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‘Well, I’m sure she divined it’

‘Once people started showing up, maybe Gabri, how could you do this to her? To us?’

‘She’ll be fine Look at her She’s loosening up already’

Myrna had fetched her a tuh it ater before the miracle Myrna looked over and lifted her eyebrows at Clara Much more of this and Myrna would have to conduct the séance

‘Séance?’ Jeanne asked a minute later when Myrna asked what they could expect ‘Who’s holding a séance?’

All eyes turned to Gabri, who very carefully placed the platter on a table and went over to stand beside Jeanne Gabri’s bulk and natural exuberance seemed to make the nondescript woman shrink even further until she looked like clothes on a hanger Clara guessed she was somewhere around forty Her hair was dull brown and looked as though she cut it herself Her eyes were faded blue and her clothing was bargain-bin K-mart Clara, who’d lived in poverty as an artist ly why Jeanne had come to Three Pines and paid to stay at Gabri’s B & B, which while not ruinous wasn’t cheap either

Jeanne no longer seeo over and put her ar next She wanted to give her a good hot dinner and a warm bath and some kindness, then lanced around the roowash But he’d held her hand an instant longer than necessary as she’d left, and told her to be careful Walking under the stars round the village green to the cheery bistro Clara had slican This sort of thing repulsed him It also terrified him

They’d had a s the predictable view that this was nuts

‘Are you callingto see hirey curls, and looked at her angrily Tall and slender with aquiline nose and intelligent eyes, he looked like a bank president, not an artist And yet that hat he was But an artist who seemed unconnected to his heart He lived in a deeply rational world where anything unexplainable was ‘nuts’ or ‘silly’ or ‘insane’ Emotions were insane Except his love for Clara, which was co the psychic nuts She’s a charlatan Contacting the dead, predicting the future Bullshit It’s the oldest game in the book’

‘Which book? The Bible?’

‘Don’t start with me, Clara,’ Peter had warned

‘No, really Which book talks about transforic, like walking on water? Of parting the seas andthe blind see and the crippled walk?’

‘Those were ic’

‘Ahh’ Clara had nodded and s

So Clara found herself with Myrna as her date Madeleine and Monsieur Béliveau were there, not quite holding hands but theysweater-clad arain Clara was taken by how attractive Madeleine was She was one of those women other women wanted as a best friend and men wanted as a wife

Clara smiled at Monsieur Béliveau and blushed Because she’d caught thes best kept private? She considered for a moment, but realized the blush had more to do with her than him She felt differently about Monsieur Béliveau after overhearing Gilles that afternoon The gentle grocer had gone fron and kindly presence in their lives to a mystery Clara didn’t like the transfor so susceptible to gossip

Gilles Sandon stood in front of the fireplace, rubbing the waror He was so big he alht hi instead to concentrate on Monsieur Béliveau, who seemed oblivious

Clara had always liked Odile They were e and both were in the arts, Clara a painter and Odile a poet She clailish of Quebec, which was suspicious since she was French Clara would never forget the reading she’d attended at the Royal Canadian Legion in St-Ré Ruth and Odile Ruth had read first, froation’