The Dark on the Other Side

I

LINDA KNEW IT WOULD BE THERE. SINCE THE THING first appeared to her, she had developed a special sensitivity; she didn’t have to see it now, to know it was coming. It was a tension in her very bones, like fear, a stench like the foulness of decay. But familiarity did not breed contempt, or acceptance. Every time she saw it, the feeling was worse. She would have stood there, frozen, if Michael had not pushed her into the house and slammed the door.

Two inches of wood were a frail barrier against the thing in the garden. But it seemed to cut off some of the aura of terror that enveloped it. Only then did she realize the enormous importance of what had happened.

“You saw it,” she gasped. “Oh, God, oh, God-you saw it!”

“I saw it.” His voice was queer; she thought that the emotion that made it shake was fear, until he went on, “God forgive me. I thought you were imagining it.”

He caught her to him, holding her so tightly that breathing was an effort. For a long moment she stood quiescent in his arms, recognizing the impulse for what it was, a desire untouched by ordinary physical passion. She felt it too-the reassurance of contact with another living human body.

“You’re not afraid,” she murmured.

“Like hell I’m not,” Michael said promptly. “Linda-what is it?”

“You saw it.”

“Yes, and I know too well that eyesight is a damned unreliable witness. We can’t stand here all night. Are you sure it can’t get into the house?”

“I’m not sure what it can do.”

“That’s comforting. Aren’t there any lights in this hole? I’d be happier if I could see what was coming at me. I think.”

“Of course there are lights. I was afraid to use them, before.”

“We’ll risk it now.”

As she switched the lights on, Michael turned from the door. He had been peering out through the small window, and he answered her question before she could voice it aloud.

“Nothing there now. I could see clearly during that last big flash.”

“It’s gone,” she said. “Not-vanished. Withdrawn.”

“You can feel it? Sense it? Damn the language, it’s inadequate.”

“I can tell when it’s coming, sometimes. But not long in advance.”

Michael laughed, a short, explosive sound that held no amusement. The antique wall sconce, which was the sole source of light in the hall, held pink bulbs shaped like candle flames-one of Andrea’s cuter affectations. The rosy light gave Michael’s cheeks a healthy flush, but she knew, by the shape of the lines around his mouth, that he was badly shaken.

“We’re talking about it as if it were susceptible to natural laws,” he muttered. “Damn it, I’m still not ready to admit that it isn’t. It was the shock of seeing it like that, when I hadn’t…And you’ve been living with that for-how long?”

“I don’t know… Months.”

“And you’ve held on to your sanity.”

“By the width of a fingernail,” she said. “By the breadth of a hair.”

Separated from her by the width of the hall, Michael did not move; but the steady dark eyes held hers with a look that was as palpable as a touch, and as expressive as a page of print. Linda knew the look; no woman with a single normal instinct could have failed to read it. Her eyes fell before his, and after a moment he spoke in a casual tone.

“As a companion in a haunted house you’re not very cheering. You look like a little ghost yourself. How long has it been since you’ve had any sleep, or a decent meal? And speaking of food, I’m starved. Is there anything in the house except toadstools and henbane?”

“Yes, of course. Come out to the kitchen.”

While she made coffee and scraped together a scanty meal, Michael wandered around the kitchen making casual remarks. This was an interlude of comparative sanity in the midst of madness; both of them recognized its artificiality, just as they recognized the need for a breathing space. But she knew that he looked out the window each time he passed it, and she did not miss the fleeting glance he gave the door. It was bolted and chained; Andrea had left it that way, and she had checked those bolts daily, knowing their inadequacy but knowing, as well, that no precaution could be neglected. Only once did he refer to the thing that loomed large in both their minds.

“The cats,” he exclaimed, as a tabby-striped tom appeared, demanding sustenance. “How do they get in and out?”

“One of those pet doors, in the cellar. No,” she said, as he made an involuntary movement of alarm. “It’s too small for anything but a cat. You know how they can compress themselves-like rubber-”

“Yes, I know,” he said.

The meal was a poor one-she had already depleted Andrea’s stock of food-but Linda ate ravenously. She hadn’t had much appetite the last few days. Michael watched her with satisfaction, eating little himself. She didn’t blame him; canned lima beans and tuna fish were unappealing unless you were half starved. When she pushed her empty plate away and looked up, she found him braced and ready.

“Talk to me,” he said. “I don’t know how much time we have.”

“About-it?” She made a helpless gesture with her hands. “How can I? How do you talk about something that is either supernatural or else a-”

“Delusion? You still believe that?”

