Horror & Supernatural Fiction | Conjure Wife | Fritz Leiber | Read by Ben Tucker | Full Audio Book

Chapter one of conjure wife by Fritz Liber read by Ben Tucker conjure wife by Fritz Liber chapter 1 I keep wondering if she knows about us said the woman with black button eyes she played the Queen of Spades the Queen of Hearts trumped the Queen of Spades

You can put your mind at rest said the silver-haired woman sweetly gathering in the trick she doesn’t tany sailor plays a lone hand like most women she thinks she’s the only one cooperation such as ours is rare but I’m afraid of her oh I know she hasn’t upset the balance and uses only

Protective procedures but she isn’t Our Kind neither is her husband they don’t belong the silver-haired woman nodded primly peering through her thick glasses at the dummy with the empty chair behind it I agree the sailors are a disgrace to the hemp faculty modern no sense of the traditional

Decencies yes and she wants to make him president of Himel she wants him to dictate to our husbands she wants to condescend to us this talk gets nowhere broke in the Stout red-haired woman gruffly the point is that her protective procedures are effective many things would have

Happened to the sailors during the last 10 years if they weren’t and she hasn’t made the mistake of upsetting the balance so what can we three do about it oh the balance said the woman with black button eyes throwing down her last two cards sometimes I think we ought to

Upset at ourselves she evaded the shocked glance of the silver-haired woman we have our sounds and our pictures and our numbers and our cards we could finish the sailors in a whiff there’s such a neat trick with cards I’ve just learned here let me show you she slipped a dozen shiny pasteboard

Oblongs out of her purse they had the conventional backs but their faces bore representations of a cryptic sort stop that the silver-haired woman stretched out fluttering hands put them away ordered the Stout woman harshly she glanced at the door quickly but the eyes of the little man who ambled in were not

Inquisitive with white beard and amiable smile he looked almost benign in an absent-minded sort of way I don’t suppose you played much Bridge while I was gone he observed with mild joviality the silver-haired woman’s laughter sweetly it’s his little joke he always pretends that all women are

Fearful gossips well at least I made the contract dear for hearts his eyes twinkled very commendable he settled himself in the empty chair still I imagine the three of you managed to find time for some very dark and devious plotting he chuckled innocently Norman sailor professor of

Ethnology at hempell College was not the sort of man to go Snoop snooping around in his wife’s dressing room that was partly the reason why he did it he was sure nothing could touch the security of the relationship between him and tany the house was very quiet spring sunshine

And balmy air were sosing gently through the bedroom windows it wasn’t 5 minutes since he had put in the final staccato burst of typing on his negro recruit brochure for the war office it looked as if for once they would have a lazy evening to themselves totem the cat Rose from her

Sun-warmed spot on the neatly piled silk quilt and indulged in a Titanic disruptive looking yawn neatly folded her white paws under her black waist coat and stared solemnly at Norman Norman copied her yawn and felt a partial un kinking of the 12 work hours a day tension that had traced lines on

His chunky face and smudged shadows under his clear yellow brown eyes such moments as this did not come often these days but when when they did come they sure felt good the door of Tan’s dressing room stood invitingly open it was a tiny room just a big

Closet with no windows but it was more than a rack of dresses and a creamy Dressing Table it was tany on the neat side but not fussy a slightly Pleasant disorder very San he wondered why that particular word came to his mind but it hit the spot a faint perfume conjured up

Amiable memories he studied the photographs on either side of the mirror one of tany and himself in modified Indian costume from three Summers back when he had been studying the yumas they both looked rather solemn another slightly faded of an uproarious negro baptizing in mid driver that was

From when he had held the Hazelton fellowship and had been Gathering material for his social patterns of the Southern negro and his later feminine element in Superstition tany had done more work than two secret Aries that busy year when he was hammering out a reputation there was an ample array of

Cosmetics tany had been the first of the Hempel faculty wives to use lipstick and lacquer her nails there had been covert criticism and talk of setting the students a bad example but she had stuck it out flanked by Cold Cream jars was a photograph of himself with a little pile

Of small change dimes and quarters in front of it idly he slid out a drawer scanned the pile of stocking rolls pushed it in pulled at another which jammed so he had to give it a sharp tug a large cardboard box toward the back caught his eyes he edged up the cover

And took out one of the tiny glass stoppered bottles what sort of cosmetic would this be too dark for face powder more like a geologist soil specimen an ingredient for a mud pack the dry dark brown granules shifted smoothly like sand in an hourglass as he rotated the glass cylinder the label

Appeared in Ten’s clear script Julia tro rosand a cosmetician was rosand a part of the name or a place and why should the idea that it might be a place seem distasteful his hand knocked aside the cardboard cover as he reached for a second bottle identical with the first

Except that the contents had a somewhat reddish tinge and the label read Philip Lassiter Hill a third contents same color the first JP Thorndike rosand then a handful quickly snatched up of three emyn scatterday rosand Mortimer Pope Hill the Reverend Buford Ames rosand the silence in the house grew thunderous even the

Sunlight seemed to sizzle and Fry as his mind Rose to a sudden pitch of concentration on the puzzle rosand and Hill roseand and Hill rosand and Hill like a nursery rhyme somehow turned nasty making the glass cylinders repugnant to his fingers rosand Hill abruptly the answer came the two local

Cemeteries graveyard dirt soil specimens all right graveyard dirt from particular Graves a chief ingredient of negro conjure magic with a soft thud totem landed on the table and began to sniff inquisitively at the bottles but sprang away as Norman plunged his hand into the drawer he felt smaller boxes behind the

Big one yanked Suddenly at the whole drawer so it fell to the floor in one of the boxes were bent Rusty worn bits of iron horseshoe Nails in the other were calling card envelopes filled with snippings of hair each labeled like the bottles but some of these names he knew

And in one fingernail clippings in the third drawer he drew blank but the fourth yielded a varied Harvest packets of small dried leaves and powdered vegetable matter so that was what came from Tan’s herb garden along with kitchen seasonings veran ven moin Devil’s snuff bits of load Stone

Iron filings clinging to them Goose quills which spilled Quicksilver when he shook them small squares of flannel the sort that negro conjure doctors employed for their tricken bags or hands a box of old silver coins and silver filings strong protective magic giving significance to to the coins all silver in front of his

Photograph but tany was so sane so healthily contemptuous of palmistry astrology numerology and all the other superstitious fats a hard-headed New Englander so well versed from her work with him in the psychological background of superstition and primitive magic and yet he found himself thumbing through a doge eared copy of his own parallelisms

And Superstition and Neurosis it looked like the one he had lost around the house was it 8 years ago beside a formula for conjuration was a marginal notation in tan script doesn’t work substitute copper filings for brass try and dark of Moon instead of full Norman tany was standing in the doorway her

Hand stopped in the moment of drawing off the little half hat of deep Rose felt that matched her trim dress never before had he had had such a feeling that a human face was only an arbitrary arrangement of curved surfaces and colors the tapering chin an ellipsoid

The full lips a complex arrangement of cycloids and other curves the eyes white spheres inscribed with gray green circles centered with black without familiarity or significance and yet in the same instant he felt that it was desperately important that he spy out a significance for a faint Distortion of those angles

And curves a distortion so subtle as to be almost indiscernible might signify yes why not say it Insanity The Ghost of a smile curved Tan’s lips and familiarity flooded back into her face so you’ve found out she sighed and although it seemed incredible he thought she sighed with

Relief for a moment he stood there confused like a district attorney caught arranging evidence then he began his cross-examination it all started so foolishly she was saying soon just before you came to hempell I felt it was tremendously important that you get the appointment and just to relieve my

Nerves no other reason I did silly things put mild curses on the two other applicants to confuse their thoughts during the interviews I got the curses from your notes I surrounded you with a web of protective magic Charmed the sociology faculty to make them regard you

Favorably well you got the job and I forgot all about my stupid private joke then when your first book was at the Publishers you remember Norm in 1930 I tried again we were so sure it would be rejected I was planning to tell you all about my idiotic conjures as soon as it

Came back so at least we’d have a laugh but it was accepted and I didn’t tell you then in 1931 when you had pneumonia I didn’t want to because it was too serious this time but you got worse and I couldn’t help myself and you got well

That was the real beginning not that I was certain I’ve never been certain but I didn’t dare take chances careers hang on such little strings and hemp now can be so vindictive you know but I wasn’t superstitious no I wasn’t at least I didn’t have what you’d call the

Superstitious feeling in a Twisted logical way I was trying to be empirical I judged everything by results step by step and of course when I say empirical I don’t mean experimental I didn’t dare to emit any charms as a test because I was too afraid of something going wrong

You can’t be experimental about someone you love any more than a sane sociologist would induce fascism in his own country just to study the consequences he listened his mind working like a telephone exchange during an emergency catching a thousand hidden connections and trivial memories of his life and

Tanies whenever she paused he had a question to hammer at her those mirror decorations on your dresses and belts and Handbags why she nodded tiredly yes that’s it to H off evil spirits by reflecting them I got the idea from Tibetan deel masks yes and the reason I always use Hooks and eyes

Is you’ve guessed it to catch evil Vil spirits that try to get at me the room was dark by the time tany had finished the catalog of her activities at hempell and said so you see I’ve never been sure I’ve wanted to stop but there’s been too

Much at stake it always worked or did as soon as I made the proper Corrections and the charms I’ve wanted to tell you but I’ve never dared now that you know I’m glad the voice was tired now then in the darkness he began argument it was the old old argument of science against

Primitive ignorance but he brought it home to her with careful persuasiveness the argument which starts out with a demonstration that Superstition is only mistaken empiricism and ends with psychoanalysis didn’t it really begin much earlier than hemp Nell tany he added at one point I mean the seeds of

It no oh I don’t know perhaps of childhood memories of dark moments suspicions queer things people could do hints from I don’t know where but nothing certain I just can’t remember I don’t know only once did the tired voice grow vehement but I tell you I never

Tried to kill or even to injure in a physical way never only to confuse or hinder people when they were working against you it’s terribly important that you understand this Norman 9/10 of my magic was purely protective to word off evil he felt pettishly exasperated at this answer

What difference did it make whether or not she had tried to kill it was all equally nonsense and why should she harp on her efforts to protect him as if he were some sort of incompetent for a moment it occurred to him that from one point of view he had

Been very lucky in his career he abruptly put aside this stray thought along with his fit of impatience at another time she used a similar argument I never tried for anything really big like your inheriting a million dollars or becoming president of hempell overnight even if I thought you wanted

To there’s a law of reaction or retribution in all Conjuring I mean I used to think there was like the kick of a gun I was afraid after that there were no more interruptions only the white smudge of Tan’s face in the darkness when he had finished his voice

Was tired too there was a pause then she said I’ll do what you want me to I’ll burn all my stuff I’ll never touch it again he snapped on the light and it seemed to him that science and healthy skepticism had been created a new from

The Primeval dark the hands of his watch stood at 10:30 then he saw that tany had begun to cry darling she managed to say don’t you see this is what I’ve wanted only I’ve gotten in so deep I never dare on your account you had to find out and

Make me stop that was the only way what followed was oddly anticlimactic the ransacking of the house for all of Tan’s hidden Charms first the contents of The Dressing Table he found then that he could be generous in his victory because his trust in tany was reestablished he did not demand to look

Into her locked little leatherbound diary when she told him it contained no relevant material then the rest of the house tany darting from room to room y recovering flannel wrapped hands from the upholster of chairs the undersides of tabletops the interior of vases until he marveled that he had lived in the

House for more than 10 years without chancing on any it’s rather like a treasure hunt isn’t it she observed with a ruul smile there were others outside under front and back doorsteps in the garage and in the car with every handful thrown on the Roaring fire he had built

In the living room his sense of relief grew finally she opened the the seams of the pillows on his bed and carefully fished out two little matted shapes made of feathers bound with fine thread so they blended with the Fluffy contents of the pillow see one’s a heart the other an

Anchor that’s for security she told him New Orleans magic you haven’t taken a step for years without being in the range of one of my protective charms the feather figures puffed into flame and were gone in an instant there that’s the last of them she said all gone you’re sure for a

Moment his voice grew hard again absolutely certain you haven’t overlooked any absolutely certain there’s not one left in the house I’ve gone over it in my mind a dozen times I’m tired now really tired I want to go straight to bed suddenly she began to laugh oh but first I’ll have to stitch

Up those pillows or there’ll be feathers all over the place he put his arms around her everything okay now yes darling only one thing I want to ask you that we don’t talk about this for a few days at least I’m really terribly ashamed but I’m glad it’s

Happened remember that after teny was gone Norman threw a fresh Log on the Fire and sank back in the easy chair watching the Restless rhythmic play of the Flames gradually his thoughts began to unkink he found himself wondering not without admiration at tany relatively cool Behavior he would never

Have dared to try reasoned argument on any other woman in a similar situation but that was like tany always Fair always willing to listen to logic empirical except that she hadd gotten off on a crazy Sidetrack he reached down to stroke totem who did not look away from the

Hypnotic Flames time I got to bed old man must be about 12 No Quarter p one as he SLI back the watch the fingers of his other hand went automatically to the charm at the end of the chain more a locket than a charm a gift from tany he gazed ruminating at the

Flattened Golden Heart weighted in his palm it seemed perhaps a trifle heavier than its metal shell would account for he snapped up the cover with his thumbnail there was no regular way of getting at the space behind Tan’s photograph so after a moment’s hesitation he carefully edged it out with a pencil

Point behind the photograph was a tiny packet wrapped in the finest flannel just like a woman was his first thought to seemed to give in completely but to hold out on something perhaps she’d forgotten angrily he tossed the packet into the fireplace the photograph fluttered along

With it lighted on the bed of Embers and flared before he could snatch it out he had a glimpse of Ten’s face curling and blackening the packet took longer a yellow glow crept across its surface as the nap singed then a wavering 4-in flame shot up simultaneously a chill went through

Him though he still felt the heat from the Embers the room seemed to darken there was a faint mighty roaring in his ears as of Motors far underground he had the sense of standing suddenly naked and unarmed before something menacingly alien totem had turned around and was peering

Intently at the shadows in the far corner with an expectorant hiss she sprang sideways and darted from the room he realized he was trembling nervous reaction he told himself might have known it was overdue the flame died and once again there was only the bed of Embers explosively the foone began to

Jangle Professor sailor I just want to tell you you’re not going to get away with what you’re trying to do to me I’m not going to be flunked out of hempell without a protest The Voice spluttered with rage it was some moment before he recognized the student and cut in now listen Jennings

If you thought you were being treated unfairly why didn’t you present your grievances 3 months ago when you got your grades why because I let you pull the wool over my eyes I didn’t realize until this minute that you were behind it all be reasonable you flunk two

Courses besides mine last semester yes because you dropped dirty hints poisoned everyone’s mind against me and you mean to tell me you only realize it now yes I do it just came to me in a Flash as I was thinking here I saw your whole slimy

Plot oh you were clever all right but let me tell you sailor the voice ranted on twice his but what possible motive could I went disregarded with a distasteful Grimace he hung up he felt suddenly very tired there was an unpleasant coincidence tingled up in the events of the past few

Minutes if you bothered to figure it out but a scientist ought to have a healthy disregard for coincidences he put the screen in front of the fire and went to bed end of chapter 1 chapter 2 the red-haired woman knew immediately what had awakened her she made no

Further movement but lay there propped on one elbow from the opposite bed came Placid snores presently although there was no further sound her eyes were drawn to the blacker smudge of the phone she lifted it quietly and whispered expected you dear I was sure you’d feel it too the other voice came

Over the wire and bursts jerky how couldn’t I feel it like a great gust of wind complete collapse of protective screen in her quarter balance gone oh I told you this would happen she’s up to something I’ll go crazy until I know what no need to lose your head whispered the red-haired woman

Gruffly eyeing the opposite bed she’s upset the balance all right but in a very peculiar way any upset I ever heard of came from excessive aggression unjustified death attempts or sudden career smashing but Tan’s done the reverse let down her guard yes just a Hoodwink us she’s discovered a new weapon something bad

Why don’t Su she take such a chance she’s planning to smash us we’ve got to beat her to it now now dear no Tantrums a third voice was coming over the wires A sweetly reproving voice just the sort to go with silver hair we mustn’t do

Anything we’d be sorry for we must be sure of our ground do you mean we’re just to wait the jerky voice had groan strident indignant when we know she must have a new weapon while she gets ready to smash us I didn’t say we were to wait

Forever there was a chilling tingle of tartness in the sweet old voice I recognize the danger I recog recn also that she has upset the balance and must take the consequences when we are sure of our ground we will act a prospect which I may say Delights

Me and do nothing until then yes dear except to watch her and him the red-haired woman smiled grimly listening to the other two such chatterers the other bed creaked as the sleeper changed position in any case she whispered cutting in there should be consequences whether we act or not with a protective

Screen down things should begin to happen to her and especially to him things which have been accumulating for a long long time and how is tanzy asked Mrs Carr with such sweet solicitude that for a moment Norman wondered if the silver-haired dean of women had ever

More of an inside wire on the private lives of the faculty than was generally surmised but only for a moment after all sweet solicitude was the dean of women’s stock and trade we miss her at our last faculty wives meeting Mrs Carr continued she’s such a gay

Soul and we do need gayety these days cold morning sunlight glinted on her thick glasses and glowed frostily in her apple red cheeks she put her hands on his arm hemp Nell appreciates tany Professor sailor Norman’s and why not change to I think that shows good judgment as he said

It he derives sardonic Amusement from recalling how 5 years ago Mrs Carr was a charter member of the sailors or a demoralizing influence Club Mrs carrk silvery laughter trilled in the chilly air I must get on to my students conferences she said he watched her hurry off brisk and erect for all

Her near 70 years wondering if the sudden friendliness meant that there had been an unexpected Improvement in his chances of getting the vacant chairmanship of the sociology Department then he turned into Morton Hall when he had climbed to his office the phone was ringing it was Thompson the public relations

Man a rather delicate matter Professor sailor delicate matters were Thompson’s Forte this morning one of the trustees phoned me it seems he had just heard something I hav’t slightest idea from where concerning you and Mrs sailor that over Christmas vacation you had attended a party given by some prominent

But very Rowdy theatrical people I was wondering if I would issue a denial sorry but it wouldn’t be honest oh I see well that’s all there is to it then Thompson answered bravely after a moment I thought you’d like to know though the trustee was very hot under the collar

Talked my ear off about how these theatrical people were conspicuous for drunkenness and divorce he was right nice folks I’ll introduce you to them sometime oh yes replied Thompson apprehensively goodbye the buzzer sounded terminating the 8:00 classes Norman swiveled his chair away from the desk and leaned back amusedly irritated at this latest

Manifestation of the hemp nil Hush Hush policy not that he had made any particular attempt to conceal the barryman party which had been a trifle more tempestuous than he had expected still he had said nothing to anyone on campus no use in being a fool now after 3 months it all came out

Anyway from where he sat the roof Ridge of EST Hall neatly bisected his office window along the diagonal there was a medium-sized cement Dragon Frozen in the act of clambering down it for the 10th time that morning he reminded himself that what had happened last night had

Really happened it was not so easy and yet when you got down to it Tan’s lapse into medievalism was not so very much Stranger Than hempel’s Gothic architecture with its sprinkling of gargoyles and other fabulous monsters designed to scare off evil spirits sailor’s 9:00 class and primitive societies quieted down

Leisurely as he strowed in a few seconds ahead of the buzzer he set a student to explaining the CIB as a factor in tribal organization then put in the next 5 minutes organizing his thoughts and noting late arrivals in and tease when the explanation supplemented with Blackboard diagrams of marriage groups

Had become so complicated that bronstein the prize student was twitching with eagerness to take a hand he called for comments and criticisms and succeeded in getting a first class argument going finally the Shire fraternity president in the second row said but all those ideas of social organization were based on ignorance tradition and

Superstition unlike modern society that was Norman’s CU he lit in joyously pulverized the defender of modern society with a point bypo comparison of fraternities and primitive young men’s houses down to the actual details of initiation ceremonies which he dissected with scientific relish and then launched into a broad analysis of

