It is done. The experiment has begun.

The separation was painful, and if I did not know the good that is to come of it, I should have thought myself cruel for inflicting it upon them. Emmeline sobs fit to break her heart. How is it for Adeline? For she is the one who is to be the most altered by the experience of independent life. I shall know tomorrow when we have our first meeting.

There is no time for anything but research, but I have managed to do one additional useful thing. I fell into conversation today with the schoolteacher outside the post office. I told her that I had spoken to John about the truant and that she should come to me if the boy is absent again without reason. She says she is used to teaching half a class at harvesttime when the children go spud-hucking with their parents in the fields. But it is not harvesttime, and the child was weeding the parterres, I told her. She asked me which child it was, and I felt foolish at not being able to tell her. The distinctive hat isno help atall in identifying him, since children do not wear hats in class.Icould go back to John but doubt he will give me more information than last time.

I am not writing my diary much lately. Ifind that after the writing, late at night, of the reportsI prepare every day about Emme line'sprogress, I am frequently too tired to keep up withmyown record of my activities. And I do want to keep arecord of these daysand weeks, for I am engaged, with the doctor, on very important research, and in years to come, whenI havegone away and left thisplace, I may wish to look back and remember. Perhaps myefforts withthe doctor will open some door for me into further work of this kind, forI find the scientific and intellectual work more engrossing and more satisfying than anything I have ever done. This morning for instance, Dr. Mauds ley and I had the most stimulating conversation on the subject ofEmme line's use ofpronouns. She is showing an ever-greater inclination tospeak to me, and her ability to communicate improves every day. Yet the one aspectofherspeechthat is resistant to development is the persistence of the first person plural. "We went to the woods, " she will say, and alwaysI correct her: "I went to the woods. "Like a little parrot she will repeat "I" after me, but in the very next sentence, "We saw akitten in the garden, " or some such thing.

The doctor and I are much intrigued bythispeculiarity. Is it simplyan ingrained habit ofspeech carried over from her twin language into English, a habit that will in time right itself? Or does the twinness go so deep in herthat even in her language she is resistant to the idea of having aseparate identity from that of her sister? I told the doctor about imaginary friends thatsomany disturbed children invent, and together we explored the implications ofthis. What if the child's dependence onher twin is so great that the separation causes a mental trauma such that the damaged mind provides solace bythe creation of an imaginary twin, afantasy companion? We arrived at no satisfactory conclusion but parted with the satisfaction of having located another area of future study: linguistics.

What with Emmeline, and the research, and the general housekeeping that needs to be done, I find I am sleeping too little, and despite my reserves of energy, which I maintain by healthy diet and exercise, I can distinguish the symptoms of sleep deprivation. I irritate myself by putting things down and forgetting where I have left them. And when I pick up my book at night, my bookmark tells me that the previous night I must have turned the pages blindly, for I have no recollection at all of the events on the page or the one before. These small annoyances and my constant tiredness are the price I pay for the luxury of working alongside the doctor on ourproject.

However, that is not what I wanted to write about. I meant to write about our work. Not ourfindings, which are documented thoroughly in our papers, but the pattern of our minds, the fluency with which we understand each other, the way in which our instant understanding permits us almost to do without words. When we are both engaged in plotting the changes in sleep patterns of our separate subjects, for instance, he may want to draw my attention to something, and he does not need to speak, for I can feel his eyes on me, his mind calling to me, and I raise my head from my work, quite ready for him to point out whatever it is.

