The Black Swan

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We were at breakfast-my stepmother and I-when the letter came, Briggs, the butler, brought it in with the usual ceremony. It lay on the shining silver tray in which Belinda and I used to watch our grotesquely distorted faces leering back at us, while we grew hysterical with laughter.

My stepmother looked at the letter nervously. She was a very nervous woman. It was due I always thought to living with my father who was rather a terrifying man to some people. I could understand her feelings, although his relationship with me was quite different from that which he had with anyone else.

For a few seconds the letter lay on the table unopened while I waited expectantly.

Celeste, my stepmother, looked at me fearfully. She said, “It’s from Australia.”

I had realized that.

“It looks like Leah’s writing.”

I could see that, too.

“I wonder what ...”

I was very fond of Celeste. She had been a good, kind stepmother to me, but she did exasperate me sometimes.

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