Present-day Customs as they would appear to a hypothetical ethnologist from Mars in passing he drew a factious analogy between sororities and primitive seclusion of girls at puberty the minutes raced pleasantly by as he demonstrated instances of cultural lag and everything from table manners to systems of notation and measurement even

The lone sleeper in the last row surprised himself by listening certainly we’ve made important Innovations Chief among them the scientific method he said at one point but the Primitive groundwork is still there dominating the pattern of Our Lives we modified anthropoid Apes inhabiting nightclubs and battleships what else could you expect us to

Be marriage and courtship got special attention with bronstein grinning delightedly he drew detailed modern parallels to marriage by purchase marriage by capture and symbolic marriage to a deity he showed that trial marriage is no mere modern conception but a wellestablished ancient custom successfully practiced by the Polynesians and others at this point he

Became aware of a beat red angry face toward the back of the room that of graine Pard daughter of Randolph Pard president of hemp Nell Colin she glared at him outraged pointedly ignoring the interest taken by the neighboring students in her blushes automatically it occurred to him now I

Suppose the little neurotic will go yammering to Mama that Professor sailor is advocating free love he Shrugged the idea aside and continuing the discussion without modification the buzzer cut it short but he was left feeling irritated with himself and only half listened to the enthusiastic comments and questions

Of bronstein and a couple of others back at the office he found a note from Harold Gunnison the dean of men asking for an interview having the next hour free he set out across the quadrangle for the administration building bronstein still tagging along to expound some interesting theory of his

Own but Norman was wondering why he had let himself go admittedly some of his remarks had been a trifle raw he had long ago adjusted his classroom Behavior to hempell standards without losing intellectual integrity and this ill-advised though trivial deviation bothered him Mrs Carr swept by him

Without a word her face slightly averted cutting him cold a moment later he realized the explanation in his abstraction he had lighted a cigarette moreover bronstein obviously delighted at faculty in fraction of a firmly established hemp nail taboo had followed suit he frowned but continued to smoke evidently the events of the previous

Night had Disturbed his mind more than he had realized he grounded out the butt on the steps of the administration building in the doorway to the outer office he collided with the stylishly Stout form of Mrs Gunnison lucky I had a good hold on my camera she grumbled as he stooped to

Recover her bulging handbag I’d hate to try to replace a lens these days then brushing back an untidy wisp of reddish hair from her forehead you look worried how’s tany he answered briefly sliding past her now there was a woman who really ought to be a witch sloppy expensive clothes bossy snobbish and

Gruff goodh humored in a beefy fashion but capable of riding rough shot over anyone else’s desires the only person in whose presence her husband’s Authority seemed a trifle ridiculous Harold Gunnison cut short a telephone call and motioned him to come in and shut the door Norm Gunnison began scowling this

Is a pretty delicate matter Norman became attentive when Harold Gunnison said something was a delicate matter unlike Thompson he really meant it they played golf and squashed together and got on pretty well he braced himself to hear an account of eccentric Indiscreet or even criminal behavior on the part of

Tany that suddenly seemed the obvious explanation you have a girl from the student employment agency working for you uh Margaret Van nce Norman nodded rather quiet kid that mimeographing well a little while ago she threw a historical fit in Mrs Carr’s office claimed you had seduced her Mrs Carr immediately dumped the whole

Business in my lap well said Norman Gunnison frowned and cocked an eye at him things like this sometimes really happen he muttered sure Norman replied but not this time of course I had to ask sure there was opportunity though we worked late several nights over at Morton editing

Stuff Gunnison reached for a folder on chance I got out her neurotic index she ranks way up near the top regular bundle of complexes we’ll just have to handle it smoothly I want to hear her accuse me said Norman soon as possible of course I’ve arranged for a meeting at Mrs

Carr’s office 4:00 this afternoon meantime she’s seeing the college physician that should sober her up 4:00 repeated Norman standing up you’ll be there certainly I’m sorry about this whole business Norm frankly I think Mrs Carr botched it got panicky she’s a pretty old lady in the outer

Office he stopped to glance at a small display case of items concerned with gunnison’s work in physical chemistry the present display was of Prince Rupert drops and other high tension Oddities it occurred to him that hempell was something like a prince rert drop hit the main body with a hammer and you

Only jarge your hand but but flick with a fingernail the delicate filament in which the drop ended and it would explode in your face fanciful he glanced at the other objects among them a tiny mirror which the legend explained would fly to powder at the slightest scratch or Sudden Change in

Temperature yet it wasn’t so fanciful when you got thinking about it any highly organized complex somewhat artificial institution such as a college tends to develop dangerous weaknesses and the same would be true of a person or a career flick the delicate spot in the mind of a neurotic girl and she

Would explode with wild accusations or take a serer person like himself suppose somebody should be studying him secretly looking for the vulnerable filament finger casually poised to the flick but that was getting really fanciful coming out of their 11:00 classes hervy sawel button hold him hervy sawel resembled an unfriendly

Caricature of a college professor sometimes he carried two briefcases and he was usually on his way to a committee meeting routine worries Chase themselves up and down his nervous face but at the moment he was in the grip of one of his Petty excitements say Norman the most

Interesting thing I was down in the stacks this morning and I happened to pull out an old doctor’s thesis uh 1930 by someone i’ had never heard of with the title Superstition and Neurosis he produced a bound typewritten manuscript that looked as if it had aged without

Ever being opened almost the same as your parallelisms in Superstition and Neurosis an odd coincidence eh I’m going to look it over tonight they were hurrying together toward the dining hall down a walk flooded with jabbering laughing students Norman studied saut Tel’s face covertly surely the fool must

Remember that his parallelisms had been published in 1931 giving an ugly suggestion of plagiarism but sail’s nervous toothy grin was without guile he had the impulse to pull saale aside and tell him that there was something odder than a coincidence involved and that it did not reflect in any way on his own

Integrity of scholarship but this seemed hardly the place yet there was no denying the incident bothered him a trifle why it was years since he had even thought of that stupid business of Cunningham’s thesis it had Lin buried and forgotten in the past a hidden vulnerability waiting for the flick of the fingernail

Asinine fancifulness it could all be very well explained to salel or anyone else at a more suitable time sel’s mind was back to routine worries you know we should be having our conference on the social science program for next year on the other hand I suppose we should wait until he paused

Embarrassedly until it’s decided whether you or I get the chairmanship of the department Norman finished for him I don’t see why we’ll be working together in any case yes of course of course I didn’t mean to suggest that they were joined by some other faculty members on

The steps of the dining hall the deafening clatter of trays from the student section was subdued to a faint Den as they entered the faculty sanctum conversation revolved around the old familiar topics with an undercurrent of speculation as to what reorganizations and curtailments of Staff the new

Warrior might bring to hemp Nell there was some reference to the political Ambitions of President Pard it was rumored that he might be persuaded to run for governor or Senator discreet silences here and there around the table substituted for adverse criticisms on this possibility saels Adams Apple twitched convulsively at a chance

Reference to the vacant chairmanship in sociology Norman managed to get a fairly interesting conversation going he was glad that he would be busy with classes and conferences until 4:00 he knew he could work half again as hard as someone like sautell but if he were compelled to do one quarter of the

Worrying that man and did yet the 4:00 meeting proved to be an anti-climax he had no sooner put his hand on the door leading to Mrs Carr’s office when as if that had provided the necessary stimulus a shrill tearful voice burst out with it’s all a lie I made it up Gunnison was

Sitting near the window face a trifle averted arms folded looking like a slightly bored slightly embarrassed but very stolid elephant in a chair in the center of the room was huddled a delicate fair-haired but rather homely girl tears dribbling down her cheeks and hysterical sobs racking her shoulders

Mrs Carr was trying to calm her in a fluttery way I don’t know why I did it the girl bleeded pitifully I was in love with him and he wouldn’t even look at me I was going to kill myself last night and then I thought I would do this instead to hurt

Him or now Margaret you must control yourself Mrs car admonished her hands hovering over the girl’s shoulders just a minute Norman cut in did you say last night night there there dear I think you better leave Professor sailor Mrs carrk eyes magnified by thick glasses looked fish-like her attitude was

Hostile there’s obviously no need of asking questions I think I should be permitted at least one said Norman just exactly at what time last night Miss vanise did you get this idea Gunnison registered puzzled but vague curiosity the tear stained face looked up at Norman it was just after 1:00 she said

I’d been lying awake in the dark for hours planning to kill myself and then in a Flash the idea came to me suddenly she shook loose from Mrs car and stood up facing Norman oh I hate you she screamed I hate you Gunnison followed him out of the office he yawned shook

His head and remarked glad that’s over never a dull moment Norman responded absently oh by the way Gunnison said dragging a stiff white envelope out of his inside pocket here’s a note for Mrs Syer holda asked me to give it to you I forgot about it

Before I met her coming out of your office this morning Norman said his thoughts still elsewhere somewhat later back at Morton Norman tried to come to grips with those thoughts but found them remarkably slippery the dragon on the roof Ridge of estr Hall lured away his attention funny

About little things like that you never even noticed them for years and then they suddenly popped into Focus how many people could give you one single definite fact about the architectural ornaments of buildings in which they worked not one in 10 probably why if you’d asked him yesterday about that

Dragon he wouldn’t for his life have been able to tell you even if there was one or not he leaned on the window s looking at the lizard likee yet grotesquely anthropoid form bathed in the yellow Sunset glow which his wandering mind remembered was supposed to symbolize The

Souls of the Dead passing into and out of the underworld below the dragon jutting out from under the cornice was a sculptured head one of a series of famous scientists and mathematicians decorating the inature he made out the name Galileo along with a brief inscription of some

Sort when he turned back to answer the phone it suddenly seemed very dark in the office sailor I just want to tell you I’m going to give you until tomorrow listen Jennings Norman cut in sharply I hung up on you last night because you kept shouting into the phone

This threatening line won’t do you any good the voice continued where it had broken off growing dangerously High until tomorrow to withdraw your charges and have me reinstated at Hol if you don’t I told you not to threaten there were no charges you just flunked out if

You want to to talk it over reasonably come and see me the voice at the other end of the line broke into a screaming obscene torrent of abuse so loud that he could still hear it very plainly as he was placing the receiver back in the Cradle

Paranoid that was the way it sounded then he suddenly sat very still at 20 1 last night he had burned a charm supposedly designed to ward off evil influence from him the last of Tan’s hands at about at the same time Margaret vanise had decided to accuse him of

Seducing her and Marvin Jennings had decided to make him responsible for an imaginary plot next morning hervey saw tail poking around in the stacks had found rubbish with an angry snort of laughter at his own credulity he picked up his hat and headed for home end of chapter 2 chapter

3 teny was in a radiant mood prettier than she had seemed in months younger looking than her 36 years twice he caught her smiling to herself when he glanced up from his supper he gave her the note from Mrs Gunnison Mrs Carr asked after you too

Gushed all over me in a ladylike way of course then later on he caught himself as he started to tell about the cigarette and Mrs Carr cutting him and the interview in her office no use worrying tany with things that might be considered bad luck no telling what

Further constructions she might put upon them she glanced through the note and handed it back to him it has the authentic hemp nail flavor don’t you think she observed he read dear tany where are you keeping yourself I haven’t seen you on campus more than once or twice this year if

You’re busy with something especially interesting why not tell us about it why not come to tea this Saturday and tell us all about yourself holda P.S you’re supposed to bring four dozen cookies to the Parents Day reception the Saturday after rather confused sounding he said but I clearly perceived the Keen

Bludgeon of Mrs Gunnison she looked particularly sloppy today tany laughed still we have been pretty antisocial these last weeks I believe I’ll ask them over for bridge tomorrow night it’s short notice but they’re usually free Wednesdays and the saw Tails do we have to that henpeck

Tany laughed I don’t know how you would ever manage to get along without me she stopped short I’m afraid you’ll have to endure Evelyn after all hervey’s the other important man in your department and it’s expected that you see something of each other socially to make two tables I’ll invite the

Cars three fearful females said Norman if they represent the average run of professor’s wives I was lucky to get you I sometimes have similar thoughts about professor professor’s wives husbands said tany then as they smoked over the coffee she said hesitantly Norm I said I didn’t want to talk about last

Night but now there’s something I want to tell you he nodded I didn’t tell you last night Norm but when we burned those things I was terribly frightened I felt that we were ripping holes in walls that it had taken me years to build and that

Now there was nothing to keep out the he said nothing sat very still oh it’s hard to explain but ever since I began to play with those things I’ve been conscious of pressures from outside things trying to push their way in and get at us and I’ve had to press

Them back fight back at them with my it’s like that test of strength men sometimes make trying to force each other’s hand to the table but that wasn’t what I was starting to say I went to bed feeling miserable and scared the pressure from outside kept tightening

Around me and I couldn’t resist it because we’ burned those things and then suddenly as I lay in the dark about an hour after I went to bed I got the most abrupt tremendous feeling of relief the pressure vanished as if I’d bopped up to the surface after almost

Drowning and I knew then that i’ had gotten over my craziness that’s why I’m so happy it was hard for Norman not to tell tany what he was thinking here was one more coincidence but it knocked the others into a cocked hat at about the same time as he had burned the

Last charm experiencing a sensation of fear tany had felt a great relief that would teach him to build theories on coincidences for I was crazy in a way dear she was saying there aren’t many people who would have taken it as you did he said you aren’t crazy which is a

Relative term anyway applicable to anyone you were just fooled by the cussedness of things cussedness yes the way Nails sometimes insist on bending when you Hammer as if they were trying to or the way Machinery refuses to work matters funny stuff en large Aggregates it obeys

Natural law but when you get down to the individual atom or electron it’s largely a matter of chance or whim this conversation was not taking the direction he wanted it to and he was thankful when totem jumped up onto the T T creating a diversion it turned out to

Be the pleasantest evening they had spent together in ages but next morning he wished he had not gotten started on that cussedness of things notion it stuck in his mind he found himself puzzling over the mest trifle in the precise position of that idiotic cement Dragon yesterday he

Remembered thinking that it was exactly in the middle of the descending roof Ridge but now he saw that it was obviously two-thirds of the way down quite near the architrave topping the huge and useless Gothic gateways set between estri and Morton even a social scientist ought to have better powers of

Observation than that the jingle of the phone coincided with the 9:00 buzzer Professor sailor Thompson’s voice was apologetic I’m sorry to bother you again but I just got another inquiry from one of the trustees concerning an informal address you were supposed to have delivered at about the same time as

That party the topic was what’s wrong with college educ well what about it are you implying that there’s nothing wrong with college education or that the topic is taboo oh no no no no but the trustees seemed to think that you were making a criticism of hempell of small colleges of the same

Type as hempell yes of hempell specifically no well he seemed to fear it might have a detrimental effect on enrollment for next year spoke of several friends of his with Children of college agees having heard your address and being unfavorably impressed then they were super sensitive

He also seemed to think you had made a slighting reference to president pards or political activities I’m sorry but I have to get along to a class now very well said Thompson he sounded hurt graine Pard was absent from primitive societies Norman noted with an inward grin wondering if it had become

Too much for her warped sense of propriety but even the daughters of college presidents ought to be told a few home truths now and then yesterday’s lecture had had a markedly stimulating effect several students had abruptly chosen related subjects for their term papers and the fraternity president had

Decided to capitalize on his yesterday’s discomfort by writing a humorous article on the Primitive significance of fraternity initiations for the hempell buffoon they had a very brisk session had put North Norman in a good humor which lasted until after his 3:00 class that afternoon when he happened to meet

The sails in front of Morton Hall I had lunch today with Henrietta I mean Mrs Pard Mrs sautel announced with the air of one who has just visited royalty oh s Norman hervy began excitedly thrusting forward his briefcase we had a very interesting chat his wife continued sweeping on as if her

Husband had not spoken we talked about you too Norman it seemed graine has been misinterpreting some of the things you’ve been saying in your class she’s such a sensitive girl dumb bunny you mean Norman corrected mentally he murmured oh with some show of politeness dear Henrietta was a little puzzled as

Just how to handle it though of course she’s a very tolerant Cosmopolitan girl I just mentioned it because I thought you’d want to know after all it is very important that no one gets any wrong Impressions about the department don’t you agree with me hervey she ended sharply

What dear oh yes yes say Norman I I want to tell you about that thesis I showed you yesterday the most amazing thing its main ingredients are almost exactly the same as those in your book an amazing case of independent investigators arriving at the same conclusions why

It’s like Darwin and Wallace or you didn’t tell me anything about this deer said Mrs sail as if he had cheated her wait a minute said Norman he hated to make an explanation in Mrs sail’s presence but it had to be done sorry hervy to have to substitute a

Rather sorted story for an interesting case of independent investigation it happened when I was an instructor here 1929 my first year a graduate student named Cunningham got hold of my ideas I was friendly with him and Incorporated them into his doctor’s thesis my work in Superstition and

Neurosis was just a sideline then and so I didn’t happen to read his thesis until after he had gotten his degree sautel blinked his face resumed its usual worried expression a look of vague disappointment had come into Mrs satel’s black button eyes as if she would have liked to have read the thesis

Before hearing the explanation I was very angry Norman continued and intended to show him up but then I heard he had died there was some hint of suicide he was an unbalanced chap how he had hoped to get away with such an Out andout steal I

Don’t know anyway I decided not to do anything about it for his family’s sake you see it would have supplied a strong re for thinking he had committed suicide Mrs sautel looked incredulous but Norman sautel commented anxiously was that really wise I mean to keep silent weren’t you taking a chance

I mean with regard to your academic reputation abruptly Mrs saels manner changed put that thing back in the stacks hervy and forget about it she directed curtly then she smiled archly at Norman I’ve been forgetting that I have a surprise for you Professor sailor come down to the sound booth now and

I’ll show you it won’t take a minute come along Herby Norman had no excuse ready so he accompanied the saw tails to the rooms of the speech department at the other end of Morton wondering how the speech Department ever found any use for someone with as nasle and affecting

Voice as Evelyn sautel even if she did happen to be a professor’s wife the sound booth was dim and quiet a solid box with soundproof walls and double windows Mrs salel took a disc from the cabinet put it in one of the three turntables and adjusted a couple of

Dials from the amplifier came a strangely intermittent wailing or roaring as of wind prying at a house it struck a less usual cord though in Norman’s memory Mrs sautel darted back and lifted the needle hurriedly so it graded against the disc I made a mistake she said that’s some modernistic music

Or other Herby switch on the light here’s the record I wanted that sounded awful whatever it was her husband observed Norman had identified his memory it was of an Australian bull rarer a colleague had once demonstrated for him the curved slat of wood Whirled at the end of a

Cord made exactly the same sound the aines used it in their magic making but now his own voice was coming out of the amplifier and he had an odd sense of jerking back in time surprised she questioned coily it’s that talk on civil defense you gave the students last

Week we had a mic spotted by the speaker’s rostrom I suppose you thought it was for amplification and we made a sneak recording as we call it we cut it down here she indicated the heavier cement-based turntable for making recordings we can do all sorts of things

Down here she babbled on mix all sorts of sounds music against voices and it was hard for Norman to appear even slightly pleased he knew his reasons were no more sensible than those of a Savage afraid someone will learn his secret name yet all the same he disliked the idea

Of Evelyn sautel monkeying around with his voice like her dolly malicious small socketed eyes it suggested a prying for hidden weaknesses and then that talk about mixing sounds somehow it did not set good with him what it all boiled down to was that he detested the woman rather

Brusly he excused himself we’ll see you tonight Evelyn called after him it sounded like you won’t get rid of me back at the office Norman put in a good hour’s work on his notes then getting up to switch on the light his glance happened to fall on the window after a

Few moments he jerked away and darted to the closet to get his field glasses evidently someone had a very obscure sense of humor to perpetuate such a complicated practical joke intently he searched the cement at the juncture of roof Ridge and clawed feet looking for The Telltale cracks he could not spot

Any but that was not easy to do in the failing yellow light the cement dragon now stood at the edge of the gutter as if about to walk over to Morton along the architrave of the big Gateway he lifted his glasses to the creature’s head blank and crude as an unfinished

