CHAPTER TEN

My doubts and worries weakened over the next few days. I spent time with the children as usual and found them as charming as always. There was no reappearance of Quint or Miss Jessel to keep my doubts strong. The thing I worried the most about now was that the children might become aware of my change in feelings about them. They had become a thousand times more interesting to me than before. I felt that it must have been obvious at times, but they did not seem to notice. I became very aware of my own behavior, my movements, my looks, the words I spoke. I wondered at all times if the children could see anything different in me. Even though this troubled me, I still felt wonderful around them. Their magical ability to make me happy had not lessened at all.

They treated me very well. At the time, their kindness toward me seemed too natural for me to think they might have some other purpose. After all, most children who are given a lot of love and attention will behave in the same way. They would tell me wonderful little stories and play silly games with me. They dressed up like baby animals and acted out the funniest parts of the books they were reading. They greatly improved in their studies. Miles, especially, seemed to make progress. In fact, he did so well, that I began to think that finding another school for him was less important. If I had given it a little more thought, it might have seemed to me that there was something unnatural about his knowledge. It seemed that someone or something extraordinary was helping him to learn so well. All the time, I kept trying to guess why he might have been dismissed from his school. I could find nothing to explain it.

Both children had excellent ears for music. I could sing any song I knew and they would be able to sing it back to me after hearing it only once. Often we would perform parts of plays or we would turn a lesson into a play, in order to help the children remember it better. The children seemed to enjoy this, especially Miles.

Little Flora absolutely loved her elder brother. She would follow his every action and then try to do it herself. They loved one another very much. I never saw them argue or fight. They treated one another with respect. Seeing this made me so happy. I, however, was not so blinded with happiness not to notice that they had had little secret ways of fooling me. One of them would get all of my attention and then the other would disappear for a short time. They did not do this very often, so I did not let it bother me very much. Later on, however, it became a regular practice of theirs.

Reading what I have written so far, I can see that I have been purposefully delaying my story. I have reached the very middle. Now, the time has come to tell about the truly terrible days I spent at that house. By continuing, I am forcing myself to painfully relive those fears and emotions I felt then. The only thing left to do is to finish it and be done with it.

I remembered reading in bed one evening. The only light in the room came from the two candles I had burning next to my bed. I had taken a book from the library. It was Fielding's Amelia. It was not a book that I normally would have wanted to read, but libraries can awaken people's interests that they never knew they had. I remembered enjoying the story quite a lot, when suddenly I felt something was wrong. I lifted my eyes up from the book and looked about the room. Everything seemed in order. A wind blew through the window and caused the curtain to move a little. Flora was fast asleep in her bed next to mine. My eyes finally rested upon the door. I had the feeling that something or someone was in the house.

I immediately jumped up from my bed, set the book down on the nightstand and taking a candle with me, went out into the hallway. Thinking of Flora, I made sure to lock the door to my room when I left. My candle did not create much light for me to see in the darkness of the hallway. I walked on toward the main entrance to the house. When I finally reached the staircase and prepared to walk down, I noticed a few things. My candle suddenly went out and from the window I could see the earliest light of morning. Not exactly sunlight, but a dark, blue glow. Then, I saw someone standing on the stairs below me. It was Peter Quint. He had apparently stopped on his way toward the second floor and was now staring at me. He looked at me in the same way he had from the tower. I stared back at him. He was very much alive to me at that moment, and very much a threat. And yet, surprisingly, I did not feel frightened, We continued to stare at one another for a very long time. If he had been a killer or thief, one of us would have said something. But not a word passed between us. I began to wonder whether he were really alive. He looked so real at that moment. Then I began to wonder whether or not I was still alive.

Quint then turned around and slowly began to walk back down the staircase. As he walked, he gradually disappeared into the dark, blue light of the early morning.

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