The Thirteenth Tale

was slowly, and she weighed her words with care.

'It is as though there is a mist in Adeline, a mist that separates her not only from humanity but from herself. And sometimes the mist thins, and sometimes the mist clears, and another Adeline appears. And then the mist returns and she is as before.'

Hester looked at the doctor, watching his reaction. He frowned, but above his frown, where his hair was receding, his skin was an unwrinkled pink. 'What is she like during these periods?'

'The outward signs are very small. For several weeks I was not aware of the phenomenon, and even then I waited some time before being sure enough to come to you.'

'I see.'

'First of all there is her breathing. It changes sometimes, and I know that though she is pretending to be in a world of her own, she is listening to me. And her hands-'

'Her hands?'

'Usually they are splayed, tense, like this'-Hester demonstrated-'but then sometimes I notice they relax, like this'-and her own fingers relaxed into softness. 'It is as if her involvement with the story has captured her attention and in doing so undermined her defenses, so that she relaxes and forgets her show of rejection and defiance. I have worked with a great many difficult children, Dr. Maudsley. I have considerable expertise. And what I have seen amounts to this: Against all the odds, there is afermentation in her.'

The doctor did not answer immediately but considered, and Hester seemed gratified at his application.

'Is there any pattern to the emergence of these signs?'

'Nothing I can be sure of as yet, but…'

He put his head on one side, encouraging her to go on.

'It's probably nothing, but certain stories… '

'Stories?'

'Jane Eyre, for instance. I told them a shortened version of the first part, over several days, and I certainly noticed it then. Dickens, too. The historical tales and the moral tales have never had the same effect.'

The doctor frowned. 'And is it consistent? Does reading Jane Eyre always bring about the changes you have described?'

'No. That is the difficulty.'

'Hmm. So what do you mean to do?'

'There are methods for managing selfish and resistant children such as Adeline. A strict regime now might be enough to keep her out of an institution later in life. However, this regime, involving the imposition of strict routine and the removal of much that stimulates her, would be most detrimental to-'

'To the child we see through the gaps in the mist?'

'Precisely. In fact, for that child, nothing would be worse.'

'And that child, the girl in the mist, what future could you foresee for her?' 'It is a premature question. Suffice it to say that I cannot at present countenance her being lost. Who knows what she might become?'

They sat in silence, gazing at the leafy geometry opposite and contemplating the problem Hester had set out while, unbeknownst to them, the problem itself, well concealed by topiary, stared back at them through the gaps in the branches.

Finally the doctor spoke. 'There is no medical condition I know of that would cause mental effects of quite the kind you describe. However, that may be my own ignorance.' He waited for her to protest; she didn't. 'H-hum. It would be sensible for me to give the child a thorough examination in order to establish her overall state of health, both mental and physical, as a first step.'

'That is just what I was thinking,' Hester replied. 'Now… '-she rummaged in her pocket-'here are my notes. You will find descriptions of each instance I have witnessed, together with some preliminary analysis. Perhaps after the medical you might stay for half an hour to give me your first thoughts? We can decide on the appropriate next step then.'

He looked at her in some amazement. She had stepped out of her role as governess, was behaving as though she were some fellow expert!

Hester had caught herself out.

She hesitated. Could she backtrack? Was it too late? She made her resolution. In for a penny, in for a pound. 'It's not a dodecahedron,' she told him slyly. 'It's a tetrahedron.'

The doctor rose from the bench, stepped toward the topiary shape. One, two, three, four… His lips moved as he counted. My heart stopped. Was he going to walk around the tree, making his tally of planes and corners? Was he going to trip over me?

But he reached six and stopped. He knew she was right.

Then there was a curious little moment when they just looked at each other. His face was uncertain. What was this woman? By what authority did she speak to him the way she did? She was just a dumpy, potato-faced, provincial governess. Wasn't she?

In silence she stared back at him, transfixed by the uncertainty glimmering in his face. The world seemed to tilt a fraction on its axis, and they each looked awkwardly away. 'The medical,' Hester began.

'Wednesday afternoon, perhaps?' proposed the doctor.

'Wednesday afternoon.'

And the world returned to its proper axis.

They walked back toward the house, and at the turn in the path the doctor took his leave. Behind the yew the little spy bit her nails and wondered.

FIVE NOTES

A scratchy veil of fatigue irritated my eyes. My mind was paper thin. I had been working all day and half the night, and now I was afraid to go to sleep.

Was my mind playing tricks on me? It seemed that I could hear a tune. Well, hardly a tune. Just five lost notes. I opened the window to be sure. Yes. There was definitely sound coming from the garden.

Words I can understand. Give me a torn or damaged fragment of text and I can divine what must have come before and what must come after. Or if not, I can at least reduce the number of possibilities to the most likely option. But music is not my language. Were these five notes the opening of a lullaby? Or the dying fall of a lament? It was impossible to say. With no beginning and no ending to frame them, no melody to hold them in place, whatever it was that bound them together seemed precariously insecure. Every time the first note struck up its call, there was a moment of anxiety while it waited to find out whether its companion was still there, or had drifted off, lost for good, blown away by the wind. And so with the third and the fourth. And with the fifth, no resolution, only the feeling that sooner or later the fragile bonds that linked this random set of notes would give way as the links with the rest of the tune had given way, and even this last, empty fragment would be gone for good, scattered to the wind like the last leaves from a winter tree.

Stubbornly mute whenever my conscious mind called upon them to perform, the notes came to me out of nowhere when I was not thinking of them. Lost in my work in the evening, I would become aware that they had been repeating themselves in my mind for some time. Or else in bed, drifting between sleep and wakefulness, I would hear them in the distance, singing their indistinct, meaningless song to me.

But now I really heard it. A single note first, its companions drowned in the rain that rapped at the window. It was nothing, I told myself, and prepared to go back to sleep. But then, in a lull in the rainstorm, three notes raised themselves above the water.

The night was very thick. So black was the sky that only the sound of the rain allowed me to picture the garden. That percussion was the rain on the windows. The soft, random squalls were fresh rain on the lawn. The trickling sound was water coming down gutters and into drains. Drip… drip… drip. Water falling from leaves to the ground. Behind all this, beneath it, between it, if I was not mad or dreaming, came the five notes. La la la la la.

I pulled on boots and a coat and went outside into the blackness.