. . .

Maria is gritting her teeth. She is trembling.

“Shush, Linus,” says Edmund.

“Aha!” realizes Maria loudly. “I am hallucinating the presence of the children.”

She grins with a game determination, as if to make this so. She looks around. She looks past them. One eye twitches.

“It is certainly not that they are actually right here and squabbling killably,” she announces loudly. “That would be too suicidal! No. They are scheming elsewhere. That is why I must quickly go inside and get back to my work — that is to say, destroying the secrets of the Marvelous Immortality Elixir!”

She scans Tom and Jane to make sure they’re all right, carefully applies a band-aid to Jane’s bleeding elbow, (“Imaginarily!” she declares,) and tromps back inside.

“Do you think she noticed us?” whispers Tom.

“Just shut up,” sighs Jane.

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