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She felt the wet grass against her ankles Felt the coolness of the air, which wasn’t the natural coolness of the breeze So shadows

With each step, she felt a greater dread She knew that the house lay just before her That she alking toward it, though she longed to run away

A silent plea escaped her

Help me, please, come, help me

She kne, knew far toobefore her Knehoone to jail to keep therandfather She had realized, so late, that they hadn’t just known each other They had forht one another, they had learned to live through one another

He had let them take him, so that they would not hurt Jacques He had said that it would be all right, that he would be all right

But he wasn’t here!

And she alking

Walking alone

A strange birdcall sounded in the night Not a birdcall at all It was the breeze picking up Growing stronger, colder, louder

Her name came to her on the breeze

TaraTaraTara

Darkness descended deeperdeeperdeeper

There were footsteps behind her Furtive Stealthy She walked, she stopped, she turned And there was nothing, no one, just the fleeting shadows

Cold, she shivered She gripped the stake she carried fiercely in both hands, so fiercely that her fingers were knotting and crao forward There was darkness ahead, and then light, and then shadoings falling over the illuhter, and her name

Close, she was so close to the house

She heard whisking sounds that chilled her, for it felt as if the shadoere real, real and cold, and they passed by her and touched her, an evil,her

Her drea it

She nearly stopped, ready to drop to the earth, throw her hands over her head, and do nothing but screaht

But Ann was in there

And so she kept following the footsteps

Of her drea around it, nearly obscuring the facade But a fire burned within A fire that soared in the hearth, ripping and tearing against the walls, and creating a new realm of shape and form and shadow

As she neared it

The door opened

The breeze whispered her naain

Tara, Tara, Taraco for you

CHAPTER 19

The house was as she had seen it Exquisite ancient furniture Paintings on the walls Paintings of depraved scenes and acts, executions, bloodshed, orgies paintings in vivid colors, paintings with fires that seemed as real as that which burned in the hearth

She looked around her carefully, for the strange noises and brushes of air seereater frequency She knew that she had to go down the hallway

Saw it

Saw the dark, and saw the light