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It was aht No fires that needed to be started and kept burning No flint and steel, just the turn of that key

Mirriaht filled the rooic, this world was filled onders What else Karigan ," Mirriaes Mender Sa" With that, the housekeeper left her

Karigan sighed Whatever discoveries she ht, as the household slept Did Mirriam sleep? Maybe she’d ask Lorine In any case, she’d learn the rhythms of the house’s occupants and discover what she could

She yawned and reached for one of the novels She’d bide her tiations once the house fell into soes into the book, her head nestled in the pillow, and she drifted away once again into the healing sleep her body so desperately needed, unaware of when Lorine came in later and removed the book froht

APPARITIONS

A scritching sound irritated Karigan to wakefulness, an incessant noise that scraped at her nerves She blinked in the predawn gray, onceto orient herself to where she was and when She rubbed her eyes and yawned, wondering what caused the noise that had awakened her

Scritch-scritch-scritch, like a pen rapidly stroking across paper

She raised herself to her elbows "Hello?" she queried, searching into the shadows spilling across her roo, but she pinpointed the noise e from a particularly dark corner She stared hard, perceived ain, a slight quaver in her voice, and again there was no response The scritching did not soundjust as mad as they think I a beside her bed She took tentative steps toward the dark corner The scritching grew a little louder as she approached She ht to turn back and ignite her laht a faint flutter of ht Transfixed, she drew closer Spectral smoke wafted and drifted above the chair until it resolved into a vaguely huan’s flesh lifting the hairs on her arms She licked her lips She dared not step any closer to the apparition lest it vanish Its features were so blurred she could not even tell whether it was male or female It sat bent over a flat object on its lap

"Who are you?" she whispered Perhaps, she thought, Who were you? was the more appropriate question In any case, she received no reply

The gray of her roo The faint apparition faded even an whispered, but the hunched figure remained intent on whatever was on its lap, even as it faded to a wisp of s?

The city bell clanged and, startled, Karigan glanced at the hich had brightened with the dawn The bell to call the , and when she glanced at the chair, the apparition had vanished

Either she had indeed gone mad, or apparitions could appear even in a world deprived of ic to exist, but it still surprised her

Why had it appeared to her? She’d enough experience with the supernatural to know such s did not usually occur by chance

She stood there staring at the eave so the early hour to sneak around the house, but she heard footsteps in the hallway and other sounds of life elsewhere in the house, bringing to an end any such notion At least now she knew the household began to awaken with the first bell, which was hed and limped back to bed to await the day

• • •

After breakfast Karigan suffered through the hu all the while thereher cast wet, and couldn’t she do this herself, please Mirriaan this was not her first sponge bath Karigan had known someone cleaned her up upon her arrival to the professor’s house, though she’d not been conscious Being awake and aware of it was a whole different level of e," Mirria it take longer"

After the sponge bath, Karigan had to admit she felt better, especially when Mirria rooiant clam shell Mirriam deftly shifted the various levers to ht while Lorine’s nian’s scalp Afterward, Lorine put an’s hair The strokes of the brush felt marvelous

"I wishand thick"

Karigan had not yet seen Lorine’s hair for it was alrapped beneath her scarf

Lorine expertly braided Karigan’s hair, then helped her back to her rooes Karigan withheld cries of pain as crusty scabs were yanked off with the old bandages, the one around her leg hurting the worst by far Thewhiff of the wound