“At first, when you saw it too, I thought…But Michael, you’ve heard of collective hallucinations.”

“The fact that you can still admit that possibility is a good indication of your sanity,” Michael said. “I’m willing to admit it myself, but only as one theory among others. Linda, are you sure that damned thing isn’t real? That it isn’t an actual, living dog?”

“There is no such animal in the neighborhood. Believe me, I made sure.”

“A wild dog? Even a wolf? It sounds unlikely, I know, but-”

“Even a wolf can’t live without food. Sooner or later it would rob a poultry yard, or attack a pet animal. It might not be seen, but its presence would certainly be known.”

“And no one else has seen it?”

“No…” She found it hard to meet his eyes after that admission, but he seemed undismayed.

“Not Andrea?”

“She knows about it,” Linda admitted. “She believes in it. But she’s never seen it.”

“Odd,” Michael muttered. “That she hasn’t seen it. She believes it’s supernatural, of course.”

“Of course. But don’t make the obvious mistake about Andrea. For all her superstitions, she has a hard core of common sense. She can believe in various fantastic phenomena, but she doesn’t imagine things. There’s a difference.”

“I know what you mean. I could believe in flying saucers without too much effort; there has been a certain amount of evidence. But I can’t believe that I saw one land, and a bunch of little green guys get out of it, unless I have a screw loose somewhere.”

“None of Andrea’s screws are loose. She has some screws in unusual places, though.”

Michael laughed.

“Then you and I are the only ones who have seen the dog,” he said. “When did you see it first?”

“It’s hard to remember exactly… About a year ago, I guess. I remember the occasion very clearly, though.”

“I can see why you might.”

“I went for a walk, at twilight. I like that time of day-at least I used to. I wasn’t in a very happy mood. There had been…words, with Gordon. I walked out under the trees, just wandering around. The ground was wet and soggy, but everything smelled so fresh and sweet. The sky was a pale greenish blue, there was a new moon. I went down that avenue of cherry trees. It ends, if you remember, at a fence; there’s a pretty view from that point, out across the pastures.

“I was leaning on the fence, thinking, when-there it was. I saw it quite distinctly; the light was fading, but it seemed to stand out, as if something shone behind it. I was frightened, but only because it appeared so suddenly, out of nowhere, and because it was a fierce-looking dog and a stranger. Honestly, Michael, I couldn’t be mistaken about that, I really like dogs, I was friends with all the neighbors’ pets… Well, I knew better than to run, but I retreated as quickly as I could. It didn’t follow me. Not until later did I realize that it hadn’t moved, or made a sound, the whole time. It just stood there, looking at me…”

“When did you start to think that it might not be a real dog?”

“Not that time. Not even when a search failed to turn up any sign of such an animal. Gordon was alarmed when I told him,” she said expressionlessly. “He insisted on looking for it, right then, even though it was almost dark. He and the yard servants searched again next morning, and he called all the neighbors, and the police, to see if anyone else had reported seeing it. No one had. But the worst was…I told you the ground was soft and wet. When they searched the field where I had seen it, they found no prints.”

From Michael’s expression, she realized that, despite his comments, he had been clinging to the hope that the creature was material. This piece of news hit him hard.

“How could prints show on grass?”

“There were large bare patches,” she said inexorably. “Something would have shown, somewhere.”

“I see. But that wouldn’t be enough, in itself, to convince you that you were having hallucinations.”

“No. I didn’t start thinking that until Jack Briggs failed to see it, the next time it came.”

“If he wasn’t looking…”

“It ran straight across the terrace while we were looking out the drawing-room window. It went fast, but it was in sight for several seconds. That’s a long time, Michael.”

“Long enough. Any other non-witnesses?”

“Several. My maid, for one. That was from an upstairs window, of course, and it was pretty dark.”

“Not easy to see in that kind of light, especially if she had already been told you were suffering from hallucinations. Most people see only what they expect to see.”

“Gordon told her something,” Linda said doubtfully. “I think he must have warned all the servants about me. They started treating me peculiarly about that time. But God knows I was acting pretty peculiarly anyhow.”

“I imagine he pays excellent salaries, doesn’t he? Yes; money, and his famous charm, could convince them of anything he wanted them to believe.”

The room was full of cats by this time-fat cats, thin cats, striped, spotted, and Siamese. One of them jumped onto the table, with that uncanny suggestion of teleportation that surrounds a cat’s suave quickness, and Linda stood up, overturning her chair.

“What are you trying to prove?” she demanded wildly. “You still don’t believe in it, do you? You think it’s real.”

Michael stroked the cat, a round orange creature, which was investigating his half-empty plate.

