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Page 101
She heard a muffled noise from inside. Had Thorn called to her to enter? She carefully placed René's laundry on the dusty ground beside the door, then touched the weathered iran knob, warmed by the sun.
The door swung open easily, as if it had been left ajar. "Thorn," Mariah called. She heard only a skittering noise, Maybe he was busy and hadn't heard her. She stepped inside.
The place smelled of old smoke, overlain with the fresh scent of outdoors. The single room was lighter than the others Mariah had been in. The windows were larger, though they were covered with the ubiquitous coated paper. The indoor shutters were open, and light passing through them bathed the room in a dim golden glow.
"Thorn?" Mariah again heard a noise without discovering its source.
But as her eyes became accustomed to the yellow light, she saw a creature scrabbling in the far comer beyond a large, cluttered table.
"Oh!" Her involuntary cry must have startled the animal, for it stop ed moving and stared suspiciously at her.
It was a small, gray squirrel. Something was clasped in its tiny paws.
"Uh-oh," Mariah said. "Are you scavenging in here? Not a good idea."
She didn't think squirrels hurt people, but she had heard of rabid ones. Even some whose fleas carried bubonic plaguenot something she wanted to think about in these days before antibiotics.
She approached the little animal carefully. "Okay, fellow. Why don't you just scoot out of here?"
As though it understood, the squirrel gave an angry chatter, climbed the wall and maneuvered behind the paper coveting one window. The last thing Mariah saw of it was its fluffy, waving tail.
She laughed aloud, then looked around. She realized uneasily that Thorn wasn't there, and that she undoubtedly wasn't welcome. Still, she was curious about the man's home. She hoped she'd scared off the squirrel before it had chewed anything he valued. She should leave it to Thorn to

 
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