We moved to Quinnstone a month ago. It wasn't like Paris, the country and all. No limestone buildings, no wide streets. No shoppes and no people. No people! Could you believe that? Mama always said people loved the country! I have walked past the driveway and seen no people.

No, nothing here. Empty, empty, empty. The house echoes when I yell. My footsteps are lonely in quartz halls.

We have a maid, Miss Hilt. She plays with me sometimes. We like to play this one game called 'shh', where she does something and I try not to make a noise, but I like to play hide and seek more than shh.

Mama and papa play hide and seek all the time! They are very good hiders. I've been looking for them since we moved to the country, but they still haven't come out. I wonder where they're hiding. Miss Hilt says I mustn't make too much noise on Weekdays, or else la lorrona would get me. I do not like la lorrona (she's scary). But Miss Hilt keeps me on the left side of the house, so it's impossible to really find mama and papa.

She tells me they're remodeling the right side, but I know that's where mama and papa must be hiding. She is lying to me.

Miss Hilt is a bit boring too. She makes me read the Divine Comedy and the Illiad. I do not understand why Dante decided to go to hell, because Miss Hilt told me it was a very bad place. She tells me to go to hell when I'm bad, though, and I'm not on fire yet. I don't think Dante actually went to hell.

Or maybe he didn't tell anyone or maybe nobody told him to. Maybe he decided to go to hell himself and nobody really thought much about it at all. Maybe if he had included that in the first place people would always tell others to go to hell. Dante must have been a nice man.


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