Possession

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PROFESSOR ERIC WADE lolled in his Tecumseh as the car, on automatic, dipped down the long slope into the Rock River Valley. Granite sand and pines gave way to limestone and farms. Here and there an early-turning maple gave a spot of red to the landscape. Wade swallowed to equalize the pressure on his eardrums; it was hot in the valley— though not hot enough to make Wade crank up his windows and turn on the air-conditioning.

Then, though still miles short of Clarksburg, Wade flipped the switch that put the car on manual, grasping the wheel as he did so. He slowed down to a mere thirty, looking about. Presently he turned off on a dirt road, where there was no buried control-cable to operate the Tecumseh on automatic.

The road was a short-cut to Clarksburg, but so rough and winding—not to mention its lack of automatic control—that nobody used it except as a means of reaching the houses that lay along it. Most of these houses were too far back to be seen from the road, their existence betrayed only by dirt or gravel driveways and mailboxes. As he neared one of these driveways, Wade slowed to a crawl and peered about. He did so with a slightly furtive air, as if Doris' jealous ghost-were watching from the back seat. He smiled at his own guilt-reaction, thinking: She always said if anything happened to her I should marry again soon; that I could never manage the house and kids without her. She was right, too.

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