She had, it seemed, heard at least some of what he'd told her.
"Signs and portents. They can look like anything, that's the hell of it," he answered her. "The more ordinary, the more likely they are to be anything but. For instance—" He reached for the last box he had to go through, and from the jumble of its contents produced a very old cigar box. "—this. This is, what, the third lost-and-found box we've come across?"
"At least."
"And the same sort of stuff inside." He opened the box and inspected its contents. "Bits of jewelry, a cigarette lighter, assorted keys, hair combs and clips, a fountain pen, a rabbit's foot, nail clippers, coins — junk, mostly. Stuff the original owners have long, long since forgotten about. But who knows if there's a signpost in here? A sign or portent just lying in this ordinary little box for somebody paying attention? There could be."
"In a cigar box filled with junk?"
"You know what they say. One man's junk is another man's treasure." Quentin shrugged. "Though it's not intrinsic value that matters, of course. Like I said — any sign tends to be something ordinary. At least at first glance. Or even at second glance."
Diana held out her hand and, when Quentin gave her the box, began going through the contents almost idly. "I'd say this stuff was pretty ordinary, all right. How are we supposed to recognize signs and... portents... if they're just average, everyday things? What does your Bishop say about that?"
"Well, to me he said something typically cryptic. He said to pay attention to everything, and the important bits would make themselves conspicuous at some point along the way."
"I guess the universe doesn't like to be obvious."
"Apparently not." Quentin hesitated, then said carefully, "If you're right about your father coming here, he should be able to give us at least some of the answers."
Diana was frowning slightly as she continued to gaze into the box on her lap. "But will he? That's the question. And even if he does, will his answers be the truth?"
"You think he'd try to keep a lie going even in the face of this?"
"That depends on why he started the lie in the first place, doesn't it? And we don't have so much, after all. A photograph of two little girls. As far as you've known all these years, Missy lived here with her mother. We can't prove otherwise, can we?"
"No," Quentin admitted. "At least not with any information I've found to date. There was never a hint, from Missy or from anything I've found since her death, to indicate that Laura Turner wasn't her natural mother. In fact, in the police files of the original investigation is a photocopy of Missy's birth certificate. Supposedly, anyway. Born Missy Turner, daughter of Laura, in Knoxville, Tennessee. Father unknown."
"You never thought that could have been a fake?"
"About ten years ago I went as far as checking original hospital records, and there was a child named Missy Turner born to a Laura Turner on that date, just as the certificate noted. I had no reason to dig any deeper."
Diana nodded, but said, "The way Missy spoke when I was with her, when she said 'we visited Mommy,' was so natural that I'm positive she meant exactly what she said. That the two of us went to visit our mother."
"I believe you," Quentin said. "And I can't think of any reason why she would lie to you. But proving that you and Missy had the same father and mother won't be easy if your father has, for whatever reasons, covered up that fact. That is what you suspect, isn't it? That he did it deliberately?"
Choosing her words carefully, Diana said, "My father is a very powerful man. It's not just money, although he has plenty of that. It's real power. Political connections, even internationally; both his father and grandfather were ambassadors. And his company, the family company, has interests in everything from cutting-edge technology to diamond mines. And offices all over the world."
Quentin nodded. "So... if he wanted to hide a secret..."
"He could pretty much move heaven and earth to hide it. And it would stay hidden."
"Realistically, we wouldn't have much of a shot of digging up that secret, if he buried it deep enough."
"No. And convincing him to talk now won't be easy, not after all these years. He's hardly likely to listen to my... experiences... let alone believe them. In fact, if I tell him what's happened to me here, he's entirely capable of using it against me. The delusional ravings of someone in need of medical care, obviously. He wants me back under the thumbs of his handpicked doctors, medicated until I stop thinking for myself."
"Why?"
She looked up at Quentin, honestly startled. "Why?"
"Yeah. Why would he want that now? What secret would demand such extreme measures?"
"The one that kept me from knowing I had a sister, maybe?"
Quentin chose his words carefully. "Obviously, there's a lot we don't know about this. All I'm saying is that we can't assume anything until we have more information. That Missy's existence was kept from you and that you were under medical care for so many years may have been due to different situations completely unrelated to each other."
"You don't really believe that."
With a sigh, Quentin said, "No, I don't. But I still say we can't assume without more facts."
Diana looked back down at the old cigar box in her lap, absently fingering a rather gaudy costume earring. "Quentin... my mother died in a mental hospital, and if Missy and my own memories are right, both her illness and her death had something to do with paranormal abilities she couldn't control."
"We've always known it was possible," he admitted reluctantly.
"Abilities my father probably believed were simply... manifestations of mental illness."
"Also possible. Maybe even likely. Medical science, especially twenty-five or thirty years ago, tended to view anything it couldn't explain as an illness."
"So what am I supposed to tell him when he gets here? That I can... walk with the dead, and encountered the spirit of my sister on one of those journeys? How do you think he's going to react to that?"
Madison was glad the storm had finally died away. They seemed to bother her more every time, and as for Angelo, he just shook like a leaf, poor little thing.
"It's over now," she told her dog reassuringly.
He whined softly as he stood gazing up at her. Storms always bothered him, but his anxiety had been growing steadily for quite a while now.
"It is over," she told him. "The storm, anyway. And the rest... will be over soon. I promise."
Angelo sat down with a peculiarly human sigh, managing to express even more uneasiness along with his frustration.
Madison looked around the game room, where she and Angelo had waited out the storm and which was, except for them, empty. The whole place was awfully empty, really; it practically echoed.
"It's here," Becca said from the doorway.
Madison wasn't really surprised, but she was worried and didn't try to hide her shiver of fear. "You said Diana wasn't ready yet."
"She'll have to be, won't she?"
"But what if she isn't?"
"I expect he'll help her."
Madison bent down to pick up her little dog, and held him, stroking him to soothe his uneasy whining. "Still, if it's here... bad things will happen, won't they?"
"Usually do. When it's here, I mean."
"Will they find more bones, Becca?"
Becca turned her head slightly, as though listening to some distant sound. Softly, she said, "No, it won't be bones this time. It won't be bones."