Jane had been so engrossed in her work in the new laboratory that had been set up in the Death Chamber that she hadn't even noticed that anyone else had come in. How long she had been in there working, she wasn't even sure. She was looking subtly different from her usual self this year--dark circles were starting to form under her eyes, a strand or two of hair was slipping out of her usually neat bun, and she seemed very serious, without her former understated cheerfulness.
As she reduced the flame to very low, the potion she'd been working on subsided from a low boil to a barely noticeable simmer, and in the resulting quiet, she suddenly thought she heard a noise in the room.
"Hello? Is someone there?" she called out, stepping cautiously out of the laboratory area and nearly tripping over a cane that had been left at the top of the stairs. |