The Sundial

by Shirley Jackson

Young Mrs. Halloran felt that black was not suitable for a ten-year-old girl, and that the dress was too long in any case, and certainly too plain and coarse for a family of the Halloran prestige; she had had an asthma attack on the very morning of the funeral to prove her point, but Fancy had been put into the black dress nevertheless.

Mr. Halloran had been crying, but this was not unusual; since he had been made to realize that he would not, now, be vouchsafed a second run at youth he cried easily and often.

The sundial was set into place with as much care as the books had been put into the library, and properly engineered and timed, and anyone who cared to ignore the little jade clock in the drawing room or the grandfather clock in the library or the marble clock in the dining room could go out onto the lawn and see the time by the sun.

“Aunt Fanny,” Essex said, bending over her sympathetically, “suppose you tell us just what happened. Slowly, and try not to cry.” “Essex,” said Aunt Fanny, crying. “She is hysterical,” said Mrs. Halloran. “Slap her quite firmly in the face.”

It might be suggested, and not easily disproven that anything, no matter how exotic, can be believed by someone. On the other hand, abstract belief is largely impossible; it is the concrete, the actuality of the cup, the candle, the sacrificial stone, which hardens belief; the statue is nothing until it cries, the philosophy is nothing until the philosopher is martyred.

“The experiment with humanity is at an end,” Aunt Fanny said. “Splendid,” Mrs. Halloran said. “I was getting very tired of all of them.”

“When we believe,” Essex said seriously, “we must do so wholly. I am prepared to follow Aunt Fanny because I agree with you: it is the only positive statement about our futures we have ever heard, but once I have taken her side I will not be shaken. If I can bring myself to believe in Aunt Fanny’s golden world, nothing else will ever do for me; I want it too badly.”

Julia laughed. “Essex,” she said, “what is real?” Essex bowed to her gravely. “I am real,” he said. “I am not at all sure about the rest of you.”

“When I am visiting a place,” Gloria said, “I don’t like being locked out, even if they don’t know I’m coming.”