Read Online The Ghost in the Glass House by Carey Wallace - Free Book Online Page B

broke into their final applause.
    She nodded.
    â€œIn Africa,” Jack told her, “there’s a lake guarded by tigers.”
    This wasn’t true, Clare knew. Mr. Pedersen had devoted an entire lunch once to popular misconceptions concerning big cats. Zoos liked to install them together, he’d told her, but nature hadn’t. Lions roamed the African savanna and parts of India. Tigers were only found in India and China and the Indochine.
    â€œAnd at the bottom of the lake, there’s a palace made of gold,” Jack went on. “It used to stand on an island, but the water rose over it. The tigers were tamed by the palace guard, and even after the palace sank, they stayed.”
    â€œHave you been to Africa?” Clare asked.
    â€œNot yet,” Jack said. “It’s the first place I’m going to go. I’ll take a diving bell to loot the palace. And then I’ll have enough gold to go anywhere else I want.”
    Despite the fact that the tigers couldn’t be real, a defensive note crept into Clare’s voice on behalf of the loyal beasts. “How will you get past the tigers?” Clare asked. “Are you going to shoot them?”
    â€œOf course not,” Jack said. “I’ll go at night, with a torch. Tigers are afraid of fire. And once I get on the water, they won’t come after me.”
    Clare remembered one of the stories Mr. Pedersen had used to illustrate his luncheon lecture on big cats, about a tiger who had chewed through the wooden bars of his cage and escaped into a duchess’s party, where, startled by the lights and noise, he’d dived into her bathing pool and swum the length of it, scattering terrified, half-drunk guests all along the way. This memory was followed closely by an image of a boy rowing across a dark lake by torchlight as the pale faces of half a dozen big cats cut toward him through the water from every side.
    â€œAre you sure about that?” she asked.
    â€œOf course,” Jack said. “Have you ever tried to get a cat to take a bath?”
    Clare shifted, unsure if she should encourage the dream, which he obviously treasured, or inform him of the realities, for his own good.
    When she didn’t answer at once, he tried another tack. “Where do you want to go?” he asked.
    Clare knew what kind of answer he wanted, some kind of trade for his underwater palace: a civilization where all the people lived in treehouses and told time by bird song; a tribe of hermits who never came down from their mountaintops but visited each other by dirigible. Even if her powers of invention had failed her, she had years of experience with the wonders of the world, any of which might have suited him. But the truth rose up in her so powerfully that it swept away all possible lies.
    â€œHome,” she said.
    â€œHome?” he repeated, incredulous. “But you could go
anywhere
,” he added, as if she might not have understood the question.
    Speaking the truth made Clare feel strangely light. But it also made her dizzy, as if she’d forgotten how to keep her balance without the extra weight. In any case, having spoken it at last, she refused to retreat. She raised her chin and settled back into the wing chair.
    â€œWell, where is it?” Jack asked, as if the answer might provide some clue to her stubbornness.
    â€œNew York.”
    â€œDo you live in a mansion?”
    Clare shook her head. “It’s just a city house,” she said. “On a little park.”
    â€œHave you heard of the Taj Mahal?” Jack demanded.
    Clare nodded.
    â€œWhat about the Arctic Circle?”
    She nodded again.
    â€œDon’t you want to see them?” he asked.
    â€œThat’s not what you said,” Clare said. “You asked me where did I want to go.” She had begun to feel slightly embarrassed by the paucity of her own dreams. But at the same time, all the coasts and gangplanks she’d