Skull then on an Impulse he dropped them to the Rove sculptured heads focused on Galileo and read the little inscription he had not been able to make out before a the words Galileo was supposed to have muttered after recanting before the Inquisition his belief in the revolution

Of the Earth around the Sun nevertheless it moves a board creaked behind him and he spun around by his desk stood a young man wax and pale with thick red hair his eyes stood out like milky marbles one white tendon rided hand gripped a 22 Target Pistol Norman walked toward him bearing

Slightly to the right the skimpy barrel of the gun came up hello Jennings said Norman you’ve been reinstated your grades have been changed to Straight A’s The Gun Barrel slowed for an instant Norman lunged in the gun went off under his arm pinking the window the gun clunked on the floor Jennings skinny

Form went limp as Norman sat him down on the chair he began to sob convulsively Norman lifted the phone and asked for an oncampus number the connection was made quickly Gunnison he asked M just caught me as I was leaving Theodor Jennings parents live right near

The college don’t they you know the chap who flunked out last semester I believe they do what’s the matter better get them over here quick and have them bring his doctor he just tried to shoot me there was a pause Norman visualized gunnison’s startled reaction then right

Away Norman put down the phone Jennings continued to sobb agonizingly Norman looked at him with disgust an hour later Gunnison sat down in the same chair and let off a sigh of relief I’m sure glad they’re gone he said it was awfully good of you Norman

Not to insist on the police things like that give a college a bad name Norman smiled wearily almost anything gives the college a bad name but that kid was obviously crazy as a loon they lit up and smoked for a while in silence then gison looked at his watch I’ll have to

Hustle it’s almost 7 and we’re do at your place at 8 but he lingered ambling over to the window to inspect the Bullet Hole I wonder if you’d mind not mentioning this to tany Norman asked I don’t want to worry her Gunnison nodded good thing if we kept it to ourselves

Then he pointed out the window that’s one of my wife’s pets he remarked in a jockular tone Norman saw that his finger was trained on the cement dragon now coldly revealed by the upward glare from the street lights I mean Gunnison went on she she must have a dozen photographs of it hpns

Her specialty I believe she’s got a photograph of every architectural odity on campus that one’s her favorite he chuckled usually it’s the husband who keeps ducking down into the dark room but not in our family and me a chemist at that Norman’s taught mind had unaccountably jumped to the thought of a

Bull roarer abruptly he realized the analogy between the recording of a bull roarer and the photograph of a dragon he clamped a lid on the Fantastic questions he wanted to ask Gunnison come on he said we better get along Gunnison started a little at the harshness of his voice can you drop me

Off asked Norman more quietly my cars at home sure thing said Gunnison after he had switched out the light Norman paused for a moment staring back at the window the words came back end of chapter 3 chapter 4 they had hardly cleared away the remains of a hasty supper when there

Came the first clang from the front door chimes to Norman’s relief tany had accepted without questioning his rather clumsy explanation of why he had gotten home so late there was something puzzling though about her Serenity these last two days she was usually much sharper and more curious but of course

He had been careful to hide disturbing events from her and he not only to be glad her nerves were in such good shape dearest it’s been ages since we’ve seen you Mrs Carr embraced tany in a matronly fashion how are you how are you the question sounded peculiarly eager

And incisive Norman put it down to typical hemp nail gush oh dear I’m afraid I’ve got a cinder in my eye Mrs Carr continued the wind’s getting quite Fierce Gusty said Professor Carr of the mathematics Department showing obvious but harmless delight at finding the right word he was a little man with red

Cheeks and a white van djk as innocent and absent-minded as College professors are supposed to be who gave the impression of residing permanently in a special Paradise of transcendental and trans infinite numbers it seems to have gone away now said Mrs car waving aside Tan’s handkerchief and experimentally blinking her

Eyes which looked unpleasantly naked and birdlike until she replaced her thick glasses oh that must be the others she added as the chime sounded isn’t it marvelous that everyone at hempell is so punctual as Norman started for the front door he imagined for one crazy moment that someone must be whirling a bull

Roarer outside until he realized it could only be the rising wind living up to Professor Carr’s description of it he was confronted by Evelyn saels angular form wind whipping her black coat against her legs her equally angular face with its shoe button eyes was thrust toward his

Own let us in or it’ll blow Us in she said like most of her attempts at koi or factious humor it did not come off perhaps because she made it sound so stupidly Grim she entered with hervy and toe and made for tany my dear how are you

Whatever have you been doing with yourself again he was struck by the eager and meaningful tone of the question for a moment he wondered whether the women had somehow gotten an inkling of Tan’s eccentricity in the recent crisis but Mrs sautell was so voice conscious that she was always

Emphasizing things the wrong way there was a noisy flurry of greetings totem made a squeaky noise and darted out of the way of the crowd of human beings Mrs Carr’s silvery voice Rose Above the Rest oh Professor satil I want to tell you how much we all appreciated your talk on

City Planning it was truly significant sael wried grinning in a flustered way Norman thought so now he’s the favorite for the chairmanship professor Carr had made a beline for the bridge tables and was wistfully fingering the cards I’ve been studying the mathematics of the shuffle he began with a

Bright-eyed air as soon as Norman drifted into range the shuffle are supposed to make it a matter of chance what hands are dealt but that is not true at all he broke open a new pack of cards and spread the deck the manufacturers arranged these by suits 13

Spades 13 hearts and so on now suppose I make a perfect Shuffle divide the pack into equal parts and Inter leave the cards one by one he tried to demonstrate but the cards got away from him it’s really not as hard as it looks he continued amiably some players can do it

Every time quick as a wink but that’s not the point suppose I make two perfect shuffles with a new pack then no matter how the cards are cut each player will get 13 of a suit an event that if you went purely by the laws of chance would only happen once in about

158 billion times as regards a single hand let alone all four Norman nodded and Carr smiled delightedly that’s only one example what is Loosely termed chance is really the resultant of several perfectly definite factors chiefly the play of the cards on each hand and the shuffle habits of the players

He made it sound as important as the theory of relativity some evenings the hands are very ordinary other evenings they keep getting Wilder and Wilder long suits voids and so on sometimes the high cars persistently run north and south other times East and West luck chance not at

All it’s the result of perfectly definite factors some expert players actually make use of this principle to determine the probable location of key cards Norman mind went off on a tangent suppose you applied this principle outside Bridge suppose that coincidences and other chance happenings weren’t really as chany as they

Looked Suppose there were individuals with a special aptitude for calling the turns making the breaks but that was a pretty obvious idea nothing to give a person the shiver it had given him I wonder what’s holding up the Gunnison Professor Carr was saying we might start one table now perhaps we can

Get in an extra rubber he added hopefully appeal from the Chimes settled the question gison looked as if he had eaten his dinner too fast and holda seemed rather Surly we had to rush so she muttered curtly to Norman as he held the door like the two other women she almost

Ignored him and concentrated her greetings on tany it gave him a vague uneasy feeling as when they had first come to hempell and faculty visits had been a nerve-wracking chore tany seemed at a disadvantage somehow unprotected in contrast to the aggressive air of purpose animating the other

Three but what of it he told himself that was usual with hempell faculty wives they acted as if they lay awake nights plotting how to poison the people between their husband and the president’s chair whereas tany but that was like what tany had been doing his thoughts started to gate

Confusingly and he switched them off the cut for partners the cards seemed determined to provide an illustration for the theory Carr had explained the hands were uniformly Common Place abnormally average no long suits nothing but 4432 and 4333 distribution bid one make two bid two make one after the second round Norman

Applied his private remedy for boredom the game of spot the Primitive you played it by yourself secretly it was just an exercise for an ethnologists imagination you pretended that the people around you were members of a Savage Race and you tried to figure out how their personalities would manifest themselves in such an

Environment tonight it worked almost too well nothing unusual about the men Gunnison would of course be a prosperous tribal Chieftain perhaps a little fatter and tended by maidens but with a jealous and vindictive wife waiting to pounce Carr might figure as the basket maker of the village a spry little old man GR

Like a monkey weaving the basket fibers into intricate mathematical matrices sautel of course would be the tribal scapegoat but of endless painful practical jokes but the women take Mrs Gunnison now his partner give her a brown skin leave the red hair but twist some copper ornaments in it she’d be

Heftier if anything a real mountain of a woman stronger than most of the men in the tribe able to wield a spear or Club the same sleepy brutish eye but the lower lip would jut out in a more openly Sullen and domineering way it was only

Too easy to imagine what she’d do to The Unlucky maidens her husband showed too much interest in or how she would pound tribal policy into his head when they retired to their Hut or how her voice would Thunder out the death chants the women sang to Aid the men away at War

Then Mrs sautel and Mrs Carr who had progressed to the top table along with himself and Mrs Gunnison Mrs sautel first make her skinnier scarify the flat cheeks with ornamental ridges tattoo the spine witch woman bitter as quinine bark because her husband was ineffectual think of her princing before

A spike studded fetish think of her screeching incantations and ripping off a chicken’s head Norman you’re playing out of turn said Mrs Gunnison sorry and Mrs Carr shrivel her a bit leave only a few wh wisps of hair on the parchment skull take away the glasses

And then her eyes would be gummy she’d blink and peer shortsightedly and Lear Toothless and flutter her bony claws a nice harmless old squa who’d gather the trib’s children around her and tell them Legends but her jaw would still be able to snap like a steel trap and her

Claw-like hands would be DEA at applying arrow poison and she wouldn’t really need her eyes because she’d have other ways of seeing things and even the bravest warrior would grow nervous if she looked too long in his Direction those experts at the top table are awfully quiet called Gunnison with a

Laugh they must be taking the game very seriously witch women all three of them engaged in booting their husbands to the top of the tribal hierarchy from the dark doorway at the far end of the room totem was peering curiously as if weighing some similar possibility but Norman could not fit

Tany into the picture he could visualize physical changes like frizzing her hair and putting some big gold rings in her ears and a painted design on her forehead but he could not picture her as belonging to the same tribe she persisted in his imagination as a stranger woman a captive eyed with

Suspicion and Hate by the rest or perhaps a woman of the same tribe but one who had done something to Forfeit the trust of all the other women a priestess who had violated taboo a witch woman who had renounced witchcraft abruptly his field of vision narrowed to the score pad Evelyn sautel

Was idly scribbling stick figures as Mrs Carr deliberated over a lead first the stick figure of a man with arms raised in three or four balls above his head as if he were juggling then stick figure of a queen indicated by Crown and skirt then a little Tower with battlements

Then an L-shaped thing with a stick figure hanging from it a g Gallows finally a truck bearing down on a man whose arms were extended toward it in fear just five scribbles but he knew that four of them were connected with a bit of unusual knowledge buried

Somewhere in his mind a glance at the exposed dummy gave him the clue cards but this bit of knowledge was from the ancient history of cards when the whole deck was drenched with magic when there was a night between the Jack and the queen when the suits were swords batons

Cups and money and when there were 22 special tarot cards in the pack of which today only the Joker remained tarot cards were used for fortune telling four of the tarot cards were the juggler the empress the Tower and the hanged man only the fifth stick figure that of the

Man in the truck did not fit in but I gave him a peculiarly personal shutter death by being crushed or mingled as in an automobile accident with was his pet phobia Mrs sawell scratched out the stick figures and looked up at him sullenly Mrs Gunnison leaned forward

Lips moving as if she might be counting Trump Mrs Carr smiled and made her lead the Risen wind began to make the same intermittent roaring sound it had for a moment earlier in the evening why not he asked himself three witch women using magic as tany had to advance their

Husband’s career and their own making use of their husband’s special knowledge to give magic a modern twist suspicious and worried because tany had given up magic afraid she’d found a much stronger variety and was planning to make use of it and tany suddenly unprotected possibly unaware of the change in their

Attitude toward her because in giving up magic she lost her sensitivity to the supernatural her women’s intuition why not carry it a step further maybe all women were the same guardians of Mankind’s ancient customs and traditions including the practice of Witchcraft fighting their husbands battles from behind the scenes by

Sorcery keeping it a secret and on those occasions when they were discovered conveniently explaining it as feminine suceptibility to superstitious fads half of the human race still actively practicing sorcery why not it’s your play Norman said Mrs sautel sweetly you look as if you you had something on your mind said Mrs

Gunnison how are you getting along up there Norm her husband called those women got your buffaloed buffaloed he came back to reality with a jerk that was just what they almost had done and all because the human imagination was a thoroughly unreliable instrument like a rubber

Ruler let’s see if he played as Queen it might set up a king in Mrs gunnison’s hand so she could get in and run her space s after that round tany served refreshments and the usual shop talk began saw par today Gunnison remarked helping himself to a section of

Chocolate cake told me he’d be meeting with the trustees tomorrow morning to decide among other things on the chairmanship and sociology hervy sautel choked on a crumb and almost lost his coffee cup Norman caught Mrs sautel glaring at him vindictively she changed her face and murmured how interesting he smiled

That kind of hate he could understand no need to confuse it with witchcraft he went to the kitchen to get Mrs Carr a glass of water and met Mrs Gunnison coming out of the bedroom she was slipping a leatherbound booklet into her capacious handbag it recalled to his

Mind Tan’s diary probably an address book totem slipped out from behind her giving what sounded like a hiss as he dodged past her feet I loathe the animal said Mrs Carr blunt ly and walked past him professor Carr had made arrangements for a final rubber men at one table women at the

Other a barbaric Arrangement said tany winking you really don’t think we can play bridge at all on the contrary my dear I think you play very well car replied seriously but I confess that at times I prefer to play with men I can get a better idea of

What’s going on in their minds whereas women still baffle me as they should dear added Mrs car bringing a flurry of laughter the cards suddenly began to run freakishly with abnormal distribution of suits and play took a wild turn but Norman found it impossible to concentrate which made sautel an even

More jittery partner than usual he kept listening to what the women were saying at the other table his rebellious imagination persisted in Reading hidden meanings into the most innocuous remarks you usually hold wonderful hands tany but now you don’t seem to have any said Mrs Carr but suppose she was

Referring to the kind of hand you wrapped in flannel oh well unlucky in cards you know how in Mrs sael me to finish the remark Lucky in Love luck in sorcery idiotic notion that’s two psychic bids you’ve made in succession tany better watch out we’ll catch up

With you what might not a psychic bid stand for in Mrs gunnison’s vocabulary some kind of bluff and Witchcraft a pretense a giving up Conjuring I wonder Mrs Carr murmured sweetly to tany if you’re hiding a very strong hand this time dear and making a trap pass rubber ruler that was the

Trouble with imagination according to a rubber ruler an elephant would be no bigger than a mouse a jagged line and a curve might be equally straight he tried to think about the slam he had contracted for the girls talk a good game of bridge murmured Gunnison in an undertone gunnis

And Carr came out at the long end of 2000 Rubber and were still crowing pleasantly as they stood around waiting to leave Norman remembered a question he wanted to ask Mrs Gunnison Harold was telling me you had a number of photographs of that cement dragon or whatever it is on top of EST

It’s right opposite my window she looked at him for a moment then nodded I believe I’ve got one with me took it almost a year ago she dug a rumpled snapshot out of her handbag he studied it and experienced a kind of shiver in Reverse this didn’t make sense

At all instead of being toward the center of the roof Ridge or near the bottom it was almost at the top just what was involved here a practical joke stretching over a period of days or weeks or his mind bulked like a skittish horse yet it P

He turned it over there was a confusing inscription on the back in Greasy red crayon Mrs Gunnison took it out of his hands to show the others the wind sounds like a lost soul said Mrs Carr hugging her coat around her as Norman opened the door but a

Rather noisy one her husband added with a chuckle when the last of them were gone tany slipped her arm around his waist and said I must be getting old it wasn’t nearly as much of a trial as usual they seemed Almost Human Norman looked down at her intently she was smiling

Peacefully totem had come out of hiding and was rubbing against her legs with an effort Norman nodded and said yes they did end of chapter 4 chapter 5 there were Shadows everywhere and the ground under his feet was treacherous and of Uncertain texture the Dreadful strident roaring which seemed to have

Gone on since eternity began shook his very bones yet it did not drown out the flat nasty monotone of that other voice which kept telling him to do something he could not be sure what except that it involved injury to himself although he heard the voes plainly as if someone

Were talking inside his head he tried to struggle away from the direction in which the voice wanted him to go but heavy hands jerked him back he wanted to look up over his shoulder at something he knew would be taller than himself but he couldn’t muster the courage there were great rushing clouds

Overhead making the shadows and they would momentarily assume the form of gigantic faces brooding down on him faces with pits of Darkness for eyes and Sullen Savage lips and great masses of hair streaming behind he must not do the thing the voice commanded and yet he must he struggled

Wildly the sound Rose to a rock shattering Pandemonium the clouds became a black ragged all engulfing torrent and then suddenly the bedroom became mixed up with the other picture and he struggled awake he rubbed his face which was thick with sleep and tried unsuccessfully to remember what the voice had wanted him

To do he still felt the reverberations of the sound in his ears gloomy daylight seeped through the shades the clock indicated quarter to 8 tany was still curled up one arm out of the covers a smile seemed to be tickling the corners of her lips and wrinkling

Her nose he slipped out carefully his Barefoot failed to avoid a loose carpet tack suppressing an angry grunt he hobbled off for the first time in months he botched shaving twice the new blade slid too sharply sideways neatly removing tiny segments of skin he glared irritably at the scowling face in the

Mirror pulled the blade down his chin very slowly but with a little too much pressure and gave himself a third Nick by the time he got down to the kitchen the water he had put on was boiling as he poured it into the coffee pot the wobbly handle of the sauce pan came

Completely loose and his bare ankles were splattered painfully toad skittered away and then slowly returned to his tin of milk Norman cursed and then grinned what had he been telling tany about the cussedness of things as if to prove the point with a final ridiculous example he bit his

Tongue while eating coffee cake cussedness of things say rather the cussedness of the human nervous system faintly he was aware of a potently disturbing emotion remnant of the dream like an unpleasant swimming shape glimpsed beneath weedy water it seemed most akin to a dull seething anger for

As he hurried toward Morton Hall he found himself inwardly at war with the established order of things and particularly educational institutions the old sophomoric exasperation at the hypocrisies and compromises of civilized society welled up and poured over the dams that a mature realism had set

Against it this was a great life for a man to be leading codling the immature minds of grownup brats and lucky to get one halfway promising student a year playing bridge with a bunch of old fogies catering to jittery incompetence like hervy sautel bowing to the Thousand and One stupid

Rules and traditions of a second rate college and for what he knew he was being silly but some perverse Quirk kept him from pushing back this intrusion of juvenile emotions ragged clouds were moving overhead preaging rain they reminded him of his dream he felt the impulse to

Shout a childish Defiance at those faces in the sky an army truck rolled quietly by recalling to his mind a little picture Evelyn salel had scribbled on a bridge pad he followed it with his eyes when he turned back he saw Mrs Carr you’ve cut yourself she said brightly peering closely at his

Face yes I have how unfortunate he did not try to answer they walked together through the gate between Morton and EST he could just make out the snout of the cement Dragon poked over the EST gutter I wanted to tell you last night how distressed I was Professor sailor

About that matter of Margaret vanise only I didn’t think it was the right time I’m dreadfully sorry that you had to be called in such a disgusting accusation how you must have felt she seemed to misinterpret his Ry grimit at this for she went on swiftly

Of course I never once dreamed that you had done anything the least improper but I thought there must be something to the girl’s story she told it in such detail really Professor sailor some of the girls that come to hempell nowadays are terrible where they get such loathsome ideas froms quite Beyond

Me would you like to know she looked up at him blankly they get them he told her concisely from a society which seeks simultaneously to stimulate and inhibit one of their basic drives they get them in brief from a lot of dirty minded adults really Professor sailor why there

Are a number of girls here at hn who would be a lot healthier with real love affairs rather than imaginary ones a fair proportion of course have already made satisfactory adjustments he had the satisfaction of hearing her gasp as he abruptly turned into Morton his heart was pounding

