Mr. X

tea rose up and wafted down the table to refill my glass. It coasted to May, who said, 'No, thank you, I've had enough.' The pitcher landed with a tinkling of ice cubes.

    Nettie turned her head to Clark. An alarmed look crossed his face. 'No! I don't—'

    He ascended three feet above his chair and sailed toward the stove like a man on a magic carpet. 'Put me down, Nettie!'

    She spun him around and brought him back to his chair. Clark put his hands on his chest and took a couple of noisy breaths. 'You know I don't like it when you do that.'

    'You married me,' Nettie said.

    “Ilike it,' May chirped. “Ialways liked it.'

    Nettie wiped her forehead and stared at her sister. Giggling, May shot out of her chair, made a circuit of the table, and came to rest.

    Nettie looked angrily at me. 'You want some, too?'

    What came out of my mouth was 'Yes.'

    She beetled her brows, gazing not so much at me as at my position in the room. A drop of sweat rolled out of her hairline. The tingle that predicted my 'attacks' bloomed in my chest. I felt my being grasped up and held within a firmly accommodating restraint precisely like Mr. X's confinement. With the same sense of powerlessness before an irresistible pressure, I lifted off my chair. A great wall of wind pushed me into the living room. The wind shifted on its axis, hurtled me back into the kitchen, and tumbled me head over heels a moment before I struck the wall. A shout of glee burst from my throat. I floated to the table and saw Nellie gazing at nothing, her eyebrows contracted and her face damp with sweat. I moved over my chair, swayed right-left, then left-right, and, like a helicopter, settled back on earth.

    'You like that more than I do,' Clark said.

    'Ned's aDunstan.' Nettie wiped her face with a napkin. 'You get old, your batteries run down.'

    'Nettie,' I said, “I drove out to your old house yesterday. Something happened to me there. I can't explain it, but I can tell you what it was. I got dizzy, and pretty soon I was standing in a room with a stuffed fox next to a brass clock on the mantelpiece.'

    My eyes on Nettie, I only dimly saw May lean forward and clasp her hands before her chest. Nettie touched the napkin to her temple.

    'Your father was in that room,' I said. 'He was wearing a velvet smoking jacket, and he had a cigar in one hand.'

    'How did our father look?' May asked me.

    'Tired. But like he was acting, too.'

    “I don't recognize that description,' May said. 'My father was all too energetic.'

    “I recognize it,' Nettie said. 'Joy would, too.'

    'He spoke to me,' I said.

    'Joy used to say Daddy talked to her, out at our old house.' May looked warmly at me. “It seems your Dunstan share came out strong late in life, to make up for lost time.'

    'What did he say when he spoke to you?' Nettie demanded.

    'That he created my father. I think his son called himself Edward Rinehart when he came back to Edgerton from wherever he was in the meantime. What I'm wondering is, who was his mother?'

    'You're looking for a woman who might have fooled around with Howard?' Clark said. 'There is no shortage of candidates.'

    'Our mother used to say, some of those fine ladies are not what they pretend to be,' May said. 'Daddy told her, None of them are.'

    'Fine ladies,' I said.

    'Those people sent their sons to boarding schools,' Nettie said. 'To make the right connections. And you know, May, we seldom got into town when we were little girls. Out tutors came to us.'

    'There were many things our daddy did not wish us to encounter.'

    I said, 'He didn't protect you from whatever made you blow out windshields and power lines up and down Wagon Road.'

    May stiffened in her chair. “I got mad. That's all that happened. Our father was very angry, but I couldn't help what I did, I justdid it.'

    'You saw two girls making fun of you?'

    'Mainly, I remember Daddy shouting at me in his big, loud voice. I cried all the way home.'

    'Let's talk about something pleasant, for a change,' Nettie said. 'Our grandnephew's birthday is the day after our niece's funeral. Would you like to have a party on your birthday, Ned? I could make a sweet-potato pie.'

    'That's very generous,' I said. 'But you know what happens on my birthdays. I wouldn't want to spoil all the fun.'

    'Your fits?' May asked. 'We've seenthat before.'

    Nettie said, 'We'll have the party early in the day. If you feel your trouble coming on, go to your mother's old room until it passes. You know how to handle it after all this time, don't you?'

    “I guess I do,' I said. 'Sure, let's celebrate everything we can.'

 •I escorted May down the steps. “Is that your car, Neddie? Did it cost a lot of money?'

    “It's a rental,' I said.

    'Little thing like that wouldn't be hard to appropriate.' Sudden inspiration brought her to a halt. She turned to me with a brilliant smile. 'Would you like a new car for your birthday?'

    'No, thank you, Aunt May. It's too hard to find a parking space in New York.'

    'A parking space is something that cannot be stolen,' she said. “I'll get you something else. But seeing that car . . .' She shook her head. 'You mentioned Wagon Road? Daddy was so mad at me, that day. I knew why, too. He was mad because I was mad. Athim.'

    Joy raised a silhouetted hand, and I waved back. May saw nothing butWagon Road. 'You mentioned those girls—you know, I remember them! They werelaughing at us. I wanted to die. So I turned my head, pretending I was too proud to notice, and . . .' She shook her head. 'The upshot was, I did something I didn't know Icould do! I had as much Dunstan in me as my sisters, no matter what they thought. You never saw such a hubbub! Glass exploding all over everywhere, wires falling, the poor horses so frightened. And that wasme! Scared me worse than Daddy's yelling.'

    We reached the other side of the street and moved toward her house. 'The girls were laughing at you, and you turned away. That was when you got angry. It wasn't the girls, was it? You saw something else.'

    'A little girl has eyes, too, that's all I can say.' She tightened her grip on my arm, and we went up the steps to her porch.

    'What was it? What did you see?'

    May released my arm and opened her door. 'Oh, Neddie, you don't know anything at all.'

 •87

 •Joy's hunched figure toiled down a lightless tunnel and through the entrance to a cave. As the living room took shape around me, the stench increased. Clarence had been teleported elsewhere.

    “I want to talk to you! Would you like a glass of sherry?'

    'Thank you. Where is Clarence?'

    'He's sleeping in the closet.' Joy moved back and regarded me, her eyes gleaming. 'You saw Daddy, didn't you? He told me you would. I bet my sisters are so jealous they could spit.They could never see him. Nettie and May think they know everything, but they don't, not by a long shot.' She put the tips of her fingers to her mouth, almost dancing in her glee. She waved me toward a chair. “I'll be back in a second.'

    Faint rustles and thuds came from another region of the house. Clarence had awakened, I thought, and he objected to the closet. Joy returned with two glasses the size of thimbles. I took one of them and said, 'Maybe Clarence wants to be let out.'