I was an anxious college senior, wondering where my bread was going to come from after graduation, when I answered a summons from the school's vocations director. Dr. Martin was patiently spending that spring trying to place me and hundreds of other students who asked his help. I seemed to be one of the more hopeless cases. I was about to be a graduate with a teacher's certificate, but my teacher's training semester had not been successful. I had done as good a job as anyone, but, of course, I was given the classes with the worst of adolescent brats who didn't want to learn anything. Unable to face the fact that the student body was so unresponsive to intellectual stimulation, the administration blamed me for the poor results. As a result, nobody was hiring me, and they weren't even listening to my side of the story.

Since Dr. Martin involved himself emotionally in other people's problems, I had grown used to the worried look on his face when I came to see him. You would think he was afraid he himself was desperate for a job. There is no doubt that I was desperate. I had nowhere to go. I simply had to find a way to stand on my own two feet. My parents didn't want an unemployable daughter on their hands after paying all that money for my education. Neither did they expect much of the short, dumpy daughter who was both too plain and too dull to attract any marriage proposals. Even so, I knew in my heart even then that some day I would show them a thing or two. In fact, by this time, I only needed to talk about the novels of William Faulkner to put other people in their intellectual places.

But this morning, when I entered the office, Dr. Martin was smiling as if he had just given me away as a bride to the most glamorous groom in the world.

"Sit down, Sarah! I've got just the job for you!"

Dazed by the news, I sank into the chair in front of Dr. Martin's desk and took the letter he was waving at me. As I read the strange letter, I might have been able to guess what would be in store for me. After all, I had read more than my share of Victorian Gothic novels. But I was too desperate to think of anything but the golden opportunity which had come my way. I can still remember the letter well. It read:

Dear Vocations Director,

Perhaps you can help me, kind sir or madame. I have a unique request, and perhaps, with the help of numbers in your large university and the law of averages, you will have the unique person who can help me out. I am an old woman who lives alone, but not quite all alone, for I have an orphaned adolescent nephew, Trevor by name, who lives with me and receives the most loving care that this poor woman can manage. I hate to denigrate another human being in the least, but I must be truthful above all things, especially for the sake of your unique student. This poor boy is quite a trial to me in my old age. He can't help it, the poor thing. God did not give him the greatest of brains. Not that his parents gave him any understanding. In effect, I have had to start from scratch with him. Usually the educational establishment of our fine country will help a woman such as I who is left with the responsibility of such a child. But in the wilds of Maine, they have let me down. The boy is totally unable to cope with school either intellectually or emotionally. In the end, the board of education has given Trevor a special dispensation from school. The state has kindly offered to finance private tutoring for the poor boy in my own home. I promptly found the services of a woman with a fine reputation who agreed to live with us and work with our son. The Fates were against us. This tutor proved to be most unsuited for Trevor. She did not understand his problems in the slightest. As a result, I am once again in search of the help I most desperately need. Is there a senior girl, pondering her future, who has a teacher's certificate, yet is sufficiently retired in her personality as to live all alone with an old woman and a troubled boy? If you could kindly offer me a recommendation, I would be most grateful for your consideration.

The letter was signed: Eunice McMerton.

I was ready to cry with joy as I read those words. Here was the answer to all my problems. Obviously Dr. Martin knew I was the one ordained by fate to take on the job. All that was needed was for Dr. Martin to send in the required recommendation and then work out the practical details for my coming out to that part of Maine after graduation. I took my diploma on a bright spring day with a light heart, for I knew that I now had a use for the certificate inside the folder. There was a niche for me in life after all. Not a big one, but a niche nonetheless.

I was alone in the world when I stepped off the bus in front of the Central Drug Store in Parkersville, the closest village to Miss McMerton's house. The bus driver kindly pulled my huge suitcase out from under the bus and left me to my devices. Miss McMerton had suggested I take a taxi and she would pay the fare when I arrived at her door. It turned out that there was only one taxi cab for five villages in the area, and I had to wait at the drug store for over half an hour before the driver came. By then, I had fortified myself with a dozen paperbacks, and a stack of magazines, but no heavy reading, for I had done enough of that to last me quite a while. I also bought myself several bags of candy. Not recognizing me, the woman at the counter eyed me curiously, but she asked me no questions. I felt no need to explain myself to her.

I was chewing on a piece of caramel when the taxi finally came. He listened to my instructions with no expression on his face, put my suitcase into the car, and we were off. By the time I reached the house, I was even more in the middle of nowhere. The last sign of life of any kind had been left behind at least five miles away. The driver kept his mouth shut the whole time as if he were afraid to intrude on the silence.

As for the house, it was huge. Twenty people could have lived there comfortably, and probably did during the Gay nineties when Edith Wharton and Henry James were writing. But the multi-week house parties for English and American aristocrats celebrated by these novelists had died out. I felt I was entering a graveyard of the life that lived in their books. The walls of the house were dark and, in many places, covered with ivy. With my knowledgeable eye, I could tell that the house had once been much brighter, but time had darkened it. After all, what could an old woman who did not even have a servant she could send to fetch me, do with such a house? The spacious front lawn was scraggly, but it fell short of having degenerated into a wild field. It appeared to have been incompetently mowed maybe two or three weeks before. Judging from Miss McMerton's letter, this irregular job could easily have been the work of her nephew.

