DISCLAIMER: Carnivale and its canon characters are the property of HBO and the show's producers; no copyright infringement is intended.

Note: Like any speculative Carnivale fiction, this story may soon be rendered AU. In fact, it could be rendered AU the day after it's posted!
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For the fifth night in a row, Iris Crowe sat up in bed in her darkened bedroom, hugging her knees. Waiting.

For the fifth night in a row, she heard Justin's footsteps as he came up the stairs. As he had on the other nights, he paused outside her door. Stood there for a few seconds. Tried the door--she heard the knob turn--and found it locked.

Minutes passed. He was still there. Waiting.

Knock, Alexei! Knock! Make that admission that you want me.

She knew he was capable of forcing his way in. That would do. That too would be an admission that he wanted her.

The locked door had never been meant to keep him out. She wanted him in her room--and hopefully, at some point, in her bed. But it was important that he make at least a small effort to be with her, and recognize that he'd done so.

Am I pushing him too far? I want him to take the initiative. But is this the night he'll leave my door and go to Celeste's?

It was not. As on previous nights, he eventually walked back to his own room--not to the new maid's, at the far end of the hall.

Iris hadn't realized how great a strain she was under until now, when the tension went out of her like air from a punctured balloon. She buried her face in her hands. How long can this go on?

When he began recovering buried memories, rediscovering his powers, I didn't know what to expect. What to hope for, what to fear. But I never anticipated this.

She'd understood what was at stake from the moment she'd seen Justin with the sweet-faced, curly-haired blonde at the groundbreaking ceremony for their Temple. Justin had done something to Celeste, established a mental hold over her that would compel her to do his bidding.

Had his powers told him Iris had just advertised for a maid, hoping that would free her to spend more time with him? Or had Eleanor McGill told him? It made no difference. His powers were undoubtedly at work when Celeste applied for the job--and was the only applicant.

Playing a cruel game with me, Iris reflected. I could have sent her away, and told him, if he mentioned the ad, that there hadn't been any qualified applicants. But whether or not we discussed it, he would have leered at me, made it clear he knew what I'd done. I would have been acknowledging that I saw the girl as a threat.

So she'd hired Celeste, and pretended she thought it would come as a surprise to Justin. She had, of course, expected--and wanted--him to see through the ruse. To recognize that she'd made a move in response to his.

She wondered now if she'd made a mistake. She knew exactly what Justin was planning. And she was losing confidence in her ability to stop it.

He means to have this little mouse Celeste bear his child. She told me she's twenty-one! Young enough to be his daughter...

Don't think about that, don't! I have to stop fretting about it and get some sleep. What time is it, anyway?

She couldn't see the clock, so she got out of bed and switched the light on. 1:00 a.m. About what I would have guessed--

Turning, she gave a strangled gasp.

She'd caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror. And for a moment, she saw herself in a white bridal gown. The picture of purity...except that the vision was marred by a huge black stain on her bodice. She knew the stain was not really on her dress, but on her soul.

A trick of the light, of course. The moment passed, and the woman she saw in the mirror was clad in a simple white nightgown. The black "stain" was merely her pendant. The one she wore day and night, removing it and its heavy chain only for showering.

She took a deep, steadying breath. Then she ran her fingers over the pendant, recalling what she'd told her brother. "It's a family heirloom, Alexei, handed down for generations. More important, it's the one thing I have of Mama's. I admired it, so she gave it to me when I turned twelve. If I hadn't been wearing it when we escaped the train wreck, we'd have no link with our past."

She closed her hand around it, lifting it slightly so that the weight was borne by her hand rather than by the chain.

And then she frowned. That's strange. It seems heavier than usual...
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Justin paced up and down in his bedroom, fuming.

What stopped me from going to Celeste tonight? She's weak, pliable. Just what I wanted. She'll feel honored at being allowed to have my child. If I discard her, she won't complain; if I kill her, she won't be missed.

Why can't I break free of Iris?

One problem, as he recognized with a sigh, was that it was Iris--only Iris--whom he truly desired. And while he took nasty pleasure in making Iris compare herself with the young Celeste, he didn't doubt that his forty-seven-year-old sister was still fertile.

I desire her, she desires me. But I could act on my desire more easily if she didn't desire me--if I had to rape her! Why is that?

The prospect of brother-sister incest didn't trouble him. No, it was something else...

Reluctantly, he faced it.

Just a six-year age difference--but I was only six when we lost our mother. Then it took me a while to learn English. Norman became my father figure because there was no alternative, but I was never that close to his wife. Iris became more like a mother than a sister.

