The Hermit of Scarecrow Valley
by Robert Lubrican
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Chapter Three
He stood in the door and watched her trying to brush her hair. It
was obviously painful for her. But she was dressed, so he stepped
into the room.
"Hey," he said, softly.
She looked over and smiled. "You came!" she said, obviously happy.
"Let me do that," he said. "You're hurting yourself."
"Okay," she said, handing him the brush.
In return he held out his hand, upon which rested the pain pill Mindy had given him to give to her. She popped it in her mouth and swallowed.
He stroked her hair half a dozen times, looking from the hair to her
eyes watching him in the mirror. He remembered what her mother
had said about boys not noticing her.
"You'd look fine without brushing it anyway," he said, his attempt at a compliment a bit clumsy.
"Yeah, right," she said, grimacing. She reached to push her glasses up on her nose.
He wanted to lean down to smell her hair. He also wanted to touch it, so he stopped. "Supper is ready," he said.
"I know, I can smell it," she said, taking the brush and laying it on the dressing table. She stood, and winced.
It was instinct to offer her his arm. She took it and pulled it
close against her body. He could feel the heat of her breast
against his upper arm, and realized she probably wasn't wearing a bra.
The breast rubbed against his arm as they walked, her shuffling, and
him limping, to the kitchen.
The meal was more relaxed than either of the adults expected it to
be. From Mindy's perspective, the way he dug in was an obvious
compliment to her cooking. Either that, or he was starving.
But she didn't get that impression from looking at him. He was
wiry, but not thin.
As for Bobby, this was a bittersweet kind of situation. He missed
good meals with good people. These people just ate, and didn't
chatter inanely about this or that. He knew that, when he was
back home, people pitied him and constantly tried to engage him in
conversation about things, thinking that's what he needed to feel
normal. But it was that very pity that drove him away from
them. He didn't need their pity. He knew they couldn't
understand what had happened to him ... would never be able to fully
understand what had happened to him. He didn't expect them
to. All he wanted was to just be himself ... however that turned
out to be. He knew he had some neuroses. He knew he didn't
have to patrol the forest. There were no enemies waiting for him
out there, no IEDs, no booby traps. But it made him feel better
to know what was ... and was not ... out there.
These two women didn't treat him like the others. They didn't
moan over him, and offer to do things for him, like he was an
invalid. It was quiet, here. The food was good.
For the first time in a long time, he liked sitting with other human beings.
Somehow, he knew that was important ... and that coming here had made his life a little better.
"My bow!" squealed Jennifer as she got up to take her dishes to the
sink, and noticed the bow in the corner for the first time. She
shoved the dishes onto the counter and went to pick up her
weapon. The pain pill seemed to work like magic, and there was
no pain as she bent to lift her things. She inspected them for
damage. The strap to the quiver was torn in half, but that was
all she saw. She turned. "You didn't have to go find them
so fast."
"I didn't think the dew would be good for the string," said Bobby.
"I watched them pull a six inch spike of wood out of his leg," said
Mindy, casually. "And he still went out in the woods and found
your bow. You're going to have to do something nice for him in
return."
"Six inches?!" said the girl, unbelieving.
"It was probably closer to four," said Bobby, frowning at Mindy.
"That's still as long as a knife blade!" said Jennifer.
"Not my knife blade," countered Bobby.
"Oh, quit being a big, tough guy and just let me thank you," complained
Jennifer. She went to him and hugged him, her bow in one hand,
and the quiver full of arrows in the other. She kissed his
cheek. "Thank you," she said.
"You're welcome," he replied, but he didn't hug her back.
She didn't seem to notice, and backed away.
"I was afraid I'd never see them again," she said.
"Why?"
"I didn't know where they were. I was just out walking in the
woods and heard your saw going, so I went that way. I would never
have been able to find them again."
"Nonsense," said Bobby. "I've seen you in the woods. You
know them well. Besides, there's a big, honking fallen down tree
right there. You could have found it easily."
"I'd have had to trespass to get them back," she pointed out, putting way too much emphasis on that word.
He smiled. "I suppose I don't mind giving you permission to cross my land ... occasionally."
"And I suppose I don't mind letting you spy on us from time to time," she teased.
"I beg your pardon?" asked Mindy. "And what's this about you
seeing her in the woods enough to know she knows her way around.
