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Faces.

None of the women had faces, and that was another clear sign of a delusional sexual phobia. He can’t, Dr. Harold realized. He can’t draw their faces because he’s afraid to.

Dr. Harold turned a random page. He paused.

Here was a face.

God, he thought. Its clarity stunned him. He was looking at a full page drawing of a woman. The moon shone through brambles and streaks of trees; the woman was standing in a dell. Dr. Harold actually shivered. The sketch was more than a sketch—it was a dichotomy, a wedding of extremes. Revulsion clashed with erotic beauty. The perverse clashed with the reverent. What was going on in Tharp’s mind when he penned this? Dr. Harold had seen quite a bit of patient artwork in his time. Art was a catharsis, and a demented person’s catharsis logically reflected demented art. But this…

Dr. Harold had never seen anything like it. It was atrocious… and lovely. Eloquent, and harrowing. He’d never looked at a work of art so beautiful and yet so obscene.

The woman stood beseechingly. Her hands were out, as if to invite embrace, yet the fingers were exceedingly long, and nails protracted like sleek, fine talons. Long legs rose to form a perfect hourglass figure. The breasts had been drawn so scrupulously they seemed three dimensional upon the page. They were high, large, with large dark circles for nipples. The pubis had been drawn similarly: a shining, downy thatch against pure white skin. The woman’s hair was a great dark mane. Twin diminutive nubs seemed to protrude from the forehead, almost like—

Like horns, Dr. Harold realized.

And the face…

The face was nothing more than two slitlike eyes above a black opened maw full of needle teeth.

Chapter 18

Something bothered Martin all day. The dream, of course. The naked girls queerly painting trees in the middle of the night. The parcels he’d buried, and then Melanie… And Maedeen…

He tried all day to forget about it. Even Ann, with her own dream traumas, had noticed he wasn’t himself. They’d had lunch and taken a drive. He’d hoped a nice scenic drive would get his thoughts away, but anywhere he looked he saw the woods, and when he saw the woods he saw the dream. They’d driven by the general store and he’d seen Maedeen outside sweeping the walk. She’d turned and waved as if she’d sensed them driving by. Martin subtly shuddered. The momentary glimpse gave him an erection.

All right, I’m attracted to her, he realized. So what? That’s why God made women good looking, isn’t it?

But it was more than that. He knew it was.

That morning, he and Ann had made love. Lately, it seemed something wasn’t right between them, that she wasn’t enjoying it. Male paranoia, he’d always concluded. Was he rationalizing? It was a fact he didn’t want to face: this time, when they’d made love, he hadn’t been thinking of Ann at all. He had been thinking of Maedeen.

Suddenly, Ann shivered.

“What’s wrong?”

She looked distractedly past the windshield, just as Martin pulled the Mustang around the town square, past the church. “I don’t know,” she said. “I just feel fidgety.” But it seemed that she’d shivered just as they’d passed the church.

“You didn’t sleep well last night. You had the nightmare again, didn’t you?”

Ann nodded. “It keeps getting worse, and there’s more to it now, more details. And lately…” Her words trailed off.

“And?”

“I don’t know,” she said. She seemed confused. “Lately, I’ve been having some kind of vertigo. Like just now. I’ll be wide awake, and all of a sudden I’ll see something.”

Martin slowed through the crossing lights. “What did you see?”

Ann shivered again. “Nothing.”

Martin knew when to lay off. “You’re not getting enough sleep,” he ventured. “This nightmare’s turning you inside out. Maybe you should call Dr. Harold, see what he thinks.”

“No, that would be silly. I will not let my whole life shake apart because of a stupid nightmare.”

“Don’t feel bad,” Martin said. “I had a nightmare last night too.”

Ann looked at him abruptly. “Melanie’s also having nightmares.”

“It must run in the family,” Martin attempted to laugh it off. “Relax, will you? You worry way too much about her.”

“Martin, let’s not get into that again.”

“Okay, okay.” He headed back to the house. But he knew he was right. Ann’s difficulties were compounding. Her father dying, her mother’s adversity, the canceled vacation. Now she had this “vertigo” in conjunction with the nightmare. Too many things were building up at once, weighing her down.

Martin wondered how close she was to breaking.

«« — »»

Ann didn’t know what to tell him. Sooner or later he’s going to think I’m going nuts. Yes, her nightmare just kept getting worse, and now this vertigo. She couldn’t think of any other way to describe it. Was it part of the dream she wasn’t remembering? It was like a gory daydream. Wide awake she’d suddenly shiver—

—and see red.

She’d see hands plunging a knife into someone, a wide silver blade sinking repeatedly into naked flesh. The dead silent backdrop made it even worse; in this vision all she could hear was the steady slup slup slup of the knife. And all she could see: blood flying everywhere, breasts and belly quivering as the blade continued to rise and fall, rise and fall…

Slup slup slup…slup slup slup…

The face of the victim couldn’t be seen, but somehow she felt convinced that the person being butchered was herself.

Martin parked the Mustang on the street; several cars filled the driveway. In the foyer, Ann noticed her mother entertaining several guests in the dining room. Mrs. Gargan was there, and Constance, Dr. Heyd’s wife, plus the widowed Mrs. Virasak, and a few of Lockwood’s other elderwomen. They chatted softly, drinking tea. But when Ann’s mother noticed her, she got up quickly from the table and drew closed the dining room doors.

“She knows how to make a person feel welcome,” Martin joked. “What are they doing in there?”

“Who knows?” Ann said. “Who cares?”

“I’m going to sit out back, try to get some writing done.”

“Okay,” Ann said. Several times now she’d seen him grab his pad and disappear into the spacious backyard. He seemed to find peace here, every poet’s quest, which made Ann slightly jealous. Martin liked it here. At least if he hated it, she wouldn’t feel so alone.

Upstairs she looked around for Melanie. Her room was empty, but she heard water running—the shower. Ann peered out the window and saw Martin sitting in a lawn chair at the edge of the woods. His pad lay in his lap, his hand poised. He seemed to be looking up at the sky with his eyes closed.

“Hi, Mom,” Melanie greeted. She came in wearing her dark robe and had a towel around her head. “Where have you been?”

“Martin and I went for a drive. We were thinking of going to the inn for dinner. Want to come?”

“I won’t be able to make it. I’m meeting some friends.”

Ann sat down on the bed, perturbed. “You haven’t mentioned much about these new friends of yours.”

“Oh, Wendlyn, Rena? They’re pretty cool.”

Pretty cool. Ann smirked. “I saw you with a boy yesterday.”

Melanie smiled. “That’s Zack. He’s cool too.”

“He looks like your friends back home, leather jacket and—”