I pressed the button and doorbell resounded through the house. The driver drummed his fingers impatiently against the door as we waited, but even then, he did not say anything to me. At last we heard footsteps. The door was opened, and there stood a gangly teen-age boy with hair long enough to admit him into any rock group. With a face full of apathy, he looked at me up and down as if I were of no account, then asked,

"What is it?," as if he couldn't have cared less what I was there for.

"Is this the McMerton residence?" I asked.

"Yea."

"Then you must be Trevor McMerton."

"I'm Trevor Brady," said the boy.

"Oh, I see. Then I am your--your new tutor, Miss Downing. I'm so glad to meet you."

But I wasn't and he knew it. When I shook his hand, I might as well have been holding a worn-out dishrag.

"My aunt would like to meet you," said the boy.

"Excuse me," said my cab driver, "but I was told that you or this aunt of yours would be paying the cab fare."

"Oh," said the boy, as if he had never heard of money, "I'll tell my aunt."

Leaving the driver to drum his fingers some more on the door post, Trevor led me past a staircase, and down the narrow hall towards the back of the house. On the way, I glanced to my right into what I assume used to be a living room. The place was dark, with the shades drawn, but I could see that the furniture was buried in dust and cobwebs. One thing shone out in that room, a harp of all things!. If Trevor noticed my looking at it or the expression on my face when I saw it, he did not show it.

Towards the end of the hallway, there was a room where Trevor motioned for me to enter. I noticed that there was a small stairway in the back of the house as well.

"Here she is," said Trevor.

I didn't know whom he was speaking to about whom. But there she was: an old woman with jet-black hair who appeared to have squeezed herself dry. Sitting with her back to the window, she looked like a shadow against the light. She did not rise to greet me, neither was she quick to say anything. She looked me over as if I were on trial. Finally, she nodded.

"I'm sure you will do," she said finally, in a deep contralto voice. "You have the look of an understanding soul about you. Understanding problems is the first step towards solving them. That's something we have to teach poor Trevor."

I didn't know what to say. It seemed rude to speak like that about Trevor in Trevor's presence, but there was nothing I could do about that. A sidelong glance at Trevor showed me that the youth was slouching on his feet. He didn't show any reaction to his aunt's words. I bowed my head slightly towards Eunice McMerton to show that I appreciated what she had just said.

"I apologize for the state of the house," Miss McMerton went on to say. "It's what happens when a poor old woman lives alone with a boy who knows little of the art of being useful. You will find that we take care of the small portion we need for ourselves rather well in spite of everything."

In fact, the small room was quite neat and kept up. There was only a trace of the house's musty smell that must have been coming from the other rooms.

"Miss McMerton."

My voice sounded strange to me.

"Yes?"

"The cab driver is waiting for his fare."

"Cab driver? Oh yes, somebody had to drive you out, didn't he? Somebody who isn't enough of a friend to do it for free. Here's a lesson in logic for you, Trevor. What follows from what we have just said?"

Trevor shrugged his shoulders.

"Does it mean that we have to pay the man?"

"I guess so. That's what he said, anyway."

"How much?"

"I don't know."

"When a man says he wants money from you, Trevor, it follows that he wants a certain amount of money. It follows from that that you need to ascertain, I mean find out, what that amount is. You seem not to have thought of that."

"Guess not."

"Hmm."

Miss McMerton picked up a worn change purse from the table next to her, took a couple of twenties out of it and handed them to Trevor.

"Ask the driver for a receipt of the amount," she instructed him, "that is, be sure he writes it down and signs it. I have to account for everything in order to get my money back from the state that I pay out for your special education. Do you understand?"

"Yea."

Trevor took the money and disappeared.

"He won't be a very inspiring pupil, I'm afraid," said Miss McMerton. "At least he's nothing to be afraid of, like the adolescents he went to school with. He's not a bad sort, just troubled, and too frail to stand up to other people. That's why we have to shelter him the way we do. He needs me, and he will need you. Do you see what I mean?"

"Yes, I think I do."

"Good. As I said, I see a discerning look about you. This time I have the right tutor for the boy. You won't push him past his capacity for anything, will you?"

"No."

"I knew you would understand. His last tutor left everything in disarray, not least of all the boy's mind. It will take you weeks just to unscramble that head of his because of what she did. I'll show you the books tonight and let you use your own judgment. I suppose now you would like to see your room?"

"Yes, I would."

After all, I had taken such a long trip, and here I was, standing in front of this woman.

"You'll find it more convenient to use the back stairway. Go on up, and turn to your right--the only way you can turn--and you will see a room with its door open. That will be your room. It has its own bathroom. Trevor will bring up your suitcase as soon as he finishes paying the cab driver. I don't know how long that will be. You might have to be patient. Please come back down for dinner by six o'clock. You'll find our dining room just across the hall from my sitting room here."

