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sitting in an armchair, knitting, when Joey came in.
    â€œWhat happened?” he asked at once.
    â€œHe's going to be married,” answered Selena calmly. “To a girl named Jennifer Burbank from Boston, Massachusetts.”
    Joey looked at his sister and began to unbutton his coat.
    â€œDoes it hurt, Selena?” he asked at last.
    She rolled up her knitting and put it away in a box.
    â€œYes,” she said, and went into the kitchen to make coffee.
    Joey's black king went click-click-click across the checkerboard and he removed three of Selena's red men.
    â€œThat's eight games for me,” he said. “Who was going to beat the pants off who?”
    â€œWhom,” corrected Selena.
    The clock on the mantelpiece struck twice. “It's two o'clock in the morning,” said Selena. “To bed.”
    Joey stood up and stretched. “I think I'll just get a blanket and curl up here on the sofa,” he said casually. “I want to watch the fire.”
    â€œAll right, Joey,” said Selena. She kissed his cheek. “Good night.”
    The wind had died down to almost nothing now, but, beyond the black squares of the front windows, Joey could see the endless flakes that would fall all night. He tried the lock on the front door again and put another log on the fire.
    Selena lay facing the window, watching for first light, praying for day and an end to night's menace. I wish I were a child, she thought. I wish I still believed that ghosts were real and houses truly haunted; it's my own memories that haunt this house. She cried noiselessly into her pillow. She thought of Ted, but it was not for him she cried. He was merely the symbol of all she had lost. All I have now, she said to herself, all I have now is loneliness. That's the prize I've won from life.
    It was daylight and the wind had started up again before Selena and Joey slept.
5
    M AYBE IT WILL HAPPEN today, thought Allison MacKenzie as she awoke. It had been her waking thought every morning for two months.
    She jumped up and ran to close her bedroom window against the early morning cold and stood shivering with her hands against the sash, breathless at the beauty she saw outside. For a moment, she pressed her forehead against the cold windowpane, as if to shock herself awake and scatter the night dreams, to make way for those of the day. So much of her days were spent in reverie, dreaming of the phone call from her agent, Brad Holmes, that never came: dreaming of her novel, printed, bound, published, and of the fame and success that would follow.
    It was still snowing and the wind picked up huge handfuls of it and hurled them everywhere in gigantic plumes. Everything Allison saw was white and clean and soft looking, so that it appeared the whole world was new and pure and it was as if nothing bad or evil could ever have happened there.
    Allison went softly, on bare feet, to open her bedroom door and, as soon as she had done so, she felt the little tendrils of warmth from downstairs creep around her ankles. She jumped back into her bed and snuggled down under the blankets to wait for the room to warm up.
    The whole world is still asleep, she thought, remembering a childhood fancy, and I am the only one awake.
    At once, she felt warm and safe and sure of herself, much as she had felt when she had been a little girl and had gone to her secret place in the woods at Road's End. Except that it was better now, for she had learned not to be afraid when it was time to go back to the world of reality. Living in New York, she thought, has at least done that much for me. Her experience with Brad, that brief, intense interlude, made her feel old and wise. She knew she was neither of those things, but she wanted very much to think so. When you've given so much of yourself, she thought, it's necessary to salvage something from the ruins, no matter how small it is. Even a lie.
    It's going to snow all day, she thought. And I shall get up and eat an