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She began to whimper in her throat

“Run,” he said

Intilted in space and fell over, a table, a basket, and a half-dozen unseen balls of yarn tu softly In the one moonlit space on the floor beneath the , like ashears They inter ice in his hand He held theh the still air

“Here,” he whispered

He touched them to her hand She snatched her hand back

“Here,” he urged

“Take this,” he said, after a pause

He opened her fingers that were already dead and cold to the touch, and stiff and strange to e, and he pressed the scissors into them “Now,” he said

He looked out at the lanced back it was some time before he could see her in the dark

“I waited,” he said “But that’s the way it’s always been I waited for the others, too But they all ca for me, finally It was that easy Five lovely ladies in the last two years I waited for them in the ravine, in the country, by the lake, everywhere I waited, and they came out to findthe newspapers And you went looking tonight, I know, or you wouldn’t have coh the ravine Did you scare yourself there, and run? Did you think I was down there waiting for you? You should have heard yourself running up the walk! Through the door! And locking it! You thought you were safe inside, home at last, safe, safe, safe, didn’t you?”

She held the scissors in one dead hand, and she began to cry He saw the leam, like water upon the wall of a dim cave He heard the sounds she made

“No,” he whispered “You have the scissors Don’t cry”

She cried She did not ainst the door, beginning to slide down the length of the door toward the floor

“Don’t cry,” he whispered

“I don’t like to hear you cry,” he said “I can’t stand to hear that”