There was a song she knew once, and its melody continued to haunt her. Try as she might, she could not remember the lyrics to this particular song; the words slipped from the grasp of her memory as if they were nothing more than wisps of a dream. No matter: the power of this song did not lie in the lyricist's talent, but in the music itself. Even though she could not recall the name of the song or who wrote it, she knew for certain that it had been popular and that she had played it constantly on the Victrola, much to her husband's chagrin.

Ah, Joseph. She could not understand her husband's inability to appreciate music. During their courtship he had attended every one of her piano recitals, but it was after they were married that he admitted he had gone simply out of courtesy. When he told her that he preferred silence to music, she jokingly asked him if he had ever contemplated becoming a monk, and he surprised her by saying that at one time in his youth he had seriously thought of joining a monastery. His father had arranged an interview with the local abbot and went so far as to inform friends and relatives that his son was destined to become the next St. Francis of Assisi. Two nights before the interview, however, Joseph had had a terrible dream in which he witnessed a group of monks chanting before an altar upon which a scythe lay, its long blade gleaming with blood. The dream was meaningless, of course, and yet it had filled him with inexplicable dread. Much to his father's dismay, Joseph decided against joining the monastery, and soon after left to pursue his studies in Dublin.

Joseph had expressed great disappointment when Evelyn took it upon herself to teach the children the rudiments of music theory. He told her in no uncertain terms that he did not want to raise his children to be musicians; he considered the study of music to be nothing more than a waste of time. She had managed to convince him that she only wished to cultivate an appreciation of music in the children and had not intended for them to pursue it as a career. This was a lie, of course. Ever since she had married Joseph she had been unable to play the piano very much, and her skills as a pianist had deteriorated to the point that she was no longer able to play even the most simple of arrangements. As a girl she had hoped to become a world-class pianist, perhaps even a renowned composer; after her marriage these hopes faded. It occurred to her, however, that if she would not be allowed to fulfill her own childhood dream, then perhaps she could set one or more of her children down the road she had never been able to travel.

It was after the birth of the twins that she began to gather the children one night a week and play them selections on the Victrola. She played them pieces by Beethoven, Mozart, and Chopin, and would explain to them the mechanics of the music and try to make the children understand that learning to appreciate music was like learning another language. Jeremiah, the eldest, would sit and listen with polite indifference; he was too much like his father, lost in his own thoughts. Ambrose would fidget about and try to distract the others with his tomfoolery; sometimes his restless nature overcame him and he would flee from the room without warning, beckoned to the darkest reaches of the mansion. It was the twins who responded favorably to her efforts, Aaron especially. He would often remain after the others had left and listen to the Victrola with her. As young as he was, he began to develop an interest in playing the piano, and she had managed to teach him some of the basics when she became pregnant with the fifth Covenant child. As much as she wanted to encourage Aaron to pursue this newfound interest, she became seriously ill and could not spend much time with him. Bedridden, she watched helplessly as he turned away from music and retreated into solitude, something that broke her heart and reduced her to tears as bitter as the winter rain that beat against the windows of her room.

The fevers that had wracked her body for weeks on end had caused her to miscarry. Her recollection of the event was hazy at best; she had been administered laudanum by the physician Joseph had called to attend to her. What she found strange was the complete absence of emotion attached to the miscarriage; she had no feeling of grief or remorse over the death of the unborn child. She could find no explanation for this. Furthermore, Joseph and the children had become distant, as if they no longer wanted any contact with her. Was this their way of blaming her for the miscarriage? She had not seen any of her children recently and Joseph had become all but a memory. The absurdity of it all made it seem as if she was caught in a waking dream. Perhaps she was still under the influence of the laudanum she had been given by the physician. But it had been ages-weeks, or maybe even months-since the night of the miscarriage; surely the effects of the drug would have subsided by now. There was no explanation, it seemed. Try as she might to make sense of her situation, her thoughts fell away into an abyss of silence.

What did come to her easily was the nameless song that played in her mind like an endless echo. She sang and sang, and her voice became hoarse from exertion. The gloom was her audience. Sometimes she was aware of a person sitting in the darkness with her, but whoever it was never responded to her questions. She knew it was a woman; of that she was certain. For she had seen, as if in a dream, the approach of this woman along a stone passage, her slender pale form moving like a moonlit specter among the shadows. There was something unnatural about this woman, something terribly unsettling. Who was she? What was her interest in Evelyn? These questions became irrelevant the moment she thought them. All that mattered to her now was the song that had haunted her for as long as she could remember.