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Nora
NORA SUTHERLIN WAS BEING FOLLOWED
She didn’t know she was being followed as she drove through Bavaria and into the heart of the Black Forest Who would follow her, after all? And why? No one back hoone She kept her eyes on the road ahead and didn’t once think to look behind her
A vague uneasiness, a quiet sort of dread, had burrowed into her mind and made a home there The sun, which had seen almost as much as she had in her lifetime, chased her car as she raced down a road shrouded in towering pine trees Dark Light Dark Light Nora sensed the shadoanted to catch her and keep her She pushed the accelerator and fled deeper into the forest
At last she came to the end of the road and spied a s the pine and fir trees Two stories and made all of stone, the little house seemed an exile from a fairy tale A kindly woodcutter could live in that house—the sort who’d save a little girl froe were part of a fairy tale, as she? The woodcutter? The girl?
Or the wolf?
She gathered her things froe The owner had warned her there was no lock on the door but promised she would be safe This part of the woods was on private land No one would trouble her No one at all
Ivy covered the cottage froround to the chimney She felt as if she’d stepped back four hundred years when she crossed the threshold Gazing around the interior, she ray stone hearth She’d drink tea out of ruddy earthenware s She’d sleep under heavy sheets in a rustic bed with posts of rough-heood In another time and under different circurief clawed at her heart, and her task lay hard before her
And it wasn’t in Nora’s nature to relish the prospect of sleeping alone
She took her bags upstairs to the sole bedroom and knelt on the floor by the s carefully, slowly, reluctantly From a bed of velvet she pulled out a silver box the size of a pew Bible and held it in her shaking hands
As the cottage owner had promised, she found the cobblestone path that led to the lakeshore The smell of pine surrounded her as she wandered down the path It was April but the scent called Christreen candles, silver bows, golden orna to hide coins in the shoes of all the good little children Idly she wished Saint Nicholas would see fit to visit her tonight She’d welcome the company