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Haunted.

PREVIEW:

“Let's start with the end,” Mr. Whittier would say.

He'd say, “Let's start with a plot spoiler.”

The meaning of life. A unified field theory. The big reason why.

We'd all be sitting in the Arabian Nights gallery, sitting cross-legged on silk pillows and cushions stained with spots of mildew. Chairs and sofas that stunk of dirty laundry when you sat down and pushed the air out of them. There, under the high-up, echoing dome, painted in jewel colors that would never see daylight, never fade, among the brass lamps hanging down, each with a red or blue or orange lightbulb shining through the cage of patterns cut out of the brass, Mr. Whittier would sit there, eating dried something in crunching handfuls from a Mylar bag.

He'd say, “Let's get the big, big surprise over and done with.”

The earth, he'd say, is just a big machine. A big processing plant. A factory. That's your big answer. The big truth.

Think of a rock polisher, one of those drums, goes round and round, rolls twenty-four/seven, full of water and rocks and gravel. Grinding it all up. Round and round. Polishing those ugly rocks into gemstones. That's the earth. Why it goes around. We're the rocks. And what happens to us—the drama and pain and joy and war and sickness and victory and abuse—why, that's just the water and sand to erode us. Grind us down. To polish us up, nice and bright.

Haunting of Hill House.

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Eleanor awakened to find the blue room gray and colorless in the morning rain. She found that she had thrown the quilt off during the night and had finished sleeping in her usual manner, with her head on the pillow. It was a surprise to find that she had slept until after eight, and she thought that it was ironic that the first good night’s sleep she had had in years had come to her in Hill House. Lying in the blue bed, looking up into the dim ceiling with its remote carved pattern, she asked herself, half asleep still, What did I do; did I make a fool of myself? Were they laughing at me?
Thinking quickly over the evening before, she could remember only that she had—must have—seemed foolishly, childishly contented, almost happy; had the others been amused to see that she was so simple? I said silly things, she told herself, and of course they noticed. Today I will be more reserved, less openly grateful to all of them for having me.

Let the Right One In.

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THURSDAY
5 November

Morgan's feet were freezing. The cold spell had arrived at about the same time as the submarine foundered, and it had only gotten worse during the past week. He loved his old cowboy boots but he couldn't fit thick socks in them. And anyway, there was a hole in one sole. Sure he could get some Chinese takeout for a hundred but he'd rather be cold.
It was nine-thirty in the morning and he was on his way home from the subway. He had been to the junkyard in Ulvsunda to see if they needed a hand, maybe make a couple of hundred, but business was bad. No winter boots this year either. He had had a cup of coffee with the guys in the office, which was overflowing with spare parts, catalogs, and pinup calendars, then headed to the subway.

A Bewitching Compulsion.

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CHAPTER FIVE
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Clare switched off her blow-dryer and ran her fingers through her clean hair, fluffing out the blunt-cut ends so that it framed her face in a thick bob. She had showered and dusted herself with fragrant talc and put on her nightgown and warm, wine-red robe. Now she intended to relax for the rest of the evening with a good book to ease the restless tension of her day.

It was the fourth day of the Deverenkos' stay at Moonlight, and Clare had found it just as difficult as the previous three.