not be sure. “ H ow far is the ocean?” she asked the girl. " In a direct

  line, that is.” T h e house’s form er ow ner had drowned.

  “Ten miles, I guess.”

  T his was foolishness. T h e C ape was rig h t on the coast anyway,

  and her car w ould be parked there six days a week.

  O n the way to the house she bought groceries, staple goods: flour,

  19

  Plan[e]t Engineering

  sugar, coffee, and canned goods. H ad there been pans? She could no t

  remember, and b o u g h t an inexpensive saucepan and a coffeepot. She

  had spent the n ig h t in a motel, nice bu t m uch too costly, even now in

  the off-season. T h a t’s over w ith, she thought. I ’ll cam p in the house

  u n til I find o u t w hat I need to make the place com fortable.

  As it turned out, she needed very little. T here was already a copious

  supply of linens, and pots and casseroles and spatulas and so on in

  ab u n d a n ce—even some food. I could have stayed here, she said to

  herself, and saved the money. I ’ll get a cat and perhaps a dog, too.

  Have them spayed—or maybe not.

  She turned on the television, and it filled the lower floor w ith

  solem n sound w hile she p u t away her purchases. A new spaper lin in g

  a draw er announced P IG H U N T E D . It was six m onths o u t of date,

  bu t she read it anyway. H e was th o u g h t to be h id in g in the

  Everglades; the article had a great deal to say about the difficulty of

  searching the Everglades and very little to say about him . W here were

  they? D own south, she thought, a long way from here. She saw

  pictures of men so often on the news that she had trouble

  rem em bering the last one she had seen in the flesh. She had been a

  child, surely.

  T h a t n ig h t she read the Journal of Mathematics w ith the T V

  m u m b lin g unattended in the background, and went to bed. She slept

  badly, then spent a fatiguing day at the C ape getting a cq u ain ted w ith

  her co-workers. O n the follow ing day she went to w ork in earnest. It

  was Sunday before she had tim e to poke aro u n d the house.

  It was uncom fortable as a garm ent too large is uncom fortable by

  its very looseness. She had felt big and clum sy in her tiny Boston

  apartm ent. Now she herself was tiny, w ith o u t force, w ith o u t im p act

  on this h u lk in g structure. She m ade noise for the sake of noise an d

  found herself w ondering, w hile she did her laundry, if som eone was

  p o u n d in g her front door. H er heart th u m p ed at the so u g h in g of

  chill w ind in the air-con d itio n in g vents. She seemed to be eating too

  m uch and felt sure it was in a subconscious effort to grow larger.

  T h e ow ner before h e r—Jan e S om ething, it had been on the

  20

  In Looking-Glass Castle

  deed— had been an eccentric. O r perhaps, Ms. McKane thought, an

  eccentric is anyone w ho dies leaving a chance to clean up. She had

  saved em pty seed packets from the little garden behind the house, and

  there were five pairs of very sim ilar scissors in her sewing basket. H er

  clothes were m ostly gone, or she had owned very few. T here was an

  album of photos, w ith no way of telling w hich were of her. Possibly

  none were. T h e few rem ain in g clothes testified that she had been tall

  and thin; a h airb ru sh showed pale brow n hair before Ms. McKane

  threw it out. Ja n e ro llin g dead, naked in the surf.

  T h e bookcase in the living room held standard authors: Austen,

  the Brontes, W illa C ather, E dna Ferber, George Sand, Frankenstein __ Ms. McKane was about to tu rn away w hen she glim psed som ething behind the books. F lannery O ’C onnor and Dorothy

  Parker tum bled to the floor so she could reach it. It proved

  to be an o th er book, T h e Collected Short Fiction of Guy de

  Maupassant, b ound in red buckram and read nearly to pieces.

  She p ulled dow n the rest of the books and uncovered one other

  lurking in darkness: T h e M etamorphosis and Other Stories, its

  pages falling out.

  T h e fat w om an across the street invited her for tea, and she went

  gratefully. “ Do you know, except for the people I w ork w ith, I d o n 't

  know a soul in F lorida?”

