in the mail, always addressed to her husband, writ-
ten in the same handwriting, and never bearing a
postal stamp. On each occasion he opens the letter
in private, then secretes himself away for a while,
emerging slightly irritable, although he quickly re-
covers. It seems at first a small thing, but as time
passes and the incidents continue, they begin to
worry her. Eventually, she arranges things so that
she can watch Kenneth’s reaction when he opens
the next letter, and she is shocked when he kisses
the letter before putting it away.
Although she never doubts his faithfulness, she
suspects the existence of a rival and confronts him.
Kenneth refuses to say anything about the letters,
and the situation escalates to a confrontation and
eventually an ultimatum. She finds other things to
complain about as well, including the fact that they
have not taken a trip since their honeymoon. Ken-
neth is obstinate at first but eventually agrees to a
short vacation. Most readers will have concluded by
now that the letters are from his dead wife, which
proves to be the case, although Wharton sidesteps
the usual melodrama. Kenneth disappears mysteri-
ously, prompting Charlotte to open one of the let-
ters, for even she is now beginning to suspect the
truth. However, the letter is unreadable, nearly
blank pages with only hints of words written on
them in a handwriting so faint that it could only be
interpreted by someone who had a long and inti-
mate familiarity with it, someone such as Kenneth.
Wharton skillfully avoids the clichés of the
form. There is no violence in the story and no overt
horror, and the ghost never actually puts in an ap-
pearance. It is nonetheless suspenseful and engross-
ing and introduces us to a pair of complex
characters caught up in an extraordinary and stress-
ful situation. Kenneth’s conflicting loyalties place
him in an impossible situation, and Charlotte’s
well-intended efforts to strengthen their relation-
ship actually weaken it. Wharton demonstrates ef-
fectively that love can be a destructive force even
when it is intended to be otherwise.
“The Pond” Nigel Kneale(1949)
The British writer Nigel Kneale is best known out-
side Great Britain for his screenplays for the popu-
lar series of science fiction films produced for the
BBC featuring Quatermass, a senior scientist who
overcomes various threats to the world. Kneale
also wrote a number of short horror stories, many
of them relying entirely on psychological suspense
and a few involving elements of the fantastic. The
best-known of these is this very short story of su-
pernatural revenge.
The unnamed protagonist is first seen lurking
near a small pond where he uses various tech-
niques to lure out the local frogs. He captures the
very last frog and takes it back to his hut, where he
kills it and prepares it for stuffing to add to his col-
lection. All the other frogs have been posed in
human positions with historical costumes in an
elaborate stage setting, and this final member is de-
signed to be the star of it all. Kneale describes the
process of taxidermy in considerable detail, and
the cutting of flesh and breaking of bones become
more than just a clinical description but actually a
horrible, inhuman procedure.
After darkness falls he is disturbed by the
sound of croaking, apparently caused by a fresh in-
flux of frogs to the nearby pond. Intrigued, he sets
aside his work and goes to investigate, although the
sounds cease entirely when he reaches the edge of
the water. He catches a whiff of some noxious odor
and is about to leave when he is overcome by the
fumes and falls. The scene and viewpoint abruptly
switch to the following morning, when a police offi-
cer visits the scene, finding the abandoned hut with
a fire still burning. He follows the path to the lake
and sees what he thinks is the taxidermist crouch-
ing naked, but when he moves closer he discovers
that the man has been stuffed, preserved, and
posed in the position of an oversized frog.
Kneale tells the story quickly and pointedly. If
it were any longer, readers would too readily antici-
pate the ending. Supernatural fiction is often based
on the principle of balance—good vs. evil, one
debt against another, powers granted but with un-
pleasant catches. In this case the evil the protago-
nist inflicted upon the natural world is revisited
upon him in like manner.Powers, Tim(1952– )
After an impressive start writing science fiction,
Tim Powers turned to fantasy for his third novel,278 “The Pond”