Dark on the Other Side (7 page)

“Andrea’s muttering incantations over some plants,”
Michael said with a smile. “Gordon was called to the telephone, and
Briggs went with him.”

“Oh.”

Slowly Linda relaxed her cramped fingers, which had been
clutching the edge of the drapes. Her mind began to function again. If
Briggs had gone with Gordon, the telephone call must have been a
business call, and it might take some time. Andrea in the garden, lost
in her crazy spells…

You see,
one of those disembodied
voices murmured gently,
if you want something badly enough,
it arranges itself
….

She smiled, slowly, and saw the subtle response in
Michael’s face; she turned, slowly, slowly, and looked out into the
palely lighted night. He would have to join her at the window; it would
only be courteous. And from here she could see Andrea returning. She
could hear, if she listened carefully, any footsteps approaching the
room.

He came. She had known he would.

“Very effective,” he said, after a moment.

Startled, Linda looked up at him. Just what had he meant
by that ambiguous adjective? Whether he meant to refer to the lights or
not, she would have to assume that he had.

“I don’t really like it,” she said. “The lighting.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, I don’t know. It bothers me, somehow.”

“Because it’s not real? You are bothered by pretense?”

This time she could not be mistaken. There was a slight
but definite mocking tone in his voice.

“No,” she said sharply. “I don’t object to good
imitations. But there’s a tint in this light that is like a travesty of
moonlight. Greenish. Don’t you see it?”

Michael looked, frowning in concentration. That was one
of the qualities that made him so attractive. He seriously considered
new ideas. He might be prejudiced against her—that was inevitable—but
he would not dismiss any reasonable question without thinking about it.

“You’re right,” he said finally. “You don’t see it right
away.”

“No. It—grows on you.”

Linda moved a little, shifting position. Her bare arm
brushed his sleeve. She felt the slight recoil of his arm with
satisfaction. He was not impervious. But then which of them was? Old
and young, stupid and brilliant, sensitive and brutal—they were all
alike in this one thing. If she couldn’t reach the mind of the
individual man, she would reach the male animal. But she would have to
force it upon him. He was civilized enough, and cautious enough, to
reject subtle advances. Some men would have responded before this.

She swayed, raising one hand to her face. Crude, this
method, but time was short. Once she was in his arms, the rest would
follow.

He had to put his arm around her; he couldn’t let her
crash to the floor at his feet.

“Feeling dizzy again?” he asked coolly. “You’d better sit
down.”

“No. I’ll be all right in a minute.”

Damn him, she thought. He was as rigid as a stick of
wood. It was hard to resist his effort to move her toward a chair or
couch, and still seem limp and helpless. She let go completely,
clinging to him with both hands, her body against his.

There was a moment of resistance. He knew quite well what
she was doing. Then it happened, as she had known it would. That the
response was purely mechanical, a reflex that his mind rejected and
resented, she did not care.

But as his arms tightened and his head bent, seeking her
mouth, a strange thing happened. It was the first time for many months
that a man had touched her in this way, and she had expected her body
to respond with starved alacrity, all the more so because he was a man
to whom she might have been attracted, normally, under normal
circumstances. How abnormal these circumstances were she did not
realize until she felt her head twist, avoiding the kiss she had
invited, and sensed the pressure of her hands against his chest. His
arms loosened; he could hardly escape feeling the mindless revulsion
that filled her. And then, over the curve of his arm, she saw the
eerily lighted window and the thing that stood outside, on the lawn,
staring in at her.

Only once before had she seen it so distinctly. It stood
quite still. Still as a statue, still as a figure painted by a child or
a primitive artist—an outline sketched by a sharp pen and filled in,
solidly, with black ink. Yet the individual hairs, bristling along the
curve of the back, were distinct; so was the heavy, predatory muzzle
and the thrust of the head. The only lights in the whole mass were the
eyes—red, luminous, glowing like coals.

From a great distance Linda heard Michael’s voice
repeating her name. She wasn’t pretending now, and he knew it. But his
voice was lost in the shrieking cacophony of the other voices, the
voices that had haunted her for months, risen now to a whirl of mocking
laughter:
We told you, we told you. Now it’s too late. Too
late, too late, too late
…

Then all the voices faded into blackness and silence.