I wasn't aware you two met until today."
"We didn't," said Jennifer. "I decided I wanted to see what The
Hermit looked like, and went over there. He knew who I was ...
who you were too." She looked at The Hermit, as if handing the
explanation off to him.
"I sort of patrol the woods," he said. "It's part of my
..." He seemed uncomfortable, suddenly. "It's just
something I do. So I have seen the two of you a few times.
But I never came on your property."
"How would you know where our property lines are?" asked Mindy, her voice tight, and her face showing some unhappiness.
"I guess I don't," he admitted. "I'm sorry. I won't do it again."
"I didn't say I don't want you on our property," said Mindy. "I
only wish you'd stopped by before this and told us you might be around."
"I couldn't," he objected. She stood, looking at him. "I don't talk to people ... much," he ended lamely.
"If I'd have known there was a man lurking in the woods outside the
house, I wouldn't have gone around naked so often," she said, watching
his face closely.
"Mom!" squealed Jennifer. "You do-"
"Be quiet!" snapped her mother, cutting her off. But she didn't
look at Jennifer. She was still watching Bobby's face. What
she saw was surprise, rather than confirmation that he'd been caught,
peeping.
"I never came up to the windows," he objected. "Honest. And
I never saw anything other than the two of you going in or out of the
house. I don't peek at women!"
"I know," she said. "Now," she added. "But I had to test
you to be sure. We would love to have you as a friend, but maybe
not if you're a peeping Tom."
"She never goes around naked," said Jennifer. "I do, but not Mom."
Bobby's eyes rattled in his head this time, and he turned red and
looked everywhere except at Jennifer. Mindy wanted to laugh, but
did not. She'd been hard enough on him as it was. She had
never suspected him of anything other than honorable behavior, because
the only behavior she had ever seen of his was honorable. When
she'd sent him to wake Jennifer up, he had been back within thirty
seconds. Most men would have stayed ... and looked. There
had been plenty to see. And this man had seen that more than
once, by now. But he hadn't stayed and looked. He had
come back and told Mindy something he didn't have to tell her.
"Seeing you is one thing," said Mindy. "You're young and beautiful. I'm old and wrinkly."
"No you're not," said Bobby. He looked stunned, and everybody in the room realized it had just come out, unplanned.
This time Mindy did laugh. "Thank you! What a lovely
compliment. You give all the women in this family nice
compliments. You, my fine sir, are welcome in this house any
time."
"Mom!" This time it was a clear rebuke, and it was Jennifer who
was blushing as she remembered the look on his face when he told her
she was pretty. It had made her feel very good. Very good.
"People get tired of me after a while," he said, again without
thinking. It wasn't a ploy to get pity or sympathy. It was
just the truth.
"We'll let you know when you wear out your welcome," said Mindy.
There was chocolate pie and ice cream for dessert, and Mindy served it
to them in the living room. As they ate, she told him a little
about them, and coaxed a bit of information from him as well. It
wasn't much. He told them where he was from, and that he had gone
into the Marines after high school. He explained that the
property he lived on was his uncle's, and that he was just the
caretaker.
"Are all those books his?" asked Mindy.
"No. Every once in a while I go down to Rapid City to the used
bookstores there, and load up. I do a lot of reading, especially
in the winter."
"I can imagine," said Mindy. "And you've been here ...?"
"Ten years," he said.
"You came about the same time we did," she said. "I bought this
place at an auction. The only reason I could get the loan was
because the bank was one of my clients. The place was a mess when
we got it. It had been used as a summer residence, and had been
let get run down. The first winter we were here, the pipes froze
and we almost did too."
"You did a good job of fixing it up," he said, looking around.
"Had to," she said. "There was nobody else to fix it up for
me." Her smile was a wan offering to a kindred spirit. Both
of them had chosen to remain "alone," and shared some of the same
emotions and experiences that resulted from that decision.
"Know what you mean," he offered in response. "I have to say,
though, I sure am glad Jennifer was there when that tree came
down. Even if she stabbed me as she rolled it off of me."
"Wait!" said Jennifer. "You mean I'm the one who hurt you?" She sounded horrified.
"It wasn't your fault," he said. "You had to get that trunk off
of me. If you'd have rolled it the other way it would have
crushed my head."
"I was trying to help you, not hurt you," she wailed.