She dismissed me then and I went upstairs to find my room. I felt a bit like a puppy which had been tossed into the ocean, but I knew I would get used to things. Miss McMerton seemed an understanding woman. As I reached the top of the stairs, I heard footsteps, or thought I did. I didn't see anybody in the hall who could have made them. I found my room easily enough. As it happened, my suitcase was already there, so perhaps Trevor did not need an entire afternoon to pay a taxi cab driver after all. In contrast to the darkness downstairs, this room was well-lit with two windows and off-white wallpaper. Looking out, I could see that I was living in the middle of the wilderness. If there had ever been a back yard, the wild forest had taken it over. There was a Sleeping Beauty look about the vegetation growing over everything. After I had surveyed the scene for some time, I began to see that there were statues smothered by the plant-life. Seventy years ago, groups of women with their parasols would have been strolling among carefully manicured gardens with bearded gentlemen at their sides.

I took my time unpacking and putting things away. There was a spacious closet with enough room for three times the wardrobe I had with me. Once I had put everything in place, I wound and set the clock which rested on the nightstand. With its ticking to keep me company, I sat in a cane rocking chair to read until suppertime.

I had read pretty far into the trashy novel with little interest when I noticed it was time. I put up the book and left the room. The hallway was rather dark and eerily quiet. I heard no mysterious footsteps this time, but I thought I heard somebody whispering as I moved over to the back stairway I had been instructed to use. I looked behind me, but when I saw nobody, I assumed that I was mistaking the shuffling of my own feet for the supposed whispering of somebody else. I continued on my way down the winding staircase, and as the stair turned, I saw, or thought I saw a woman walking down the hall with her back to me. I could hear her whispering to an invisible companion, but I could not make out any words. I hurried on down the stairs and quickly convinced myself that the sight had to be a trick of vision caused by the atmosphere of the house and the darkness in the hallway.

To my great relief, found the dining room where Eunice McMerton said it was. It was a small, dingy place, with the kitchen just beyond it. Off to the side I could see the real dining room where the twenty house guests would have eaten. That room, too, was buried in dust. Clearly we were using the room where the servants ate. Trevor sauntered in behind me. I had not heard him and did not know where he came from. The table was set informally with the silverware placed randomly at each place setting. I was startled at the thought that ot only was the woman I saw not in the room with us, but there were places set only for three. Trevor disappeared into the kitchen and then reappeared with plates featuring a chicken-and-rice concoction I had never seen. Miss McMerton uttered grace and we began to eat.

We did not speak during the meal. In days to come, I would soon grow used to eating in silence. The meal was surprisingly good, and I wondered who had prepared it. As I was finishing, it was on the tip of my tongue to compliment the cook when Miss McMerton spoke.

"Trevor."

"Yea."

"You show slight improvement. I am sure you were trying hard to impress your new tutor. Even so, I will offer constructive criticism. You used a bit too much basil, and, I think, not quite enough thyme. Perhaps, by cooking just a bit longer, the meat would still have been moist without seeming - wet. Understand?"

"Yea."

So Trevor had cooked the meal! Once Miss McMerton had mentioned it, I realized that the chicken had been a bit runny, as she said. Trevor cleared the table and retired to the kitchen to wash the dishes. I could hear the sound of the water running as he worked. Without thinking to leave the table, Miss McMerton filled me in, in some detail, on Trevor's problems. She recounted his academic deficiencies and also commented on his tendency to get lost in a dream world. She said that he had all kinds of fantasies and that I should be ready to disbelieve everything he said. I must admit, that point made me feel uneasy. How could I talk to a boy who did not know what was real and what wasn't? Still, Miss McMerton showed a confidence in me which I did not feel in myself. She had no doubt that I would be able to do the job. By the time I went upstairs for bed, I was feeling better about myself than I had for as long as I could remember.

It took me a long time for me to sleep that night, my being in a strange house and all. Sometime, in about the middle of the night, I heard footsteps. I thought nothing of it at the time. But then I heard the faint sound of music. It wasn't quite loud enough for me to make sense of the sound, but I finally realized it was the sound of the harp I had seen. There was something comforting about the strains, and finally I fell asleep.

My first session with Trevor was terrible. I assume that the room designated for the purpose used to be the nursery in times past. The faded wallpaper showed designs of cutesy rabbits playing childish games. In the corner of the room, there was a cradle with an old stuffed teddy bear that could have been an original during the time of Teddy Roosevelt. When I entered the room designated for the purpose, I found Trevor looking the perfect picture of apathy with his dull expressionless eyes and far-away look. I tried to start up a conversation just to relax things a little, but he could hardly talk.

"I hear you had a hard time at school," I began.

Trevor dropped his eyes to the floor.

"Guess so."

"I understand," I said. "I often found school difficult, too. A lot of my teachers didn't like me. They thought I would never amount to anything. But as you can see, they were wrong. I have become a teacher, myself, as it turns out."

"Yea."

"Did you have a hard time getting along with the other kids?"

"Guess so."

"Must have been pretty lonely for you."

"Must have."

"Do you like it better out here with just the two of us to talk to?"

"Guess so."

I soon found myself turning our initial conversation into a lesson in speech and grammar. When he said something, I explained how he could turn his utterance into a complete grammatical sentence, then made him speak the sentence. Pretty soon I had him writing out sentences as well in his rather poor handwriting. I felt that getting a subject and a verb in the right proximity to each other out of him was like pulling a tooth out of a chicken. Every word seemed to choke on something inside him. It was a relief to me when the ordeal was over with.

I immediately went downstairs to Eunice's dark room to give her a full report. She listened gravely to what I said and shook her head.