A SHARP, STINGING SCENT PIERCED
LINDA’S LUNGS.
she struggled, choking. Her face was all
wet; cheeks and hands stung as if they had been slapped. Opening
reluctant eyes, she saw a face near hers. It was not one of the faces
she expected to see, and for a moment it was as unfamiliar as a total
stranger’s. A round, florid man’s face, with horn-rimmed glasses and
thick, iron-gray hair…Gold. Doctor Gold. Linda’s eyes closed again.

“I’m all right,” she muttered, as the doctor waved the
horrible-smelling thing under her nose again. “Don’t…”

“Sure you’re all right,” he agreed smoothly. “Just
fainted. Take it easy for a minute.”

He patted her shoulder mechanically and stood up. Gordon
must have dragged him away from a quiet evening at home; he was
tieless, and pepper-and-salt stubble darkened his heavy jowls. As he
moved away from her, Linda saw Andrea at the foot of the couch on which
she was lying. The old woman was bent like a priest bowing before the
Host; her hands wove patterns in the air and she crooned under her
breath. A wave of feeble dislike swept Linda. How could she have had
such faith in the old witch? Not that Andrea didn’t—know things. But
she hadn’t been much help so far. Her behavior tonight had been
maddeningly wrong, evoking hostility instead of sympathy. What on earth
did she think she was doing now—summoning her friend’s wandering spirit
back into her body?

Her ritual completed, Andrea caught Linda’s eye. She
leaned forward over the foot of the couch.

“What was it?” she hissed.

Linda shook her head. Stupid, stupid…she couldn’t talk
about it here, Andrea knew that. But sooner or later she would have to
tell Andrea about the latest appearance. Whom else could she talk to?
No one else would believe her. Andrea only believed because she was
half crazy herself.

Her eyes pulled away from the avid demand in the older
woman’s gaze. Michael was nowhere in sight; probably he had effaced
himself, as any proper visitor would when the hostess was taken ill.
Linda wondered where he was. She wondered why she cared—why this one
man’s absence from a room could make it feel empty. Especially now,
after that unexpected fiasco at the window…

She forced herself to concentrate on the important
presences. Gordon and Hank Gold made a significant little group,
standing with their backs turned, talking in voices so low she could
not make out the words. She didn’t need to hear, she knew what they
were saying. Once Gordon had made her visit Gold professionally. The
doctor had poked every muscle in her body and taken samples of
everything that was detachable. Then he had sat and talked. She had not
been in good shape that day; the trend of the conversation had got away
from her. Finally she had had to invent an excuse for leaving. It was a
flight, rather than departure, and Gold had been well aware of it.
After that, she had refused to consult him again; had he not admitted
that all her physical tests were normal? But she couldn’t prevent
Gordon from inviting his friend and neighbor to dinner occasionally.
She couldn’t always excuse herself on the grounds of a headache. She
couldn’t keep Gordon from telling him things.

And now—now she would have to fight. If there was the
slightest hint, the least admission of what she thought she had
seen…Panic twisted her stomach. Michael. Had she spoken to him in the
last seconds, gasped out any damning description of the thing that
stood glaring outside the window? There was no need to wonder whether
he had seen it. No one saw it except she herself. Once, when she was
showing Hank Gold the gardens, it had passed through the darkening
twilight like a flash of black fog. Turning, at her startled
exclamation, he had denied seeing anything except a shadow. That made
it all the more important that she should not mention the word now—that
deadly, ominous common noun.

The conference ended. They turned and came to her, Gordon
first, the doctor following, scratching at his chin.

“Bed for you, baby,” Gordon said, with a forced smile.
“Hank says you’ll be fine after a good night’s sleep.”

Linda gathered her wits together.

“Hank probably hates both of us,” she said. “Dragging him
out in the middle of the night just because I fainted.”

Gordon’s smile faded.

“I couldn’t get you out of it,” he said. “This can’t go
on, Linda. You must agree—”

A hand on his arm stopped him. Gold was smiling, but his
eyes gave him away.

