Well, at least the truth behind the mysterious woman and Quint is revealed to me. Once again seeking answers from Mrs. Grose after her encounter, the governess learned about the story behind Quint and Miss Jessel, the woman who appeared before her. Miss Jessel was a fair lady, but though Quint was a friend of the mansion's inhabitants, he took advantage of that and, apparently, did whatever he wanted with everyone in the mansion, including Miss Jessel. That gave some leeway to my assumption of the true "innocence" behind the kids, but now I questioned to what extent Flora and Miles rely on or even trust them to keep themselves entertained. The answer to that came only soon afterwards -yet again- when the governess saw Quint for the third time. It was, of all times for this time at night, and once Quint had left, the governess saw that Flora was not asleep in her bed. She found Flora at the window by her bed "looking for someone outside," and with the suspicion that arose from finding Flora out of bed, the governess sought to find the identity of another person who was outside on the lawn. Upon reaching the window of a room in the mansion's tower, she found Miles looking at something -or someone- that was above her position on the tower. I now find myself thinking about how deeply those kids have thrown themselves in the chasm of unknown horror of the future and if any attempt that the governess may make would be anything close to enough to save them.

The screw keeps turning

Well, I thought something was going to be going wrong sooner or later, but I did not imagine that it would start at such a scale as how it did. First, a mysterious man appears at the mansion and the governess spots him. What is stranger at this moment is that, without a single word being shared between the two of them, the man suddenly disappears without a trace of his going anywhere. To give any character the benefit of the doubt, that man could have been a stalker, an unknown servant of the mansion, or maybe even a regular man who was just passing by the mansion. Any assumption of his identity could have been correct to any reader; that would be the case, however, until the governess finds the man again and he vanishes a second time. This time, she knows the man was there for a specific reason: to find the mansion owner's son, Miles. After a stimulating conversation between the governess and Mrs. Grose, the mansion's longest-serving servant, the shocking identity of the man is revealed. Now, I honestly did not know what to expect from this book before I started reading it and, therefore, did not think very much about the man at first, but to have it revealed that it may be the spirit of a homeless man who was a friend of Miles left me quite surprised. Along with that surprise came my realization that this was the first step for the governess to learn everything there was to know about the mansion's history and the children because when the truth starts to be revealed, the knots in the mystery start to untangle themselves. But as soon as Miles was starting to become a more open book to me, the story threw me a strange curveball when I less expected it. Not soon after the second incident with Quint (the man who was revealed as a possible ghost), another strange character, a woman this time, did the same thing as Quint: appeared out of nowhere, stayed for a small period of time, and the disappeared. As strange as that was, it wasn't as confusing as the discovery that the governess made about Flora, the mansion owner's daughter. According to the governess, Flora, however it may be possible, knew about the woman's presence and had no normal reaction to it, such as mentioning her to the governess. When will this confusion be settled and the truth revealed?