"It is turning out as I said it would.," she said.

"Yes, it is, I'm afraid. I'm doing the best I can. Maybe, with time, it will get better."

"I doubt that. However, when all is said and down, it is important that we be able to say that we did all we could for the poor boy. I think you are to be commended for your patience and your imaginative way of turning his halting conversation into a learning exercise."

"I will keep trying," I said.

"That is all you can do, Sarah."

I returned to my room, encouraged by Eunice's approbation, to do some thinking about what to do for the boy. No sooner had sat down, then I heard footsteps elsewhere on the floor. I jumped a mile, but hen caught myself. Just because the house felt so strange did not mean there had to be ghosts. There were, after all, two people besides myself who lived there and who were capable of making legitimate footsteps. I concluded that I would have felt a little more secure if I knew where Trevor's room was or I was not sure where his room was, or where Miss McMerton slept. She seemed never to leave her sitting room except for meals. In retrospect, I feel that her wearing the same dark dress as the day before should have made more impression on me than it did.

I sat in my rocking chair for some time with the chair's squeaking to help my thoughts along. I analyzed the problems Trevor had shown in his ability, or inability to use language and I began to think of ways to help him along. After a while, I picked up my book to read, but my mind continued to cook new ideas on what could be done for Trevor. I was even feeling sorry for him.

In the end, I gave up reading, and stood up to look out the window. The wild growth was still there, but there was a difference. With a start, I saw one of the statues moving. Then I realized it was Trevor. The boy was not alone. A woman was with him, the same woman I had seen briefly just the night before. I could see that she must have been at least fifty, and that she wore glasses. I began to wonder why I saw so little of her, and why Miss McMerton had said nothing about there being a housemaid. One would have thought she would have been the one to answer the door when I first came. Fascinated, I watched this woman talk with Trevor for quite some time. My heart began to rankle as I saw Trevor smiling a little and seeming to talk rather easily to this woman. Why could he not be as friendly with me? The two disappeared among the trees, the statues and the foliage. I stared at the ruined garden for some time, noting especially one statue of a nearly naked boy with an arm broken off. After some time, the woman and Trevor emerged from the foliage. Trevor suddenly looked at his watch, said something, and darted back into the house. When my eyes moved back from Trevor's movement to the woman, she was gone.

I did my best to think things out. My thought was that the woman did live in the house but was something of a prisoner, much like the family lunatic in a Victorian household who was consigned to the attic so that the rest of the family could pretend that he wasn't there. After all, her whispering to an invisible companion was not sane behavior. That could account for Miss McMerton's reticence about her. But why would Trevor be permitted to see her and walk with her through the ruined garden? For that matter, why would Trevor want to walk through a jungle like that with anybody? The answer could be that he was not allowed to see this woman, but that he saw the family lunatic on the sly. But then, why would he see her in broad daylight? Was his aunt so dense that she could not even look out her window? To my surprise, I realized that was indeed possible. So far, anytime I had sat in that room with Eunice, all of the window shades had been drawn. I wondered if the woman was Trevor's mother. If Trevor himself was so unstable psychologically, there could be a genetic defect in the family affecting the poor boy. That would leave her as good as dead and make Trevor an orphan for practical purposes. That could explain everything. The woman I had seen was a lunatic mother who's troubled son loved her enough to defy his aunt in order to see her. Why, then, did Trevor seem to have no will of his own otherwise? The poor boy could hardly use his brain enough to put a subject and verb together. I would look into the matter further.

I decided against hinting to Miss McMerton that I knew there was a fourth party in the house. I would keep my eyes open and, during my times with Trevor, and cleverly try to draw him out until the truth stumbled off his lips before he knew it. Just thinking of the things I would try made me feel smarter than I had felt the whole time I was struggling with the works of Fielding and Tennyson in college.

The days began to pass. Our isolation was hardly ever broken. A delivery of groceries was made every week. Occasionally other supplies were delivered, usually as discreetly as if the goods were being smuggled into the house. Eunice McMerton kindly saw to it that I was supplied with candy and paperbacks. My hoard of candy got to be quite important as the quality of the meals cooked by Trevor seemed to get worse every day. One afternoon I saw him mowing the back yard with, of all things, a push mower! Needless to say, Trevor left huge islands of uncut grass behind him.

My sessions with Trevor became even worse than I expected. One morning, I had seen his shoes untied for one time too many. I ended up spending the whole morning trying to teach him how to tie his shoes while he seemed to make his knots more tangled with each attempt. Academically, he was proving to be a total loss. If he were trying, I would have found it easier to be patient with him, but he clearly wasn't. When a week had gone by and he still hadn't read an assignment given him, I asked him for an explanation.

"Boring."

"Boring?"

"Yea, boring. Boring is useless."

"Trevor, can you at least explain your problem in a full sentence in the English language?"

"Boring books are bad for my behind."

"That is not in good taste."

"Wait until you taste dinner tonight."

Dinner that night was a meal I would rather forget.

The next morning, when I went in for my talk with Eunice McMerton, I noticed that Trevor was in the living room for a change. He was dusting the furniture and the harp in the sense that he was moving dust around. He was showing any more interest in house work than he was showing in academic endeavors.