And we never outgrew that. With all my powers, there are times when she's still dominant. I let her get away with it, because she somehow...intimidates me.

Was that why his fantasies of sex with Iris were so compelling, yet at the same time so disturbing? They always ended with his not so much "penetrating" her as being lured, drawn inside her, at risk of losing himself in her depths.

He realized now that in some ways, his recovery of a dark childhood memory had made the problem worse. Iris had reverted to frequently addressing him, in private, as "Alexei." That made him feel like a six-year-old, with big sister Irina once again stepping into the role of their lost mother.

She hadn't called me that in years. Only when we talked about Russia.

And she never had much interest in the old country, or in our family. She wanted to put the past behind her. Coming to America at twelve, she could easily have retained an accent. But she went all out to eliminate it.

He found himself remembering one of the occasions when Iris had spoken of family, and called him "Alexei." When she explained why she'd begun wearing that ugly black pendant. Was that about twenty years ago? No, twenty-one years ago. I was just entering divinity school, and I was twenty years old.

Why, when she'd never before shown much interest in our past, did she suddenly go to the other extreme and begin wearing that thing constantly?

And why did I never question it, until now?

He supposed he'd been too busy, had too much on his mind, when Iris had told him about it. Just entering divinity school...

He heard her words again. "It's a family heirloom, Alexei, handed down for generations. More important, it's the one thing I have of Mama's. I admired it, so she gave it to me when I turned twelve. If I hadn't been wearing it when we escaped the train wreck, we'd have no link with our past."

The Justin of 1913 had tried never to think of that train wreck and its aftermath. Now, however, details came back to him with stunning clarity. Fleeing through the woods with Irina. Killing a man to save Irina. Norman Balthus's kindness to him and Irina.

Irina was not wearing that pendant!

Had he been mistaken about what she said? Could her own memory have been mistaken? Had she taken the pendant from their mother's body and carried it with her, never actually wearing it?

Or...had it once been in his possession? Could it have been a powerful talisman given to him, that his sister had stolen?

He went over and over it in his mind.

No. It simply wasn't there. No pendant.

So why was she wearing it now? Why had she been wearing it for twenty-one years?

He turned toward his bedroom door--about to demand answers, regardless of the hour.

At that moment, Iris let out an ear-splitting shriek.
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Justin hurtled down the corridor, and was barely able to stop his momentum when he reached her door. He knew without testing the door that it was still locked; he willed it to open, and it did. Hearing Celeste open her own door, he commanded without looking at her, "Stay in your room!"

The light was already on. Iris was sitting on the edge of her bed, rocking, moaning in apparent terror. But at a glance, he couldn't see what was wrong. No enemy, natural or supernatural, confronted him; Iris didn't appear to be injured, nor was the room in disarray.

Then he saw what had changed. Iris had removed her pendant. Pendant and chain rested in her lap. And the pendant, somehow, was in two pieces.

Broken? How can you break a thing like that?

And how can she be this upset over a broken piece of jewelry? What is it?

He bent over her, trying to comfort her--but also, to get a better look at that pendant.

That was when he realized it wasn't broken. It was simply open. The "pendant" was in fact a locket!

A locket that contained a picture...

"Iris!" He grabbed her shoulders and tried to hold her still. "What is this?"

But now she was trembling, cringing away from him.

Is she afraid of the locket--or of me?

He let go of her--since he clearly wasn't helping her--and picked up the locket, so he could take a closer look at it.

This is no heirloom. It's the cheapest kind of jewelry. I can't judge how old it is, but it's not the sort of thing a family would treasure for its own sake.

Forget the locket. It's the photo that's important.

Is this our mother as a young woman? Why wouldn't Iris have told me she had a photo of her?

I don't remember our mother well enough to be sure whether this is she. But she died in 1899. Could she ever have worn her hair this short?

The picture isn't faded at all. Wouldn't a photo that old be faded, even if it had been kept safe in a locket?

Iris seemed to be pulling herself together. So he replaced the locket in her lap and clasped her face in his hands, making her look at him. "Iris," he demanded, "who is the woman whose picture is in your locket? Is it our mother?"

"N-no," she quavered.

"Who, then?"

Iris swallowed hard.

"Tell me!"

He felt a long shudder run through her.

But then she looked into his eyes and said steadily, "Our daughter."

His hands dropped away from her face, and he staggered backward. He managed to choke out the words, "Our...wh-what?"

She didn't mean that literally, he told himself. It's some bastard of hers. Maybe hers and Norman's! Because I'm her brother, and the only man in her life, she expects me to think of this child as family...almost as much mine as hers...