Skeptics might considerthis pure coincidence, or suspect me of magnifying a chance incidence into a habitual occurrence by imagination, but I have come to see that when two people work closely together on a joint project- two intelligent people, I mean to say-a bond of communication develops between them that can enhance their work. All the while they arejointly engaged on a task, they are aware of, acutely sensitive to, each other's tiniest movements, and can interpret them accordingly. This, even without seeing the infinitesimal movements. And it is no distraction from the work. On the contrary, it enhances it, for our speed of understanding is quickened. Let me add one simple example, small in itself but standing in for countless others. Thismorning, I was intent upon some notes, trying to see a pattern of behavior emerging from his jottings on Adeline. Reaching for a pencil to make an annotation in the margin, I felt the doctor's hand brush mine and he passed the pencil I sought into it. I looked up to thank him, but he was deeply engrossed in his own papers, quite unconscious of what had happened. In such a way we work together: minds, hands, always in conjunction, always anticipating the other's needs and thoughts. And when we are apart, which we are for most of the day, we are always thinking of small details relating to the project, or else observations about the broader aspects of life and science, and even this shows how well suited we arefor this joint undertaking.

But I am sleepy, and though I could write at length of the joys of coauthoring a research paper, it is really time to go to bed.

I have not written for nearly a week and do not offer my usual excuses. My diary disappeared.

I spoke to Emmehne about it-kindly, severely, with offers ofchocolate and threats of punishment (and yes, my methods have broken down, but frankly, losing a diary touches one most personally)-but she continues to deny everything. Her denials were consistent and showed many signs of good faith. Anyone not knowing the circumstances would have believed her. Knowing her as I do, I found the theft unexpected myselfandfind it hard to explain it within the general progress she has made. She cannot read and has no interest in other people's thoughts and inner lives, other thanso far as they affect her directly. Why should she want it? Presumably it is the shine of the lock that tempted her her passion for shiny things is undiminished, and I do not try to reduce it; it is usually harmless enough. But I am disappointed in her.

If I were to judge by her denials and her character alone, I would conclude that she was innocent of the theft. But the fact remains that it cannot have been anyone else. John? Mrs. Dunne? Even supposing that the servants should have wanted to steal my diary, which I don't believe for a minute, I remember clearly that they were busy elsewhere in the house when it went missing. In case I was wrong about this, I brought the conversation around to their activides, and John confirms that Mrs. Dunne was in the kitchen all morning ("making a right racket, too, " he told me). She confirms thatJohn was at the coach house mending the car ("noisy oldjob "). It cannot have been either of them.

And so, having eliminated all the other suspects I am obliged to believe that it was Emmeline.

And yet I cannot shake off my misgivings. Even now I can picture her face-so innocent in appearance, so distressed at being accused-and I am forced to wonder, is there some additionalfactor atplay here thatI have failed to take into account? When I view the matterin this light it gives rise to an uneasiness in me: I am suddenly overwhelmed by the presentiment that none of my plans is destined to come to fruition. Something has been against me ever since I cameto this house! Something thatwants to thwart me and frustrate me in every project I undertake! I have checked and rechecked my thinking, retraced every step in my logic, I canfind noflaw, yet still I find myself beset by doubt… What is it that I am failing to see?

Reading over this last paragraph I am struck by the most uncharacteristic lack of confidence in my tone. It is surely only tiredness that makes me think thus. An unrested mind is prone to wander into unfruitful avenues; it is nothing that a good night's sleep cannot cure.

Besides, it is all over now. Here I am, writing in the missing diary. I locked Emmeline in her room for four hours, the next day for six, and she knew the day after, it would be eight. On the second day, shortly after I came down from unlocking her door I found the diary on my desk in the schoolroom. She must have slipped down very quietly to put it there; I did not see her go past the library door to the schoolroom even though I left the door open deliberately. But it was returned. So there is no room for doubt, is there?

I am so tired and yet I cannot sleep. I hear steps in the night, but when I go to my door and look into the corridor there is no one there.

I confess it made me uneasy-makes me uneasy still-to think that this little book was out of my possession even for two days. The thought of another person reading my words is most discomforting. I cannot help but think how another person would interpret certain things I have written, for when I write for myself only, and know perfectly well the truth of what I write, I am perhaps less careful of my expression, and writing at speed, may sometimes express myself in a way that could be misinterpreted by another who would not have my insight into what I really mean. Thinking over some of the things I have written (the doctor and the pencil-such an insignificant event- hardly worth writing about at all really), I can see that they might appear to a stranger in a light rather different from what I intended, and I wonder whether I should tear out these pages and destroy them. Only I do not want to, for these are the pages that I most want to keep, to read later, when I am old and gone from here, and think back to the happiness of my work and the challenge of our great project.