Pleasantly his lips were tight when he reached his office he lifted the phone and asked for an oncampus number Thompson sailor I have a couple of news items for you good God what are they Thompson replied hungrily in the tone of one who poises a pencil first the subject for my

Address to the off-campus mother’s week after next premarital relations and the college student second my theatrical friends you know the ones I mean will be playing in the city at the same time and I shall invite them to be guests of the college but the poised pencil had

Obviously been dropped like a red hot poker that’s all Thompson perhaps I shall have something more interesting another time goodbye he felt a stinging sensation in his hand he had been fingering a little obsidian knife he used for slitting envelopes it had gashed his finger but blood smeared the clear volcanic glass

Where once he told himself had been the blood of sacrifice or ritual scarification clumsy the 9:00 buzzer cut short his musing he ripped a bandage from his handkerchief as he hurried down the corridor bronstein fell into step with himwe pulling for you this morning Dr sailor he murmured

Heartily what do you mean Bronstein’s grin was a trifle knowing a girl who works in the president’s office told us they were deciding on the soci ology chairmanship I sure hope the old Buzzard show some sense for once academic dignity stiffened Norman’s reply in any case I will be satisfied with their

Decision brunstein felt the rebuff of course I didn’t mean to of course you didn’t he immediately regretted his sharpness why the devil should he rebuke a student for failing to reverence trustees as representatives of deity why pretend he didn’t want the chairmanship why conceal his contempt for half the faculty the anger he

Thought he had worked out of his system surged up with redoubled violence on a sudden irresistible impulse he tossed his lecture notes aside and started in to tell the class just what he thought of the world and hempell they might as well find out young 15 minutes later he came to with a

Jerk in the middle of a sentence about dirtyminded old women in whom Greed for social Prestige has reached the magnitude of a perversion he could not remember half of what he had been saying he searched the faces of his class they looked excited but puzzled most of them

And a few looked shocked graay scine po was glaring yes he remembered now that he had made a neat but nasty analysis of the political motives of a certain College president who could be none other than Randolph Pard and somewhere he had started off on that premarital relations business and had been ribald

About it to say the least and he had exploded like a prince rert drop he finished off with a half dozen lame generalities he knew they must be quite inappropriate for the looks grew more puzzled but the class seemed very remote a shiver was spreading downward

From the base of his skull all because of a few words that had printed themselves in his mind the words were a fingernail has flicked a psychic filament he shook his head jumbling the type the words vanished there were 30 minutes of class time left he wanted to get away he

Announced a surprise quiz chocked up two questions and left the room the cut finger had started to bleed again through the bandage and there was blood on the chalk and dried blood on the obsidian knife he resisted the impulse to finger it and sat staring at the top of his

Desk it all went back to that witchcraft business he told himself it had shaken him much more than he had dared to admit he had tried to put it out of his mind too quickly and tany had appeared to forget it too quickly too a person could

Not Shake an obsession that easily he must thrash it out with her again and again or the thing would Fester but with tany seeming so happy and relieved the last three days that might be the wrong course to take the selfish course his eyes start started a stray toward the window but the

Telephone recalled him professor sailor I’m calling for Dr Pard could you come in and see Dr po this afternoon 4:00 thank you he leaned back with a smile at least he had gotten the chairman ship it grew darker as the day progressed the Ragged clouds sweeping lower and lower but the

Storm held off until almost 4 big raindrops splattered the dusty steps as he ducked into the poro of the administration building Thunder crackled and crashed as if Acres of metal sheeting were being shaken above the clouds he turned back to watch lightning through the gothic roofs and Towers into sharp

Relief again the crackle building to a crash he remembered he had left a window open in his office but there was nothing that would be damaged by the wet wind swooped down past the Portico with a strident pulsating Roar the unmusical voice that spoke into his ear had the same

Quality isn’t this a pretty storm Evelyn sautel was smiling for once it had a grotesque effect on her features as if a horse had suddenly discovered how to smirk you’ve heard the news of course she went on about hervy hervy popped out from behind her he was grining too but

Embarrassedly he mumbled something that was lost in the storm and extended his hand vaguely as as if he were in a receiving line Evelyn never took her eyes off Norman isn’t it wonderful she hissed of course we expected it but still Norman guessed he forced himself to grasp

Hervey’s hand just as the latter was withdrawing it flustered congratulations old man he said briefly I’m very proud of hervy Evelyn announced possessively as if he were a small boy who had won a prize for good behavior her eyes followed Norman’s hand oh you’ve cut yourself the smirk seemed to

Be a permanent addition to her features the wind wailed fishlyn she walked out into the storm as if it weren’t there hervy goggled at her in surprise he mumbled something apologetic to Norman pumped his hand up and down again and then obediently scampered after his wife Norman watched them there was something unpleasantly

Impressive about the way Evelyn saw marked marched through the Sheets of Rain getting both of them drenched to no purpose except to satisfy some strange obstinacy he could see that hervey was trying to hurry her and not succeeding lightning flared viciously but there was no reaction apparent in her angular

Awkward frame once again he became dimly aware of an alien explosive emotion deep within him and so that little poodle dog of hers he thought is to have the final say on the educational policy of the social theology Department then what the devil does Pard want to see me for to offer his

Commiserations almost an hour later he slammed out of PD’s office tense with anger wondering why he had not handed in his Rising Nation on the spot to be interrogated about his actions like some kid on the obvious instigation of busy bodies like Thompson and Mrs Carr and

Graine Pard to have to listen to a lot of hogwash about his attitudes and the hempell spirit with Veil insinuations about his moral code at least he had given somewhat better than he had taken at least he had forced a note of confusion into that Suave oratorical voice and made those tufted great

Eyebrows pop up and down more than once Mrs Gunnison was standing at the door of her husband’s office like a big strong slug he told himself noting her Twisted stockings and handbag stuff full as a grab bag the inevitable camera dangling beside it his exasperation shifted to her

Yes I cut myself he told her observing the direction of her glance his voice was horse from the tirade he had delivered to Pard then he remembered something and did not stop to weigh his words Mrs Gunnison you picked up my wife’s diary last night by mistake will you please give it to

Me you’re mistaken she replied tolerantly I saw you coming out of her bedroom with it her eyes became lazy slits in that case you’d have mentioned it last night you’re over rot Norman I understand she nodded toward pardun’s office it must have been quite a disappointment I’m asking you to return the

Diary and you really better look after that cut she continued unruffled it doesn’t look any too well bandaged and it seems to be bleeding infections can be nasty things he turned on his heel and walked away her reflection confronted him murky and dim in the glass of the outer door she was

Smiling outside Norman looked at his hand evidently he had opened the cut when he banged PD’s desk he drew the bandage tighter the storm had blown over and yellow sunlight was flooding from under the low curtain of clouds to the west flashing richly from the wet roofs and upper

Windows Surplus rain was sprinkling from the trees free the campus was empty a flurry of laughter from the girls dormitories etched itself on the silence he Shrugged aside his anger and let his senses absorb the new washed beauty of the scene he prided himself on being able to enjoy the moment at hand

It seemed to him one of the chief signs of maturity he tried to think like a painter identifying Hues and shades searching for the faint Rose or green hidden in the shadows there was really something to be said for Gothic architecture even though it was not functional it carried the eye along

Pleasantly from one fanciful bit of stonework to the next now take those leafy finals topping the estray tower and then suddenly the sunlight was colder than ice in the roofs of hempell were like the roofs of hell and the faint laughter like the crystalline cockin of fiends before he knew it he

Had swerved sharply away from Morton off the path and on to the wet grass although he was only half halfway across campus no need to go back to the office he told himself shakily just a long climb for a few notes they can wait until tomorrow and why not go home a

Different way tonight to around estr why always take the direct route that led through the gate between estr and Morton why he forced himself to look up again at the open window of his office it was empty now as he might have expected that other thing must have been some moving

Blur in his vision and imag ination had done the rest as when a small Shadow scurrying across the floor becomes a spider or perhaps a shade flapping outward but a shadow could hardly crawl along the ledge outside the windows a blur could hardly move so slowly or retain such a definite

Form and then the way the thing had waited peering in before it dropped down inside like like a of course it was all all nonsense and there was really no need whatsoever to bother about fetching those notes or closing the window it would be just like giving in to a

Neurotic fear there was a rumble of distant Thunder like a very large cat the color and texture of stone end of chapter 5 chapter 6 and henceforth his soul is believed to be knit up in a manner with the stone if it breaks it is an evil Omen for him

They say that Thunder has struck the stone and that he who owns it will soon die no use his eyes kept wandering over the mass of print he laid the golden bow aside and leaned back from somewhere to the east the Thunder still throbbed faintly but the familiar leather of the

Easy chair imparted a sense of of security and Detachment suppose just as an intellectual exercise you try to analyze it in terms of sorcery the dragon would be a clear case of sympathetic magic Mrs Gunnison animated it by operating on the photographs and if you hypothesized a

Bull roarer or the recording of one it would provide a neat magical explanation for the wind last night and the storm and wind today both associated with Mrs sautell and and then the similar sound in his dream he wrinkled his nose in distaste he could hear tany calling

Totem from the back porch rattling his little Tin Pan put today’s self-injurious AXS in another category the obsidian knife the razor blade the cranky saucepan the carpet tack the match that he had let burn his fingers a few minutes ago perhaps the razor blade had been Charmed like the enchanted

Sword or axe which wounds the person who wields it perhaps someone had stolen the blood smeared obsidian knife and dropped it in water so the wound would keep flowing that was a wellestablished Superstition a dog was trotting along the sidewalk out in front he could distinctly hear the clop clop of Paws

Tany was still calling totem perhaps a sorcerer had commanded him to destroy himself by inches or millimeters considering the razor blade that would explain all the self-injurious acts at one swoop the flat voice in the dream had ordered him to do it the dog had turned up to drive his claws made a

Grading sound on the concrete the tarot card diagram scribbled by Mrs sautell would figure as some magical control mechanism the stick figure of the man in the truck had Grim implications if interpreted in the light of his irrational fear of automobile accidents it really didn’t sound so much

Like a dog probably the neighbor boy dragging home by jerks some indeterminate bulky object the neighbor boy devoted all his spare time to collecting old metal totem totem followed by the sound of the back door closing finally that very trite sense of a presence just behind him taller than himself H poised to

Grab only whenever you looked over your shoulder it dodged something like that had figured in the dream The Source perhaps of the flat voice and in that case his patient snapped an intellectual exercise all right for morons he stubbed out his cigarette well I’ve done my duty

That cat can sing for his supper tany sat on the arm of the chair and put her hand on Norman’s shoulder how are things going at College he smiled up at her he had been afraid of that question not so good he replied lightly the chairmanship he nodded sael got it tany

Cursed fluently it did him good to hear her make you want to take up Conjuring again hold on he shouldn’t have said that she looked at him closely how do you mean that she asked just a joke are you sure I know you’ve been worrying about me these last few

Days ever since you found out wondering if I were going totally neurotic on you and watching for the next symptoms now dear you don’t have to deny it it was the natural thing I expected you’d be suspicious of me for a while with your knowledge of Psychiatry it would be

Impossible for you to believe that anyone could shake off an obsession so quickly and I’ve been so happy to get free from all that that your suspicions haven’t bothered me I’ve known they would wear off but darling I honestly haven’t been suspicious he protested Maybe maybe I ought to have been but I

Haven’t her gray green eyes were enigmatic and serious she said slowly then what are you worrying about nothing at all here was where he had to be very careful she shook her head that’s not true you are worrying oh I know there are some things on your

Mind that you haven’t told me about it isn’t that he looked up quickly she nodded about the chairmanship and that some student has been threatening you and about that vanise girl she smiled briefly as he started to protest oh I know you aren’t the type who seduces Love Struck and innocent mograph

Operators she became serious again those are all minor matters things you can take in your stride you didn’t tell me about them because you were afraid I might backslide from the desire to protect you isn’t that right yes but I have the feeling that what you’re worrying about going goes much

Deeper than that yesterday and today I’ve even felt that you wanted to turn to me for help and somehow didn’t dare he paused as if thinking exactly how to phrase his answer but he was studying her face trying to read the exact meaning of each little familiar Quirk of

Expression around the mouth and eyes she looked very contained but that was only a mask he thought actually in spite of everything she said she must still be poised close to the brink of her Obsession one little push such as a few careless words on his part how the devil

Had he ever let himself get so in mesed in his own worries and those ridiculous projections of his own cranky imagination here was the only thing that mattered the Mind behind this smooth Brown forehead and these clear gray green eyes to steer that mind away from any such ridiculous Notions as those he

Had been indulging in the last few days to tell the truth he said I have been worried about you I thought it would hurt your self-confidence if I let you know maybe I was unwise you seem to have sensed it anyway but that’s what I thought the way you feel now of course

It can’t possibly hurt you to know it occurred to him that it was easier to lie convincingly when you love someone provided the LIE were for that person’s sake she did not give in all once are you sure she said I still have the feeling there’s more to it suddenly she

Smiled and yielded to the pressure of his arm it must be the mcnight in me my Scotch ancestry she said laughing awfully stubborn you know monomaniacs when we’re crazy on a thing we’re completely crazy but when we drop it we drop it all at once like my great uncle

Peter you know the one who left the Presbyterian Ministry and gave up Christian ity on the very same day he proved to his satisfaction there was no God he was 72 at the time there was a long and grumbling Roll of Thunder the storm was swinging back well I’m very glad you’re only

Worried about me she continued it’s complimentary and I like it she was smiling happily but there was still something enigmatic about the eyes something withheld as he was congratulating himself on carrying it off successfully it suddenly occurred to him that two could play at the game of lying she

Might be holding something back herself with the idea of reassuring him she might be trying to protect him from her own blacker worries her subtlety might undercut his own no sane reason to suspect that and yet suppose I get us a drink she said and we decide whether or not you leave

Hempell this year and look for greener Fields he nodded she started around the B in the ill-shaped room for the sideboard and yet you could live with a person and love a person for 15 years and not know what was behind their eyes there was a rattle of glass wear in

The friendly sound of a full bottle set down on a table then timed to the Thunder but much much closer a shuddering animal scream of anguished fear it was cut off before Norman had sprung to his feet as he cleared the angle of the room he saw

Tany going through the kitchen door she was a little ahead of him down the back steps light fanned out from the windows of the opposite house into the service yard it revealed the sprawled body of totem head mashed flat against the concrete he heard a little sound start

And stop in Tan’s throat it might have been a gasp or a sob or a snarl the light revealed a little more than the body he moved so that his feet covered the two prominent scuffs in the concrete just beyond the body they might have

Been caused by the impact of a brick or heavy Stone perhaps the thing that had killed totem but there was something so suggestive about their relative position that he did not want Tan’s imagination to have a chance to work on them she lifted her face she was never one to show much

Emotion you’d better go in he said you’ll he nodded yes she stopped halfway up the stairs that was a rotten rotten thing for anybody to do yes we’ll try to find out who she left the door open a moment later she came out and laid on the porch

Railing a square of heavy cloth covered with shed hair then she went in again and shut the door he rolled up the cat’s body and stopped at the garage for the Spade he did not spend time searching for any brick or heavy stone or other missile nor did he examine closer the

Heavy foot marks he fancied he saw in the grass beyond the service yard lightning began to flicker as his spade bit into the soft ground by The Back Fence he kept his mind strictly on the task at hand he worked steadily but without undue haste when he patted down

The last Spade full of Earth and started for the house the lightning flashes were stronger making the moments in between even darker a wind had started up and was Dr agging at the leaves he did not hurry what if the lightning did indistinctly show him a large dog near the house toward the

Front there were several large dogs in the neighborhood they were not Savage totem had not been killed by a dog deliberately he replaced the Spade in the garage and walked back to the house only when he got inside and looked back through the screen did his thoughts break loose for a

Moment the lightning flash brightest yet showed the dog coming around the corner of the house he had only a glimpse a gray dog who walked stiff-legged he quickly closed the door and shot home the bolt then he remembered that the study windows were open he must close them quickly it might rain

In when Norman entered the living room his face was composed tany was sitting in the straight chair leaning a little forward an intent Moody expression around her eyes her hands were playing absently with a bit of twine he carefully lit a cigarette do you want that drink now he

Asked not too casually not too sharply no thanks you have one her hands kept on nodding and unknotting the twine he sat down and picked up his book from the easy chair he could watch her unobtrusively and now that he had no grave to dig or other mechanical task to

Perform his thoughts were not to be denied but at least he could keep them circling a little isolated sphere inside his skull without affecting either the expression of his face or the direction of his other thoughts which were protectively focused on tanzy sorcery is went the thoughts inside the

Sphere something has been conjured down from a roof women are witches fighting for their men tan was a witch she was guarding you but you made her stop in that case he replied swiftly to the thoughts inside the sphere why isn’t tenzi aware of what’s happening it can’t

Be denied that she has acted very relieved and happy are you sure she isn’t aware or becoming aware answer the thoughts inside the sphere besides in losing her weapons she has lost her sensitivity which had probably declined in acuteness through familiarity without microscope or telescope a scientist would would be no

Better able than a Savage to see the germs of typhoid or the moons of Mars his natural sensory equipment would even be inferior to that of the Savage and the imprisoned thoughts buzzed violently like bees seeking escape from a stopped up Hive Norman tany said abruptly without looking up at

Him you found and burned that hand in your watch charm didn’t you he thought a moment yes I did he said lightly I’d really forgotten about it there were so many he turned a pig and then another thunder crackled loudly and Rain began to patter on the

Roof Norman you burned the diary too didn’t you you were right in doing it of course I held it back because it didn’t contain actual curses only the formulas for them so in a Twisted illogical way I pretended it didn’t count that was harder to answer

He felt as if he were playing a guessing game and tany was getting perilously warm the thoughts in the sphere buzzed triumphantly Mrs gunson has the diary now she knows all of Ten’s protective charms butd he answered yes I did burn it I’m sorry but I thought of course

Tany cut in you were quite right her fingers played more rapidly with the cord she did not look down at it light showed flashes of pale Street and trees through the window the patter of rain grew in volume but through it he fancied he heard the scrunch of Paws on the

Drive ridiculous rain and wind were making too much noise his eyes were attracted to the pattern of knots Tan’s Restless fingers were weaving they were complicated strongl looking knots which fell apart at a single cunning jerk reminding him of how tany had studied assiduously the cat’s Cradles of the Indians

It also recalled to his mind how knots are used by The Primitives to tie and loose the winds to hold loved ones to noose far off enemies to inhibit or free all manner of physical and physiological processes and how the fates weave Destinies like threads he found something very pleasing in the pattern

Of the knots and the rhythmic movements which produced them they seemed to signify security until they fell apart Norman the voice was preoccupied and Rapid what was that snapshot you asked holda Gunnison to show you last night he felt a brief flurry of panic she was getting very warm this was the

Stage of the game where you cried out hot and then he heard the heavy unyielding Clump Clump on the boards of the front porch seeming to move questing along the wall the sphere of alien thoughts be began to exert an irresistible centrifugal pressure he felt his sanity being smothered between

The assaults from without and within very deliberately he shaved off the ash of his cigarette against the edge of the tray it was of the roof of EST he said casually gison told me she had taken a number of pictures of that sort and I wanted to see a

Sample some sort of creature in it wasn’t there knots flickered into being and vanished with bewildering speed it seemed to him suddenly that more than twine was being manipulated and more than empty air tied and loosed as if the knots Were Somehow creating an influence as an electric current along a

Twisted wire creates a complex magnetic field no he said and then made himself chuckle unless you count in a stray gargoyle or two Thunder ripped and crashed deafeningly lightning might have struck in the ne neighborhood tany did not move a muscle in response that was a Lulu he started to

Say then as the Thunder crash trailed off in Rumblings and there was a second’s lull in the rain he heard the sound of something leaping heavily down from the front edge of the porch toward that part of the wall where the large low window was set he got to his feet

And walked toward the window as if to look out at the storm as he passed tz’s chair he saw that her r Ling fingers were creating a strange knot resembling a flower with seven Loops for petals she stared like a sleepwalker then he was at the window shielding

