"The Gardener"
by E.F. Benson
Synopsis:
While staying with a friend and his wife (in the hopes of getting in a few rounds of golf), our narrator experiences a (quite literal) brush with the supernatural-- featuring "planchette".
My Reaction:
This was a shared read with Donald, which is unusual, as we don't regularly choose short stories-- much less "creepy" stories-- for our read-aloud material. We'd just finished one book and had yet to settle on the next, so a short story was a good temporary fix.
Though it isn't a breath-taking effort, I liked the story pretty well. There were a couple of decently chilling moments-- particularly those where Margaret uses the planchette. However, because the book we'd just finished reading was (Benson's own) Lucia in London, which features planchette in a very humorous, winking manner, it was maybe the tiniest bit difficult to take it completely seriously. (Well, as seriously as we ever could...)
