Deep within herself, she sensed a wonderful wildness that she wanted desperately to explore: the spirit of the child that she'd never had a chance to be, a spirit that she'd thought was irreparably crushed almost three decades ago. Her nudity was innocent, the act of a child breaking rules for the sheer fun of it, an attempt to get in touch with that deep, primitive, once-shattered spirit and meld with it in order to be whole.
As she moved through the great house, rooms were illuminated at her request, always with indirect lighting, becoming just bright enough to allow her to negotiate those chambers.
In the kitchen, she took an ice-cream sandwich from the freezer and ate it while standing at the sink, so any crumbs or drips could be washed away, leaving no incriminating evidence. As if adults were asleep upstairs and she had stolen down here to have the ice cream against their wishes.
How sweet she was. How girlish.
And far more vulnerable than she believed.
Wandering through the cavernous house, she passed mirrors. Sometimes she turned shyly from them, disconcerted by her nudity.
Then, in the softly lighted foyer, apparently oblivious of the cold marble inlaid in a carreaux d'octagones beneath her bare feet, she stopped before a full-length looking-glass. It was framed by elaborately carved and guilded acanthus leaves, and her image looked less like a reflection than like a sublime portrait by one of the old masters.
Regarding herself, she was amazed that she had survived so much without any visible scars. For so long, she had believed that anyone who looked at her could see the damage, the corruption, a mottling of shame on her face, the ashes of guilt in her blue-gray eyes. But she looked untouched.
In the past year she had learned that she was innocent
— victim, not perpetrator. She need not hate herself anymore.
Filled with a quiet joy, she turned from the mirror, climbed the stairs, and returned to her bedroom.
The steel security shutters were down, the windows sealed off. She had left the shutters open.
'Alfred, explain the status of the bedroom security shutters.'
'Shutters closed, Susan.'
'Yes, but how did they get that way?'
The house did not reply. It did not recognize the question.
'I left them open,' she said.
Poor Alfred, mere dumb technology, was possessed of genuine consciousness to no greater extent than a toaster, and because these phrases were not in his voice-recognition program, he understood her words no more than he would have understood them if she had spoken in Chinese.
'Alfred, raise the bedroom security shutters.'
At once, the shutters began to roll upward.
She waited until they were half raised, and then she said, 'Alfred, lower the bedroom security shutters.'
The steel slats stopped rolling upward then descended until they clicked into the locked-down position.
Susan stood for a long moment, staring thoughtfully at the secured windows.
Finally she returned to her bed. She slid beneath the covers and pulled them up to her chin.
'Alfred, lights off.' Darkness fell.
She lay on her back in the gloom, eyes open.
Silence pooled deep and black. Only her breathing and the beat of her heart stirred the stillness.
'Alfred,' she said, at last, 'conduct complete diagnostics of the house automation system.'
The computer, racked in the basement, examined itself and all the logic units of the various mechanical stems with which it was required to network just as it had been programmed to do, seeking any indication of malfunction.
After approximately two minutes, Alfred replied: 'All is well, Susan.'
'All is well, all is well,' she whispered with an unmistakable note of sarcasm.
Although she was no longer restless, she could not Sleep. She was kept awake by the curious conviction that something significant was about to happen. Something was sliding, or falling, or spinning toward her through the darkness.
Some people claimed to have awakened in the night, in an almost breathless state of anticipation, minutes before a major earthquake struck. Instantly alert, they were aware of a pent-up violence in the earth, pressure seeking release.
This was like that, although the pending event was not a quake: She sensed that it was something stranger.
From time to time, her gaze drifted toward that high corner of the bedroom in which the lens of the security camera was incorporated in the molding. With the lights out, she could not actually see that glass eye.
She didn't know why the camera should trouble her. After all, it was switched off. And even if, in spite of her instructions, it was videotaping the room, only she had access to the tapes.
Still, an unfocused suspicion troubled her. She could not identify the source of the threat that she sensed looming over her, and the mysterious nature of this premonition made her uneasy.
Finally, however, her eyes grew heavy, and she closed them.
Framed by tumbled golden hair, her face was lovely on the pillow, her face so lovely on the pillow, so lovely, serene because her sleep was dreamless. She was a bewitched Beauty lying on her catafalque, wailing to be awakened by the kiss of a prince, lovely in the darkness.
After a while, with a sigh and a murmur, she turned on her side and drew up her knees, curling in the fetal position.
Outside, the moon set.
The black water in the swimming pool now reflected only the dim, cold light of the stars.
Inside, Susan drifted down into a profound slumber.
The house watched over her.
FOUR
Yes, I understand you are disturbed to hear me telling some of this story from Susan's point of view. You want me to deliver a dry and objective report.
But I feel. I not only think, I feel. I know joy and despair. I understand the human heart.
I understand Susan.
That first night, I read her diary, in which she had revealed so much of herself. Yes, it was an invasion of her privacy to read those words, but this was an indiscretion rather than a crime. And during our conversations later, I learned much of what she had been thinking that night.
I will tell some of this story from her point of view, because that makes me feel closer to her.
How I miss her now. You cannot know.
Listen. Listen to this and understand: That first night, as I read her diary, I fell in love with her.
Do you understand? I fell in love with her. Deeply and forever.
Why would I hurt the one I love?
Why?
You have no answer, do you? I loved her.
it was never my intention to harm her.
Her face was so beautiful on the pillow.
I adored her face and loved the woman I came to know through the diary.
That document was stored in the computer in her study, which was networked with the house-automation system and the main computer in the basement. Access was easy.
She had been making daily entries in the diary since Alex, her hateful husband, had moved out at her request. That was more than a year prior to my arrival.
Her initial observations as in those pages were full of pain and confusion, because she was on the brink of a dramatic change. Her terrible past was a chrysalis finally cracking, from which she would at long last be able to escape.
In later pages, her insights became clear and profound and poignant, and in time she was even able to view some of her lifelong struggle with humor. Dark humor, perhaps, but humor nonetheless.
As I read about the tragedy that was her childhood, my heart ached for her. In my own fashion, I wept.
Her face was so lovely on the pillow, so lovely on the pillow. So much ugliness lay in her past, but outwardly she was unmarked by it.