The Secret Bliss of Calliope Ipswich

"Oh! Do link arms with me, Calliope," Blanche whispered, her brown eyes widening with apprehension. She took Calliope's arm, tightly linking it with her own. "The old Mulholland house still gives me the willies every time I walk past it. I hate to think on what might have gone on inside. It's truly terrifyin'!" "Oh, don't be silly, Blanche," Calliope said, feigning calm. "Poor Prudence's lunacy...it's sad. And besides, her fiendish acts were not committed inside the house. There's nothing wrong with it. It's just...it's just a sad, empty building." Calliope Ipswich felt the hypocrite, however, as an uncomfortable shiver of residual dread and unease shuttered down her spine, More than six months had passed since the All Hollow's Eve when the dangerous state of Prudence Mulholland's fracturing mind had been revealed to the townsfolk of Meadowlark Lake. And now, each time Calliope thought of poor Prudence and her family, not only did her heart ache for their family's unhappy lot but a chill of lingering horror rippled through her being. In truth, at times Calliope wondered if it had all been simply a bad dream-a nightmare. But it hadn't. It really had happened-all of it.