“That shouldn’t be the main point, for you,” he said mildly.

“I’m grateful, don’t think I’m not. Whether it’s real or just a plain apparition, it isn’t a figment of my imagination, or you wouldn’t have seen it too. You aren’t the suggestible type. You’ve come a long way to bolster me up, to support me. But you’d stop-you couldn’t go on-if you knew what I really believe…”

The lights flickered and faded, leaving the room in brown obscurity; and a violent clap of thunder seemed to rock the foundations of the house. Linda covered her face with her hands. On the roof, a thousand minuscule feet began dancing. The rain had started.

Michael stood up. He had scooped up the cat, to keep it out of his food; and the animal, already full, hung complacently from his hands with a full-moon smirk on its fat face. The contrast between its furry blandness and Michael’s drawn features turned Linda’s cry of alarm into a semi-hysterical gasp of laughter.

“Stop it,” Michael said sharply. “You’re losing your grip-no wonder, in this place…”

He turned, looking helplessly around the room, which still swam in an evil dimness. The stuffed monster dangling from the ceiling seemed to grin more broadly, and the heavy beams seemed to sag. Outside the window, the night was livid with the fury of the storm. But Linda noticed how gentle his hands were, holding the unwanted bundle of cat. Finally he put it back on the table, with the air of a man who is abandoning lesser niceties, and sat down firmly on his chair. The cat started licking his plate. Michael regarded it curiously.

“The cats are calm enough now,” he said. “They blew their stacks when it was outside.”

Linda dropped back into her chair.

“Cats are traditionally sensitive to influences from the other side,” she said dully.

Michael’s head turned sharply; on the verge of speaking, he caught himself, and she knew that his comment, when he did speak, was not the one he had meant to make.

“It only appears at dusk, or in a dim light?”

“Yes. Michael, I know what you’re trying to do. But it won’t work. The fact that the thing only comes at night is just as much confirmation of my theory as of yours.”

“You think it’s supernatural, then,” he said calmly. “Something from-the dark on the other side.”

“Don’t! Why did you say that?”

“Never mind, I’ll get to that later. All right, so it’s supernatural. The supernatural has many forms. What precisely is this thing? A hound of hell, à la Conan Doyle? A manifestation of hate and ill will? The old Nick in one of his standard transformations? A werewolf, or a…”

His voice trailed off and his eyes widened. Linda nodded. She felt quite numb now that the moment of truth was upon her, but she felt no impulse to conceal that truth. Even if he stood up and walked out of the house, leaving her more alone than she had ever been, she had to be honest with him.

“The word is too simple,” she said. “But-yes. That’s what it is. It’s Gordon.”

II

The lights had returned to normal. The storm muttered more softly, held in abeyance. Linda sat with her hands folded in her lap, watching Michael as he paced up and down. He was followed by an entourage of interested cats; but the sight of Michael as a feline Pied Piper did not seem amusing. His distress was too great.

“I can’t buy it,” he said, swinging around to face her. “I’ve believed in enough mad things in the last few hours so that you’d think a little detail like that wouldn’t stick in my craw. But it does.”

“I didn’t expect you to believe it,” she said.

His face twisted, as if a sudden pain had struck him. She watched the spasm with dull disinterest, wondering why he felt such distress. The lethargy that gripped her was pleasant, compared to what she had endured; she knew how a patient must feel after a critical session with his analyst, or a penitent after a bad session in the confessional-drained, empty, oddly at peace.

“How about settling for an abstract manifestation of evil?” Michael suggested hopefully, and won a wan smile in response. “I’m serious,” he insisted. “Half serious, anyhow…Linda, you’ve been through a terrible strain, it would be a miracle if your nerves were normal. I’m not suggesting that you’re insane, I wouldn’t be talking to you like this if I thought so. But isn’t it possible that you’ve concocted this-this fantastic theory out of a very real, legitimate fear of Gordon?”

She looked up, a faint spark of interest in her face.

“You’re willing to admit that I might have a legitimate fear of a paragon like Gordon?”

“He’s no paragon,” Michael said slowly. “Not of virtue, anyhow. I don’t know what he is. But I’m ready to concede that there’s something seriously amiss with him. I’m all the more willing to admit it because it cost me such a struggle to admit it. Linda, do you remember a boy named Joe Schwartz? He was a student of Gordon’s when you were in that class.”

“Joe? Of course I remember him. He wrote some of the funniest, most scurrilous verses I’ve ever heard.”

“Scurrilous?”

