Barbara Michaels - The Dark on the Other Side

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.

“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.