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But he’d been serious They were to meet at nine in the old Hadley house In the roo she’d watched the clock creep forward At first excruciatingly slowly, then it had see round the face She’d been unable to eat and Peter had begged her not to go And finally her terror had found purchase, and she’d agreed to stay behind In their little cottage, by the fire, with a good book and a glass of Merlot

Hiding

But Clara knew if she did that she’d carry this cowardice for the rest of her life And when the clock said five to nine she’d risen, as though in someone else’s body, put on her coat, and left Like a zombie from one of Peter’s old black and white movies

And she’d found herself in a black and white world Without street lahts, Three Pines became bathed in black once the sun set Except for the points of light in the sky And the lights of the ho her not to leave theh the darkness Clara joined the others Myrna, Gabri, Monsieur Béliveau, the witch Jeanne, all trudging, as though they’d given up their oill, toward the haunted house on the hill

Now she was back in that roo candle in the center of their circle, its light reflected in their eyes, like the pilot light for the fear they carried It struck Clara how threatening the simple flicker of a candle can be when that’s all you have

Odile and Gilles were across from her, as were Hazel and Sophie

Monsieur Béliveau sat beside Clara and Jeanne Chauvet took her seat beside Gabri, as festooned with crucifixes, Stars of David and a croissant in his pocket Myrna asked because it looked like so else

But still their circle was broken One chair was on its side, having tuo, and there it sat like a ht it looked like a skeleton with its wooden arainst the wall

It was a calht, outside the old Hadley house But inside the house had its own atroans and creaks, of sorrow and sighs The house had taken another life, two if you count the bird, and it was hungry again It wanted ht Clara, it felt like li into the house, into this room, they’d walked into a netherworld, somewhere between life and death A world where they were about to be judged, and separated

Out of the dark a hand reached into their circle and grabbed the skeletal chair Then Ar silently for a e powerful hands together, his fingers intertwined as though in prayer His deep brown eyes were thoughtful

She heard an exhale The candle flickered violently, from the force of their stress released

Gamache looked at theht everyone probably had that ied to h she also knew Three Pines itself was like that, a village where tiedy of secrets,’ said Gahosts, of wickedness dressed as valor It’s a story of things hidden and buried Alive When so not quite dead is buried it eventually comes back,’ he said after a moment’s pause ‘It claws its way out of the dirt, rancid and fetid And hungry

‘That’s what happened here Everyone in this roo that caent Lacoste told et soht into this , joyous, bright and cheerful’

Around the circle the glowing faces nodded

‘But the sun also scalds It burns and blinds’ He looked at each of the shadows Who can live close to the sun? I thought of Icarus, the beautiful boy ith his father h Do not fly too close to the sun But, of course, he did Anyone with children will understand how that can happen’

His eyes flickered to Hazel Her face was blank Eer, now there was nothing The horse But Garief The horse farTheir burden was loneliness