As she sat she thought and thought quick furtive thoughts.... of how how how and when could she move away from that place, move across the narrow streets of the city, and out into the fields of the countryside. It was too dark to see, but important to leave before dawn. Red that recedes like a shade in the dark, shouts in the daytime. She ought to have worn brown, her vanity tripping her up again. Her hands clasped the small bag of pearls, the only money she can bring back with her, the only reward for these weeks of...

Well, it's not everyday that you actually get woken up by a ghost that you didn't believe in, but there it was (he?) - a fuzzy apparition perhaps imagined more than actually manifesting before your shimmering eyes in the night (shimmering to eyes as tinnitus is to ears) - and the thud of the door as it fell from it's hinges to the floor. It (he) was assumed to be the grumpy man who lived 89 years alone in the old house, leaving crates and crates of dusty homemade wine in the basement, bottled in old milk bottles stopped with...