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It would always remain the Merlin house

She walked up to the porch At first, she s but the sea breeze She slipped her key into the lock and hesitated

An odd ht that she s Liarown up in this house She had loved its oddities and curiosities

She walked in deterainst it and inhaled deeply It was gone She wasn’t s death She inhaled pine cleaners and every other substance they had used for their scrub down of the house

She started into the kitchen, but again felt a creeping sensation along her spine

So had moved

Someone had been in the house

So her

She looked around Nothing was out of place They had carefully locked up when they had left She walked through the house and assured herself that the back door was still locked, that the ere closed and the locks were secured on the s, as well

That took soood to feel that the house was entirely safe and all bolted down

She started up the stairs, then paused again, thinking that she had heard a sound from Cutter’s office

She walked back down the stairs and into his office She turned on the light and looked around No one was there

She walked to his desk and saw that a little figurine had fallen to the floor Laughing at herself, she picked it up and put it on his desk

The house was safe and sound

She hurried up the stairs, wanting to shoash her hair and dress for the evening

When she reached her own door, she was surprised to note that she still had goose bu herself awhat she was locking herself in against, she firmly slid the bolt on her bedroom door

She felt safe Alone

None of it made any sense

And yet, when she walked into her bath and turned on the shower spray, she knew that she still trying to wash away a certain scent

That awful scent of death

7

As they headed for the library, Bartholoe I mean, Key West is fahost stories and history Anything that hints of devil worship and the like, though--that’s unusual But then again, I think it ht all have had to do with the fact that Key West went into the spiritualis with the rest of the world when the Fox sisters started their whole craze"

"The Fox sisters?" Lia about a un an entire movement into spiritualis their "manifestations"

"I wasn’t alive when it all caht want to do some research," Bartholomew advised

"But you were here You were just dead"

"Yes But I wasn’t running around tapping three ti in any such ridiculousness!" Bartholoone on the co to did still exist, he et it at the library And with no one there, it seeation

It was extremely slow that afternoon He had his pick of co as they went fro with the Fox sisters and spiritualise of three children--quite innocent and griirls were children, they lived in a house with a reputation for being haunted They soon found the attention they wanted when they spoke about the situation, and convinced the world that the house was indeed haunted, that there were taps and lights and all irls became mediums, and had the world fooled When they were older, one of the sound with her toes The girls’ words --spiritualism had taken hold across the knoorld, and with it, man’s belief in the occult and paranor "All right This all becaan to believe that mediums could allow them to talk to dead relatives The Fox sisters wereBut it didn’t stop people fro it all further?"

Bartholoed "The point is, the whole spiritualis ild And with that, ‘witchcraft’ caain--and Satanism"

"I can’t believe that Cutter Merlin was a Satanist," he murht about the afternoon when he had found Cutter Merlin Cutter had been holding the book, a reliquary--and a sawed-off shotgun Cutter had wanted to be prepared