“About the professors, and the other students, and human foibles in general. Some topical, some more basic. He had a gift for hitting people’s weaknesses, but he was never cruel; he could sting, delicately, without really hurting. None of the parties that year were a success unless Joe performed. He’d sit there on the floor whanging out chords on his guitar and bellowing out his infamous comments in a raucous voice, grinning from ear to ear… Why are you looking like that?”

“It doesn’t sound like the Joe Schwartz I know,” Michael said grimly.

“He did get a little peculiar toward the end of the year. People said he’d changed. I’m afraid I wasn’t much aware of others just then. Love’s young dream, you know.”

Michael looked uncomfortable, but he went on doggedly.

“What about Tommy Scarinski?”

“You’ve been busy, haven’t you? Yes, he was one of Gordon’s acolytes. Always unstable, of course…At the time, I thought he was preying on Gordon, instead of…”

“The reverse?”

“You don’t understand a process, sometimes, until it happens to you personally.”

“We’re getting there,” Michael said. He spoke slowly, without looking at her. “We try to talk around it, but we’ll have to discuss it sooner or later. Why, Linda? Why is he doing this?”

“I don’t think I could explain it to you-or to any other man.”

She hadn’t meant it to hurt, but it did; she could tell from the change in his face. She went on quickly,

“You see? I can’t even talk about it without sounding like one of the militant feminists you men despise-like an embittered woman whose marriage has gone sour and who rants about the whole male sex instead of facing facts. But it wasn’t like that. I’m not a romantic adolescent, I know that few relationships, marital or otherwise, are based on true equality and respect. As a rule, one partner dominates the other; and in human society there’s a long tradition of masculine superiority. So-all right. I could have accepted that, I’m conditioned to it. Maybe I even wanted it. But Gordon doesn’t want to dominate people; he wants to absorb them, body and soul and spirit. Living with him was-indescribable. I felt as if he were fastened to me, like a gigantic leech, pulling out every ounce of will, every thought… I can see myself making that speech in a divorce court, can’t you? It might come straight out of some ghastly day-time serial.”

“Why didn’t you leave him?”

“I did leave him. He brought me back.” She laughed bitterly. “That sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? In this day and age…But it was so easy, really. I had to get a job, I didn’t have much money. I never did. Credit cards, charge accounts, but no cash. I couldn’t very well go to one of the big hotels and charge my escapade to Gordon’s account. Even if I’d had the gall, I knew it would make it easier for him to find me. So I had to get a job-and quickly; I couldn’t pick and choose. I have a B.A. degree, no special training; you’d be surprised how few jobs there are for women with no special skills and no experience. Even my typing was rusty, after all those years. I turned down a couple of offers because there were special conditions of employment involved, and I was in no mood for another man who wanted to own even that small part of me. I don’t know…I’ve never known…how many jobs I lost because of Gordon’s quiet influence-he must have located me immediately-and how many because of the ordinary handicaps of my situation. There were a few things I didn’t try: washing dishes, ushering at movie theaters… It wasn’t false pride; I was afraid of places like that.”

The look in Michael’s eyes hurt her, and yet she found a perverse pleasure in seeing how deeply she could move him.

“I finally got a job as live-in maid and baby-sitter for a family in the suburbs,” she went on. “I held it for three days before the woman told me she didn’t need me. I’m pretty sure that was Gordon’s pressure; household help is darned hard to get these days. Maybe he told the woman I was mentally disturbed.

“I was pretty desperate by then. When Gordon popped into my slummy little hotel room, with his tame psychiatrist in tow, I was in no condition to put up a fight. It probably wouldn’t have mattered, even if I could have kept my cool; the doctor was under Gordon’s famous spell. But of course I didn’t stay calm, I started yelling and screaming, and got an injection for my pains. When I woke up, I was back-home. And all the servants walked around shaking their heads and sighing. I thought at first that I’d try again, plan more carefully-scrape together enough money to get away, a long way away. But it is not easy to fool Gordon. And-I just didn’t have the strength. It took all the energy I had to keep myself from giving in, from admitting that I was losing my mind.”

Michael stooped and picked up a tiger kitten, which had gone to sleep on his foot. The motion of bending brought a little color back to his face.

“I still don’t understand why,” he said.

“Why Gordon wants to have me declared insane? I wouldn’t be sent to a sanatorium, you know; he’d keep me at home, in a nice quiet padded cell, with nice quiet attendants watching me every second. Gordon doesn’t give things away, or let go of the things he owns. He discards them; they don’t leave him. Does that degree of vanity seem monstrous to you? It does to me, too; but that’s Gordon, he’s always been that way, he cannot endure rejection. Especially from me. I gave him love, devotion, admiration-but they weren’t enough. When he demanded more, I started to fight back. But that’s the insidious thing about a plan like his. How do you prove you’re sane? It’s a vicious circle; the more desperate and frightened you become, the more erratically you behave; before long you begin to wonder yourself, and then the progression downhill is rapid. I started drinking. But not until after I tried-”

“I know about that,” Michael said quickly.

