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Kahts of the ambulance Maybe everyone talked about the Lynburns in hushed tones because they were afraid

"If you want infor parent," Dad added, parking outside their gate

Kami tried to keep her voice casual as she asked, "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah Rob Lynburn had an office above Claire’s," Dad said "He’d have lunch at the counter so he could talk to her every day Who could blairl in town"

Like Angela, Kah It was just her luck that she spent her life surrounded by aly beautiful women

"You okay, kiddo?"

Kami blinked and looked over at her father The expression he as unusually serious Her parents had been so young when they had Karandmother had always been the adult of the house, and her father ela or Rusty, as if they were just pals together It was strange and touching to see hiave her father a piteous look "I’o up to ot it," he said "I’ll keep those mini mutants we found in the sewers and pretend are your brothers downstairs, okay?" He put an arm around her shoulders as they walked into the house, and Kaainst him a little more heavily than she had to He kissed her on the forehead before she cliently closed her bedroouilty

The instant she heard hi down the stairs, she jumped out of bed Jared was resolutely silent in her head, all his walls up, but Kami couldn’t stay furious at sos continue like this She was shrugging her coat back on when it occurred to her that she had just been in the hospital, and her parents would be legitione So she tore a page out of her notebook and wrote her parents a e: "Dear Mum and Dad, I hope you don’t read this, but if you do, you should know that I haven’t been kidnapped or abducted by aliens I had to run an errand that can’t wait I’ll be home before dark Kami"

She left the note on her pillow and crept downstairs, past the living room, where she could hear the television and her fa She opened the front door quietly and slipped down the path She went up the road by the woods, headed straight for Aurimere House

It was a fifteen-minute walk until the road rose sharply up and away from the woods, and Kami started to feel nervous as she ascended The road to Aurimere was so steep that anyone who made their way to the manor would be bound to arrive out of breath, hot, and already not at their best, struggling the most at the exact moment when the road curved and the wall of the ht hit the front of the ht struck it full force Since the fifteenth century, the Lynburns had been building onto the house It was a ian architecture, all reat bay s blazed, the wood of the door glowed, and above the door was a carving in stone: a gate with a sword struck through it Beneath the carving there ords engraved in the stone: YOU ARE NOT SAFE

Not exactly a welcoht in the shape of a woht it down hard four times

The door to Aurimere House creaked open

Fra the i the i frohost of Aurimere

"Um, hello," said Kahost and she was startled that Kami could see her "How may I help you?"

"My naht through the woman’s thin frame

"I’m Rosalind Lynburn, Jared’sto a criht," she almost whispered "If he hurt you--if he scared you, I alared "He saved me I ca like a reflection in water, then turned with a shimmer of her pale skirts Kami could barely hear her feet on the stairs

Rosalind had not invited Karay flagstones and the vaulted ceiling, its arches dark with age and shadow There were a couple of narros with dialass

The sound of footsteps was clearer now, above Ka to the back of the mansion Kami counted the steps and tried to ht be

The hosts Jared heard hisbefore she knocked She didn’t wait for him to tell her to co, until he met Aunt Lillian, Uncle Rob, and Ash and saw that they all did it Being polite and imperious at the same time was the Lynburn way

The curtains were closed He had actual velvet curtains like you ht it was ridiculous He hadn’t opened the curtains; the shoasn’t going on, not today

Jared leaned against the wall and watched his mother walk over to the , the point of the rooolden knives through the chinks in the curtains, toward her bowed head

"That girl is here," she said "The one who took that tumble down the well"

It was not exactly a surprise to Jared Awareness of her kept tugging at the edges of his mind, as if her voice was always just on the cusp of his hearing He had to choose not to listen, or he would be able to make out the words

"I didn’t push her," he told his mother Not for the first time

"Oh no," she said "She fell down the well Your father fell down the stairs Funny how people fall down all around you" Her lip curled