pretty at all. But the way I see it, we don't have a lot of time left. This house ain't goin' to stand forever, an' when it comes down, whatever you might see in there…" he pointed along the passageway ahead of me, towards the stairs that led up to the dome "… is going to be lost. You won't be seeing no more visions when this house falls. None of us will."

I stared at the passageway.

"I guess that's my answer then," I said.

"So you're goin' to go in?"

"I'm goin' to go in."

Luman smiled. "Hold on," he said. Then he did a remarkable thing. He picked up the wheelchair, with me in it, and carried us both up the stairs. I held my breath, afraid he was either going to drop me, or topple back down the flight. But we readied the top without incident. There was a narrow landing, and a single door.

"I'm goin' to leave you here," Luman said.

"This is as far as you go?"

"You know how to open a door," he said.

"What happens when I get inside?"

"You'll find you know that too." He laid his hand on my shoulder. "If you need anything, just call."

"You'll be here?"

'It depends how the mood takes me," he said, and sauntered off down the stairs. I wanted to call him back; but I was out of delaying tactics. Time to do this, if I was going to do it.

I wheeled my way to the door, glancing back once to see if Luman was still in sight. He'd gone. I was on my own. I took a deep breath, and grasped the door handle. There was still a corner of me that hoped the door was locked and I'd be denied entry. But the handle turned, and the door opened-almost too readily, I thought, as though some overeager host stood on the other side, ready to usher me in.

I had some idea of what I thought lay on the other side, at least architecturally speaking. The dome room-or "sky room" as Jefferson had dubbed his version at Monticello-was, I'd been told by Marietta (who'd crept up there once to do the deed with a girlfriend) a somewhat strange but beautiful room. At Monticello it had apparently been used as a child's playroom, because it was hard to access (a design deficiency which also applied to L'Enfant) but here, Marietta had told me, there was a whisper of unease in the room; no child would have been happy playing there. Though there were eight windows, after the Monticellian model, and a skylight, the place seemed to her "a little on the twitchy side," whatever that meant.

I was about to find out. I pushed the door wide with my foot, half-expecting birds or bats to fly in my face. But the room was deserted. There was not so much as a single piece of furniture to spoil its absolute simplicity. Just the starlight, coming in from nine apertures.

"Luman," I murmured to myself, "you sonofabitch…"

He'd prepared me for something fearful; a delirium, an assault of visions so violent it might put me out of my wits. But there was nothing here but murk and more murk.

I ventured in a couple of yards, looking everywhere for a reason to be afraid. But there was nothing. I pressed on, with a mingling of disappointment and relief. There was nothing to fear in here. My sanity was perfectly secure.

Unless, of course, I was being lulled into a false sense of security. I glanced back toward the door. It was still open; still solid. And beyond it the landing where I'd stood with Luman, and debated the wisdom of coming in here. What an easy mark I'd made; he must have been thoroughly entertained at the sight of my discomfort! Cursing him again, I took my eyes from the door and returned them to the murk. This time, however, much to my astonishment, I discovered that the sky room was not quite as empty as I'd thought. A few yards from me-at the place where the lights of the nine windows intersected-there was a skittering pattern in the gloom, so subtle I was not certain at first it was even real. I kept staring at it, resisting the urge to blink for fear that it would vanish. But it remained before me, intensifying a little. I wheeled my way toward it; slowly, slowly, like a hunter dosing on his quarry, fearful of alarming it into flight. But it didn't retreat. Nor did it become any the less mystifying. My approach had become less tentative now; I was very soon at the center of the room, directly under the skylight. The patterns were in the air all around me; so subtle I was still not absolutely certain I was ever seeing them. I looked up to my zenith: I could see stars through the skylight, but nothing that would be likely to create these shifting shadows. Returning my gaze to the walls, I went from one window to the next, looking for some explanation there. But I found none. There was a little wash of light through each of them, but no sign of motion-a wind-stirred branch, a bird fluttering on a sill. Whatever was creating this shifting shadow was here in the room with me. As I finished my study of the windows, muttering to myself in confusion, I had the uncomfortable sense my bef uddlement was being watched. Again, I looked toward the door, thinking maybe Luman had crept back to spy on me. But no; the landing was deserted.