The windows had gone the color of weak tea when she heard the creak.
It came from the corner. It was a slow, familiar sound, wood shifting against wood and then shifting back, the unhurried rhythm of a rocking chair moving under someone’s weight. Creak, and a pause, and creak again.
Bella’s whole body went still. She did not turn her head right away. She sat with her hands flat on the coverlet and listened, and the sound went on, perfectly calm, as if it had every right to be there.

Then she turned.

There was a young woman sitting in the rocking chair.

She had not been there a moment before. Bella was sure of it. She had looked at that chair a dozen times during the afternoon, disliking the way it faced the bed, and it had been empty every time. Now a girl sat in it with her ankles crossed and her hands folded neatly in her lap, rocking gently, watching Bella with a bright and unembarrassed interest, the way a person might watch a new animal at the zoo.

“Oh, good,” the girl said. “You’re awake properly this time. You kept waking up and then going back to sleep, and I was starting to think you might do it forever. It was very dull to watch.”

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