“You do? Oh, of course, he’d tell you that. And you-you came here?”

Michael shook his head, dismissing irrelevancies.

“I don’t know what made you do it,” he said. “But the end result is clear.”

“Oh, yes, it was the final bar on the prison door. If I tried to escape again, he had the ultimate weapon. I was dangerous-homicidal-and he had witnesses to prove it.”

“Good Lord,” Michael muttered. His fingers continued their automatic caress of the kitten, which was curled in the crook of his arm, purring loudly. Linda watched the animal, using it, illogically perhaps, as a kind of live barometer. So long as the cats were quiet…

“But I did it,” Linda went on. “I don’t remember anything that preceded it, but I remember lying there on the floor, with the knife beside me, where it had fallen from my hand. There was blood on the knife… He’d knocked me down; you can’t blame him for that. He wasn’t even particularly rough about it. The lights were blazing and the room seemed to be filled with people, and Gordon stood there with blood running down the sleeve of his shirt…”

“Shirt? Wasn’t he in pajamas?”

“I don’t think so… No. Does it matter?”

“Not really. But it stimulates my nasty suspicious mind. You don’t remember actually striking the blow?”

Suddenly it was difficult for her to speak, or to look at him.

“You do go all the way, when you take up a cause,” she whispered. “Michael, it’s no use. I wouldn’t remember that, it’s the one thing my mind would utterly reject, would blot out. But I…had thought about it. Sometimes it seemed to me that I could hear the words, they were so loud in my mind: Kill him. It’s the only way you can ever get away. You can twist and evade all you like, but you can’t free me of that act-or excuse it. There’s no excuse for killing, unless it’s the only means of self-defense left to you. And he was not threatening my life.”

“What about your soul?”

“Don’t,” she said breathlessly. “Don’t talk about that. It’s the excuse I’ve used…but I’m not sure I believe in the soul.”

“Maybe that’s not the right name. But it exists-some entity other than the body. It brought me here-your call.”

“My call?”

“That’s not a good word either, but I can’t describe it because I’ve never felt anything I can compare it with. It hit me last night-a sudden, peremptory mental calling. You wanted me, you needed me, and I had to find you.”

“But I didn’t call you,” she said slowly. “Not that way or any other way.”

Michael stared.

“You must have. I couldn’t have been so sure without…Last night, near midnight-didn’t you ask for help? Not necessarily of me-a prayer, a mental plea…”

“No. Nothing.”

“Then who…”

In his surprise, Michael almost dropped the kitten. It eluded his fumbling hands, jumped down, and streaked for the door. In the silence they both heard the sounds. There was someone, or something, at the front door.

They moved closer together, like children afraid of the dark; their hands groped and clasped. Linda’s first impulse, to hide, was canceled by Michael’s behavior. He stood rock-still, facing the darkened doorway; and Linda accepted his decision. Whatever it was, running away wouldn’t help.

But when the opening door was followed by the sound of footsteps coming slowly down the hall, she went limp with relief. She recognized those footsteps.

Andrea stood in the doorway like a figure straight out of Grimm. The black, hooded cloak she wore, even while grocery shopping in the village, blended with the darkness of the hallway behind her, so that her wrinkled face stood out with uncanny distinctness. Over her arm was the basket she carried in lieu of a purse. She paid no attention to the cats, who were weaving patterns around her feet, but surveyed her unexpected visitors without surprise.

“I thought you’d be here,” she said.

Linda would have accepted that statement as an example of the old woman’s boasted ESP, but when Andrea raised a hand to push back her hood, she realized that there might be another explanation. Andrea was trembling. Terror and a strange exultation blended in her face.

“It’s out there,” she said. “Waiting for you. I saw it. Heavenly saints-I saw it!”

“It can’t be,” Linda gasped. “The cats didn’t notice.”

“There is a circle of protection woven about this house,” Andrea chanted. The effect was only slightly marred by her stagger as she crossed the room to put down her basket and lay her cloak aside.

“Where was it?” Michael asked.

“Under the white lilac bush at the side of the house.” Fumbling in a cupboard, Andrea accepted his presence without question. She straightened up with a bottle in her hand, jerked out the cork, and put the bottle to her lips. She drank deeply, her prominent Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. When she lowered the bottle she shuddered, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

“I needed that,” she said. “Have some?”

