It was an elaborate tale of Princesses and Princes, evil dragons and ugly witches. The story seemed to go on and on, and although the characters were ...amiliar, the story was entirely new to her. As she peered into the room, Erika could see that Kristin was enthralled with the tale. Although she was fighting hard to combat it, she was losing the battle against sleep. Amazingly, Jim continued the tale after Kristin was asleep and only reluctantly stopped when Erika came into the room and dragged. She took it about as hard as I'd expected. I told her as gently as I could, making sure I said "passed away" instead of the harsher "died"—I never have understood why it matters, they mean the same thing, but it does to most people—and her face seemed to freeze except for the tears that started trickling down her cheeks. I tried to take her in my arms for comfort, but she pushed me away."Not now, Jackie," she said in a tremulous voice. "Just leave me be for a little while, OK? I need to be. “Thank fucking God!” Daniel blurted out. “It’s about time this nonsense was over with!” He had an immense sense of relief. Tessa and he had spoken about her having an abortion, in terms of an unexpected pregnancy. Daniel was all for it, but Tessa had decidedly mixed feelings about an unplanned pregnancy. But that discussion had been about an accidental c***d between the two of them, and not a third person. Tessa held up her hand to her husband to quiet him. “Please, Daniel, I am not finished.. There was no way she couldhave run away without being seen.Walking back to her work area, Mary Sue checked the book she carried forany damage. It looked like it had not suffered from being mistreated,so she decided that the best thing to do was to leave it on the table sothat someone could put it back in its proper place. She would havetried to find its spot on the shelf, but it would also be easy tomisplace it as well. Nothing was more annoying than to be unable tofind a book when it was.