  "Better off not k n ow ing most of th em ,” the fat w om an said, and

  launched w ith gusto into an account of the misdeeds of her

  neighbors: w om en w ho had peculiar friends, were crim inally careless

  w ith money, and failed to cut their grass.

  Ms. McKane blushed. H er overgrow n yard was still untouched. “ I

  m eant to do som ething about it this aftern o o n ,” she lied, “ bu t I

  can’t get the old m ower to start. I suppose I ’ll have to buy a new

  one.”

  “ Jane kept her place nice. I ’ll say that for her.”

  “ She seems to have been an excellent citizen,” Ms. McKane adm itted

  dutifully.

  21

  Plan[e]t Engineering

  “ Except she n e v e r...y o u know. I ’ve had it done three times. Raised

  them all, but Pearl IV’s dead now .’’

  T hree copies of this? It was ap p allin g .

  “ H er boat got flipped over. T hey never found the body.”

  Go to the old gray widow-maker, Ms. McKane th o u g h t. It w asn ’t

  rig h t— why w asn’t there a word for a m other whose child was dead?

  T here should be. A loud she said, “ Was that w hat h ap p en ed to the

  w om an w ho ow ned my house? I was told she drow ned.”

  T h e fat w om an m uttered som ething that sounded like her sisters

  got her.

  “ Beg pardon?”

  “ I said the cistern got her. Fell dow n it head first.”

  At hom e again, the lie became a truth: the m ower w ould no t start.

  Arm aching, Ms. McKane retreated to the coolness of the kitchen.

  T h a t square of planks in the backyard surely m arked the sinister

  spot. Ju st a concrete tank to catch rainw ater from the roof for the

  garden, but she was no t sure she w ould ever be able to lift the cover

  now. W ho had found her? H ow long had it been? She wondered, yet

  preferred not to know.

  T here was som eone —so m eth in g — in the house. It moved things,

  if ever so little, w hile she was at the Cape. A box of dried fruit, w hich

  she had never touched after opening, em ptied itself day by day. O n

  windy nights som ething walked.

  She invited everyone she knew even slightly to the housew arm ing

  and spent nearly three hun d red dollars on food and liquor. It was a

  th u n d erin g success that left a physicist and two program m ers passed

  ou t on her furniture, an d it quieted “ the g h o st” for nearly two weeks.

  T h en it was back. She woke to hear it goin g dow n the stairs, and

  w ith m ore courage than she had know n she possessed she went

  looking for it w ith a flashlight. “ W ho are you? I w o n ’t h u rt y o u .”

  I f you d o n ’t hurt me. O nly later did she w onder w hat she w ould

  have done if she had found som eone—she forced herself to visualize a

  black girl — filling a sack.

  22

  In Looking-Glass Castle

  T h e next day she w ent to a sporting-goods store. Firearm s repelled

  her, but she said some anim al, perhaps a raccoon, was getting into

  her garbage. W hen she adm itted she had never fired a gun, the w om an

  in the store suggested a trap instead, and she went away th in k in g

  about it.

  W hat w ould be irresistible? Candy? She b ought a box, counted the

  pieces, ate five, an d left the box on the coffee table. Twenty-six.

  Twenty-six. Twenty-four. Twenty-four. Twenty-four. Twenty-three.

  T h at was a week, a work week, and a week seemed enough. She

  stopped co u n tin g and ate the rest of the candy herself, then b ought a

  new box w hich she laced w ith rat poison. It rem ained untouched.

  She bought cookies, bread, jam , crackers, more dried fruit, fresh

  Indian River oranges, eggs, an d canned oysters from Jap a n . In

  Boston she had had to struggle against chubbiness; now she was

  becom ing gaunt. One n ig h t she dream ed that som eone she could not

  see stood beside her bed voicing a com p lain t she could not hear, and

  the next day she b ro u g h t hom e m ore food, delicacies chosen wildly.