“This girl needs rest, Gordon, not a lecture. We’ll
discuss it in the morning.”

“Sorry,” Gordon muttered.

“Nothing to be sorry about.” It was farcical, the
contrast between Gold’s smile, his casual voice, and his intent,
betraying stare. “Here, Linda, pop one of these down. Then off you go.
I’ll see you in the morning.”

It appeared as if by legerdemain, a small white capsule
lost in the vast pink reaches of his hand.

“What is it?” Linda asked.

“Just a mild sedative. So you can sleep.”

Trapped, Linda looked from the little pill to Gold’s
face—pink, smiling and inexorable.

Silently she took the capsule. What was the use?

When she had swallowed it, both men seemed to heave a
simultaneous sigh of relief. They expected more of a fight, Linda
thought, and derived a faint, grim satisfaction from fooling them even
that much. This was right; this was how she had to behave from now on.
She had been wrong, before, to struggle openly.

“I’ll carry you,” Gordon said.

She waved him off.

“Up all those stairs? I can walk perfectly well.”

The room wavered as she sat up and Gold came to her
assistance. She was glad to lean on the arm he offered. It was better
than some of the other possibilities. Now that she was standing, she
could see Michael, near the door. She walked slowly toward him, leaning
on the doctor’s arm.

It was impossible for her to tell, from his carefully
controlled face, what he might have heard—or repeated. But she had to
know.

“What made me faint, Hank?” she asked, in a sweet,
worried voice.

“I can’t be sure, my dear, until we run a few tests.”

Linda stopped, pulling on his arm.

“But you gave me every test you could think of. You said
I was fine.” Her voice rose; with an effort, she got control of
herself. “I hate being jabbed with needles,” she said meekly.

“Many people do.” Gold’s chuckle would have deceived most
listeners. “My own nurse—would you believe it, I’ve got to give her a
tranquilizer before I can take a blood sample. I think you’re very good
about it, Linda.”

“But if the other tests were normal—”

“My dear, that was just a routine physical. There are
rare diseases and deficiencies that require specific analysis. I may
have missed something.”

“Such as what?”

She didn’t look at the doctor; she looked at Michael, now
only a few feet away. And she knew.

“My dear child, I can’t possibly speculate. It could be
anything from an allergy to a chemical deficiency. Perhaps you can give
me the clue—something you ate or drank, something you did today…. Come
along, now, you ought to be in bed; we’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

The pressure of his arm increased and Linda went with it,
no longer resisting. She had found out what she needed to know. During
Gold’s final speech, Michael’s eyes had met hers. There must be some
truth to this business of ESP, she thought. She had asked, silently;
and he had answered, in equal silence.

As she went through the doorway, Michael seemed far away
from her. She was tired; so tired she could hardly move her feet. The
doctor’s strong arm half lifted her up the stairs. As she went, through
the thickening mists of sleep, she heard Gordon speak his guest’s name,
and knew that they would be settling down for a long talk as soon as
Andrea left. The pill, the damned sleeping pill; she wouldn’t be able
to creep downstairs to listen, as she had listened to other
conversations. But it didn’t matter. She knew what they would say as
well as if she were in the room, invisible and percipient.

II

“Thanks, yes,” Michael said. “I could use a drink.”

Gordon nodded and went to the bar, which was concealed in
what had been a Hepplewhite sideboard. Glancing around the room, in the
mental equivalent of a man brushing himself off after a crawl through
the woods, Michael reorganized his shaken faculties. The secretary,
Briggs, wasn’t in the room; that was why Gordon was doing his own
bartending. Come to think of it, Briggs had not reappeared after
fetching the doctor. The man must have some idea of tact after all.

Andrea was still very much with them, though, and Michael
wondered how Gordon planned to get rid of the old woman. The man’s need
to talk crackled in the air like electricity, but Michael thought he
would not bare his soul in front of the witch. Witch…It wasn’t so hard
to believe, seeing Andrea as she looked now. Excitement and the damp
night air had loosened her frizzled hair so that it hung in limp locks
across her cheeks. Witch locks…another appropriate word whose meaning
he had never considered.

“One for the road, Andrea?” Gordon spoke without turning
from the bar.