"I'm more than willing to suffer the latter, to have you there for the former," he said.
"Like I said, Dear," said Mindy. "You're going to have to do something nice for him."
A week passed, and then another, and no more was seen of The
Hermit. Neither Mindy nor Jennifer told anyone what had
happened. In a way, he was their little secret, and what had happened between them was nobody else's business.
It was early June, so Jennifer didn't have to go to
school. Her mother was there to put the ointment on her scar four
times a day. The only problem was that Jennifer got bored,
because she was confined to the house.
She did exercises, taking a page from The Hermit's book about exercise
helping things heal. Slowly, as she continued twisting and moving
and bending, she got to the point where pulling at the skin on her back
didn't hurt so badly. Eventually, "pain" wasn't the right word
any more. It was stiff, and pulled when she moved. She was
constantly aware of it, but she no longer winced as her body got back its normal range of motion.
The time for her appointment came and she went to see Doctor Zimmerman,
who had her take off her shirt. She felt weird, being topless in
front of a man, but he paid no attention to her breasts at all,
spending all his time peering at her back. His finger traced the
line of his work and she shivered.
"Looks good," he pronounced. "I think we got all the foreign matter out of the wound."
"I was sure you had," said her mother, who had been sitting in a chair
against one wall. She'd put lotion on the wounds for weeks, and
knew them like she knew the lines on her own palm.
The doctor handed Jennifer her blouse. "So ... have you told The Hermit yet that you're going to marry him?"
There was a long silence in the room. Then Jennifer said, "What?" in a confused voice.
"You don't remember? I'm not surprised," he said. "It was
something you said while you were going under the anesthetic.
People often don't remember such things."
"What did I say?" Now Jennifer sounded worried.
The doctor chuckled. "You were talking about how you saved his
life, and how he took care of you, and then you said you were going to
marry him some day."
Her mother laughed out loud, and Jennifer shot her a venomous look.
"You didn't tell him that ... did you?" she asked Doctor Zimmerman, worry in her voice.
"Of course not," he said, smiling. "That's privileged medical
information. Doctor patient confidentiality and all that."
Mindy laughed even harder and then gasped out her apologies to her daughter.
On the way home, Jennifer chastised her mother for the laughter.
"I know," said Mindy. "I shouldn't have laughed. And I
wasn't laughing at you. I was imagining his face, while you told
him that, and it seemed so comical I had to laugh."
"Well I'm not telling him that!" barked Jennifer.
"I know, Sweetheart," said her mother. A mile or two went
by. "You could do a lot worse, come to think of it," said
Mindy. "Maybe you should tell him."
And then she laughed some more, reaching over to poke her daughter until Jennifer started laughing with her.
That incident reminded Mindy that she had promised Doctor Foster she would make sure Bobby went to his
checkup. So instead of driving home, she steered the car to the
turnoff to the long winding driveway that led to the A-frame.
"Mom!" said Jennifer, sounding worried. "Don't you dare!"
"I'm not going to tell him about your undying affection, and
matrimonial plans for him," giggled Mindy. "I just need to make
sure he went for his checkup, like you just did for yours."
"Oh," said the girl. "Okay then."
"But you can tell him while we're here!" said Mindy brightly.
Then she laughed again. But she laughed alone this time.
There was no indication anybody was around when they pulled up in front
of the house. The garage was closed up. When she turned the
car off and opened her door, Mindy heard the same forest sounds that
surrounded their own home. She loved those sounds. It was
one reason she had told herself she would never leave the
mountains. She stood, just breathing in the fresh air as Jennifer
got out of the car. She was still a bit slow moving around.
Her scars were both thick and stiff, which was why it was so important
that the special cream be massaged into them.
"I'm surprised he doesn't have a dog," said Mindy.
"Me too," said Jennifer.
Bobby stepped from behind a big Walnut tree that had screened his approach from both women.
"Hey," he said, his voice neither soft nor loud. Both women jumped.
"Good Lord," gasped Mindy. "Don't sneak up on us like that!"
"Don't trespass and I won't," he said, his voice reasonable.
Then, as he saw both of them react negatively to that, he held up a
hand. "Kidding," he said. He frowned. "You know
that's the first time I've used that word in probably ten years?"
He shrugged. "So ... what's up?"
