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Curated with tragedies that looked elegant from a distance.

Five wives made the mistake of moving closer.

The town filed Hartwell under history and rumors.

The papers filed it under tastefully tragic.

The truth refused to be filed.

He wore his grief like a medal, polished and neat, an inheritance of sympathy that never quite expired.

The newest wife arrived with an instinct for locks.

She checked them twice.

Then the house checked them a third time.

Floorboards remembered names and spelled them in dust along the baseboards.

A phonograph played a record that nobody owned.

The kitchen clock ran backwards whenever she walked in.

She held onto small rituals—tea at four, windows open at noon, the garden at dusk—until the rituals began holding onto her.

At tea, the cups clinked to a rhythm that told a story.

At noon, the open window whispered that someone was waiting outside.

At dusk, the garden offered her a path shaped like a question mark.

She followed it halfway, then looked back.

The mansion looked back, pleased that she had learned how to hesitate.

He suggested a trip, somewhere bright, somewhere loud.

She suggested they finally open the door under the stairs.

He suggested later.

She suggested now.

The door suggested something else entirely.

On the threshold, she felt all five wives standing behind her, not as ghosts, but as decisions.

She lifted the latch, and the house smiled with all its windows.

What she saw first was not the worst.

What she understood next was.

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