“No, thanks,” Michael said.

“Suit yourself.”

Andrea put the bottle down on the table. Michael’s eyes moved from it to Andrea, to Linda, and then off into space; and Linda knew that he had deduced the source of her private liquor supply. He must have wondered about that…

Andrea got a glass from the cupboard and poured herself a stiff drink. Michael moved, as if in protest; and Andrea gave him a hostile glance.

“Need this,” she muttered. “Had a bad shock.”

“Why a shock?” Michael asked coldly. “You’re the one who believes in demons.”

Andrea collapsed onto the nearest chair. A cat left it, in the nick of time.

“Poor Tommy,” Andrea crooned, reaching out an unsteady hand. “Did Mama hurt the baby?”

Michael’s mouth curled expressively, and Linda turned on him.

“Leave her alone! She’s not young, and her heart isn’t too good.”

“Nothing wrong with my heart,” Andrea said decisively. She shoved the bottle away and set her empty glass down with a thud. “I said I needed that, and I did. As for you, Mr. Collins, if you’re such a pretty little skeptic, what the hell are you doing here? Stooging for the great Gordon Randolph? The delectable decoy, to lead her out into his waiting-claws?”

Michael took a step toward her and stopped himself with an effort that left him shaking.

“Sit down,” Andrea said gruffly. “I take it back. If you are a decoy, you’re an unwitting one. I know what you’re thinking-this crazy old bat has corrupted the innocent girl with her weird ideas of witchcraft. Baby, I didn’t give Linda the idea. She gave it to me. And, God help me, I didn’t believe her until tonight. I saw him. I knew him. He’s waiting out there, waiting for her. He can’t get in. Not yet. But he’s summoning his powers. Can’t you feel them, growing, feeding on evil? Soon he’ll be strong enough. Soon he’ll come.”

The high, crooning voice was semihypnotic. Crouched in her chair, monotonously stroking the black cat that had sprung to her lap, Andrea cast a spell of conviction. Michael shook himself.

“I thought you said you had a protective spell around the house,” he said.

“Ordinary white magic, against ordinary intruders. This isn’t ordinary. He’s strong. Very strong. But it takes time to build up the power. It’s building now. Can’t you feel it? I can feel it. Like electricity in the air. When it’s strong enough-then he’ll come for her.”

The cat’s fur crackled under her moving hand.

“What does he want?” Michael demanded. “Damn it, there has to be a reason, even if it’s a crazy reason. What is he after?”

Linda felt like a spectator, or a piece of meat over which two merchants were haggling. She hated the feeling, but she could not fight it; the force of the other personalities was too strong. They faced one another like duelists. Michael’s fists were clenched. Andrea’s weapons were more subtle-the crooning voice, the air of conviction.

“He’s after her soul,” she said softly. “Her immortal soul. His own is already in pawn to the powers of darkness. He wants hers, not to redeem his own, but to suffer with him, in flames, through eternity.”

Michael turned away.

“That’s insane.”

“Why should you stop at that, when you’ve accepted so much?” Andrea asked, in the same insidious whine. “You came here to save her, didn’t you? Oh, you don’t need to answer; I know, I know it all. I’ve seen the thread, the silver thread that binds the two of you. It’s knotted and tarnished now, but there’s no break in it. It will bind you forever, into death and beyond. It drew you here, to her side, when she needed you.”

Andrea stood up. The cat slid down like a pool of viscous ink. There was a power in the old woman, if only the power of her belief. It forced Michael to face her.

“But you can’t save her,” she said. “Love is a strong force, the purity of the soul is stronger; but nothing can avail against the powers of darkness except the concentrated power of good. And only I can control that power. I can save her. And I will! All my life, all my studies, have led me toward this moment.”

Michael spoke to Linda. He had himself under control now; there was even a certain compassion in his face as he glanced at the old woman.

“Will you stay here, with her?” he asked. “Or will you come with me, now? The choice is yours, Linda. It has to be yours.”

Linda hesitated. The tone of his appeal reached her, drawing on some core of sanity and strength. The appeal of being allowed-no, forced-to decide her own fate was something only she could fully appreciate, after years of life with Gordon. Michael waited patiently for her to answer, but Andrea did not.

“No, no,” she shrieked. Rushing toward Linda, she caught at the girl’s shoulders with both hands. They felt like bird’s claws, fragile and fleshless.