"We just got back from Jennifer's checkup with the surgeon, and he says she's doing wonderfully."
"That's great," said Bobby.
"And I thought I'd come trespass, spy and be nosy and ask what Doctor Foster said during your follow-up appointment."
His reaction answered for him.
"You didn't go ... did you," she accused.
"I'm fine," he said. "I just walked probably three miles, and I'm fine."
"That's not the point," she said. "I promised him you'd be there."
"You're not my keeper," he said, his voice a little stiff.
"No, I'm not," she said. "I'm your neighbor. I'd like to
think I'm your new friend. And friends care about each
other. You had a chance that day to tell me off, and tell the
doctor that I have no authority over you, and that it isn't my place to
make sure you do anything at all. But you heard me promise to get
you to that appointment and you didn't say a word. And now you
want to make me break a promise. I don't know-"
She stopped as he held up both hands, palms toward her.
"If I promise to go, will you please stop trying to make me feel guilty?"
"Yes," she said, smugly. "Will you honor your promise?"
"Of course. I'm a man of my word. I always have been, and always will be."
"All right then. Thank you. Now, we should probably be
going. I'm sure you have tons and tons of important hermit type
things to do."
"Thank you for dropping by," he said, formally. "Please feel free
to trespass on many future occasions. I should think that two or
maybe even three times a year should suffice." He bowed.
"You are so silly," said Jennifer.
"I wondered if you were going to speak to me today or not," he said.
Remembering the doctor's revelation, Jennifer blushed. She hadn't
had time to think about that, or figure out what it meant.
Suddenly she was tongue tied. Her mother saved the day.
"Really, we should go," she said. "Honor your promise!"
"I will!" he said.
It wasn't until they were turning into their own driveway, that Jennifer said: "You know, Mom ... he didn't actually ever make a promise. He just asked what you would do if he did."
Mindy groaned as she brought the car to a stop.
"That little sneak!" she complained. "He thinks he's so
clever. Well, two can play that game. I think it's time to
bake cookies. And perhaps we'll bake enough that we can take a
plate of them to The Hermit of Scarecrow Valley!"
The cookies had, in fact, been made. But during the process, one
of Mindy's clients emailed her with a rush job that would take two or
three days of work to get done. So Jennifer said she would take
the cookies and exact the required promise.
Mindy wasn't so hot on that idea, but Jennifer insisted that, while her
back was still tight, her legs were fine, and that she needed to get
back to her hiking regimen anyway. It kept her strong and let her
eat whatever she liked, in whatever quantities she wished to.
Like the cookies. She ate a dozen of them and didn't worry
because she knew she'd walk those calories off.
Finally Mindy gave in, which is what resulted in the discovery that Jennifer's bras no longer fit.
It was the first time since the accident that she had even tried to put
one on. But something had happened. The bra was too
small. At first she thought it had shrunk, maybe from not being
used. She had old shoes that were the same size as the shoes she
currently wore, but which she couldn't get on her feet. They
appeared to have shrunk while they lay, unworn, in her closet. So she
thought the same thing, whatever it was, might have happened to her
bra.
But all her bras were too small.
"You're probably going through a growth spurt," said her mother. "We'll get you some new ones."
"Don't hurry," said Jennifer. "I've gotten used to not having one on. I kind of like it. Is that strange?"
"Of course not," said Mindy. "I don't know who invented bras, but
women have hated them from the very beginning. I wouldn't wear
them myself, except that I'd look like I had two lumps of warm Jell-O
under my shirt if I didn't." That made them both laugh.
It also made Jennifer go to her room and put on an old T shirt, which
was also too small, and stand in front of her mirror, bouncing up and
down on her toes, watching her breasts to see if they quivered or moved
under her shirt. They did, as it turned out, though not that
much.
Looking at her shirt-covered breasts in the mirror, they didn't look
any bigger, but she knew they were. That made her feel like she
was making progress as a woman too. Her thoughts then went to The
Hermit. She wondered if he would be able to tell that her breasts
had grown. He had stared at them before. He was the only
man to have seen them naked, except for the doctor, who had paid them
no attention at all.
She realized that her nipples had gotten hard, for some reason.