  An advertisem ent in Scientific American offered ornithologists an

  “electronic sh o tg u n ” capable of stu n n in g birds as large as barn

  owls. She ordered one, giving her address at the Cape.

  She p u t a bolt on her bedroom door, b o u g h t a ho t plate, an d had

  a telephone installed beside her bed. W hen a new w om an reported to

  the departm ent, Ms. McKane offered to share the house rent free; but

  the new w om an was attractive and had, it seemed, better offers.

  One n ig h t she saw an eerie light in the street and w ent ou t onto the

  porch. A little girl had im prisoned fireflies in a jar an d was touring

  the n eighborhood w ith them . Ms. McKane w atched her u n til she

  realized that w om en all up and dow n the street were do in g likewise.

  She dream ed that she was Jane, head-dow n in the cistern. O ne of

  the program m ers m entioned, half laughing, th at som eone had “had

  fu n ” w ith her as she slept on the Q ueen Anne sofa. "Was it you,

  Daisy?”

  “ W ho rem em bers?” Ms. McKane said. “ I suppose it m ight have

  been.” T hey both laughed, and later that week the program m er asked

  23

  Plan[e]t Engineering

  her to lunch, only to m ake it clear as they ate that she expected her to

  pick u p the check. Ms. McKane thought, “ H ow is this better?” and

  resolved never to speak to the program m er again. “ You m ake m ore

  than I d o ,” the program m er said as they left the cafeteria.

  T h e electronic shotgun came, an d she concealed it in her car. T h a t

  evening, after preten d in g to leave the house, she returned th ro u g h the

  rear door and searched everywhere, fin d in g no one.

  O ne m o rn in g she woke early w ith o u t know ing why. As she lay in

  bed savoring the bygone luxury of sleep, she heard him descending

  the stairs. T h e sound was so devoid of stealth that as soon as it died

  away she felt sure it had been a w aking dream, a p h an to m of hearing.

  She got up, p u t on her robe, and w ent dow nstairs to start coffee.

  He was in the kitchen eating toast w ith strawberry preserves. H is

  face seemed heavily brutal to her, masked th o u g h it was w ith c u rlin g

  black hair. “ I t’s y ou,” she said before she had tim e to w onder if it

  w ould not have been to her advantage to appear surprised an d

  outraged.

  H e nodded, w atching her w ith u n b lin k in g eyes.

  “ You m ust have know n I w ould find you here.”

  H e nodded again.

  “ I ’m going to call the police.” Q uite suddenly it came to her that

  she should not have told him , th at he m ight seize her (she felt sure he

  w ould be stronger than she) and carry her outside. In im ag in atio n

  she could see him kicking aside the cistern cover; she could see the

  circular o p en in g to death. “ I’ll scream ,” she said.

  “ I w o n ’t touch you.” His voice was deeper than she had

  anticipated, harsh and flat w ith isolation.

  “ I ’m going to call the police,” she said again. "Y ou’d better go

  now. I w o n ’t try to stop y ou.”

  He spooned jam onto the second fragrant slice.

  “T h e y ’ll kill y ou.”

  He shook his head. “ N ot for a long time. First they’ll ask me w ho

  helped me, how I stayed alive so long. I ’ll give your nam e.”

  24

  In Looking-Glass Castle

  “T hey w o n ’t believe you.” C ourage came w elling u p in her,

  welcome as forgotten money. “ I am a doctor of science, a model

  citizen.”

  “ I ’m here. I ’m my ow n evidence. Do you th in k they’ll believe I

  could have lived w ith you all this tim e w ith o u t your help?” He

  waved, and the gesture told of the large house and the well-stocked

  pantry shelves.

  “ You’re clever, aren ’t you?” she said. H e answ ered alm ost hum bly,

  “I have n o th in g to do but read and p la n .”

  As if by enchantm ent, the coffeepot was in her hand. She filled it at

  the sink and ladled in the coarse grains. “ We may as well talk. I w o n ’t

  hurt you if you w o n ’t h u rt m e.”

  “ I w on’t.”