Why should a scientific friendship not be a source of joy? It is no less scientific for that, is it?

But perhaps the answer is to stop writing altogether, for when I do write, even now as I write this very sentence, this very word, I am aware of a ghost reader who leans over my shoulder watching my pen, who twists my words andperverts my meaning, and makes me uncomfortable in the privacy of my own thoughts.

It is very aggravating to be presented to oneself in a light so different from the familiar one, even when it is clearly a false light. I will not write any more.

ENDINGS

THE GHOST IN THE TALE

Thoughtfully I lifted my eyes from the final page of Hester's diary. A number of things had struck my attention as I had been reading it, and now that I had finished, I had the leisure to consider them more methodically.

Oh, I thought.

Oh.

And then, OH!

How to describe my eureka? It began as a stray what if, a wild conjecture, an implausible notion. It was, well, not impossible perhaps, but absurdl For a start-

About to begin marshaling the sensible counterarguments, I stopped dead in my tracks. For my mind, racing ahead of itself in a momentous act of premonition, had already submitted to this revised version of events. In a single moment, a moment of vertiginous, kaleidoscopic bedazzlement, the story Miss Winter had told me unmade and remade itself, in every event identical, in every detail the same-yet entirely, profoundly different. Like those images that reveal a young bride if you hold the page one way, and an old crone if you hold it the other. Like the sheets of random dots that disguise teapots or clown faces or Rouen cathedrals if you can only learn to see them. The truth had been there all along, only now had I seen it.

There followed a long hour of musing. One element at a time, taking all the different angles separately, I reviewed everything I knew. Everything I had been told and everything I had discovered. Yes, I thought. And yes, again. That, and that, and that, too. My new knowledge blew life into the story. It began to breathe. And as it did so, it began to mend. The jagged edges smoothed themselves. The gaps filled themselves in. The missing parts were regenerated. Puzzles explained themselves, and mysteries were mysteries no longer.

At last, after all the tale telling and all the yarn spinning, after the smoke screens and the trick mirrors and the double bluffs, I knew.

I knew what Hester saw that day she thought she saw a ghost.

I knew the identity of the boy in the garden.

I knew who attacked Mrs. Maudsley with a violin.

I knew who killed John-the-dig.

I knew who Emmeline was looking for underground.

Details fell into place. Emmeline talking to herself behind a closed door, when her sister was at the doctor's house.Jane Eyre, the book that appears and reappears in the story, like a silver thread in a tapestry. I understood the mysteries of Hester's wandering bookmark, the appearance of The Turn of the Screw and the disappearance of her diary. I understood the strangeness of John-the-dig's decision to teach the girl who had once desecrated his garden how to tend it.

I understood the girl in the mist, and how and why she came out of it. I understood how it was that a girl like Adeline could melt away and leave Miss Winter in her place.

"I am going to tell you a story about twins," Miss Winter had called after me that first evening in the library, when I was on the verge of leaving. Words that with their unexpected echo of my own story attached me irresistibly to hers.

Once upon a time there were two babygirls…

Except that now I knew better. She had pointed me in the right direction that very first night, if I had only known how to listen. "Do you believe in ghosts, Miss Lea?" she had asked me. "I am going to tell you a ghost story."

And I had told her, "Some other time."

But she had told me a ghost story.

Once upon a time there were two baby girls…

Or alternatively: Once upon a time there were three.

Once upon a time there was a house and the house was haunted.

The ghost was, in the usual way of ghosts, mostly invisible, and yet not quite invisible. There was the closing of doors that had been left open, and the opening of doors left shut. The flash of movement in a mirror that made you glance up. The shimmer of a draft behind a curtain when there was no window open. The little ghost was there in the unexpected movement of books from one room to another, and in the mysterious movement of bookmark from page to page. It was her hand that lifted a diary from one place and hid it in another, her hand that replaced it later. If, as you turned into a corridor, the curious idea occurred to you that you had just missed seeing the sole of a shoe disappearing around the far corner, then the little ghost was not far away. And when, surprised by the back of the neck feeling as if someone has their eye on you, you raised your head to find the room empty, then you could be sure that the little ghost was hiding in the emptiness somewhere.