It was the first time she had seen her own nipples, poking through her
shirt. It made her feel grown up, somehow. She brought the
fingertips of both hands up to stroke those bumps lightly, and felt the
same thrills she always felt when she played with them. She was
pretty sure she masturbated, but she'd never known anyone she felt like
she could actually ask that kind of information from. She had
learned years ago how good it felt to rub high up between her tight,
white pussy lips. And squeezing her nipples always felt
wonderful. She knew some girls at school had things they inserted
inside them. They whispered and snickered about such things,
though Jennifer was never included. Still, she heard bits and
snatches. She had never pushed anything except a tampon inside
her own body, and that didn't make her feel anything except a desire to
get it over with.
So she was a little like a half-baked cherry cobbler, no pun intended,
which had all the ingredients necessary to become a tasty, sought-after
treat, but which wasn't quite ready yet, and didn't know it was about
to become a full-fledged dessert.
That was the girl who decided to leave the too-tight T shirt on while she went to take a plate of cookies to The Hermit.
It took her an hour to hike to The Hermit's house. Her
mother called him Bobby, but Jennifer unconsciously romanticized things
by thinking of him in more impersonal terms as "The Hermit." Her
mental image of him, though, as she hiked through the forest, was
anything but impersonal or vague. In her mind, he was
larger than life. She remembered watching him swing the
double-bitted axe, and his body swelled in her memory to Paul Bunyan
proportions. His eyes were like dark wells she could fall down
into.
She was intelligent enough to understand that this attraction she felt
to this mysterious man was the basis for her drug-induced ravings about
marriage, but at the same time, the thought of seeing him soon ... of
talking to him ... of being close to him ... brought a funny feeling to
her stomach. It was the same feeling she'd had when she had to
read her essay at a school assembly. She had entered a
contest and won. Had she known she'd have to read it aloud to the
entire faculty and student body, she wouldn't have even
entered. But that had been fear. She knew
that. Fear of failure, even though she had won. Fear of rejection. That's what it had really been.
She puzzled about that, walking along. Why would she be afraid of
rejection by The Hermit? She had no reason to believe he would
tell her to go away and never return. He owed
her, for pity's sake. As she walked, and worried away at the
issue, she finally realized that this felt like when she wanted someone
to like her at school, but wasn't sure that outcome would happen.
He owed her ... but what she really wanted was for him to like her. But that was crazy. He was as old as her Uncle Josh ... old enough, almost, to be her father!
And that led her to think that, perhaps, she wished he was her father. That was crazy too, but it was the only thing she could think of that made any sense.
What she did not think about,
was the fact that she was a healthy young woman, in whose veins
hormones were flowing that were encouraging her to find a mate.
She did not think about the fact that hormones do not recognize age
differences as inhibiting factors to potential relationships.
And, because she'd never had a boyfriend, she didn't recognize that, in
all probability ... she had a crush on The Hermit of Scarecrow
Valley.
Bobby heard her coming long before he could see who she was. He
was surprised at the noise she was making when he finally saw
her. She usually walked much more quietly. Pulling
binoculars from his pouch, he studied her face. She wasn't
watching where she was going. She was distracted by something she
was thinking about. He had seen men die because of the look that
was on her face. When they stopped paying attention, they
missed critical clues to deadly traps.
He couldn't resist scaling a tree and letting her walk under him.
She didn't even see the mess of leaves he had scuffed up at the bottom
of the tree. She was obviously headed to his house. She had
a backpack with her, but it was slung over one shoulder, instead of
being worn as designed. 'Of course,' he thought. Her back
would still be painful. She didn't have her bow with her this
day, either.
When she was a hundred yards past him, he dropped down out of the tree and
began stalking her. He made a game of it, getting closer and
closer, to see when she'd hear him. He was less than fifty feet
behind her when she suddenly stopped and turned her head, left, then
right, as if trying to locate a noise.
"Ahem." He cleared his throat.
She jumped and whirled.
"Don't do that!" she yelled.
"If you'd have been paying attention, you'd have heard me long ago," he said.
"I don't need to hear you!" she snapped. "You're not dangerous to me!"
"But I could have been someone else ... who was dangerous to you."
It could legitimately be argued that he was being paranoid, or that he
was taking himself much too seriously, or something like that.
Most would agree that in those particular woods, there really wasn't
anything of real danger, other than injury from a fall that might
render a hiker unable to get back to civilization. In other
words, it could be argued that he was trying to teach her a lesson she
didn't really need to learn.