Her the next lightning flash showed him what he knew he must see it crouched facing the window the head was still blank and crude as an unfinished skull in the ensuing surge of Blackness the sphere of alien thoughts expanded Ed with instant swiftness until it occupied his entire mind he glanced

Behind him Tan’s hands were still the strange seven looped knot was poised between them just as he was turning back he saw the hands jerk apart and the loops whip in like a seven-fold snare and hold and in that same moment of turning he saw the street brighten like day and

A great ribbon of lightning split the tall Elm opposite and Fork into several streams which streak across the street toward the window and the Stony form UPR reared against it then blinding light and a tingling electrical surge through his whole body but in his Mind’s Eye was indelibly

Traced the incandescent track of the lightning whose multiple streams racing toward the upreared Stony form had converged upon it as if Drawn Together by a Sevenfold knot the sphere of alien thought thoughts expanded Beyond his skull at a dizzy rate vanished his gasping uncontrollable laughter Rose above the dying

Reverberations of the Titan Thunder blast he dragged open the window pulled a bridge lamp up to it jerked the cover from the lamp so its light flooded outward look tany he called his words mixed with Manic laughter look what those crazy students have done she must be made to think it was a

Joke those frat men I bet I kid it in class look what they dragged down from campus and stuck in our front yard of all the crazy things we’d have to call buildings and grounds to take it away tomorrow rain splattered in his face there was a sulfurous metallic odor her

Hand touched his shoulder she stared out blankly her eyes still asleep it stood there propped against the wall solid and inert as only the inorganic can be in some places the cement was darkened and fused and of all mad coincidences he gasped the lightning had to go and strike

It on an Impulse he reached out his hand and touched it at the feel of the rough unyielding surface still hot from the lightning flash his laughter died and a grim Lucidity flooded his mind he muttered to himself solo that even tany standing beside him might not have heard Aur C

Moov end of chapter 6 chapter 7 next day he went around campus like a man in a days he had had a long and heavy sleep but he looked as if he were stupified by weariness even Harold Gunnison remarked on it it’s nothing he replied I’m just lazy Gunnison smiled skeptically you’ve been

Working too hard that’s the Temptation we’re all up against but it butchers efficiency better ration your hours of work your jobs won’t go hungry if you feed them 10 hours a day trustees are queer cusses he continued with apparent irrelevance and Po’s more a politician than an educator but he brings in the

Money and that’s what college presidents are for Norman indicated that he appreciated the sympathy but he felt as far removed from Gunnison as from the hordes of gay dressed students who filled the walks and socialized in clusters as if there were a wall of faintly clouded glass

Between his only aim and even that was blurred was to prolong his present state of fatigued reaction from last night’s events and to avoid all thoughts thoughts were dangerous he felt their presence here and there in his brain like pockets of poison harmless as long as you left them insisted and did not

Prick them one was more familiar than the others it had been there last night he felt vaguely thankful that he could not longer see inside of it another was concerned with tany and why she had seemed so cheerful and forgetful this morning another a very

Large one was sunk so deeply in in his mind that he could only perceive a small section of its globular surface he knew it was connected with an unfamiliar emotion that he had sensed yesterday more than once and he knew that it must under no circumstances be disturbed he could feel it pulsate

Slowly and rhythmically like a monster asleep in mud another had to do with knots and lightning another Tiny But prominent was somehow concerned with cards and there were more many more his situation was akin to that of the legendary hero who must travel through a long and narrow Corridor without once

Touching the morbidly enticing poisoned walls he knew he could not avoid contact with them indefinitely but in the meantime the thought cysts might shrink and disappear the day fitted with his superficially dull and lethargic mood instead of the cool SP that should have followed the storm there was a hot

Foretaste of summer in the air student absences Rose sharply those who came to class were inattentive and exhibited other symptoms of spring fever only bronstein seemed animated he kept drawing Norman’s other students aside by twos and threes and whispering to them heatedly Norman found out that he was

Trying to get up a petition of protest on sa’s appointment Norman asked him to stop it bronstein refused but in any case he seemed to be failing in the job of arousing the other students Norman’s lectures were languid he contented himself with transforming his notes into accurate verbal

Statements with a minimum of mental effort he watched the pencils move methodically as notes were taken or wander off into intricate Doodles two girls were engrossed in sketching the handsome profile of the fraternity president in the second row he watched foreheads wrinkle as they picked up the

Thread of his lecture smoothed out again as they dropped it and all the while his own mind was wandering off on sidetracks they were too fugitive too much like Daydreams to be called thoughts one began when he recalled the epigram about a lecture being a process of transferring the

Contents of the teacher’s notebook into the notebooks of the students without allowing it to pass through the minds of either that made him think of mimeographing mograph it went on Margaret vanise Theodore Jennings gun window pane Galileo scroll sheer away from that forbidden territory the Daydream backtracked and took a different turning Jennings

Gunnison Pard president Emperor Empress juggler Tower hanged man hold on don’t go any further as the long dull day wore on the Daydreams gradually assumed a uniform coloration gun knife sliver broken glass nail tetanus War mangled bodies Mayhem murder rope hangman Sher off again gas poison the coloration of blood and

Physical injury and ever more strongly he felt the breath-like pulsations of the monster in the depths of his mind dreaming nightmares of Carnage from which it would soon awake and heave up out of the mud and he powerless to stop it it was as if a crusted over swamp

Swollen with underground water were pushing up the seemingly healthy ground above by imperceptible degrees nearing the point when it would burst through in one vast slimy eruption starting Home Norman Fell in with Mr Carr good evening Norman said the Old Gentleman lifting his Panama Hat to mop his forehead which merged into an

Extensive bald area good evening Lytham said Norman but his mind was occupied with speculating how if a man let a thumbnail grow and then sharpened it carefully he could cut the veins of his wrist and so bleed to death Mr Carr wiped the handkerchief around his beard I enjoyed the bridge thoroughly he

Said perhaps the four of us could have a game when the ladies are away at The Faculty wives meeting next Thursday you and I could be partners and use the Culbertson slam conventions his voice became wistful I’m tired of always having to play the Blackwood Norman nodded but he was

Thinking of how men have learned to swallow their tongues and when the occasion came die of Suffocation he tried to check himself these were speculations appropriate only to the Concentration Camp visions of death kept rising in his mind replacing one another he felt the pulsations deepen become unendurably strong Mr Carr nodded

Pleasantly and turned off he quickened his Pace as if the walls of The Poisoned passageway were Contracting on the legendary hero and unless the end were soon reached he would have to shove out against them wildly from the corner of his eye he saw one of his students she was staring at

Him puzzled he brushed past her he reached the boulevard the lights were against him he paused on the edge of the curb a large red truck was rumbling toward the intersection at a fair rate of speed and then he knew just what was going to happen and that he would be

Unable to stop himself he was going to wait until the truck was very close and then he was going to throw himself under the wheels into the passageway that was the meaning of the fifth stick figure the tarot diagram that had departed from tradition Empress juggler the truck was

Very close Tower the lights had started to change but the truck was not going to stop hanged man it was only when he leaned forward tensing his leg muscles that the small flat voice spoke into his ear a voice that was a monotone and yet diabolically humorous the voice of his

Dreams not for two weeks at least not for two more weeks he regained his balance the truck rushed by he looked over his shoulder first up then around no one but a small negro boy and an elderly man rather shabbily dressed carrying a shopping bag they were waiting to cross in the

Opposite direction a shiver settled on his spine eyes shifted wearily from side to side he crossed the street and proceeded home he no longer thought of death except to fear it as soon as he was inside he poured himself a more than generous drink oddly tany had set out

Soda and Ice he mixed the highball and gulped it down so he had been given two weeks two weeks in which to pick his life slowly apart Savor each stage of Doom before he should walk again the narrow Corridor at the end of which a truck was always rumbling by anger

Surged in him at the idea but perhaps that was what he was supposed to do do get angry he mixed himself another drink took a gulp then looked at it doubtfully perhaps that was part of the plan too tany came in carrying a bundle her face was smiling and a little flushed

With a sigh of relief she sat down the bundle and pushed aside the dark bangs from her forehead what a sweltering day I thought you’d be wanting a drink here let me finish that one for you when she put down the glass there was only ice in it

There now we’re Blood Brothers or something mix yourself another that was my second he told her oh heck I thought I was cheating you she sat on the edge of the table and wagged a finger in his face look Mister you need a rest or some excitement I’m not

Sure which maybe both now here’s my plan I make us a cold supper sandwiches then when it’s dark and nobody can see us we get Oscar out of the garage and sinfully waste a half gr of rubber off his tires in driving to the top of the hill we

Haven’t done that for years how about it mister he hesitated helped by the drink his thoughts were veering this was a crazy situation half his mind was still gripped by a sickening panicky apprehension for his immediate personal future the other half was coming under the spell of Tan’s gayety she reached

Out and pinched his nose how about itall right he said hey you’re supposed to act interested she slid off the table started for the kitchen then added Darkly over her shoulder but that will come later she looked provocatively pretty in her mock anger he couldn’t see any difference between now and 15 years

Ago he felt he was seeing her for the hund first time when the sandwiches came he was reading the evening paper the disquieting half and half mood persisted he had found a local interest item at the bottom of the fifth page student pranksters at work again a

Practical joke is worth any amount of trouble in physical exertion at least that is the sentiment of a group of hempell college students as yet unidentified but we are wondering about the sentiments of Professor Norman sailor when he looked out the window this morning and saw a stone gargoyle

Weighing a good 300 lb sitting in the middle of his lawn it had been removed from the roof of one of the college buildings how the students managed to detach it lowerer it from the roof Ro and transport it to Professor sailor’s residence is still a mystery said

Professor sailor thanks for the lawn ornament boys but I really don’t want it when President Randolph Pard was asked if the pranksters had been identified he laughingly replied I guess our war program of physical education for men must be providing them with reserves of excess strength and energy when we spoke

To president Pard he was leaving to address the Lions Club on the college in Wartime for details of his address C page I just what you might expect the usual repertorial inaccuracies it wasn’t a gargoyle gargoyles are ornamental rain spouts And the reporter had not used the lightning

Angle in his story probably thought it would sound too fishy finally The Familiar Touch of turning the item into an advertisement for the physical education department you had to admit that the hemp Nell publicity office had a kind of efficiency tany swept the paper out of

His hands the world can wait she said here have a bite of my sandwich end of chapter 7 chapter 8 it was quite dark when they started for the hill he drove carefully taking his time at intersections Tan’s gayety still did no more than hold in check the other half of his

Thoughts I might be a witch she said taking you to a Hilltop rendevu our own private sabat she was smiling impishly she had changed to a light white sports dress she looked like one of his students again he felt the craziness of the situation the line between reality and

Pretense was become harder to distinguish he must keep carefully in mind that when she said things like that she was making a courageous mockery of her previous Behavior he must on no account let her see the other Happ of his thoughts or was that what she wanted the lights of the Town dropped

Behind half a mile out he turned off sharply onto the road that wound up the hill it was bumpier than he remembered from the last time was it as much as 10 years ago and the trees were thicker rushing the windshield when they emerged into the

Half acre of clearing on the top the Moon 2 days after full was Rising rly tany pointed to it and said check I timed it perfectly but where are the others there always used to be two or three cars up here and on a night like

This he stopped the car close to the edge Fashions and lovers Lanes change like anything else he told her we’re traveling a disused folkway always the sociologist I guess so maybe Mrs car found out about this place and I suppose the students range farther a field nowadays or did till this year she

Rested her head on his shoulder he switched off the headlights and the moon cast soft Shadows we used to do this at gorm she murmured when I was taking your classes and you were the serious young instructor until I found out you weren’t any different from the college boys only

Better remember he nodded and took her hand he looked down at the Town made out the campus with its prominent flood lights designed to chase couples out of dark Corners those garishly flood lighted Gothic buildings seemed for the moment to symbolize a whole world of barren intellectual competition and jealous

Traditionalism a world toward which at the moment he felt as alien as if he were still 26 instead of 41 in tany 21 instead of 36 I wonder if that’s why they hate us so he said almost without thinking whatever are you talking about but the question sounded

Lazy I mean the rest of the faculty or most of them is it because we can do things like this she laughed so you’re actually coming alive we don’t do things like this so very often you know he kept on with his idea it’s a devilishly competitive and jealous life the war

Doing away with some of it makes you more conscious of the rest and competition in an institution can be nastier than any other because it’s so tight think so I’ve lived with it for years said tany simply of course it’s all very Petty but Petty emotions can

Come to outweigh big ones their size is better suited to the human mind he looked down at hempell and tried to visualize the amount of ill will and jealousy he had inevitably accumulated for himself he felt a slight chill creeping around he realized where this train of thought was leading the darker

Half of his mind loomed up ominously here philosopher said tany have a slug she was offering him a small silver flask he recognized it I never dreamed you’d kept it all these years uh-huh remember when I first offered you a drink from it you were a trifle shocked

I believe though you carried a flask too I took the drink uh-huh so take this this one it tasted like fire and spice there were memories with it memories of those crazy prohibition years and of gorum in New England Brandy Greek style give me some before that flood of memories the

Darker half of his mind receded was washed under he looked at tz’s Sleek hair and moon shadowed eyes of course she’s a witch he thought lightly she’s Lilith Ishtar he’d tell her so do you remember the time he said we slid down the bank to get away from the night

Watchman at Goram there would have been a magnificent Scandal if he’d caught us oh yes in the time when they went down the moon was an hour higher he drove slowly no need to imitate the sillier practices of the prohibition era a truck chugged past

Him two more weeks rot who do you think he was hearing voices Jon of Arc he felt hilarious he wanted to tell tany all the ridiculous things he’d been Imagining the last few days so she could laugh at them too it would make a swell ghost story there was a reason he shouldn’t

Tell her but it was an insignificant reason part and parcel of this cramped warped over cautious hempell life they ought to break away from more often so when they arrived in the living room tany flopping down on the sofa he began you know tany about this witch stuff I want to tell

You he was caught completely off guard by whatever Force subjective or objective hit him when it was over he was sitting in the easy chair completely sober with the outer World once more an icy pressure on his senses and the inner World a whirling sphere of alien thought

And the future a dark Corridor two weeks long it was as if a very large horny hand had been clapped roughly over his mouth and as if another such hand had grasped him by the shoulder shook him and slammed him down in the leather chair as if he looked around

Uneasily maybe there had been hands apparently tany had not noticed anything her face was a white oval in the Gloom she was still humming the snatch of song she did not ask what he had started to say he got up walked unsteadily into the dining room and poured himself a drink from the

Sideboard on the way he switched on the lights so he couldn’t tell tany or anyone else about it even if he wanted to that was why you never heard from real witchcraft victims and why they never seemed able to escape even if the means of Escape were at hand it wasn’t weak

Will they were watched like a gangster taken on a ride from an expensive nightclub he must excuse himself from the loudmouthed crowd at his table and laugh heartily and stop to chat with friends and throw a wink at the pretty girls because right behind him are those white scarfed top hated trigger boys

Hands and pockets of their velvety dress overcoats no use dying now better play along there might be a chance but that was storybook stuff movie stuff he nodded at himself in the glass above the sideboard meet Professor sailor he said the distinguished ethnologist and firm believer in real

Witchcraft but the face in the glass did not look so much disgusted as frightened he mixed himself another drink and one for tany and took them into the living room here’s to wickedness said tany do you realize you haven’t been anywhere near drunk since Christmas he grinned

That was just what the movie Gangster would do to grab a moment of forgetfulness when the big boy had put him on the spot and not a bad idea slowly and at first only in a Melancholy minor key the mood of the Hill returned they talked played old

Records told jokes that were old enough to be new again tany hammered the piano and they sang a crazy assortment of songs folk songs hymns national anthems reol U songs Blues brahs Schubert haltingly at first later at the top of their voices they remembered and they kept on

Drinking but always like a shimmering sphere of Crystal the alien thoughts spun in his mind the drink made it possible for him to regard them dispassionately without constant revulsions in the name of Common Sense he began to see worldwide evidence for the operation of witchcraft for instance was it not likely that all

Self-destructive impulses were the result of Witchcraft more or less efficiently screened off by protective magic or not screened off at all those Universal impulses that were a direct contradiction to the laws of self-preservation and survival po had fancifully referred them to an imp of the perverse and psychoanalysts had laboriously hypothesized a death

Instinct to account for them how much simpler to attribute them to malign forces outside the individual working by means as yet unanalyzed and therefore classified as Supernatural his experiences during the past days could be divided into two distinct categories the first included those natural misfortunes and antagonisms from which Tan’s magic had

Screened him the attack on his life by Theodore Jennings should probably be placed in this category the chances were that Jennings was actually Psychopathic he would have made his murderous attack at an earlier date had not Tan’s protective magic kept it from getting started as soon as the

Screen was down as soon as Norman burned the last hand the idea had suddenly burgeoned in Jenning mind like a hot house flower Jennings had himself admitted it I didn’t realize until this minute Margaret Van’s accusation Thompson’s burst of interest in his extracurricular activities and Saw’s chance discovery of the Cunningham

Thesis also probably belonged in the same category in the second category active and malign witchcraft a penny for your thoughts offered tany looking over the rim of her glass I was thinking of the party last Christmas he replied smoothly and of how wellby crawled around playing a St

Bernard with the bare skin skin rug over his shoulders and a bottle of whiskey slung over his neck he felt a childish pride in his cunning at having avoided being trapped into an admission he simultaneously thought of tany as a genuine witch and a potentially neurotic individual who had to be protected at

All cost from dangerous suggestions the liquor made his mind work by parts and the parts had no check on each other his Consciousness began to black out for indeterminate intervals things began to happen by fits and starts they were wailing St James Infirmary he was thinking why shouldn’t

The women be the witches they’re the institutionalists the traditionalists the irrationalist and like tany most of them are never quite sure whether or not their witchcraft really works they had shoved back the carpet and were dancing to Chloe sometime or other she had changed to her Rose dressing gown he was

Thinking in the second category but the s stray Dragon animated by a human or non-human Soul conjured into it by Mrs Gunnison and controlled through photographs inhibited by the protective screen so long as the protective screen existed they’d put on a record of revel’s bolero and he was beating out

The Rhythm with his fist he was thinking all sculpture has a magical significance from the oratian Venus to Epstein’s Genesis the underlying intention has always to produce a mannequin capable of being animated by sorcery he was watching tany as she sing St Louis Blues in a hely throbbing

Voice it was true just as wellby had always maintained that she had a genuine theatrical flare make a good shanto he was thinking tany stopped the estray dragon with the knots but she’ll have a hard time doing anything like that again because Mrs Gunnison has her

Book of formulas and can figure out ways to circumvent they were sharing a highball that would have burned his throat if his throat had not been numb and he seemed to be getting most of it he was thinking the tarot card stick figure of the man

In the truck is the key to a group of related sorceries cards began as instruments of magic like sculpture these sorceries aim at finishing me off the bull roarer acts as an amplifier or reinforcement the thing standing behind me with the flat voice and heavy hands

As a guardian to see to it that I do not deviate from the path appointed bull roaring and flat voice were associated in my dream narrow Corridor two weeks more the strange thing was that these thoughts were not altogether unpleasant they had a wild black poisonous beauty

Of their own a lovely deadly Shimmer they possessed the fascination of the impossible the incredible they hinted at unimaginable Vistas even while they terrorized they did not lose that chillingly poignant Beauty they were like the Visions conjured up by some forbidden drug they had the lore of an

Unknown sin and an ultimate blasphemy he could understand the force that compelled the practitioners of black magic to take any risk his drunkenness made him feel safe it had broken his mind down into the ultimate particles and those particles were incapable of fear because they could not be injured just as the iron

Molecules of a battleship are quite safe from the bomb which blows the battleship apart but now the particles were whirling crazily Consciousness was wavering they ran each other’s arms tany was asking eagerly coaxingly all that’s mine is yours all that’s yours is mine the question awakened a suspicion in his mind but he

