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"Cathy, why is this house different?"

"Different from what?" I asked uneasily

"Frolanced fearfully toward the door to the hall "Don't you feel it? Can't you hear it? Do you sense this house is breathing, like it has a life of its own?"

My eyes widened as a chill stole the co rooular, heavy breath

ing

Melodie, usually too reticent to talk, gushed onward breathlessly "This house wants to use the people inside as a way to keep it living on forever It's like a va our lifeblood from all of us I wish it hadn't been restored It's not a new house It's been here for centuries Only the wallpaper and the paint and the furniture are new, but those stairs in the foyer I never clihosts of others"

A kind of paralyzing nuripped me

Every word she said was only too frighteningly true I could hear it breathe! I tried to pull myself back to reality "Listen, Melodie Bart was only a little boy when my mother ordered it reconstructed on the foundations of the old manor home Before she died it was up, but not completely finished inside When her as read, and she left this house to Bart, with Chris as trustee to e, we decided it was a waste not to have it completed Chris and our attorney contacted the architects and contractors, and the job went forward until it was finished, only the inside needed furbishing That had to wait until Bart cae days and ordered the interior decorators to style it as it had been in the old days And you're right I, too, wish this house had been left in ashes"

"Maybe your ive hi Haven't you noticed how ed? He's not like the little boy who used to hide away in the shadows and lurk behind trees He's thehis do of the mountain, for he's so rich, so terribly rich"

Not yetnot yet, I kept thinking

Nevertheless, her frail, whispering voice disturbedas a medieval lord But she went on "Bart's happy, Cathy, extraordinarily happy He tells me he's sorry about Jory Then he telephones those attorneys and wants to knohy they keep postponing the rereading of his grandmother's will They've told him they can't read it unless everyone , and so they put it off until the day when Jory comes home from the hospital They will read the will in Bart's office"

"How do you know so much about Bart's business?" I asked sharply, suddenly very suspicious of all that time when she was alone in this house with my second sonand an old man who spent most of his time in that tiny, naked room he used as a chapel Joel would quite happily see Jory destroyed if that would satisfy Bart In Joel's eyes a dancinghis body Leaping and bounding in front of woain at Melodie

"Do you and Bart spend ether?"

Quickly she stood "I'h to make you think I'm crazy Do all expectant mothers have such fearful dreams--did you? I'rieved so much for Jory"

I gave her what coht while I lay beside Chris I began to toss and turn, to flit in and out of nightet so to hi to the only straw that keptin the cruel sea of Foxworth Hall