  “T h a t’s right, you ca n ’t.” Bitterly she added, “ W ho’d bring food

  for you?” and then recalled Jan e dead in the cistern and the laden

  shelves. H e had only to w ait u n til his next victim came. She saw him

  as a black an d hairy spider, p atien t at the center of his web.

  “ I w o n ’t,” he said again. “ And as for your trying to h u rt me, it’s

  the only th in g you could do that w ould stop me from being afraid

  of you.”

  “ Why did you show yourself to me? D on’t tell me you w o u ld n 't

  be afraid if the police came after y ou.”

  “ Because it was too dangerous not to,” the m an said. “ I worried,

  every day, th at you w ould ask them to search. T hey m ight have

  found m e.”

  Ms. McKane p u lled out a chair and sat dow n, su rp risin g herself

  and, she th o u g h t, him . “ W here were you?”

  “ In various corners at various tim es.”

  “ You killed the other w om an — the one before m e.”

  H e nodded. “ Indirectly and u n in ten tio n a lly , yes.”

  She was no t sure w hat he m eant. “ W ill you kill me the same

  way?”

  “ N o.”

  “T h ere m ust be a good m any of y o u — m ore th an m ost of us

  25

  Plan[e]t Engineering

  think. I suppose th a t’s why the governm ent fusses about you so. Do

  you ever get together?”

  ‘‘By twos and threes at n ig h t.”

  ‘‘And do all of you live the way you do? In houses, like this?”

  H e shook his head. T h e coffee was p erk in g on the stove, fillin g the

  kitchen w ith its w arm perfum e.

  “ Perhaps we can strike some bargain. I get w hat I w ant and you

  get w hat you d o .” She felt desperate. “ All right? W hat I w ant is for

  you to leave and prom ise you w o n ’t tell lies about m e.”

  “ O r the tru th ,” he said. “T h a t you sat down and talked to me

  instead of scream ing or ru n n in g for the telephone.”

  “ O r the tru th ,” Ms. McKane adm itted. “ Now w hat is it you

  w ant?”

  “To rem ain here as long as I wish. To be safe u n til I can reach

  some country where men still ru le.”

  She tried to smile. “ It seems w e’ve com e to an im passe.”

  Suddenly he smiled, too. “ O nly in logic. From the books you

  brought, y o u ’re a m a th e m a tic ia n . . . ”

  She nodded.

  “ But the sphere of logic has never been the w orld of w om en and

  men. If we can m anage to forget it, we can both be free, or at least as

  nearly free as we are capable of b eing.”

  She got u p and poured the coffee, w aiting for him to continue.

  W hen he did not, she said, “ I ’m afraid I ’m not the W hite Q ueen. I

  ca n ’t believe in im possible th in g s.”

  “ I daresay you haven’t had m uch practice,’” he quoted. “ ‘Why,

  sometimes I ’ve believed as m any as six im possible things before

  breakfast.’” T hen, “ I d id n ’t think you wom en still read m ale

  au th o rs.”

  “ I d o n ’t th in k we m athem aticians w ill ever give u p C arroll.

  Fortunately, we can m ention the nam e w ith o u t m uch danger. Do

  you know an y th in g about m ath?”

  H e shook his head. “ O nly w hat I know about lo g ic— that it

  should serve us and no t m aster us. D o n ’t you agree, for exam ple, th at

  26

  In Looking-Glass Castle

  if we both w anted the same thing, we could not both have it? Look,

  here's a slice of bread, all nicely smeared w ith strawberry. We could

  divide it between us evenly, or by some com plicated form ula you

  w ould work out. But if we both w anted the w hole slice, could we

  both have it? B oth eat it?”

  “ W hat are you getting at?”

  “ O nly that because we w ant q u ite different things, there’s

  really no reason why each of us sh o u ld n ’t pick u p w hat each

  wants and w alk away. I w o n ’t stop you if you d o n ’t try to

  stop m e.”

  “ You’re no t m aking sense.”

  He nodded seriously, “ If I were to m ake sense, w e’d both go to

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20