The All-Seeing Eye (short story)

The All-Seeing Eye was the eleventh story in the Bernice Summerfield anthology A Life of Surprises. It was written by Justin Richards.

Summary
Benny is excavating an old coaching inn with Stanislaw Galt and Cynthia Crackton. Benny and Cynthia see a strange woman who disappears when they approach her. Galt finds a scroll written in Latin and insists on translating. However, Benny and Cynthia later find him dead from no apparent cause. On his pillow is a hair, apparently from the woman they saw earlier. The scroll is missing, but they find it back in its original location.

Cynthia decides to translate the scroll, but Benny thinks the scroll is somehow to blame for Galt's death, and she decides to keep guard while Cynthia translates. However, Benny falls asleep, and when she wakes up, Cynthia is dead and the scroll is missing again.

She once again finds the scroll in its original location, and reads Cynthia's translation. She then confronts the strange woman, who wrote the scroll. She came for Galt because he was "dead to the joy of life" and for Cynthia because she was tired.

Benny tries to convince the woman (and herself) that she's not tired of life, and that she expects to find so much more "beauty and excitement and love" out of life. As she finishes speaking, she notices that the woman is gone.

Characters

 * Bernice Summerfield
 * Stanislaw Galt
 * Cynthia Crackton
 * Death

Worldbuilding

 * Benny tries to read Archaeology Tomorrow to keep awake.

Continuity
to be added