Could not grasp it clearly something made him think that the words held a trap but what trap his thoughts stumbled and reeled she was saying it sounded like the Bible and I’ve drunk from your cup and eaten from your table her face was a blurred oval her eyes like Misty

Jewels everything you have is mine you give it to me without hindrance and of your own free choice somewhere a trap but the voice was irresistibly coaxing like like tickling fingers all you have is mine just say it once Norm just once for me of course he loved her better than

Anything else in the world yes yes everything he heard himself saying and then his mind toppled and plunged down into a fathomless ocean of darkness and silence and peace end of chapter 8 chapter n sunlight made a bright creamy design on the drawn blind filtered sunlight filled the bedroom like a cooly glowing

Liquid the birds were chering importantly he closed his eyes again and stretched luxuriously let’s see it was about time he got started on that article for the journal and there was still some work to do on the revision of his textbook of ethnology lots of time but better get it

Out of the way no telling when the government would want another brochure and he ought to have a serious talk with bronstein about his thesis that boy had some good ideas but he needed a balance wheel and then his address to the off-campus mothers might as well tell

Them something useful eyes still closed he enjoyed to the full that most Pleasant of Sensations the irresistible tug of work a man likes to do and is able to do well no need to get started right away though today was too good a day for golf to miss might see what Gunnison was

Doing and then he and tany had not made an expedition into the country this whole spring he talked to her about it at breakfast Saturday breakfast was an event she must be getting it ready now he felt as if a shower would make him very very hungry must be

Late he opened an eye and focused the bedroom clock 12:35 say just when had he got to bed last night what had he been doing memory of the past few days uncoiled like a loose spring so swiftly that it started his heart pounding and brought him up

With a jerk yet there was a difference from the very first moment it all seemed incredible and unreal he had the sensation of reading the very detailed case history of another person his memories could not be made to fit with his present sense of well-being what was stranger they did not seriously disturb

That sense of well-being he searched his mind diligently for traces of Supernatural fear of the sense of being watched and guarded of that monstrous self-destructive impulse he could not discover or even suggest to himself the slightest de Ree of such emotions whatever they had been they were now part of the past beyond

The reach of everything except intellectual memory spheres of alien thought why the very notion was bizarre and yet somehow it had all happened something had happened his movement had automatically taken him under the shower and now as he soaped himself in the warm water cascaded down he wondered if he

Ought not to talk it all over with Jones of psychology or a good practicing psychiatrist the mental contortions he had gone through in the last few days would provide material for a whole Treatise feeling as sound as he did this morning it was impossible for him to entertain any ideas of serious mental

Derangement no what had happened was just one of those queer inexplicable spasms of irrationality that can seize the sanest people perhaps because they are so sane a kind of discharge of long inhibited morbidity too bad though that he had bothered tany with it especially when her own nervous system had been in a

Shaky State poor kid she had been working hard to cheer him up last night in particular it ought to have been the other way around well he would make it up to her he shaved leisurely and with enjoyment the razor behaved perfectly as he finished dressing a doubt out struck

Him again he searched his mind closing his eyes like a man listening for an almost inaudible sound nothing not the faintest trace he was whistling as he pushed into the kitchen there was no sign of breakfast beside the sink were some unwashed glasses empty bottles and an ice tray filled with tepid

Water tany he called tany he walked through the house with the vague apprehension that she might have passed out before getting to bed they hadd been drinking like fish he went out to the garage and made sure that the car was still there maybe she’d walk to the groceries to get something

For breakfast unconsciously he began to hurry as he went back into the house this time when he looked in the study he noticed the upset ink bottle and the scrap of paper just beside it on the edge of the drying black pool the message had come within an inch of being

Engulfed it was a hurried scrawl twice the pinpoint had gouged through the paper and it broke off twice in the middle of a sentence but it was undeniably in Tan’s handwriting for a moment it isn’t watching me I didn’t realize it would be too strong for me not two weeks not two

Days don’t try to follow me only chance is to do exactly what I tell you take four lengths of 4-in white cord and his eyes traced the smear going out from the black pool and ending in the indistinct print of a hand and involuntarily his imagination recreated the scene she had

Been scribbling desperately stealing quick glances over her shoulder then it had awakened to what she was doing and had roughly struck the pin out of her hand and shaken her he recalled the grip of those huge horny hands and winced and then then she had gotten together her

Things very quietly although there was little chance of him Awakening and she had walked out of the house and down the street and if she met anyone one she knew she had talked to them gay and laughed because it was behind her waiting for any false move any attempt at

Escape so she had gone where anywhere wherever the narrow Corridor ended for her no longer two weeks but only two days long in a flash of insight he understood why if he hadn’t been drunk last night he would have guessed one of the oldest and best established types of

Conjuration in the world transference of evils like the medicine man who conjures sickness into a stone or into an enemy or into himself because he is better able to combat it she had taken his curse upon herself shared his drink last night shared his food used a thousand

Devices to bring them close together it was all obvious he racked his brain to recover those last words she had said to him everything you have is mine all you have is mine she had meant the curse and he had said yes and then without her formulas and

Her protective screen the curse had proven too strong for her he wanted to run out into the street to shout her name but the pool of ink had dried to glistening black flakes all around the margin it must have been Spilled Out hours ago as early as last midnight even

He beat his temple in a rage at his own impotence this mood did not last long his anxiety persisted grew stronger but the supernatural Terror rapidly died away it could not sustain itself now that he no longer experienced it directly even the argument that he had lost his sensitivity only because the

Curse was now directed at her did not convince him for a moment no there was nothing nothing Supernatural in this no Guardian except a figment of his and her neurotic nerves what had happened was that he had suggested all this to her he had forced upon her the products of his own morbid

Imagination undoubtedly he had babbled everything to her while he was drunk and it had worked on her suggestible nature she already believed in witchcraft until she had got the idea of transferring his curse to herself and had convinced herself that the transference had actually occurred and then gone off God

Knew where and that was bad enough there was a light chime from the front door he extracted a letter from the mailbox ripped it open it was addressed with a soft pencil and the graphite had smeared but he knew the handwriting the message was so jerky and

Uneven that he was some time reading it it began and ended in the middle of a sentence and the length of gut a bit of platinum or idium a piece of load Stone a phonograph needle that has only played scan’s ninth Sonata then Tai that was all a continuation of the

First message with its bizarre formula had she really convinced herself that there was a guardian watching her and that she could only communicate during the infrequent moments when its attention was elsewhere he knew the answer when you had an obsession you could convince yourself of anything he

He looked at the postmark he recognized the name of a town several miles east of hemp Nell he could not think of a soul they knew there or anything else about the town his first impulse was to get out the car and rush over but what could

He do when he got there the phone was ringing it was Evelyn sautel is that you Norman please ask tany to come to the phone I wish to speak to her the question was wrapped out with precision as if it’s wording had been carefully planned I’m sorry but she isn’t

In Evelyn sautel did not sound surprised at the answer her second question came too quickly where is she then I must get in touch with her he thought she’s out in the country he said visiting some friends of ours is there something I can tell

Her no I wish to speak to teny what is your friend’s number they don’t have a phone he said angrily no well it’s nothing of importance she sounded oddly pleased as if his anger had given her satisfaction I’ll call again I must hurry now hervy is so busy with his new responsibilities

Goodbye he replaced the phone now why the devil suddenly an explanation occurred to him perhaps teny had been seen leaving town and Evelyn sautel had scented the possibility of some sort of Scandal and had wanted a check perh perhaps tany had been carrying a suitcase he looked in Tan’s dressing

Room the small suitcase was gone drawers were open it looked as if she had packed in a hurry but what about money he examined his billfold it was empty $0 OD dollars missing you could go a long way on $40 the jerky illegibility of the

Message made it look as if it had been written on a train or bus the next few hours were highly unpleasant he checked schedules and found that several buses and trains passed through the town from which Tan’s letter had been sent he drove to the stations and made guarded inquiries with no

Success he wanted to do all the things you should do when someone disappears but he held back what could he say my wife sir has disappeared she is suffering from the delusion that and what if she should be found and questioned in her present State of Mind

Examined by a doctor before he could get to her no this was something for him to handle alone but if he did not get a line on it soon he would have no choice he would have to go to the police inventing some story to cover the facts

She had written two days if she believed that she were doomed to die in two days might not the belief be enough that was his worst fear toward evening he drove back to the house repressing the chimerical hope that she had returned in his absence the special delivery carrier was just

Getting into his car Norman pulled up alongside anything for sailor yes sir it’s in the Box the message was longer this time but just as difficult to read at last its attention is somewhere else if I control my emotions it isn’t so quick to notice

My thoughts but it was hard for me to post the last letter Norman you must do what I tell you the two days end Sunday midnight then the bay you must follow all directions tie the four white cords into a granny a reef a catspaw and a Carrick Bend tie

The gut in a bow line then add he looked at the postmark the place was 200 mil East not on the railroad lines as far as he could recall that should narrow down the possibilities considerably one word from the letter was repeating itself in his mind like a musical note struck

Again and again till it becomes unendurable B ba ba ba the memory came of a hot afternoon 15 years ago it was just before they were married they were sitting on the edge of a ramshackle little pier he remembered the salt smell and the faintly fishy dry wood smell of the

Splintery old planks funny she had said looking down into the green water but I always used to think that I’d end up down there not that I’m afraid of it I’ve always swam way out but even when I was a little girl I’d look at the bay maybe green maybe blue maybe gray

Covered with white caps glittering with moon beams or shrouded by fog and I’d think tany the bay is going to get you but not for years and years funny isn’t it and he laughed and put his arm around her tight and the green water had gone on lapping at the piles heavy with

Seaweed he had been visiting with her family when her parents were still alive at their home near Bayport on the southern shore of New York Bay the narrow Corridor suited itself to its victim’s most cherished fear it ended for her in the bay tomorrow midnight she must be heading for the bay

He made several calls first bus lines then Railroad and air it was impossible to get a reservation on the airlines but tonight’s train would get him into Jersey City an hour ahead of the bus she must be traveling according to the deductions he made from the place and time of the postmarks he

Had ample time to pack a few things cash a check on his way to the station he spread her three notes on the table the one in pen the two in pencil he reread the crazy incomplete formula he shook his head he frowned would a scientist neglect the millionth and one

Possibility would the commander of a trapped Army disdain a stratagy just because it was not in the books the stuff looked like gibberish yesterday it might have meant something to him emotionally today it was just nonsense but tomorrow night it might conceivably represent a fantastic Last

Chance Norman you must do what I tell you the scrawled words stared at him he went out in the kitchen and got a ball of white twine he rummaged in the closet for a squash Racket and cut out the two Center strings that ought to do for gut

The fireplace had not been cleaned since the stuff from Tan’s Dressing Table had been burned he poked around the edges until he found a piece of load Stone he located the recording of scriabin’s ninth Sonata and started the photograph putting in a new needle he glanced at his wristwatch and paced the room

Restlessly gradually the music took hold of him it was not pleasant music there was something tantalizing and exasperating about it with its droning Melody and rocking figures in the Bas and shakes in the treble an elaborate ornamentation that wried up and down the piano keyboard it rasped the nerves he

Began to remember things he had heard about it hadn’t tany once told him that scriabin called his night Sonata a black mass and had developed an antipathy to playing it scriabin who had conceived a color organ and tried to translate mysticism into music and I died of a

Peculiar lip infection an innocent faed Russian with a huge curling mustache critical phrases tany had repeated to him floated through his mind the poisonous ninth Sonata the most perfidious piece of music ever conceived ridiculous how could music be anything but an abstract pattern of tones and yet while listening to the

Thing one could think differently faster and faster it went the lovely second theme became infected was distorted into something rockus and discordant a March of the Damned a dance of the Damned breaking off suddenly when it had reached an unendurable pitch then a repetition of the droning First theme

Ending on a soft yet grading note low in the keyboard he removed the needle sealed it in an envelope and packed it along with the rest of his stuff on an afterthought he tore out of the big dictionary a page carrying an illustrated list of knots the telephone stopped him as he

Was going out oh Professor sailor would you mind calling tany to the phone Mrs car’s voice was very amicable he repeated what he had told Mrs sautell I’m glad she’s having a rest in the country said Mrs Carr you know Professor sailor I don’t think Tan’s

Been looking so well lately I’ve been a little worried you’re sure she’s all right how do you mean it was then the other voice broke in what the idea of checking up on me do you think I’m a child I know what I’m doing be quiet

Said Mrs Carr then in her sweet voice I think someone must have cut in on us goodbye Professor sailor theine went dead he picked up his suitcase and walked out end of chapter n chapter 10 the bus driver they pointed out to him had thick shoulders and sleepy

Competent looking eyes he was standing by the wall smoking a cigarette sure she must have been in my bus he told Norman after thinking a moment a pretty woman on the small side in a gray dress with a queer looking silver bro like you mentioned one suitcase light pig skin I figured her

Out as going to see someone who was very sick or had been in an accident maybe Norman curbed his impatience if it had not been for the hour and a half delay outside Jersey City he would have been there well ahead of the bus instead of 20

Minutes late he said I want if possible to get a line on where she went after she left your bus the man at the desk can’t help me the driver looked at Norman but he did not say what you want to know for for which Norman was

Grateful he seemed to decide that Norman was okay he said I can’t be sure Mister but there was a local bus going down the shore I think she got on that would it stop at Bayport the driver nodded how long since it left about 20 minutes

Could I get the Bayport ahead of it if I took a cab just about if you want to pay the bill there and back maybe a little extra cash for the rubber he’d burn I think Alec could take you he waved in casual recognition at a man sitting in a

Cab just beyond the station mind you mister I can’t say for certain she got on the shore bus that’s all right thanks a lot in the glow of the Street Lamp Alex foxy eyes were more openly curious than the bus drivers but he did not make any

Comments I can do it he said cheerfully but we haven’t any time to waste jump in the shore Highway LED through lonely stretches of marsh and Wasteland occasionally Norman caught the cilent rustle of the leagues of tall stiff seagrass and a brackish Tang from the dark inlets crossed by long low bridges

The odor of the bay indistinctly he made out factories and Scattered houses there’s a demm out some places Alec volunteered once he was paying close attention to the road they passed three or four buses without Alec making any comment after a long while Alec said that should be her the constellation of

Red and green tail lights was Vanishing over the rise ahead about 3 mil to Bayport he continued what should I do just get to Bayport a little ahead of her and stop at the bus station okay they overtook the bus and swung around it the windows were too high for Norman

To see any of the occupants besides the interior lights were out as they drew ahead Alec nodded confirming L that’s her all right the bus station at Bayport was also the railway de Depot vaguely Norman remembered the Loosely planked platform and packed Cinders on the track side the station building was dark but

There were several cars and a lone local cab drawn up and there were some men standing around talking in low voices and a couple of soldiers going back to Camp he had time to scent the Salt Air with its faint and not unpleasant trace of fishiness then the bus pulled in

Several passengers stepped down looking around to spot the people waiting for them tany was the third she was staring Straight Ahead she was carrying the pig skin suitcase tany he said she did not look at him he noted a black stain on her right hand and remembered the

Spilled ink on his study table odd that it should still be there tany he said tany she walked straight past him so close that her sleeve brushed his teny what’s the matter with you he had turned and hurried after her she was heading for the local cab he was conscious of a

Silence and curious unfriendly glances it made him angry she did not slacken her Pace he grabbed her elbow and pulled her around he heard a remonstrator murmur behind him and realized that a couple of the men were closing in tany stop acting this way tany her face looked Frozen she stared

Past him without a hint of recognition in her eyes that infuriated him he did not pause to think accumulated tensions proed him into an explosion he grabbed both elbows and shook her she still looked past him completely aloof a perfect picture of an aristocratic woman enduring brutality if she had yelled and

Fought him the men might not have interfered he was jerked back lay offer who do you think you are anyway she stood there with maddening composure he noticed a scrap of paper flutter out of her hand then her eyes met his and for one terrible moment but

One moment only he saw rise up behind her a Shaggy black form twice her height with hulking shoulders outstretched massive hands and Dolly glowing eyes only a moment though then she turned away but he fancied that a great Shadow followed hers then they swung him around and he could no longer see

Her in a queer sort of days for the kind of fear he had just experienced mixes badly with any other emotion he listened to them jabber at him I ought to take a crack at you he finally heard someone say all right he replied in a flat voice they’re holding my

Hand he heard Alex voice say what’s going on here Alex sounded cautious but not unfriendly as if he were thinking the guy is my fair but I don’t know anything about him one of the soldiers spoke where’s the lady she doesn’t seem to be making any complaint yeah where is

She she got in Jake’s cab and drove off someone volunteered maybe he had a good reason for what he did said the soldier Norman felt the attitude of the crowd change one of the men holding him retorted nobody’s got a right to treat a lady that way but the other one

Slackened his grip and asked Norman how about it did you have a reason for doing that I did but it’s my business he heard a woman’s voice high-pitched a lot of fuss over nothing grumbling the men let him go but mind you said The more belligerent one if she’d stuck around

And complained I’d have sure taken a crack at you all right said Norman in that case he would have his eyes were searching for a scrap of paper can anyone tell me the address she gave the cab driver he asked at random one or two shook their heads the others ignored the question

Their feelings toward him had not changed enough to make them cooperative and very likely in the excitement no one had heard silently the little crowd drifted apart people waited until they got out of earshot before beginning to argue about what had happened most of the cars drove off the Two Soldiers

Wandered over to the benches in front of the depot so they could sit down while they waited for their bus or train he was alone except for Alec he located the scrap of paper in one of the slots between the worn planks it had almost slipped through he took it over to the

Cab and studied he heard Alex say well where do we go now Alex sounded dubious he glanced at his watch 10:35 not quite an hour and a half until midnight there were a lot of things he could do but he could not do more than a couple of them in that

Time his thoughts moved sluggishly almost painfully he looked around at the dim buildings the seaward halves of some of the Street lamps were painted black up a side street there were signs of life he looked again at the scrap of paper then he made a decision I think there’s a hotel on the

Main Street he told Alec you can drive me there Eagle Hotel read the black edged gold letters on the plate glass window behind which the narrow lobby with its half dozen Empty Chairs was nakedly revealed he told Alec to wait and took a room for the night the clerk

Was an old man in a shiny black coat Norman saw from the register that no one else had checked in recently he carried his bag up to the room and immediately returned to the lobby I haven’t been here for 10 years he told the clerk I believe there’s a

Cemetery about five blocks down the street away from the bay the old man’s sleepy eyes blinked wide open Bayport Cemetery just three blocks and then a block and a half to the left but he made a bigue questioning noise in his throat thank you said Norman after a

Moment’s thought he paid off Alec who took the money and with obvious relief kicked his cabin into life Norman walked down the Main Street away from the bay after the first block there were no more stores in this direction Bayport petered out quickly most of the houses were dark

And after he turned left there was no more street lights the gates of the cemetery were locked he felt his way along the wall behind the masking Shrubbery trying to make his little noise as possible until he found a scrubby tree whose lowest Branch could bear his weight he got his

Hands on the top of the wall scrambled up and cautiously let himself down on the other side behind the wall it was very dark there was a rustling sound as if he had Disturbed some small animal more by feeling than sight he located a headstone it was a thin one worn Mossy

Toward the base and tilted at an angle probably from the middle of of the last century he dug into the Earth with his hand and filled an envelope he took from his pocket he got back over the wall making what seemed a great deal of noise in the Shrubbery but the street was

Empty as ever on his way back to the hotel he looked up at the sky located the pole star and calculated the orientation of his room as he crossed the lobby he felt the Curious eyes of the old clerk boring into him his room was in darkness chill Salt Air was

Pouring ing through the open window he locked the door shut the window pulled down the Blind and switched on the light a glaring overhead which revealed the room in all its dingy severity a cradle phone struck the sole modern note he took the envelope out of his pocket and

Weighted in his hand his lips curled in a peculiarly bitter smile then he reread the scrap of paper that had fluttered from Tan’s hand add a small quantity of graveyard dirt and wrap all in a piece of flannel wrapping wiers shins tell it to stop me tell it to bring me to

