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She didn’t want Carol to know that she was afraid to re"

"I’ve got four patients scheduled for tomorrow, but I can work you in at eleven o’clock You’ll have to spend a lot of ti roo in theDo you like to read atha Christie?"

"The name’s familiar, but I don’t knohether I’ve ever read any of her books"

"You can try one toatha Christie will open your memory for you Any stimulus, any connection whatsoever with your past can act like a doorway" She leaned down, kissed Jane’s forehead "But don’t worry about it now Just get a good night’s sleep, kiddo"

After Carol left the roo the door behind her, Jane didn’t iaze travel slowly around the roo on each point of beauty

Please, God, she thought, let me stay here Somehow, some way, let o back where I caht be This is where I want to live This is where I want to die, it’s so pretty

Finally, she reached out and snapped off the bedside la a piece of Masonite and four nails, Grace Mitowski fixed a temporary seal over the inside of the pet door

Aristophanes stood in the center of the kitchen, his head cocked to one side, watching her with bright-eyed interest Every, few seconds, he meowed in what seemed to be an inquisitive tone

When the last nail was in place, Grace said, "Okay, cat For the tiht be a s or poison of some sort, and maybe that’s been the cause of your bad behavior We’ll just have to wait and see if you is, you silly cat?"

Aristophanes ly

"Yes," Grace said "I know it sounds bizarre But if it’s not soot to deal with, then it really must’ve been Leonard on the phone And that’s even more bizarre, don’t you think?"

The cat turned his head fro to

Grace stopped, held out her hand, and rubbed her thuether "Here, kitty Here, kitty-kitty-kitty"

Aristophanes hissed, spat, turned, and ran

For a change, they ainst his neck She pressed close, rocked and tensed and twisted and flexed in perfect harmony with him; her exquisite, pneumatic movements were as fluid as currents in a warant back, lifted and subsided in tempo with his measured strokes She was as pliant, as silken, and eventually as all-enco as the darkness

Afterwards, they held hands and talked about inconsequential things, steadily growing drowsy Carol fell asleep while Paul was talking When she failed to respond to one of his questions, he gently disentangled his hand from hers

He was tired, but he couldn’t find sleep as quickly as she had found it He kept thinking about the girl He was certain he had seen her prior to theirdinner, her face had grown more and more familiar It continued to haunt him But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t recall where else he had seen her

As he lay in the dark bedrooradually becaan to feel--utterly without reason--that his previous encounter with Jane had been strange, perhaps even unpleasant Then he wondered if the girt ht actually pose some sort of threat to Carol and hiht Doesn’t ht

Logic seerasp What possible threat could Jane pose? She’s such a nice kid An exceptionally nice kid

He sighed, rolled over, and thought about the plot of his first novel (the failed one), and that quickly put hi, Grace Mitoas sitting up in bed, watching a late uely aware that Hued in witty repartee, but she didn’t really hear anything they said She had lost track of the film’s plot onlyabout Leonard, the husband she had lost to cancer eighteen years ago He had been a good rand conversationalist She had loved him very much

But not everyone had loved Leonard He had had his faults, of course The worst thing about hiue that his ied He couldn’t tolerate people ere lazy or apathetic or ignorant or foolish "Which includes two-thirds of the hu especially cureonly Because he was an honest man with precious little diploht of them As a result, he had led a life remarkably free of deception but rich in enemies

She wondered if it had been one of those ene to be Leonard A sick

Leonard’sas he would have gotten froet a thrill fro her eird phone calls

But after eighteen years? Who would have remembered Leonard’s voice so well as to be able to i time later? Surely she was the only person in the world who could still recognize that voice upon hearing it speak only a word or two And why bring Carol into it? Leonard had died three years before Carol had entered Grace’s life; he had never known the girl His eneainst Carol What had the caller meant when he’d referred to Carol as "Willa"? And,of all, how did the caller know she had just h she was loath to consider it Perhaps the caller hadn’t been an old enemy of Leonard’s Maybe the call actually had come from Leonard himself From a dead hosts

--Not e dreams she’d had last week She hadn’t believed in dreahosts, too?

No She was a level-headed woman who had lived a stable, rational life, who had been trained in the sciences, who had always believed that science held all the answers Now, at seventy years of age, if she hosts within her otherwise rational philosophy, she ates on hosts, what ca a sharp wooden stake and a crucifix everywhere you went? Werewolves? Better buy a box of silver bullets! Evil elves who lived in the center of the earth and caused quakes and volcanoes? Sure! Why not?

Grace laughed bitterly

She couldn’t suddenly becohosts, because acceptance of that superstition ht require the acceptance of countless others She was too old, too comfortable with herself, too accustomed to her familiar ways to reconsider her entire view of life And she certainly wasn’t going to conte reevaluation merely because she had received two bizarre phone calls

That left only one thing to be decided: whether or not she should tell Carol that so her and had used Carol’s name She tried to hear how she would sound when she explained the telephone calls and when she outlined her theory about Aristophanes being drugged or poisoned She couldn’t hope to sound like the Grace Mitowski that everyone knew She’d co nonexistent conspirators behind every door and under every bed

Theysenile

Aine the telephone calls? No Surely not

She wasn’t ied personality, either She looked at the claw , they were still red and puffy Proof Those

I’m not senile, she told herself Not even a little bit But I sure don’t want to have to convince Carol or Paul that I’ve got allphone calls fro Wait See what happens next Anyway, I can figure this out on rinned at each other

When Jane woke up in theShe was in the kitchen, but she couldn’t recall getting out of bed and co downstairs

The kitchen was silent The only sound was froht was from the moon, but because the moon was full and because the kitchen had quite a fes, there was enough light to see by