“You can’t go out there,” she whimpered. “Don’t think it, don’t dream it. He doesn’t understand. He wants you, he wants you for himself, to save you for himself and keep you. Make him stay. He can help. He can help if he will, he’s strong and young… But if he will go, don’t go with him. Stay, I’ll save you. Andrea will save you, she knows…”

“All right,” Linda said. “All right, Andrea.”

She turned to Michael.

“I can’t go,” she said. “It isn’t only because of Andrea. I’m afraid, Michael. I’m afraid to go out into the dark-even with you.”

She knew that Andrea’s hysteria had convinced Michael, but not in the way she had hoped. The very wildness of Andrea’s appeal had swayed his mind back toward rational rejection. If there ever was an obvious picture, this is it, Linda thought dully-a crazy old woman and a weak-minded young one. She wondered how much of her decision to stay was due to her pity for Andrea rather than fear-and how much to her instinctive recoil from one of Andrea’s statements: “He wants you for himself.”

“We’ll stay, then,” Michael said. “If that’s what you want. I guess it can’t do any harm.”

Her purpose achieved, Andrea turned brisk and businesslike. The volte-face was so sudden that Linda was left wondering, futilely, how much of Andrea was real and how much was calculated theatricalism.

“We must begin,” Andrea said, rubbing her hands together. “At once. The time is short. Purification. It must be symbolic, I daren’t let you out of my sight. Come along, both of you.”

Andrea’s workroom, as she called it, was a small separate building, once a shed or outdoor kitchen, now connected to the house by a lowceilinged passageway. Linda heard Michael’s gasp, and sympathized; if the kitchen had been picturesque, this room came straight out of the ages of alchemy.

Its single window was heavily draped. There were no electric lights. Andrea moved about lighting candles-candles in bottles, candles in tall brass candlesticks, candles stuck onto saucers in puddles of grease, candles in glass-covered brackets on the wall. In their eerie, moving light, the room looked even more uncanny than it did by daylight.

A long, rough table was completely covered with a fantastic collection of miscellany, from papers of all sizes, shapes, and colors, to samples of dried vegetation. Small baskets, boxes, and ordinary brown paper bags were strewn about. One pile of papers, whose vivid colors and angular shapes suggested Japanese origami creations, was held down by a human skull. Another, narrower, table had oddly shaped glass bottles and beakers, filled with colored liquids, like those in an old-fashioned pharmacist’s window. The contents of the flasks glowed, lambent in the mellow candle-light-sea blue, crimson, gold, and green. Rough wooden shelves along one wall held a collection of crumbling leather books. The walls, of whitewashed, unfinished planks, were hung with drawings and diagrams. Dominating the room, on the wall opposite the door, was a huge medieval crucifix with its tormented Image, flanked by glass-covered candle sconces. The center of the floor was empty and uncarpeted and almost without varnish after centuries of traffic. The air in the room was close and stale, permeated by a cloyingly sweet smell.

As soon as the candles were lighted, Andrea fumbled in the basket she had brought with her. Another scent, pungently different but equally unpleasant, wafted forth to war with the stench of stale incense. Linda recognized it; her guess was confirmed when Andrea scooped up a double handful of small whitish-gray bulbs. She opened her hands and the bulbs separated, like the Dutch chocolate apples which are made up of pre-formed slices; but instead of dropping to the floor, the segments of garlic hung from her hands, suspended on long pieces of twine.

Michael sneezed.

“God bless you,” Andrea said, with the force of an incantation.

She draped the threaded cloves of garlic over the window and the threshold of the closed door. Michael watched silently. Linda watched Michael. She saw, with growing despair, that the pendulum of his thinking had swung back, toward the rational world and away from her. Andrea’s mumbo jumbo had destroyed his sensitivities; his hostility and distaste for her were so strong that he couldn’t feel that dreadful reality behind the ritual. Linda felt it even more strongly here, in this frail wooden box that was exposed to the night on all four sides. No. Not four sides-five. On the roof, the rain drummed with importunate demand; but above the normal pressure of the storm, Linda was conscious of other forces gathering, closing in.

When the garlic was in place, Andrea went to a cupboard and took out a flask, crossing herself as she did so.

“Sit over there,” she ordered brusquely, indicating the spot with a jerk of her head. “In the middle of the floor. Take some cushions from that corner. We’ll be here for a good long time.”

Michael muttered something under his breath, but obeyed. As he and Linda seated themselves, Andrea anointed the doors and windows with liquid from the flask and then, walking backward, dribbled the contents of the flask in a wide circle around the seated pair. She was careful to stay within the circle. When it was closed, a dark, unbroken wetness on the worn boards of the floor, she came to Linda.

