“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.