Her presence could be divined in any number of ways by those who had eyes to see. Yet she was not seen.

She haunted softly. On tiptoe, in bare feet, she made never a sound; and yet she recognized the footfall of every inhabitant of the house, knew every creaking board and every squeaky door. Every dark corner of the house was familiar to her, every nook and every cranny. She knew the gaps behind cupboards and between sets of shelves, she knew the backs of sofas and the underneath of chairs. The house, to her mind, was a hundred and one hiding places, and she knew how to move among them invisibly.

Isabelle and Charlie never saw the ghost. Living as they did, outside logic, outside reason, they were not the sort to be perplexed by the inexplicable. Losses and breakages and the mislaying of random items seemed to them part of the natural universe. A shadow that fell across a carpet where a shadow ought not to be did not cause them to stop and reflect; such mysteries seemed only a natural extension of the shadows in their hearts and minds. The little ghost was the movement in their peripheral vision, the unacknowledged puzzle in the back of their minds, the permanent shadow attached, without their knowing it, to their lives. She scavenged for leftovers in their pantry like a mouse, warmed herself at the embers of their fires after they had gone to bed, disappeared into the recesses of their dilapidation the instant anyone appeared.

She was the secret of the house.

Like all secrets, she had her guardians.

The housekeeper saw the little ghost as plain as day, despite her failing eyesight. A good thing, too. Without her collaboration there would never have been enough scraps in the pantry, enough crumbs from the breakfast loaf, to sustain the little ghost. For it would be a mistake to think that the ghost was one of those incorporeal, ethereal specters. No. She had a stomach, and when it was empty it had to be filled.

But she earned her keep. For as much as she ate, she also provided. The other person who had the knack of seeing ghosts, you see, was the gardener, and he was glad of an extra pair of hands. She wore a wide-brimmed hat and an old pair of John's trousers, cut off at the ankle and held up with braces, and her haunting of the garden was fruitful. In the soil potatoes grew swollen under her care; aboveground the fruit bushes flourished, producing clusters of berries that her hands sought out under low leaves. Not only did she have a magic touch for fruit and vegetables, but the roses bloomed as they had never bloomed before. Later, she learned the secret desire of box and yew to become geometry. At her bidding leaves and branches grew corners and angles, curves and mathematically straight lines.

In the garden and in the kitchen the little ghost did not need to hide. The housekeeper and the gardener were her protectors, her guardians. They taught her the ways of the house and how to be safe in it. They fed her. They watched over her. When a stranger came to live in the house, with sharper eyes than most, with a desire to banish shadows and lock doors, they worried about her.

More than anything else, they loved her.

But where did she come from? What was her story? For ghosts do not appear at random. They come only to where they know they are at home. And the little ghost was at home in this house. At home in this family. Though she had no name, though she was no one, still the gardener and the housekeeper knew who she was all right. Her story was written in her copper hair and her emerald eyes.

For here is the most curious thing about the whole story. The ghost bore the most uncanny resemblance to the twins already living in the house. How else could she have lived there unsuspected for so long? Three girls with copper hair that fell in a mass down their backs. Three girls with striking emerald eyes. Odd, don't you think, the resemblance they both bore to the little ghost and she to them?

"When I was born," Miss Winter told me, "I was no more than a subplot." So she began the story in which Isabelle went to a picnic, met Roland and eventually ran away to marry him, escaping her brother's dark, unbrotherly passion. Charlie, neglected by his sister, went on a rampage, venting his rage, his passion, his jealousy on others. The daughters of earls or of shopkeepers, of bankers or of chimney sweeps; to him it did not really matter who they were. With or without their consent, he threw himself upon them in his desperation for oblivion.