Charlotte had hidden the truth from me. She had used me for her own ends.

I stood gazing out the window, though little was visible beyond the darkened pillars of the porch.

I finally turned and settled myself on the settee, a lamp burning low nearby, intending to peruse some more of the books from the bookcase that was at arm's length. I was fighting a rising anger—anger at being lied to, at being brought here, at being used for my abilities ... and at my own weakness for allowing myself to care so strongly.

As I settled back, my eyes casually scanned the room. And halted. There, some distance across from me, in the well-worn armchair near the fire, was Clara. Her head was bent down, her eyes fixed upon some needlework. Though the firelight lit her face with harsh contours, I could tell that she was much younger than I'd last seen her, like she was the first day I saw her fighting with her mother in front of the house.

Was she a ghost or only a memory? Were they so very different? I wanted to speak to her, but it chilled me to think that she might speak back.

I watched her silently for several minutes. At one point she looked up, straight at me it seemed, but her face registered nothing and she turned back to her detailed work.

Faintly, I heard the sound of a baby crying. She heard it too, for her head snapped up. It cried again. She had begun to set down her needlework on the arm of the chair, when her mother peeked in from the adjoining piano room.

"He's crying," she said. "Did you leave him upstairs alone?"

Clara rose from her chair. "He was asleep."

"I told you, it's not safe to leave them at that age. You need to be with that child at all times."

Clara didn't reply, but hurried toward the main stairs. I grabbed a candle and followed her.

When I got upstairs, Clara was gone. I peered into the bedrooms. The barest moonlight shone in through the windows. No Clara, no baby, no sound.

I stood in the doorway of the empty room at the end of the hall. Closing my eyes, I saw it as it might have looked. A bed with a pale blue covering, a nightstand with a lamp and a book lying upon it. I pictured the young Charlotte, huddled on the floor with the bracelet in her hands, moonlight from the window glinting off it.

I no longer knew what were memories from the house and what was my own fanciful imagination. The line between them had become blurred so gradually that I hadn't realized it had happened. Was this what it was like as Clara went mad?

"No, Mama, please don't!"

Clara, wearing a yellow nightdress, sobbed from near the doorway, so close to me I felt I could reach out and touch her, but I didn't dare.

Early morning sunlight now streamed through the window.

"This has gone on long enough, Clara! Neither of them are coming back, your sister or the baby."

Her mother ripped bedclothes off the mattress and threw them into a trunk. "I've sold the furniture to Mr. G---. Lord knows we can use the extra money. He'll be here with his sons to pick it up later this morning."

"But it's all we have left of her. Don't you miss Charlotte?" Clara was nearly hysterical.

Her mother turned to her fiercely. "Whether right or wrong, I sent your sister away. And after your... troubles... we couldn't very well have her come back. She hates us now... and she's better off without us." I thought their mother looked sad, but I really couldn't tell for sure.

As quickly as they appeared to me, Clara and her mother vanished, and the room was empty and dark.

Now, once again, I heard the baby crying. Memories were waking up all around me, jumbled in time.

I met Charlotte in the upstairs hallway. "Did you hear that?" she asked, her face flushed. "A baby crying!"

"Yes, I think it was coming from downstairs."

She hurried past me into the mother's room. "No, it was coming from in here. I'm sure of it."

But of course, the room was the same as it was before. There was no baby.

I hovered in the doorway, as Charlotte crossed to the window and looked down on the moonlit treetops. I was about to go back downstairs when she said, "Remember when you told me nothing good comes of bringing up the past? You said people just want it nice and neat. Maybe you were right."

I wasn't so sure anymore that the past should be so easily dismissed. It felt a lot like lying, to others and to oneself.

"Remember when you told me you wanted the truth?" I said pointedly.

She didn't answer or look at me as she sat down on the bed. "What were you doing up here?"

"I woke up, and then I heard the baby crying," I said. "Clara heard it too. I was following her."

"Clara?" Charlotte's voice was shaky. I turned, my hand resting on the mother's dressing table. "How... do you know her name?"

"I know a lot of things now," I said coldly.

An edge of anxiety crept into her voice. "What do you mean?"

I kept my voice as level as I could. "Tell me why we came here. Tell me about Clara, your sister."

She stiffened, eyes on the floor. For a moment or two she didn't say anything.

Then, "Why ask? You seem to know already. My sister died. I own this house." She raised her eyes and said more boldly, "I needed someone to help me find out what happened here, why she killed herself."

She killed herself?

She must have seen the look of shock and horror on my face. She said harshly, "The job's the same. I'm still paying you."

The job.

"You lied to me!" I whirled to face her, furious.

"You didn't need to know!" she said hotly.

I could feel tears pricking at my eyes. "But I trusted you."

She stood up. "It really doesn't change anything."

I wanted to scream, It changes everything. I trusted you! but I could see on her face that she knew it. This had been more than just a job to me.

I whirled around and collapsed into the seat at the mother's dressing table, ready to let the tears come. But they didn't. Instead I felt a rising ire and searing disappointment. When I looked at the padded arms of the wooden chair, they were no longer faded and worn, but renewed with color.

I stood up again and faced her as if controlled by an outside force. "How could you do this to me? To us?" My own voice sounded foreign in my ears.

Charlotte stumbled a few steps back, away from me. I saw her in a new light, like a frightened rabbit, like a wayward, ungrateful child.

I think she realized then that I wasn't fully myself anymore, and at the back of my mind, I realized it too. But I couldn't stop it. I couldn't control it.

To me, she wasn't Charlotte. She was a willful, selfish daughter who had betrayed my trust. She was Clara.

"First your sister was a disappointment, now you! What did I do wrong to deserve this? Did you think I wouldn't find out? There was no way to hide this from me!" I ranted, the words tumbling out of my mouth.

Charlotte shrank further away from me, edging toward the window.

"This baby will be your whole life now, you know that, don't you? You've brought disgrace on this family... and yourself." I felt no pity, just disgust that my daughters had turned out so poorly.

I advanced on her.

Charlotte cried, "Please, Mama! I'm not Clara. It's me. Charlotte. I came home!"

I peered at her and indeed saw the difference. A rounder face, a less sharp nose, lighter eyes. Charlotte.

My other wilful, selfish daughter.

"You shouldn't have come back here," I snarled. "It's too late to make amends."

High on a feeling of strong superiority, I stormed out of the room, leaving Charlotte cowering in the dark.