You graveyard dirt that was what he had found in Tan’s Dressing Table it had been the beginning of all this now he was fetching it himself he looked at his watch 1120 he cleared the small table and set it in the center of the room jabbing in his pin knife to Mark The

Edge Facing East wion’s mint against the Sun from west to east he placed the necessary ingredients on the table cutting a short strip of flannel from the Hemm of his bathrobe and fitted together the four sections of Tan’s note the distasteful bitter smile did not leave his lips taking together the significant portions

Of the note red take four lengths of 4in white cord and a length of gut a bit of platinum or iridium a piece of load Stone a phonograph needle that has only played scrib and’s ninth Sonata tie the four white cords into a granny a reef a

Cat’s paw and a Carrick Bend tie the gut in a bow line add a small quantity of graveyard dirt and wrap all in a piece of flannel wrapping wers shins tell it to stop me tell it to bring me to you in general outline it was similar to

100 recipes for negro tricken bags he had seen or heard about the phonograph needle the knots and one or two other items were obvious white additions and it was all on the same level as the mental operations of a child or neurotic adult who religiously steps on or avoids sidewalk cracks a

Clock outside bonged the half hour Norman sat there looking at the stuff it was hard for him to begin it would have been different he told himself if he were doing it for a joke or a thrill or if he were one of those people who dope up their minds with

Morbid supernaturalism who like to play around with magic because it’s medieval and aesthetic but to tackle it in dead seriousness to open your mind deliberately to Superstition that was to join hands with the forces pushing the world back into the dark ages to cancel the term science out of the

Equation but behind tany he had seen that thing of course it had been an hallucination but when hallucinations start behaving like realities even a scientist has to face the possibility that he may have to treat them like realities and when hallucinations begin to threaten you and yours in a direct

Physical way he reached out for the first length of cord and tied the ends together in a granny when he came to the cats paaw he had to consult the page he had torn from the dictionary after a couple of false starts he managed it but on the Carrick Bend he was all

Thumbs it was it was a simple knot but no matter how he went about it he could not get it to look like the illustration sweat broke out on his forehead very close in the room he told himself I’m still overheated from rushing about the skin on his fingertips felt an

Inch thick the ends of the cord kept eluding them he remembered how Tan’s fingers had rippled through the knots 11:41 the phonograph needle started to roll off the table he dropped the cord and laid the phonograph needle against his Fountain pin so it would not roll then he started again on the knot

For a moment he thought he must have picked up the gut the cord seemed so stiff and unresponsive incredible what nervousness can do to you he told himself his mouth was dry he swallowed with difficulty finally by keeping his eyes on the illustration and imitating it step for

Step he managed to tie a Carrick Bend all the while he felt as if there were more between his fingers than a cord as if he were manipulating against a great inertia just as he finished he felt a slight prickly chill like the onset of fever and the light overhead seemed to

Dim a trifle ey strain the photograph needle was rolling in the opposite direction spinning faster and faster he slapped his hand down on it missed it caught it at the edge of the table just like a Ouija board he told himself you try to keep your fingers poised on the planet shet perfectly

Motionless as a result muscular tensions accumulate they reached the breaking point seemingly without any volition on your part the plan ship begins to roll and skit about on its three little legs traveling from letter to letter same thing here nervous and muscular tensions made it difficult for him to tie knots

Obeying a universal tendency he projected the difficulty into the cord and by hand and knee pressure he had been doing some unconscious table tipping between his fingers the phonograph needle seemed to vibrate as if it were being pounded by infantes hammers there was a very faint sensation of electric shock unbidden the torturesome

Clangorous cords of the nin Sonata began to sound in his mind rot one well-known symptom of extreme nervousness is a tingling in the fingers often painfully intense but his throat was dry and a snort of bitter contempt sounded choked he pinned the needle in the flannel for greater safety

11:47 reaching for the gut his fingers felt as shaky and weak as if he just climbed a 100ft rope hand over hand the stuff looked normal but it was slimy to the touch and for some moments he had been conscious of an acrid almost metallic odor replacing the salt smell of the

Bay tactual and old factory hallucinations joining in with the visual and auditory he told himself he could still hear the ninth Sonata he knew a bow line backwards and it should have been easier because the gut was not as stiff as it ought to be but he felt there were other forces

Manipulating it or other mentalities trying to give orders to his fingers so that the gut was trying to tie itself into a slip knot a reef a half hitch anything but a bow line his fingers achd his eyes were heavy with an abnormal fatigue he was working against against a

Mounting inertia a dangerous crushing inertia he remembered tany telling him that first day there’s a law of reaction in all Conjuring like the kick of a gun 11:52 with a great effort he canalized his mental energy focused his attention only on the knot his numb fingers began

To move in an odd Rhythm a rhythm of the ninth Sonata pure Vivo the the bow line was tied the overhead light dimmed markedly throwing the whole room into a soty Gloom hysterical blindness he told himself in a despairing effort to maintain the appearances of sanity and

Scientific law it was very cold now so cold that he fancied he could see his breath and Silent terribly silent against that silence he could feel and hear the rapid drumming of his heart accelerating unendurably to the Thundering swirling Rhythm of the music then in one instant of diabolic

Paralyzing Insight he knew that this was sorcery no mere puttering about with ridiculous medieval implements no effortless slate of hand but a straining backbreaking struggle to keep control of forces summoned of which the objects he manipulated were only the symbols outside the the walls of the room

Outside the walls of his skull outside the impalpable energy walls of his mind he felt those forces Gathering swelling up dreadfully expectant waiting for him to make a false move so that they could crush him he could not believe it he had to believe it the only question was would

He be able to stay in control 11 57 he gathered the objects together on the flannel the needle jumped to the load Stone and clung it shouldn’t it wasn’t that magnetic he took a pinch of graveyard dirt between finger and thumb each separate particle seemed to crawl

Like a tiny maggot he sensed that something was missing he could not remember what it was he fumbled for the formula a current of air was blowing the scraps of paper off the table he sensed an eager inward surge of the forces outside as if they knew he was

Failing he clutched at the papers managed to pin them down bending close he made out the words platinum or iridium he jabbed his pin against the table broke off the whole nib and added it to the other objects he stood at the side of the table away from the knife that marked

The East trying to steady his shaking hands against the edge his teeth were chattering the room was utterly dark now except for the impossible bluish light that beat through the window shade abruptly the strip of flannel started to curl like a strip of heated gelatin to roll itself up from east to

West with the sun he jerked forward got his hand inside the flannel before it closed drew it apart in his numb hands it seemed like metal and rolled it against the sun Witter Shins The Silence was intensified even the sound of his beating heart was cut off he knew that

Something was listening with a terrible intensity for his command and that something was hoping with an even more terrible avidity that he would not be able to utter that command yet somewhere a clock was booming or was it not a clock but the secret sound of time 9 10 11

12 his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth he kept on choking soundly ly he could feel the walls giving way then in a dry croaking voice he managed stop Dany bring her here the walls were shaken as if they were at the center of a Whirlpool

Darkness became absolute there was an eruption of force from the table he felt himself flung across the room then the forces were gone in all things tension gave way to limpness sound and light returned he was sprawled across the bed on the table was a little flannel packet no longer of any

Consequence he felt as if he had been doped or were waking after a debauch there was no inclination to do anything emotion was absent outwardly everything was the same even his mind with automatic rationality could still wearily take up the thanless task of explaining his experiences on a scientific

Basis weaving an elaborate web in which psychosis hallucination and improbable coincidences were the strands but inwardly something had changed and would never change back considerable time passed he heard steps mounting the stairs then in the hall that made a squish squish sound as if the shoes were soaking wet

They stopped outside his door there was a soft wrap he crossed the room turned the key in the lock the strand of seaweed was caught in the silver BR the gray suit was dark now and heavy with water except for one spot which had started to dry and was faintly

Dusted with a white powder salt the odor of the bay was intimate and close there was another strand of seaweed clinging to one ankle against the wrinkled stocking and around the stained shoes a little pool of water was forming his eyes traced the wet Footprints down the

Hall at the head of the stairs the old clerk was standing one foot still on the last step he was carrying a small pigskin suitcase what’s this all about he quavered when he saw that Norman was looking at him you didn’t tell me you were expecting your wife she looks like

She’d thrown herself in the bay we don’t want anything queer happening in this hotel anything wrong it’s quite all right said Norman prolonging the moment before he would have to look at her face I’m sorry I forgot to tell you may I have the bag

Only last year we had a suicide the old clerk did not seem to realize he was speaking his thoughts aloud bad for the hotel his voice trailed off he looked at Norman gathered himself together and came hesitantly down the hall when he was a few steps away he stopped reached

Out and put down the suitcase turned and walked rapidly away unwillingly Norman raised his eyes until they were on a level with hers the face was pale very pale and without expression the lips were tinged with blue wet hair was plastered against the cheeks a thick lock crossed one ey

Socket like a curtain half drawn and curled down toward the throat where it merged with a strand of seaweed the dull eyes stared at him without a sign of recognition and no hand moved up to brush the lock of hair away from the Hem of the skirt water was

Dripping the lips parted the voice had the monotonous murmur of water you were too late the lips said you were a minute too late end of chapter 10 chapter 11 for a third time their exchange of conversation had come back to the same question he had the maddening sensation

Of following a robot that was walking in a huge endless Circle and always treading on precisely the same Blades of grass as it retraced its path with the Hopeless conviction that he would not get any further this time he asked the question again but how can you lack Consciousness and

At the same time know that you lack Consciousness if your mind is blank you cannot at the same time be aware that your mind is blank the hands of his watch were creeping toward 3: in the morning the chill of night’s lowest EB pervaded the denji hotel room tany sat stiffly

Wearing his bathrobe and big fleece lined slippers with a blanket over her knees and a bath towel wrapped around her head they should have made made her look childlike and perhaps even artlessly attractive they did not if you were to unwind the towel you would find

The top of the skull saw it off and the brains removed an empty bowl that was the illusion Norman experienced every time he made the mistake of looking into her eyes the pale lips opened I know nothing I only speak they have taken away my soul but my voice is

A function of my body you could not even say that the voice was patiently explanatory it was too utterly empty and colorless even for that the words clearly enunciated and evenly spaced all sounded alike they came with the regular beat of a machine the last thing he wanted to do was

Hammer questions at that stiff pitiful figure but at all costs he must awaken some spark of feeling in the mask-like face he must find some intelligible starting point before his own mind could begin to work effectually but tany if you can talk about the present situation

You must be aware of it you’re here in this room with me the toweled head shook once like that of a mechanical doll nothing is here with you but a body I is not here his mind automatically corrected is to am before he realized that there had been

No grammatical error and shuddered at the implications of the trifling change and a tiny verb you mean he asked that you can see or hear nothing that there is just a Blackness again that simple mechanical headshake which carried more absolute conviction than the most he protestations my body sees and hears

Perfectly it has suffered no injury it can function in all particulars but there is nothing inside there is not even a blackness his tired fumbling mind jumped to the subject of behavioristic psychology and its fundamental assertion that human reactions can be explained completely and satisfactorily without once referring to

Consciousness that it need not even be assumed that Consciousness exists here was the perfect proof and yet not so perfect for the behavior of this body lacked every one of those little mannerisms whose sum is personality the way tany used to squint and twist one little finger around another when thinking through a

Difficult question The Familiar Quirk at the corners of her mouth when she felt flattered or slightly amused all gone even the quick triple headshake he knew so well with the slight bunny rabbit wrinkling of the little nose had become that robots no the sensory organs still responded to

Stimuli they sent nerve impulses to the hindbrain or midbrain or cortex where they traveled about and gave rise to efferent impulses which activated glands and muscles including the motor organs of speech but that was all none of those intangible flurries we call Consciousness hovered around the web work of nervous activity in the

Cortex what had imparted style tenan style like no one else’s to every movement and utterance of the body was gone there was left only a physiological organism without sign or indication of Personality not even a mad or an idiot Soul yes why not use that old term now

That it had an obvious specific meaning peered from the gray green eyes which winked at intervals with machine-like regularity but only to lubricate the cornea nothing more he felt a grim sort of relief go through him now that he had been able to picture it in definite

Terms but the picture itself his mind veered to the memory of a newspaper story about an old man who had kept locked in his bedroom for years the body of a young woman whom he loved and who had died of an incurable disease he had maintained the body in a

Miraculous state of preservation by Wax and other means they said had talked to it every night and morning had been convinced that he would someday re animated completely until they found out and took him away and buried it had that body tany he was asking when your soul went why didn’t you

Die usually the soul lingers to the end unable to escape and vanishes or dies when the body dies the voice answered its words as evenly spaced as if timed to a metronome but He Who Walks Behind was tearing at mine there was the weight of green water

Against my face I knew it was midnight I knew that you had failed in that moment of Despair He Who Walks Behind was able to draw forth my soul in the same moment your agent’s arms were about me Lifting me toward the air my soul was close enough to know

What had happened yet not close enough to return its doubled anguish was the last memory it imprinted on my brain your agent and He Who Walks Behind concluded that each had obtained the thing he had been sent for and so there was no struggle between them the picture

Created in his mind was so shockingly vivid that it seemed incredible that it could have been produced by the words of a mere physiological machine and yet only a physiological machine could have told the story with such total restraint is there nothing that touches you he asked abruptly in a loud voice

Gripped by an intolerable spasm of Anguish at The Emptiness of her eyes haven’t you a single emotion left yes one this time it was not a robot’s headshake but a robot’s nod for the first time there was a stir of feeling a hint of motivation the tip of

A palet tongue licked hungrily around the pale lips I want my soul he caught his breath now that he had succeeded in Awakening A Feeling in her he hated it there was something so animal about it so like some light sensitive marine worm blindly yet greedily wriggling toward the

Sunlight I want my soul The Voice repeated mechanically tearing at his emotions more than any plaintive or whining accents could have done at the last moment although it could not return my soul implanted that one emotion in me it knew what awaited it it knew there are things that can be

Done to a soul it was very much afraid he grounded the words out between his teeth where do you think your soul is she has it the woman with the little black eyes Evelyn sawel he was remembering a phone call yes but it is not wise to speak of her by

Name his hand shot out for the phone at that moment he had to do something definite or lose control of himself completely for too long he had sat impotently by watching the ghostly in heroing drama unfold now he had to strike out after a time he roused the

Night Clerk and got the local operator yes sir came the sing song voice hempell 1284 you wish to make a personto person call to Evelyn sautel evve l y n s a w t e l l e sir will you please hang up and wait it will take considerable time to make a

Connection I want my soul I want to go to that woman I want to go to hemp Nell now that he had touched off the blind hunger in her it persisted he was reminded of a photograph needle caught in the same groove or a mechanical toy

Turned onto a new track by a little push we’ll go there all right it was still hard for him to control his breathing we’ll get it it back but I must start for hemp now soon my clothes were ruined by the water I must have the made clean and press

Them with a slow even movement she got to her feet and started toward the phone but tany he objected involuntarily it’s 3: in the morning you can’t get a maiden now but my clothes must be cleaned and pressed I must start for hemp now soon the words might have been those of an

Obstinate woman sulky and selfish but they had less tone than a Sleepwalkers she kept on toward the phone although he did not anticipate that he would do it he shrank out of her way pressing close against the side of the bed but even if there is a maid he said

She won’t come at this hour the pet face turned toward him and curiously the maid will be a woman it was a little while before he got the implication of the words she will come when she hears me then she was talking to the night

Clerk is there a maid in the hotel send her to my room then ring her I cannot wait until morning I need her at once I cannot tell you the reason thank you Norman was thinking how can a physiological machine conceive and carry out even such a simple plan yet how

Could a conscious human being do it with such utter listlessness same Paradox he want if he ought to stop her but an idea was growing in his mind there was a long wait while he heard faintly the repeated ringing at the other end of the line he could

Imagine the Sleepy sirly voice that finally answered is this the maid come at once to room 37 he could almost catch the indignant answer then can’t you hear my voice don’t you realize who is speaking yes come at once and she replaced the phone in its

Cradle tany he began then his eyes met hers and once again he found himself asking a halting prefatory question although he had not intended to you were able to hear and answer my questions I can answer questions I’ve been answering questions for 3 hours the lack of expression only made the irony more

Complete but logic prompted weily if she can remember what has been happening these last 3 hours then surely and yet what is memory but a track worn in the nervous system in order to explain memory you don’t need to bring in Consciousness quit banging your head against that stone wall you fool came

Another inward prompting you’ve looked in her eyes haven’t you well then get on with it tany is that woman coming here because she’s well the same as you were yes but since you are present she will not speak of it but if I weren’t here or if I hid

Myself she might respond to questioning the hungry suban animal expression came back and the tip of the tongue appeared between the lips if I make her speak if I make you believe will we go back to hemp now very quickly will you help me yes of course he would he wouldn’t do

Anything else but what good to say all that to a blank physiological machine beyond the reach of comfort besides the maid should soon be here and an UNH wholesome curiosity was eating at him I’ll leave the closet door just a little a jar he said she probably

Won’t notice see there were Footsteps in the hall the robot nod was his only answer you wanted me Mom contrary to his expectations the voice was young but very low it sounded as if she had swallowed as she spoke yes I want you to clean and press some things of mine

They’re hanging on the edge of the bathtub go and get them the maid came into his line of vision then she would be very heavy in a few years he thought but she was handsome now though puffed with sleep she had hastily pulled on a dull black dress but her feet were in

Slippers and her hair was snarly be careful with the dress it’s wool came Tan’s voice sounding just as toneless as when it had been directed at him and I want them promptly at 9:00 Norman half expected to hear an objection to this unreasonable request but there was none the girl walked

Rapidly out of the bathroom The Damp clothes hurriedly slung over one arm as if her one object were to get away before she was spoken to again wait a moment girl I want to ask you a question the voice was somewhat louder this time that was the only change whatsoever but

It had a startling effect of command the girl hesitated then swung around unwillingly and Norman got a good look at her face he could not see tany the closet door just cut her off but he could see the fear come to the surface of the girl’s face as she turned see the

Slump creased cheek pale yes Mom she managed there was a considerable pause he could tell from the way the girl shrank hugging The Damp clothes tight to her body the tany had lifted her eyes and was looking at her finally you know the easy way to do things the ways to get and

Guard Norman could have sworn that the girl gave a guilty start at that second phrase but she only shook her head quickly and mumbled no Mom I don’t know what you’re talking about you mean you have never learned how to make wishes work you don’t conjure or spell or hex

You don’t know the art this time the no was almost inaudible the girl was trying to look away but failing I think you are lying you could put any construction on those toneless words the girl Twisted hands tightly clutching her overlapping arms he wanted to go out and stop it but

Curiosity held him rigid the girl’s resistance broke please Mom we’re not supposed to tell you may tell me what procedures do you use the girl’s perplexity at the new word looked real I I don’t know anything about that Mom I don’t do much just spells like now

My boyfriend’s gone in the Army I do things to keep him from getting shot or hurt and I’ve spelled him so he’ll keep away from other women honest I don’t do much Mom and it don’t always work and lots of things I can’t get that way her

Words had begun to run away with her very well where did you learn to do this some I learned from ma when I was a kid and some from Mrs needle she gets spells against bullets from her grandmother who had a family in some European War before the last one but

Most women won’t tell you anything and some spells I kind of figure out myself and try different ways until they work you won’t tell on me Mom no Look At Me Now what has happened to me honest mama I don’t know please Mom Don’t make me say it the girl’s

Terror and reluctance were so obviously genuine that Norman felt a surge of anger at tany then he remembered that the thing beyond the door was incapable of either cruelty or kindness I want you to tell me I don’t know how to say it Mom but you’re you’re dead suddenly she threw

Herself at tan feet oh please please don’t take mine please I would not take your soul you would get much the best of that bargain you may go away now oh thank you thank you she hastily gathered up the scattered clothes I’ll have them all ready for you at 9:00

Really I will and she hurried out only when he moved did Norman realized that his muscles were stiff and aching from those few taught minutes of peering the robed and toweled figure was sitting in exactly the same position as when he had last seen it hands Loosely folded eyes

