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The tiny familiar twitched and was sud­ . "Some call him that." . - denly balancing on its two legs. It moved "Did he leave earth?" abruptly, impossibly fast, zoomed, up - to "Bless you, yes! Mankind has had iio devil Kamael, where it nestled in-the crook of his but himself these last twenty thousand years! arm. And suddenly it began to grow and Biit we'll be ready for the Old One,, now." change. Great golden feathers sprouted from There was more sun, there ^ere more its naked hidCi and a noble crest. It spread colors in the world as we walked badk to wide wings. Its plumage was an incredible town. - purple under its golden crest and gold-tipped - "It was the Phoenix!" breathed Claire for wings. We stared, filling our minds with a the twentieth time. "What a thing to tell sight no humanbeing alive had seen—of all - our children." - birds, the noblest. "Whose children?" " "Good-bye," said Kamael. "Perhaps one "Ours.'' day you will, know the size of the thing.you "Now look," I said, but she interrupted have done. The One who imprisoned me me. "Didn't he say I was to have what I will come back, one day, and we will be wanted most?" ready for him." -I. looked down at her, trying hard not to "Satan.>" smile. "Oh, all right," I said.

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T WAS a task that women everywhere, when the quest for just such a coincidence all over the world, dp thousands upon fitted .in perfectly with its availability. thousands of times. Nothing to mark it Ray, of course; couldn't get away from the froIm those others except that. this, was her­ office. Their old car had rnade the trip to self, Patricia Eldridge, and she thought, and Bellemore a week ago for the final decision chided herself for the thinking:, and the signing of the lease but had sput­ "I don't really, like to; go up there alone! tered home in'poor shape and was now laid- But that's silly, isn't it? Someone has to do up in the repair shop. it, and I'm the only someone!" Never mind, she could get somebody from .They'd looked so hard for a place in the the next-door apartment, to stay with their, country, and the house in Bellemore. had three-year-old son, she'told "her husband. been discovered by one of those accidents' She'd take the train. •

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A strange rendezvous with the beauty of the country and-the terror of the darknessl.. i%

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