Eunice and I seemed to have the same conversation about the hopelessness of the situation every time, but at least she was sympathetic with me, something that Trevor was not. When I came out of her back room, I noticed that Trevor was sitting on one of the sofas. No wonder the dust wasn't getting any better. However, when I put a foot on the winding staircase, I thought I heard Trevor talking. I whirled my head around, but I did not see anybody there. Trevor gave me an odd look and I did not dare keep an eye on him. I resolutely started up the stairs, but when I heard the sound of a woman talking, I looked behind me once more and I swear I saw that woman with the glasses sitting at the other end of the sofa from Trevor. I hurried up the stairs as fast as I could and spent a long time in the rocking chair thinking about the ways my imagination was playing tricks on me.

The day after that, I went out walking by myself, hoping that the fresh air, brisk as it was under cloudy skies, would relieve the gloom of the house. I was feeling fine by the time I was making my return until I saw two people walking towards me. As I came nearer to them, it became apparent that one of them was Trevor and the other was a woman wearing glasses. I slowed my pace and tried to think of what I would say to them when I passed. I must have been looking down quite a lot while I did this thinking, for when I looked up, Trevor was walking all alone. I nodded to him as we passed and he nodded curtly to me, but we did not greet each other. As if this was not enough, I heard Trevor talking softly as I entered the back yard of the house. I looked back, and that woman was walking by Trevor's side once again. When I heard her speak to Trevor in return, I ran into the house and up to my room as fast as I could go. I spent the rest of the afternoon in the rocking chair, working out a way to get to the bottom of the mystery of this woman who remained hidden in the house.

"Can you name at least one person who has been important to you?" I asked Trevor.

He clamped up right away. As I thought, I had hit a sore point. I would have to proceed cautiously.

"It can be anybody in your life," I added. "Is it your aunt?"

"She's important."

"Do you like her?"

"Okay, I guess."

"Glad to hear that. I like her myself. She is trying hard to take good care of you."

"Yea."

"So, would you say she is the person you like best, or is there someone else you like, or used to like?"

"Don't know."

"I'll tell you why I am asking. One good exercise in writing is to write a character sketch of somebody. To help you out, I thought it might be easier for you if we talked about it first. That way you can get a few ideas straight in your mind before you try to put them on paper. See what I mean?"

"Yea."

He was not enthusiastic, but at least I was explaining things clearly enough so that even he could understand.

"Now it is usually easier, or at least more pleasant to write a sketch of somebody you like than of somebody you don't like. So, is there somebody you know, or used to know, whom you like, or liked, that you would like to write about."

"I don't know."

"Come on, Trevor. Liking somebody is nothing to be ashamed of, even if it might be a person who has--let us say--has problems. In fact, if one is nice to a person who has problems, that's pretty good, don't you think?"

"Guess so."

"So is there anybody you would like to write your sketch about?"

"Guess so."

"Don't forget to include the subject: I guess so."

"I guess so."

"Good. Can you tell me who it is?"

"Miss Malory."

Now I was more puzzled than ever. If the mysterious woman was an insane mother, her name would be Brady. Was my theory wrong? Or was Trevor more clever at trying to fool me than I thought?

"Can you tell me who she is?"

"My last tutor."

I was dumbfounded. I had to make sure I didn't show it, of course. Here was the woman who had exacerbated the boy's difficulties in life. Now I realized that she had corrupted Trevor so badly that he actually liked her enough to single her out as the most important person in his life. I had a more uphill battle to save him than I thought. Maybe if I got him to write the sketch, I would get a clue to the problem and would be able to use that to help him see why she should not be so important to him after all.

I asked Trevor to tell me what his sessions with Miss Malory were like, but I could not get him to say anything coherent about them. Obviously the woman had confused his mind about reality to such an extent that Trevor could not remember what had occurred at these times. His recount was all a jumble of scattered facts on British history and scraps of Socrates and other thinkers. Nothing was co-ordinated in his mind. I had better luck getting him to describe this Miss Malory as a person. He said that she was a short woman with graying hair who wore glasses. Trevor even managed to remember that she had a large mole on her right cheek. Trevor was not, however, able to articulate what he liked about her. He could only throw out disconnected words like "nice", and "stimulating." The latter was the longest word I had heard him use up to that time. But when I asked Trevor its meaning, he could only say he knew what he meant but couldn't explain it.

I awaited his completion of the assignment with impatience, and the result was chilling. Through the forest of bad grammar and disconnected sentences, a few of which were oddly creative, I gained an account of a boy's destruction at the hands of a ruthless woman. Everything was a jumble of names and words that Trevor clearly did not understand. In one sentence, he threw together Melville's Moby Dick and the notion of symphonic structure in Romantic music. It made no sense. Worst of all, the boy clearly liked the woman who had drawn him away from any sense of reality. I searched my mind for everything I had learned in my psychology classes to try and figure out the boy's problem. I concluded that schizophrenia was a possible diagnosis. Trevor was easily seduced away from reality because he could not accept the real world.

"How are your tutoring sessions going, Trevor?" Eunice McMerton asked the boy at the supper table that same evening.

"All right, I guess."

"Are you learning anything?"

"Think so."

"Who is doing the thinking?" I asked him.

"Me."

