He picked up her empty glass and sniffed the inside. XXNX I didn’t even notice it.” His limbs felt heavy. That day in particular?”
“Yes,” said Porphyria. It almost sounded like pleading. “Have we always lived here?”
“For as long as I can remember.”
“Well then,” Porphyria said, and stood. Something rattled inside. “Well, darling, you’ve been…gone. “And this is Marblehead Hall, my ancestral home, where we live.”
“I see,” she said. He remembered the last instructions Porphyria had given him before drinking the poison. “I’m about to be a married woman again.”
And that was the last thing he heard. This is real, isn’t it?”
He nodded, but his expression was blank. But you never asked about his soul. She unwrapped the winding sheet and looked at the shrunken, moldering form inside. She called the verses “quaint.”)
Hester was wiping flour—covered fingers on her apron.
