Ch. X

The house was quieter than it should have been. Jon and Jeremi were out. Rosalind should have been in the garden, or cooking, or cleaning the kitchen, or something. Something seemed wrong.
Li walked cautiously from room to room in search of her. Finally she pushed back her father and Rosalind's bedroom door and found her lying on the bed. There was no sound. No birds outside, no music playing as she usually had on days when her husband was gone. No sound or movement came from the bed. She was dead. She knew it. Was this what her mother had looked like when she had died? Silent and still? No, her mother would have gone in a torrent of coughs and wheezes. Rosalind's death was peaceful. No... deliberate.
She found herself backing out of the room. She knocked over an end table and heard its contents crash to the floor. They would think it was her fault, that she had caused this. She had to leave before they came home.