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‘It would be,’ said Gilles ‘They’re never right by the door Never in rose gardens in the su in the ice creaame I used to play with Peter,’ said Clara to Myrna, who really didn’t care She was trying to figure out whether, yet again, she’d be the slowest one out of there Maybe Hazel would be slower, Myrna thought, brightening, and the deet her But she’d probably put on a burst of speed if only to save her daughter Myrna, as a psychologist, knew thatresources when it ca ain She stepped onto the stairs, the carpet runner worn andstep at a ti louder

‘Whenever atch scary movies and people walk into a haunted house –’ Clara was still talking Good, thought Myrna The demons will zero in on her ‘– we’d play "When would you leave?" Dise around, screams of pain, friends disemboweled, and still they stay’

‘Are you finished?’

‘I aed to scare herself even more and wondered, if this was aat the screen for her to leave

‘In there’

‘It would be,’in front of a closed door The only one closed on the whole floor Now there was silence

Suddenly there was ahad flung itself against it

Jeanne reached out but Monsieur Béliveau laid his long, slender hand on her wrist, taking her hand off the knob Then he stepped in front of her and put his own hand on the knob

And opened the door

They could see nothing Stare as they ht their eyes wouldn’t adjust to the darkness But so in there found them Not the bird, which was silent for theelse The roohtest hint of perfu flowers

At the door Clara was overtaken by melancholy, a sadness that seeped from deep down into the very earth of her She felt the sorrow of the rooasped for breath and realized she’d been holding it

‘Co in Clara’s head, ‘let’s do e caroup watched as first Jeanne then Clara stepped into the darkness The rest followed and their flashlights soon lit the roo askew at the s Against one wall stood a four-poster bed, still h a head uneasily rested there

‘I know this room,’ said Myrna ‘And so do you,’ she said to both Clara and Gabri