(9/10 stars)

“You see a figure ahead of you, solid, three-dimensional, brightly colored. Moving and obeying all the laws of optics. Its clothing and posture is vaguely familiar. You hurry toward the figure for a closer view. It turns its head and—you are looking at yourself. Or rather a perfect mirror image of yourself only—there is no mirror. So, you know it is your double. And that frightens you, for tradition tells you that he who sees his own double is about to die…”

Atmosphere is so important in cultivating the very best kind of school, and Brereton is certainly that. If a teacher creates a disturbing environment at the school, then that teacher has to go, even in the middle of the term. So the headmistress is sure Faustina Crayle understands why she is being dismissed.

But Faustina doesn’t understand. All she knows is that she’s been an outcast ever since she arrived at the school and no one will tell her why. Her only friend, Austrian refugee Gisela von Hohenems, asks Basil Willing to investigate.

What he discovers is impossible: Faustina has a doppelgänger. Can the same woman really be in two places at once? And what if one of them commits murder?

Continue reading “Through a Glass, Darkly (1950) by Helen McCloy”