“Hold out your hands,” she ordered, and poured a few drops of the remaining liquid into Linda’s cupped palms. As she directed, Linda touched the water to her forehead. Michael followed the same procedure, reluctance slowing his movements.

Andrea scrambled to her feet. She seemed to have regressed, both mentally and in time; hobbling, mumbling, she might have stepped out of a sixteenth-century village street-the wise woman, the white witch, Old Mother Demdike. She took a piece of chalk from one of the pockets concealed in her ample skirts and crawled around the interior circumference of the circle of holy water, scribbling designs and symbols onto the floor-boards, taking care not to touch the dark dribble of wetness. When she had finished, she crouched down on the floor facing the other two, and poured the last few drops of water into her right hand, crossing herself repeatedly. Her scarlet skirts made a puddle of bright color in the candlelight; her back was curved. The drone of her voice was unbroken except for quick, shallow breaths that came faster and faster and reminded Linda unpleasantly of an animal panting.

Gradually, as Linda watched the old woman’s intent face and glazing eyes, the drone of her voice and the monotonous drumming of the rain blended into a single soft whine, like the buzz of a giant insect. Linda’s cramped legs grew numb. She tried to move her hand and found it would not respond to her will. The man beside her, the other objects in the room, drew back and lost reality. There was nothing else in the universe except the mingled drone of voice and rain, and the steadily mounting pressure of an invisible force.

The room seemed darker-or were her eyes failing? The low sound was inside her head now, reverberating against the bony dome of her skull. She could hardly feel the wooden floor under her bent legs, but every inch of her skin tingled with the force. It was as if the encompassing air had grown heavier, or as if she were newly sensitized to its constant, unfelt pressure. A picture began to form behind her eyes. She saw the room in miniature, like a small cube of light in the midst of towering, indistinct shapes of darkness, which surrounded it like storm clouds. Featureless and black, yet living, they leaned in over the frail walls; but within, another force moved and grew, holding back the dark. She saw it all, in that moment, as a cosmic manifestation-the struggle of light against darkness. Across the world and the ages the battle raged, unseen, with the balance swaying now to one side and now to the other. In their small microcosm of the universe, the scales were balanced; but the struggle was not static. The pans dipped and swayed as the opposing strengths changed to counter each other’s weight. She could not see beyond the darkness; but within the light, the power emanated from one hunched figure. She herself was not part of that cosmic struggle; she was only a pawn, a fly trapped by two great winds, an animal caught between two armies massed for battle…

Deep down inside her dazed consciousness, a small spark of outrage flared. True or false, a cosmic vision or a fancy of hysteria, that view of the universe was not to her liking. She would not surrender her will, even to good, without a voice in the decision. Linda made the greatest effort of her life-an effort all the harder because it was without a physical counterpart. It was like pushing, with her mind, against a barred and bolted door. Then something gave way, with an almost audible snap, and the room flashed back into focus.

Michael’s hand clasped hers; she felt the pain of his grasp now. He was not looking at her, but at Andrea; his face was as white as paper. As Linda turned dazed eyes on the old woman, Andrea’s voice faltered, caught, and stopped. The rain pounded on the roof in a roar of water. Linda saw the candle flames swaying like live things trying to escape from an attacker. The gritty boards of the floor were harsh against her bare legs. Only one residue of her vanished vision remained: the consciousness of pressures mounting, building up to a tension that could not hold. Like an overload on an electrical system…Sooner or later something would blow.

Andrea raised clawed hands to her throat. Her mouth gaped open. She made hoarse sounds, her eyes bulged. Then her hands fell, and for a dreadful moment she balanced on hands and knees, head dangling, like a sick animal. Knees and elbows gave way; she rolled over onto her side and lay still.

The storm rose up, howling with wild winds around the eaves, battering at the walls. As Linda sat frozen, staring at the old woman’s empty eyes and still face, Michael got to his feet. He staggered as his numbed legs took his weight, and then leaned forward over Andrea’s body. When he turned, Linda knew what he was going to say.

“She’s dead. We must-good God Almighty!”

The impact of the mighty wind was strong enough to break the window; but it was not wet air that came through the shattered pane in one great leap. Michael’s left arm swept out, catching Linda as she stood up, and throwing her back against the wall. Most of the candles died in the gust of rain and wind. The pair that flanked the crucifix wavered and held. Pressed against the same wall, her body aching with the violence of the impact, Linda saw him go down, buried under the solid black mass of the thing that had come through the window. It made no sound, none that she could hear over the agonized wail of the storm, which was whistling through some crevice in the broken glass with a noise like that of a pipe or whistle. And there was another sound-the sound of Michael’s gasps, as he fought for his life.