Read "Shadowed Gold" by Alice Fox Parry online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The four rose late, in spite of the alarm, and felt a strange disinclination to set about their daily tasks. They were tired, but they were also unsettled. The atmosphere of mystery which surrounded them made them feel that the everyday world was very flat and commonplace, and the talk at the breakfast table centred on "it" with purposeless intensity, until everyone's nerves were on edge, and Valerie and Gerald began to quarrel.
Katherine took charge. "We're all talking nonsense and wasting time.