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She sighed It would be a marvelous life

But as taking so long? It had been ages since she’d sent her father down—and it should be added that she loved him with equal fervor; it was just that he was row to be him

She gri and whispering and ducking into a darkened corner Good heavens It was downright e

Isabella stood, resigning herself to a long wait Sheher pencil down, she glanced one last time at the door and crossed the rooh in the eaves of the old mansion, it was, somewhat unexpectedly, her favorite rooone past had obviously taken a liking to the little room, and it had been tiled rather festively in what she could only assume was some sort of Eastern fashion There were lovely blues and shi aquas and yellows that were streaks of pure sunshine

If it had been big enough for Isabella to drag in a bed and call it her chaht it was particularly a that the loveliest room in the house (in her opinion, at least) was the most humble

The nursery washrooe

Isabella did her business, tucked the chamber pot back in the corner, and headed back for the door But before she got there, soht her eye

A crack Between two of the tiles

“That wasn’t there before,” Isabella murmured

She crouched, then finally lowered herself to her bottom so that she could inspect the crack, which ran from the floor to the top of the first tile, about six inches up It wasn’t the sort of thing most people would notice, but Isabella was not

And this was so new

Frustrated with her inability to get really close, she shifted to her forearainst the floor

“Hht of the crack, then the left “Hmmm”

Why would a crack suddenly open up in her bathroom wall? Surely Clair House, which ell over a hundred years old, was done with its shifting and settling And while she’d heard that there were far distant areas where the earth shifted and shook, it didn’t happen anyplace as civilized as London

Had she kicked the ithout thinking? Dropped so?