"'Me' is in the objective case," I explained. "You can say 'Miss Downing gave me a lesson in grammar,' but if you want to say that you are learning grammar--which you are not doing successfully at this time--you must say 'I am learning grammar.'"

"I am learning grammar," Trevor repeated with a sarcastic look to his face.

"That's better. Do you understand?"

"Guess so. I mean, I guess so."

"I know it's hard to learn so many things at once," I said soothingly. "It probably isn't fair to turn dinner into another tutoring session. But you are beginning to get the hang of it."

"It's a good thing Trevor lives in a sheltered environment," observed Eunice McMerton. "Think of how merciless a group of classmates would be to a boy as sensitive as Trevor, who is trying so hard to learn at his own pace. I may not live forever, but I have many more years ahead of me than one might think, to look at me. Trevor will be able to depend on me for a long time to come."

Trevor did not even have the kindness to look at his aunt, let alone thank her for her words. He picked at his face as if he wanted to gouge out a piece of himself. As hor his dinner, he left his plate untouched. Since the chicken had been cooked with a little more curry than was appetizing, I must confess I didn't finish my meal either.

In the days following, I made no progress in tracking down the woman who was haunting Trevor. I listened carefully during my many quiet moments for sounds of someone living a floor above me. I finally even worked up the courage to explore the rest of the house. The problem for me turned out not to be spooks, but dust. Except for the very few rooms we used, nothing in the vast house had been cleaned out in years. After stirring up clouds of dust in several rooms and sneezing so much I thought my head would snap off, I gave up. There was no trace of a woman hidden away somewhere. I still had a theory to fall back on, however. Perhaps Trevor's mother, or whoever it was, lived nearby and came to visit in secret.

There was only one point of interesting of my search. I took a close look at the harp in the living room. To my amazement, the harp was polished. It was the one thing that was not covered with dust. Since Trevor was the only one who even tried to dust this room, the state of the harp was baffling. I thought back on my first night when I thought I heard the sound of the harp in the middle of the night. Again, I had no clue as to who could be playing the harp except for the mysterious woman, who perhaps, was the tutor Eunice had fired and who had then sneaked back into the house.

After one of my conferences with Eunice McMerton, I noticed that Trevor seated in the dining room, where he was reading a book at the table. Apparantly he was waiting for something to cook and had some time to kill.

"What are you reading?" I asked.

"Hamlet," he answered.

I am sure I raised my eyebrows.

"That's a challenging play."

"Yea, Hamlet's challenging all right. His mother. His uncle. Laertes."

"What about his mother, his uncle, and Laertes?" I prompted.

"Challenging. I mean, Hamlet's challenging them."

"I see. Do you understand what's going on?"

"Guess so."

"It's hard to understand that play, you know."

"I know. Can't understand everything right away. That's what Miss Malory said. You think you understand everything means you don't understand anything."

No wonder the boy couldn't think, having had a tutor who said things like that to such an impressionable boy.

"If you find the play confusing," I said, "don't feel bad. After all, the play causes confusion about who is really crazy and who isn't. Know what I mean?"

"Guess so. Hamlet's crazy, and he might not be. Could be anything."

I received an inspiration. "Is Hamlet a play your last tutor had you read?"

"Yea."

Then I knew. What better play could she have picked than that one if she wanted to confuse an already bewildered adolescent boy!

"You might be better off reading something not quite so confusing," I suggested. "You should try Treasure Island. That's exciting and it's is more of a boy's book."

"Read it already."

What could I say? He was pretending to be capable of reading high-brow literature when he still couldn't put a proper sentence together in a conversation with me.

It was after a violent thunder storm that I finally made progress in my detective work concerning Trevor's last tutor. I watched the flashes of lightning and the sheets of rain blowing across the back yard. The electricity went out so there was nothing else for me to do but watch. It was a small, if violent storm center, and was soon gone. Then, of all things, I saw Trevor walk out the back door. Here was a chance for me to test my theory. I would find out who he was going out to see. Handily, I was already dressed in slacks, so I could easily follow him through the tangle. If he should happen to spot me, I could always say I had decided to take a walk myself. Nothing wrong with that.

So I followed Trevor for some distance. What had once been the back yard was left behind us and soon we were in the woods. Trevor was clearly walking to a specific place for a specific purpose. I braved the whole journey and received a strange reward for my trouble. Rather suddenly, Trevor dropped to his knees in the middle of nowhere. I thought he had fallen. Still, I had the sense to walk softly and carefully even though I expected he needed my help. I heard him start to speak. It was on my tongue to answer his call, but I didn't. He wasn't facing me, and he wasn't writhing in pain from a twisted ankle or anything. He was doing something. So I sneaked up on him, and found him repairing a crude cross he had made out of a pair of sticks and some wire. He placed the cross on a mound, all the time looking about him as if hoping or fearing that somebody might be there. He was visiting a grave! His mother's?

"What am I to do?" he asked nobody in particular, unless the dead person was somebody. "She thinks I'm a - a nincompoop. I can't - understand anything. She wants me to be a - a baby, too. She's so full of subjects and verbs I can't think!"

Then the two-faced brat burst into tears. To think he had pretended to be half-way polite and respectful to my face when all the time he was hating me for all my best efforts. So there he was, crying his heart out to his poor deranged, deceased, mother.