"Our daughter, Alexei," Iris repeated. "Think back. It's another memory you've buried. We were together. One time, only one time..."

She was still talking, but he didn't hear. His mind was racing back, to a long-ago night in Norman's parsonage.

Iris in my bed...

Was it my bed, or hers?

Mine. My bed, my room. And she'd come in uninvited.

He heard her voice again. Not what she was saying now, but what she'd said then.

"If you're going to be a minister, Alexei, you'll have to be very careful in selecting a wife. It may take you a long time to find the right person.

"You should have experience with sex, so you'll be able to understand the problems members of your congregation are having, give them sound advice. You mustn't tell them you have experience, of course, before you're married. But you do need it.

"You can most easily get that experience now, before you go off to divinity school and are surrounded by clergy. Older clergy who've forgotten the needs of the young...

"And I'm the woman who should give it to you, Alexei! The only one you can trust never to tell. My being here for you is surely part of God's plan!"

Coming back to the present, Justin didn't know whether he wanted to sodomize her--brutally--or strangle her.

He didn't do either of those things. Instead, he said in a tight voice, "I suppose I should be grateful that you waited till I was nineteen to seduce me."

"Alexei--"

"Stop calling me that!"

"I'm sorry." She was white-faced now, and the fear in her eyes had nothing to do with whatever had originally upset her. "J-Justin. I was a virgin too. And that one night of sex with you is still the only one I've ever had!"

He took a deep breath, bringing his anger under control. "It doesn't matter. I suppose what you call me doesn't matter, either. What matters is the child. You're saying that one night of sex produced a child?"

"Yes."

"Then where is she? And why on earth didn't you tell me?"

Iris wiped tears from her eyes and said quietly, "By the time I realized I was going to have a baby, I knew you'd forgotten our being together. Buried the memory, as you had others. And you were preparing to leave for divinity school. Rose persuaded me--"

"Rose?" he cut in, horrified. "Rose Balthus knew about this? Does Norman know?"

"No, Justin! Rose found out I was pregnant, but I never told her who the father was. And we didn't tell Norman any of it."

"All right. Go on."

"Rose persuaded me to keep my pregnancy secret, and let the baby be adopted. I only agreed because I thought knowledge of your sister's having a child out of wedlock--by anyone!--might be damaging to you." She grimaced. "What Rose told me later made the separation even more painful. She said she'd learned that my daughter was adopted by a woman who wasn't even married. Someone who was unmarried, but 'successful in her field,' and wanted a child. Apparently, she didn't care whether she was perceived as an unwed mother."

"Well, who was she?" Justin asked impatiently. "What did she name our daughter, and where is the girl now?" Without giving her time to answer, he added scathingly, "And why didn't you tell me this year, after I rediscovered my powers? What's your excuse for that?"

"I didn't know the answers to those questions, Justin! And I was afraid to tell you, mostly because I didn't know the answers." She looked at him pleadingly. "I believed I'd lost that child of ours, with no hope of ever finding her. I wanted to...g-give you another."

"Liar!" he shouted. Then he remembered Celeste was down the hall, and lowered his voice. "You've worn that locket all your adult life. And the photo in it now is obviously a new one of our twenty-one-year-old daughter. So you're in touch with her or her adoptive mother now, and you must have been in touch all along."

"No, Justin! Have you forgotten why you rushed in here? Because I was screaming..."

Shocked as he'd been by the explanation of the photo, he had forgotten. "I'm sorry. What happened? Was someone in here--trying to steal the locket?" He understood now why it was valuable, but he found it hard to believe an intruder could have gotten past him.

"No, nothing like that." Iris picked it up, but he noticed that she held it as if she feared it might burn her fingers. She looked at the photo uneasily. "Perhaps I should have said I think this woman is our daughter.

"Justin, the photo I've had all these years was of my newborn infant! There was a time when I looked at it every day. But in recent years I haven't opened the locket that often.

"I opened it tonight, for the first time in a week or two, because it felt strange. Heavier. And when I opened it, I found this photo--of a grown woman!"

He stared at her, speechless.

Then he held out his hand, and she placed the locket in it.

I know what I am. Why didn't I sense I had a child out there? At least during these last few months?

Was someone--some powerful psychic--blocking what I should have sensed? And is that someone gone now? Dead?

He studied the photo again. Despite its small size, he tried to gaze directly into the eyes of the solemn-faced young woman with the straight, dark hair.

After a minute's perusal, he looked up at Iris. "This is our daughter," he said softly. "And her name is Sofie."
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(The End)