One person who would make that argument was Jennifer herself.
"I didn't come here to get a lecture on bogeymen in the forest!" she
snapped. "I came here to give you some cookies and get you to
promise to go see the doctor!"
Bobby, poor man, thought they were still playing a game. After
all, that's basically how he passed every day since coming to Scarecrow
Valley. He played what amounted to games to pass the time.
"I did promise," he said.
"No ... you did not," she said, her voice steady as she stomped toward him. "You asked what my mother would do if you did make a promise, but you never actually made that promise."
He stared at her. She waited for him to say something. But
he just kept staring. Then, as she got closer, she realized his
gaze was lower than her eyes. She looked down to see those nipples were
stiff again. Stiff with anger? She wondered how that
worked. But the anger gave her what her grandmother would have
called "gumption" and she kept walking until she was standing right in
front of him.
"You're staring at my breasts again."
His eyes jerked up to her face.
"Sorry!" he said quickly.
"I know they're all pretty and all that," she said, her voice
sarcastic. "But right now I'm unhappy with you, and I'm not sure
I want you staring at my breasts!"
He blinked and she thought about how she had phrased that. She had meant it to mean "Stop looking at my breasts!"
But it hadn't come out quite like that, and she knew it. She
realized there was a little part of her brain that had made her phrase
things such that it sounded like, at some future time, she might not object to him staring at her breasts. And that's because that little part of her brain actually wanted him to do that.
She could suddenly see the wheels turning in his own head as he
evaluated that comment. His eyes slid back down and she brought
her hands up to cover her stiff nipples. His eyes snapped
back up.
"I'm sorry. I really am!"
"Promise me you'll go to the doctor for your follow up appointment," she said.
"I promise," he said, with no hesitation.
"Promise me it will be within two days," she added.
"I promise," he said.
She dropped her hands.
His eyes slid down.
And in those few, tumultuous seconds, she experienced the elation of
the epiphany that she was desirable to a man. She didn't fully
understand what that meant. That
knowledge was still a big, foggy ball. But he had not rejected
her. He could not keep his eyes off her. Well ... part of
her, anyway. But she'd take what she could get.
She took the backpack off her shoulder and got into it to get the foil-wrapped cookies out. She extended them to him.
"Chocolate chip," she said. "My mom baked them."
"Thanks," he said, taking the package. He frowned. "This is all very strange."
"Why?" she asked.
"Because it's been a really long time since I wanted someone to like me," he said.
"I like you," she said. "My mom likes you too."
His face, above his beard, turned dark red.
"I know," he said. "And I'm pleased about that.
Really. I'm just not used to it, though. I'm not used to
being around pretty ..." he stopped, and his face got even
darker. "Women," he finished. "So I'm not good at
controlling my ..." He stopped again, looking around as if the
word he wanted was a leaf on a tree. Jennifer watched as his
right hand went to cover the front of his pants, but she could tell it
was an unconscious gesture. "My behavior," he finally decided,
looking back at her. "I know it's impolite to stare at a woman's
... um ... breasts. I just can't help it. But I'm going to
work on it. I promise you that too."
All this was new to Jennifer, but she had instincts that were as old as
humanity. And she had those hormones rushing through her
veins. He had not rejected her. Not only that, he had
proclaimed both her and her mother, who she thought of as one of the
most beautiful women in the world, as being "pretty."
"You saved my life," she said. "For that, you get special privileges."
He blinked at her several times, looking helpless. "I don't understand," he finally said.
She smiled. Some might have called it a predatory smile, though she didn't mean it that way.
"You have permission to look at them." She suddenly imagined him
peering at her breasts at dinner at her house. "Sometimes," she
amended. "When we're alone."
"What?" He was clearly confused. "You just told me to stop!"
"I changed my mind," she said, actually putting her nose higher in the air. "I'm a woman. We get to do that."
He stood there for a long twenty seconds while she waited for him to respond.
"Let me try this again," he finally said. "All this is really
strange, and it's going to take me some time to get used to it."
"You have all the time you like," she said.
He cocked his head, looking into her eyes. Then she watched as those deep, black eyes slid downwards. She actually felt
her nipples crinkle and get even harder. She concentrated on
resisting the urge to reach and squeeze them. That feeling
was back in her belly again.
But this time she knew it wasn't fear.
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