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“Allow me to present,” said Crashey, “Currer, Acton, and Ellis Bell, friends of the crowns and initiates of the first order”

“Initiates into what?” Emily said as Acton kissed her hand

“The secrets of our yearly rite It is a brotherhood we maintain for all time We have come to fulfill their portion, and also for their excellent table”

“I only wish you could have lossy auburn hair smelled of linseed “But she died last year Laudanum, I confess, and despair”

Bravey let out a woody sob, for it seemed that he loved the Bell sister all in secret and would now bury his heart in the earth The men shared brandy around and drank in painful silence

Anne looked around at the house Books lay everywhere, half in order and out Maps hung upon the walls, of the polar regions, the Hireat black opal desk took up the center of the rooether upon it, though now only three manuscripts lay on its many-colored surface, each with its own quills and ivory-handled knives for rapes, thick cheese and yellow cakes lay in theplace of the three stations, so any of the brothers ht sample it while at work

Anne recalled an evening at ho some preference, her father had asked what she wanted er then, not yet achieved the seasoning of six or seven years, and had been seized with the sure knowledge that whatever she asked for then her father had the power to grant it Everything relied upon what she said in thatso shty creatures whoe and experience

And yet she had remained small

But the Bell house seemed to her the exact house that she would have when she possessed age and experience A house of and for age and experience, where siblings reat desk, recalling and inventing adventures, just as they did now, but with the impossible power of adults to do as they pleased I shall reht I shall remember it as I remember my own name

“Buonaparte has been to see us” Ellis Bell’s voice cut through Anne’s thoughts “He has decided his newestWhat if so splendid were to happen? Destruction is a wonder, disaster a fascination We can set it aright by supper if it should go poorly What a creature! And the boss of his ninepins, Young Man Naughty, beat us about the head and burned our birds in their cages But we did not give it to him We are true”

“Good boys,” said Bravey, quite drunk by now but still amiable

Currer Bell went to the opal desk and drew out a ponderous quill, a feather of one of the flying peacocks they had seen in Glass Town Its point was as sharp as a bayonet He folded it into an oilcloth and pressed it into Crashey’s arers touched it “Godspeed, for he is faster than that”

Through the long night, the children fell asleep on their diamond elephant Crashey allowed hi the wood-knot wound on his chest with his other hand, re the flames of Acroofcroomb, the blood of his comrades everywhere like a hideous ocean The wooden soldier shook his head to clear the cloud of his many deaths

He could not bring himself to wake them when the elephant trod into the Hall of the Fountain, so vast in its do in its vault Many hours yet theydistance of the Hall, which stretched ues lined with statues of black and white marble as well as amethyst and peridot He could not bear to wake them as they passed the fountain for which the place had been nah as a cathedral Only when they came to the rooes, his sods, and Bravey, who had sunk into sleep and brandy-fed grief over the lost Danett Bell

Behind the curtain stood an iron door The children stood soundless and still, with the wide, limpid eyes of those just wakened Crashey and Bravey took wooden keys from beneath their hel with a long creak the inner chamber