Needless to say, I had words with Eunice McMerton that night. Her sitting room was dark with only a candle to shed some light. It made her face look more yellow than ever. When I told her what I had seen and heard, she froze, as if she had been turned into a statue. She sat, rigid for some time before she spoke.

"You have to expect such things of the boy," said Miss McMerton. "He is thinking that you are stupid because he does not understand that he is the stupid one. It's--what do we call it now?"

"Projection."

"Yes, projection. He projects his condition on to others so as to avoid facing the truth about himself. That is why he pretends to read Hamlet, for example. But this visit of his, is quite serious. You see, there are no graves around here."

"Then, it isn't his mother?" I asked.

"It is nobody. The whole thing is delusion from beginning to end. As I said, there are no graves on the property and there are no graveyards anywhere near this place. Trevor has made a grave himself for a nonexistent person, a grave where nobody is buried."

"The death-wish," I said. "He can't face life."

"No, he can't. And there is nothing we can do about it until he is willing to face the truth of his condition."

"No, there isn't."

The two of his commiserated at length about poor Trevor before I decided it was time for me to retire for the night.

"By the way, I couldn't help noticing the harp in the front living room," I said on my way out. "Do you play it?"

"Nobody plays the harp anymore. Not since my sister Cecilia died thirty years ago. I often hear her playing in my dreams."

That night could not sleep. As I lay in bed, I heard footsteps in the hallway. They were very quiet, as if somebody were sneaking about the house. Determined to get further to the bottom of the whole thing, I got out of bed, pulled on my night gown and left the room.

I saw nobody in the hall so I decided to follow in the direction of the footsteps. I groped my way through the darkness as best I could and ended up at the top of the front staircase. I stopped there and listened for more sounds. For the longest time, all was quiet. Then I heard the sound of music. It was the harp! Either Eunice McMerton was a liar, or it was Trevor, or it was the woman hidden in the house! I quietly made my way down the steps.

I turned the corner so as to sneak a look into the living room, I was vindicated! There was Trevor playing the harp. Standing next to him was that woman. I could not see her face clearly, but she was wearing glasses, and there was nobody else it could have been. Trevor was playing an Irish- sounding melody. It sounded rather nice, and I would have enjoyed listening if it hadn't been for that lunatic woman standing there. She stopped him in the middle of a song and whispered some words into his ear. Trevor seemed annoyed, as well he might. As she spoke, the woman turned her face just enough so that I could see it more fully. There was a large mole on her right cheek! Everything became clear to me. The evil tutor had coming back to twist the boy's mind to the limit! I watched with mingled horror and fascination as that woman plagued Trevor for song after song, never allowing him just to enjoy the music. At last, Trevor stopped playing and got up to leave. When that woman embraced the boy, I thought she would swallow him up. Next thing I knew, the woman was gone. Trevor walked in my direction, but being too smart for him, I hid myself easily and he never noticed me as he sneaked back up the stairs.

I was a nervous wreck the next day, to say the least. I didn't know how to begin with Trevor when he appeared for his lesson. I tried going over the geometry theorem he was supposed to be learning, but he was not listening. With the events of the night before flooding my mind I almost didn't know myself what I was saying.

"Let's stop a moment, since I'm starting to confuse you," I suggested.

"Okay."

I leaned back in my chair. Trevor dropped his head over his arm as if he wanted to go to sleep. I could understand that since he had been up in the middle of the night.

"Do you like music?" I asked him.

"Sort of."

"Hmm. Does your aunt play the harp?"

"No."

"Hmm. I took me a long time to fall asleep last night. Some time in the middle of the night, I heard someone playing the harp. That must have been you, then, since you're the only other one who lives here."

"Guess so."

"How'd you learn?"

"Miss Malory."

"What about her?"

"She taught me."

"Did you enjoy learning the instrument?"

"Guess so."

"Do you ever get to see Miss Malory?"

Trevor stiffened and sat bolt upright. I had hit the sore spot.

"Sort of," he finally said with a far-away look in his eyes.

"What do you mean, sort of? Does she ever come back to visit you?"

"Sort of."

"How can anybody 'sort of' visit you? Either she visits you or she doesn't."

"Guess so."

Then he clamped his mouth shut. I couldn't get another word out of him. I had learned, however, that Trevor was not to be trusted.

That afternoon, I visited Eunice McMerton. I was beginning to wonder what she did with herself in her sitting room. There was no television, and no radio. I never saw her with a book, a magazine, or even a newspaper. In fact, the whole world could have blown up except for her house and I wouldn't have known it. I had decided that I had to tell the old woman that the tutor who had deranged her nephew so badly was paying secret visits to Trevor in the middle of the night. The news affected her more strongly than I had suspected it would. For a moment I thought she would have a heart attack. But she recovered from the shock admirably.

"You saw her?" she gasped.

"Yes."

"That boy has more power to fantasize than I thought. You see, Miss Malory can't be here. It is impossible that she was visiting Trevor last night, or any other night."

"Why is that?"

"Miss Malory is dead."

"She died here?"

"No I told you, I dismissed her. I dismissed her suddenly, so I had to send a check for the money I owed her through the mail. It was returned to me marked 'deceased'. What she could have died of is beyond me."

"Then Trevor is seeing a ghost?" I cried.