“Subtle as a brick wall,” the old woman cackled. “Forget
it, Gordon, I can take a hint without being primed like a pump. I’m
going.”

She heaved herself up from the couch in a mammoth flutter
of skirts and jangle of beads. She was too good an actress, Michael
thought, to leave without a good exit line. Gordon seemed to feel the
same way; he turned with a glass in each hand and stood watching
Andrea. Andrea did not disappoint them. Drawing herself up to her full
height, she thrust out an arm and pointed a fat finger at Gordon.

“You jeered at me tonight, Gordon Randolph, for fighting
the powers of darkness. Take care—for They are not mocked. The time may
come when you will beg on your knees for the help you despise now. Be
sure that I will not deny you.”

She spun on her heel, her skirts belling out like a
monstrous purple flower, and stalked toward the door. Michael arranged
his facial muscles into a conciliatory smile, but Andrea was not
disarmed. She had a parting word for him, too.

“As for you—you are a mocker and a doubter….”

An uncanny transformation came over voice and face, as
the first trailed off into silence and the other lost its rigid anger.
The old woman’s throat worked hideously as she struggled to speak. When
the words finally came, they were shocking because of their
softness—faint and whispering, like a child’s voice calling out in the
terror of a nightmare.

“Help,” Andrea said. “Please…help…”

Too amazed to move, Michael stood rooted, staring at her,
and in another second the act was over. The wrinkled face snapped back
into its malevolent expression and Andrea stamped out of the room,
leaving a silence that vibrated.

“Whew,” Michael said feebly. “She’s really something,
isn’t she?”

Gordon removed himself from the sideboard, against which
he had been leaning, and sauntered toward Michael, holding out one of
the glasses. The incident, which had shaken Michael, seemed to have
removed some of Gordon’s tension. He was clearly amused.

“Sit down and have a drink, in that order. That’s what I
love about Andrea. She always provides me with an excuse to have
another drink.”

Michael laughed and followed his host’s suggestions.

“How does she get home?” he asked.

He was about to add the obvious witticism, but there was
no need; his eyes met Gordon’s and they both grinned.

“Not by broomstick,” Gordon said. “Believe it or not. No,
she walks everywhere she goes; the old bitch is as tough as they come.
I’d have ordered the car out for her if I hadn’t known, from past
experience, that she’d refuse it. With commentary.”

“That I can believe. Why does she dislike you so much?”

“I can think of about ten good reasons,” Gordon said
promptly. “Six pathological, three socioeconomic, and one—well, maybe
it’s psychotic too.” He tilted his head back and finished his drink in
one long swallow, rising as soon as it was gone. “Another?”

“No, thanks.”

Michael contemplated his barely touched glass with some
constraint. It was coming now; and he couldn’t refuse to listen. Just
as one human being to another, he owed Gordon that much. And as a
potential biographer…Maybe the best thing he could do for Gordon was
get him started talking.

“She hates you because of Mrs. Randolph.”

“Why not call her Linda?” Gordon came back to the couch
and sat down. “You’re a perceptive young man, aren’t you?”

“It doesn’t require much perception to see that.”

“No, you’re right. It sticks out like a sore thumb.”
Gordon’s shoulders relaxed as if an invisible burden had been lifted
from them. The glance he gave Michael was a compound of apology and
relief. “Sorry I said that.”

“I’m not looking for juicy tidbits for a best seller.”

“I know. Thanks.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes, and then Gordon
sat up straighter.

“Okay. Professionally or otherwise it’s damned good of
you to listen to this. Frankly, I’m at my wits’ end. I don’t know what
to do—and this is one thing I must do right.”

“I understand.”

“I think you do. You see,” Gordon said, staring down at
his glass, “I love her.” He gave a queer, smothered laugh. “The oldest,
tritest cliché in the language. From a writer, at that, a man
who’s supposed to know something about words. But that’s it. That’s
what it comes down to, when you strip away all the verbiage. I love her
and I won’t let her go.” “Go?”

“Not physically. Although she has tried…I mean retreat,
withdraw into some dark world of her own. That’s what she’s trying to
do.”

“Neurotic? Or psychotic?”