The Sundial by Shirley Jackson

catch it before it fell. Mrs. Halloran, stony-faced, looked for a minute at the darker spot on the silvered wallpaper which the mirror had left behind.
    â€œSome of these things,” Mrs. Halloran said, “have not been moved since the house was built.”
    â€œI don’t doubt it,” Mrs. Willow agreed amiably. “You should have this room done over, dear. It’s perfectly impossible.” Then, reflecting, she went on, “Although that sounds silly, now, doesn’t it? Because even if you wanted to do it over, why bother? For such a short time, probably, I mean, and afterward, of course, there won’t be anyone to do it.”
    â€œI have always liked it the way it is,” Mrs. Halloran said.
    Mrs. Willow and Essex put the mirror down onto the table and it reflected dutifully the carved cupids and painted clouds of the ceiling. The heavy frame of the mirror was gilded, and there was an expensive fault in the glass, so that a wave seemingly passed across it, altering the cupid faces and giving a look of sea-depth; Mrs. Willow had taken from the kitchen a small can of imported olive oil, and now she carefully poured a little onto the mirror, and it spread and ran and flattened, and the mirror caught light and shone. “Now,” Mrs. Willow said, looking around the room.
    â€œLow comedy,” Mrs. Halloran murmured. “Essex, do you volunteer?”
    â€œI have an antipathy to mirrors,” Essex said.
    â€œWhat do I have to do?” Gloria came forward. “Just look in the glass?”
    â€œAs though it were a window,” Mrs. Willow said, and Gloria sat down gingerly on the green satin chair.
    Gloria giggled, and Mrs. Willow put her hand on Gloria’s head, protectively, and said in a steady tone, “Rest your arms on the table on either side of the window. Put your face down close to the window and keep your eyes wide. Try not to blink. Try not to think. We will all be very quiet, and in a little while you will see through the window to what is on the other side. When you see something there, just tell us simply what you see.”
    â€œSuppose I don’t see anything?”
    â€œThen someone else will try. We used to do this all the time, dear, when we were girls. Now, everyone, sit well away from Gloria, so you will not cast a shadow. And be quiet, if you please.”
    Mrs. Halloran, with the air of one divorcing herself from a dull parlor trick, although one which had been perfectly acceptable when she was a girl, sat in her usual chair by the fire, and Essex sat near her. Julia and Arabella sat together, prettily, upon a rose-colored sofa near the fire, and Miss Ogilvie took a place in a far corner, as befitted one in a humble station and not expected to be the first to face any danger. Mrs. Willow and Aunt Fanny hovered near Gloria, silently pressing one another to move back. Gloria leaned her head forward, and her long hair fell down along either cheek.
    â€œIt hurts your eyes,” she said.
    â€œGloria,” Mrs. Willow said hypnotically, “you are looking through a window, a strange window because it looks out onto a world you have never seen before. It is dark there now, perhaps, because on the other side they still have not found the way to the window, but remember, when they know the window is there they will come to speak to us. You are waiting at this window to be given a vital message. Be alert, child, be ready; remember that you are on guard at this window and when they come you must be prepared to see them.”
    â€œPlease don’t breathe on my neck,” Gloria said.
    â€œGloria,” Aunt Fanny said, “can you see my father? Tall, very pale?”
    â€œI can see the sundial, I
think
,” Gloria said hesitantly. “No, it is not the sundial. It is a white rock. There is water around it—no grass. It is like the sundial because it stands there alone with grass all around it, but it is only a white