"Mary? What's that in your hand?"
Slowly, as from a distance. "I've got to kill him."
Once more Anne Scott felt herself in the presence of a will, a force
that was beyond swaying. But she knew that she too had a part in the
unfolding drama, and she would not watch idly as her niece destroyed
herself.
"Because of your mother? You think that you must follow her down the
bitter road---"
"You speak of what you cannot imagine."
There was no answering obsession. The woman did not try. "How will you
do it?" she asked simply.
"They did not think to search us." Mary held up the slender blade that
the witch had sewn into a fold of her dress, then forgotten.
"Surely that, of itself, would not kill a man."
"Human excrement makes a very effective blood poison." All said
evenly, without emotion or remorse, without living movement of any
kind.
... "Mary. Your mother left something for you." At this she turned,
like a sleepwalker disturbed by the calling of her true name. "Stephen
brought me this note. Her dying words."
"A forgery," she stammered, "meant to dissuade me.
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