Miss McMerton looked at me as if I might be a messenger from the dead.

"You don't believe in ghosts, do you?" she asked me.

"Of course not."

"Good. I told you, it's Trevor's delusion. I was afraid this might happen. The woman gained such a strong hold over his psyche that Trevor still wishes to see her. He fantasizes about her so strongly that not only does he think that he sees her, but the image of his mind materializes before him. Such things can happen with troubled adolescents. It's a version of the poltergeist phenomenon."

"Let's hope Trevor doesn't start tipping lamps and tables," I said.

"I think he will stick to his images. We must stay alert if we are to save the boy from himself."

I will never forget the night that followed. Remembering Miss McMerton's admonition to remain alert, I did not go to bed. As I sat up late, reading and munching candy, until I heard the suspicious sounds of footsteps. I couldn't help but suspect that Trevor was stepping out of his room to check and see if my light was still on. Once I had caught on to him, I slyly turned the light off and waited.

I was rewarded by the sound of more footsteps. This time Trevor, or whoever it was, walked past my room and down the back stairs. I listened for what followed. I thought I heard the sound of the back door opening and closing. I ran to my back window looked out. There was Trevor, all dressed, coat and all and carrying a suitcase, standing on the back yard, waiting. Suddenly, that woman was with him. She must have been hiding behind a bush to make so fast an appearance. Trevor ran up to her, and the woman devoured him in her embrace, the embrace of Death. There was no time to lose. I grabbed my coat and flew down the stairs. I vacillated momentarily over whether or not to run out and get Trevor or try and rouse his aunt first. Only then did I realize I had never found out where the old woman slept. Not knowing what else to do, I knocked on the door of her sitting room. There was no answer at first. I was about to knock again when I heard Eunice McMerton's voice. I opened the door. There she was, still sitting up in her chair in the dark room.

"Trevor's gone!" I blurted. "That woman, the tutor, came for him. We've got to call the police! Where's the phone?"

Miss McMerton's face was the perfect picture of horror in that dark room with just a trickle on moonlight for light.

"There is no phone," said Miss McMerton. "There never has been."

"Then what do we do?" I asked frantically.

Miss McMerton stood up. I could see she was trembling.

"GET HIM BACK!" she yelled in a voice loud enough to carry through several centuries.

I ran out of the house, looking frantically for Trevor and that woman.

"Trevor!" I called.

There was no answer. Eunice McMerton hobbled outside the door.

"There he is!" she cried, pointing her finger at him.

Then I saw Trevor for myself. He was alone now. I ran after him with little hope of catching him as I am hardly the athletic type. But Trevor was handicapped by his suitcase. I gained some ground and then he fell. I pressed my advantage and grabbed a tight hold on him.

"Where do you think you're going?" I asked him.

"Away from you."

"How can you possibly leave your poor old aunt?" Eunice McMerton asked him as she came up behind me. "Don't you realize that you will never be able to make it on your own out there?"

"That's not what Miss Malory said to me."

"Don't you realize that you are suffering from crazy delusions?" I asked Trevor.

"It is not possible that Miss Malory is still speaking with you in reality," said Eunice in a voice of ice.

Eunice wrapped both her arms around Trevor's body and, together, we pulled him to his feet.

"Come on back into the house," I urged in as soothing a voice as I could manage.

"We will take care of you, my poor, deluded boy," said Trevor's aunt.

Trevor's spirit seemed to have crumbled and he let us lead him back to the house, leaving the suitcase where it had fallen to the ground. We were just a few steps away from the back porch when suddenly, I saw that woman standing in front of the door.

"Miss Malory!" Trevor cried.

"Cheryl!" cried a stricken Eunice McMerton.

"Trevor, make this projection of yours go away," I ordered the boy, my voice trembling.

"I can't," said Trevor. "She comes when she wills."

"What do I have to do to banish you from Trevor's life?" Eunice asked the apparition. "Cannot even the grave stop you?"

The woman walked down the steps towards us. I wanted badly to run away but I did not know where to run to. There seemed no escape. The woman came closer and closer until she was almost on top of us.

"Is she haunting you because you killed her?" I asked Eunice

"Yes," Trevor answered.

"I tried to save you from her," said his aunt.

"You mean you did kill her!" I gasped. "And you buried her back in the forest!"

I don't know why I accused the old woman of the murder. I think the strange events had unhinged me and it seemed to best way to save my own skin as that woman closed in on the three of us. It almost backfired. I saw the flash of a knife in Eunice's hand and I was too slow to react and ward it off. I would have been killed if Trevor had not been quicker. By the time my brain could process what had happened, Trevor had the old woman pinned to the ground. She cried out and lost consciousness. The woman who had haunted us was gone.

"Let's go," said Trevor.

"Dressed like this?" I asked.

"Just hurry."

"Is she dead?"

"I don't think so."

Whether Eunice McMerton was dead or alive, I wanted nothing more to do with that family or that house. I quickly threw a few things I really wanted in my suitcase, got dressed and ran back out of the house. Trevor said nothing. He merely nodded to me and we walked towards the road where we thumbed for a ride. We were luckier than I thought we would be and a truck driver gave us a lift into Parkersville where we took the next bus out of town.

 Proceed to Interlude the Fourth

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