Still directed toward where the had been standing if you knew all this he asked simply why were you willing to stop last week when I asked you there are two sides to every woman it might have been a mummy dispensing Elder wisdom one is rational like a man the other knows men

Are artificially isolated creatures like Islands in a sea of magic protected by their rationality and by the devices of their women their isolation gives them greater forcefulness in thought and action but the women know women might be able to rule the world openly but they do not want the work or the

Responsibility and Men might learn to excel them in the art even now there may be male Sorcerers but very few last week I suspected much that I did not tell you but the rational side is strong in me and I wanted to be close to you in all

Ways like many women I had not been awakened I was not certain and when I destroyed my charms and guards I became temporarily blind to sorcery like a person used to large doses of a drug I was uninfluenced by small doses rationality was dominant I enjoyed a few

Days of false security then rationality itself proved to me that you were the victim of sorcery and during my journey here I learned much partly from re-examination of my own memories partly from what He Who Walks Behind lets slip she paused and added with the blank

Innocent cunning of a child shall we go back to him now now the phone rang it was the night clerk almost incoherent with some sort of agitation babbling threateningly about police and eviction to pacify him Norman had to promise to come down at once the old man

Was waiting at the foot of the stairs look here Mister he began shaking a finger I want to know what’s going on just now my came down from your room why is a sheet she wouldn’t tell me anything but she was trembling like I’ll get out Sissy’s my granddaughter I got

Her this job and I’m responsible for her he seemed genuinely concerned I know what hotels are I’ve worked in them all my life and I know the kinds of people that come to them sometimes men and women working together and I know the kinds of things they try

To do to young girls now I’m not saying anything against you mister but it was mighty queer the way your wife came here I thought when she asked me to call that she was sick or something but if she’s sick why haven’t you called a

Doctor and what are you doing still up at almost four Mrs Thompson in the Next Room called to say there was talking in your room not loud but it scared her I got a right to know what’s going on Norman put on his best classroom Manner and blandly dissected the old

Man’s apprehensions until they began to look very unsubstantial dignity told with the last show of grumbling the old man let himself be convinced as Norman started upstairs he was shuffling back to the switchboard on the second flight Norman heard a phone ringing as he was walking down the hall it

Stopped he opened the door tany was standing by the bed speaking into the phone its dull Blackness curving from mouth to ear emphasized the power of lips and cheek and the whiteness of the toweling this is tenzy Sailor she was saying tonelessly I want my soul a pause

Can’t you hear me Evelyn this is tany Sailor I want my soul he had completely forgotten the call he had put in it had been done in a moment of crazy anger he hadn’t even any clear idea of what he had been going to say he stepped

Forward a low wailing sound was coming from the phone tany was talking against it this is Tanz sailor I want my soul he was almost there The Wailing sound had swiftly risen to a squeal but mixed with it was an intermittent windy worrying he reached out to take the phone but at

That instant the phone twisted like a Stumpy black worm whipped tight to the skin and dug into chin and neck just below the ear like a double-ended black paw the squal became a muffled sucking if you tore that away you would tear the face with it he knew he dropped

To his knees and ripped the cord from the wall Violet Sparks spat from the torn wire the loose end writhed like a wounded snake whipped around his forearm tightened spasmodically then relaxed he stood up the phone had fall fall into the floor there was nothing out of the

Ordinary about it now tany was still standing in the same place not an atom of fear showed in her expression with the unconcerned of a machine she had lifted a hand and was slowly massaging cheek and neck from the corner of the squeezed lips a few drops of blood were

Trickling the rack he was thinking would be too good for that woman or the scourge or the wheel so fouly to attack a mere empty creature was an ultimate unspeakable viciousness like crushing a kitten under your heel perhaps the boot or the funnel swiftly the fantasmagoria of the

Inquisition faded from his mind as his first surge of anger spent itself and settled down to a steady hate what did she say to you he asked evenly she kept saying who is this who is this that was all then she stopped stopped and the noise began how did she

Sound she sounded very frightened good he smacked his fist against his palm magic Works he said grimly we’ll make it work better she’ll be more frightened after we begin perhaps you have already begun he did not understand at the time the significance of that toneless reply end of chapter 11 chapter

12 the rhythmic Rattle and surge of the train had a soothing monotony you could hear the engine puffing lustily the wide heat baked green fields swinging past the window of the compartment drowsed in the Noonday Sun the farms and cattle and horses dotting them here and there looked equally somnolent he would have

Liked to sleep but he knew he would not be able to and as for she apparently never slept I want to run over some things he said interrupt me if you hear anything that sounds wrong or you don’t understand from the corner of his eye he noted the figure sitting between him and

The window notd once it occurred to him that there was something terrible about an adaptability that could familiarize him even to her so that now after only a day and a half he was using her as a kind of thinking machine asking for her memories and

Reactions in the same way that a man might direct a servant to put a certain record on the phonograph at the same time he knew that he was able to make this close contact end durable only by carefully directing his thoughts and actions like the trick he had acquired of never quite looking

At her directly and he kept himself nerved up with the thought of what lay ahead and his determination to regain what had been lost and his hate the present condition was only temporary but if he once let himself start to think what it would mean to

Live a lifetime to share bed and board with that Blackness coldness vacancy other people noticed the difference all right like those crowds they had had to push through in New York yesterday somehow people always edged away so they wouldn’t have to touch her and he had caught more than one

Following glance poised between curiosity and fear and when that other woman started to scream lucky they had been able to lose themselves in the crowd the brief stop over at New York had provided him with some vitally necessary materials though we still felt hampered by the lack of his librarian

Notes but he had been glad last night when it was over the compartment seemed a Haven of privacy what was it those other people noticed true if you look closely the heavy Cosmetics only provided a grotesque and garish contrast to the underlying power and powder did not wholly conceal the ugly dark bruise

Around the mouth but the veil helped and you had to look very closely the Cosmetics were practically a theatrical makeup was it her walk that they noticed or the way her clothes hung her clothes always looked a little like a scarecrow’s now though you could not put

Your finger on the reason or was it but that was what he must not think about magic is a practical science he talked to the wall as of dictating there was all the difference in the world between a formula and physics and a formula in Magic although they have the

Same name the former describes inter mathematical symbols some cause effect relationship of wide generality but a formula in Magic is a way of getting or accomplishing something it always takes into account the motivation or desire of the person performing The Magic be it greed love revenge or whatnot whereas

The experiment in physics is essentially independent of the experimenter in short there’s been little or no pure non-practical magic comparable to pure science this distinction between physics and Magic is just an accident of History physics is ultimately as practical as magic but it possesses a super structure

Of theory that magic lacks magic could be given such a super structure by research and pure magic and by the investigation and correlation of the magic formulas of different peoples and times with a view to deriving basic formulas which could be expressed in mathematical symbols and which would have a wide

Application most persons practicing magic have been too interested in immediate results to bother about Theory but just as research and pure science has ultimately LED seemingly by accident to results of vast practical importance so research in pure magic might be expected to yield similar results he

Waited a moment for comment then went on the subject matter of magic is akin to that of physics in that it deals with certain forces and materials though these I believe it is more akin to psychology The Voice interrupted how so he still looked at the wall because it

Concerns the control of other beings the summoning of them and the constraining of them to perform certain actions good that is very suggestive fortunately formulas may still hold good so long as their reference is clear though we are ignorant of the precise nature of the entities to which they

Refer for example a physicist need not be able to give a visual description of an atom even if the term visual appearance has any meaning when applied to an atom which is doubtful similarly a sorcerer need not be able to describe the appearance and nature of the entity

Summons but the point is well taken many seemingly impersonal forces when broken down sufficiently become something very much like personality it’s not too far-fetched to say that it would take a science resembling psychology to describe the behavior of a single electron with all its whims and impulses though electrons

In the aggregate obey relatively simple laws just as human beings do when considered as crowds the same holds true of the basic entities of magic and to a much greater degree it is partly for this reason that magical processes are so tricky and dangerous and why their working can be

So readily impeded if the intended victim is on guard against them as your formulas have to our knowledge been nullified since Mrs Gunnison stole your book that one formula I used on Sunday night worked only because it was not anticipated that I would be the operator

And even at that its working was greatly hindered his words possess for him an incredibly strange overtone but it was only by maintaining a dry scholarly manner that he could keep going he knew that at the first touch of casualness or informality the latent morbidity of the situation would engulf him there remains

One all-important consideration he went on swiftly magic appears to be a science which which markedly depends on its environment that is the situation of the world and the general conditions of the cosmos at any particular time for example ukian geometry is useful on Earth but there are regions and it would

Not be easy to imagine more in which a non- ukian geometry is more practical the same is true of magic but to a much more striking degree the basic unstated formulas of magic appear to change with the passage of time requiring frequent restatement though it might conceivably be possible to discover Master formulas

Governing that change it has been speculated that the laws of physics show a similar evolutionary tendency though if they do evolve it is at a much less rapid rate than those of magic it is natural that the laws of magic should evolve or change more swiftly since magic depends on a contact

Between the material world world and another level of being and that contact is complex and may be shifting rapidly take astrology for example in the course of several thousand years the procession of the equinoxes has put the sun into entirely different Celestial houses signs of the

Zodiac at the same times of the year a person born say on March 22nd is still said to be born in Aries though he is actually born when the sun is in the constellation Pisces a failure to take into consideration this evolutionary change since the formulas of astrology

Were first discovered has rendered the formulas Obsolete and invalidated them for it is my belief The Voice broke in like a phonograph suddenly starting that astrology has always been largely invalid that it is one of the many pretended Sciences which have been confused with true magic and used as a

Kind of window dressing such as my belief I presume that may be the case and it would help to explain why magic itself has been outwardly discredited as a science which is the point I’m getting at suppose the basic formulas of physics such as Newton’s three laws of motion

Had changed several times in the last few thousand years the discovery of any physical laws at any time would have been vastly more difficult the same experiments would give different results in different ages but that is the case with magic and explains why magic has been periodically

Dis credited and has become repugnant to the rational mind it’s like what old Carr was saying about the run of the cards at Bridge after a few shuffles of a multitude of cosmic factors the laws of magic change a sharp eye can spot the changes but continual experimentation of

The trial and error sort is necessary to keep the crude practical formulas of magic in anything like working order especially since the basic formulas and the master form formulas have never been discovered take a concrete example the formula I use Sunday night it shows signs of recent revision for instance what did the

Original unrevised formula have in place of the phonograph needle a willow whistle of a certain shape which had been blown only once the voice told him and the Platinum or aridium the original formula mentioned is silver but a heavier metal serves better lead however proved altogether ineffective I tried it once it was

Apparently too unlike silver in other respects precisely trial and error experimentation I have a modern substitute for the flannel wrapping which may prove more effective moreover in the absence of thorough investigation we cannot be sure that all the ingredients of a magic formula are essential in making it work a comparison

Of the magic formulas of different countries and peoples would be helpful in this respect it would show which ingredients are common to all formulas and therefore presumably essential and which are not essential I have in mind a method for making such a comparison there was a discreet knock at

The door Norman spoke a few words and the figure Drew down its Veil and turned toward the window as if staring stolidly at the passing Fields then he opened the door it was lunch as long and coming as breakfast had been and there was a new face coffee col instead of ebony

Evidently the first waiter who had shown growing nervousness in his previous trips to the compartment had decided to sacrifice the tip and send someone else with a mixture of curiosity and impatience Norman waited for the reactions of the newcomer he almost felt able to predict them first a very quick

Inquisitive glance passed him at the seated figure Norman guessed they had become the major mystery of the train then a longer sideways glance while setting up the folding table table ending with the eyes getting very wide he could almost feel the coffee colored flesh crawl only hurried almost unwilling

Glances after that with a growing uneasiness manifested in Clumsy handling of the dishes and glassware then a too Pleasant smile and a hasty departure only once Norman interfered to place the knives and forks so they lay at right angles to their usual position the meal was a very simple one

Almost a itic he did not look across the table as he ate there was something worse than animal greediness about that methodical feeding after the meal he put the leftovers in a small cardboard box covered them with a napkin he had used to wipe all the dishes clean and placed

The Box in his suitcase beside an envelope containing clippings from his own fingernails the side of the clean breakfast dishes had been one of the things which had helped to disturb the first waiter but Norman was determined to adhere strictly to a complete set of tabos they were an odd assortment

Gleaned from his memories of negro Polynesian and Indian practices of course there might be no protection gained by observing tabos but then again there might be so he collected food fragments saw to it that no knives or other sharp instruments pointed toward them had them sleep with their heads

Near the engine and their destination and enforced a number of other minor regulations eating in it satisfied still another taboo but there was more than one reason for that he glanced at his watch only half an hour until hemp Nell he had not realized they were quite so

Close there was the faint sense of an almost physical resistance from that region as if the air were thickening and his mind was tossing with a multitude of problems yet to be considered deliberately turning his back he said according to the myths Souls may be imprisoned in all sorts of ways in

Boxes in knots in animals and stones have you any idea on this subject as he feared this particular question brought the usual irrelevant response the answering words had the same dull persistence I want my soul his hands clasped behind his back tightened this was why he had avoided

The question until now yet he had to know more if that were possible possible but where exactly should we look for it I want my soul yes it was hard for him to control his voice but how precisely might it be hidden it will help if I

Know there was a rather long pause then the environment of the soul is the human brain if it is free it immediately seeks such an environment it may be said that soul and body are two separate creatures living together in a symbiotic relationship so intimate and tight that

They normally seem to be only one creature the closeness of this contact appears to have increased with the centuries indeed when the body it is occupying dies the soul is usually unable to escape and appears to die to or to migrate to another level of being I have no clear knowledge of that

Matter but by Supernatural means the soul may sometimes be divorced from the body it is occupying then if it is prevented from re-entering its own body it is irresistibly drawn to another whether or not that other body possesses a soul and so the captive soul is usually

Imprisoned in the brain of its captor unable either to escape from or to control that brain in immediate contact with the soul of the captor and force to view and feel in complete intimacy the workings of that Soul therein lies perhaps its Chief torment beads of sweat trickled his

Scalp and forehead his voice did not Shake but it was unnaturally heavy and cilent as he asked what is Evelyn’s sael like the answer sounded as if it were being read verbate him from the summary of a political dossier she is dominated by a desire for social Prestige she spends most of her

Time in unsuccessfully attempting to be snobbish she has romantic ideas about herself but since they are too high flown to find satisfaction she is Prim and moralistic with rigid standards of conduct she believes she was cheated in her husband and is always apprehensive that he will lose what ground she has

Gained for him being unsure of herself she’s given to acts of maliciousness and sudden cruelty at present she is very frightened and constantly on guard that is why she had her magic all when she received the telephone call I can’t wait until tomorrow he told himself I must begin with her this very

Afternoon aloud he asked Mrs Gunnison what do you think of her she is a woman of abundant Vigor and appetites she is a good housewife and Hostess but those activities hardly take the edge off her energies she should have been Mistress of a feudal domain

She is a born Tyrant and grows fat on it her appetites many of them incapable of open satisfaction in our present Society nevertheless find devious Outlets servant girls of the Gunnison have told stories but not often and then guardedly for she is ruthless against those who oppose her or threaten her

Security and Mrs Carr that is if she comes in this category little can be said of her she is conventional an indulgent ruler of her husband and enjoys being thought sweet and saintly but I am uncertain of her deeper motivations it may be then that she is not

Hostile he was remembering the telephone call from Mrs Carr just before he left for the East when she had seemed to be trying to check on the activities of Evelyn sautel it may be yet at times I’ve been aware of her looking at me long and

Strangely there was a knock it was the porter come for the bags be in hpn in 5 minutes sir shall I in the corridor but Norman tipped him and declined the service he also told him they would carry their own bags the porter smiled jerkily and backed out

Norman crossed to the forward window there was only the gravel wall of a gully and above it dark trees flashing indistinctly pasted but almost immediately the gravel wall gave way to a wide Panorama as the tracks swung around and down the hillside there was more Woodland than

Field in the valley the trees seemed to encroach on the town dwarfing it from this particular point it looked quite tiny but the college buildings stood out with a cold distinctness he fancied he could make out the window of his office those cold gray towers and darker roofs were like

An intrusion from some other older world and his heart began to pound as if he had suddenly sighted The Fortress of the enemy end of chapter 12 read by Ben Tucker Norman looked briefly across the campus before he went into Morton the thing that startled him most was

Something he had not expected the air of normality true he had not looked forward at least consciously to any outwardly demoniac manifestations any physical stench of evil but this feeling of wholesomeness the little swarms of students trooping back to the dormitories or over to the campus soda

Fountain the file of girls in white Bound for a tennis lesson The Friendly Smiles and nods the way his own steps fell so easily and gratefully into the old familiar paths almost for a moment he wondered if everything else were not some crazy dream it came to him almost with a shock

That things were outwardly as normal as they had ever been that only with respect to himself had they changed don’t fool yourself the voice inside told him some of those laughing girls are already infected their very respectable mamas have given them delicate hints don’t be too sure you

Know what they’re thinking while they sip their Cokes or chatter about their boyfriends but there was much to be done this afternoon and he had no right to waste a second he turned into Morton and quickly mounted the stairs his capacity for surprise was not yet exhausted however as he realized

When he saw saw a group of students emerging from the classroom at the other end of the third floor Corridor after having waited the usual 10 minutes for him to appear that was right he had classes and committee meetings and appointments He Slipped around the bend in the corridor before he was noticed

Taking suitable precautions he entered his office nothing seemed to have been Disturbed but he was careful in his movements and on the alert for unfamiliar objects he did not put his hand into any drawer without closely inspecting it first one letter in the little pile of accumulated mail was

Important it was from pards office requesting him to appear before a meeting of the trustees later this week he smiled with grim satisfaction his career was still skidding downhill hempell still had its fangs he methodically removed certain sections from his files stuffed his Briefcase full and made a package of the remainder

Then he took from his pocket a small small hard object and looked at it reflectively it was made of loose site and its shape was that of an egg sealed inside the thick transparent shell were tiny bits of metal and fiber it was the chief trophy of his stay in New York his

Friend and Industrial chemistry had been very mystified but here it was placed in the sautel home it ought to constitute the terminal of a kind of circuit and clear the way for the operations he intended to begin tonight for the recovery of the that which Evelyn sautel

Had taken and was holding captive it remained to place it after a last glance around during which he noted that the estray dragon had not been restored to whatever was its original position on the roof he started downstairs outside he met Mrs Gunnison this was not something he had

Anticipated with sufficient vividness he was acutely conscious of the way his arms were encumbered by the bulky notes for a moment he did not see seem able to see her clearly lucky I found you she began immediately herold’s been trying every which way to get in touch with you where

Have you been suddenly she registered on him as her old blunt sloppy self with a sense of mingled relief and frustration he realized that the Warfare in which he was engaged was a strictly undercover Affair and that outwardly all relationships were the same as ever he found himself explaining how tany and he

Weekending with friends in the country had gotten a touch of food poisoning and how his message to hempell must have gone astray this explanation was intended merely for General consumption routine excuses were still necessary and this one had the added advantage of providing a reason for Tan’s appearance

If anyone should see her and it would enable him to plead a recurrence of the attack as an excuse for neglecting his academic duties he did not expect Mrs Gunnison to believe it but he ought to tell it to her just to be consistent she accepted the story without comment offered her

Sympathies and went on to say but be sure and get in touch with Harold I believe it has to do with that meeting of the trustees you’ve been asked to attend you know Harold thinks a great deal of you goodbye odd but at the last moment he

Fancied he caught a note of genuine friendliness a strange little look as if she was appealing to him to do something could he possibly be wrong in his estimation of her but there was work to do off campus he hurried down a quiet side street to where his car was parked

With hardly a sidewise glance at the motionless figure in the front seat he stepped in and drove to saels the house was bigger than they needed and the front lawn was very formal but the grass was yellow in patches and the soldier-like rows of flowers looked neglected wait here he

Said don’t get out of the car under any circumstances to his surprise hervy met him at the door there were circles under hervey’s always worried eyes and his fidgetiness was more than usually apparent I’m so glad you’ve come he said pulling Norman inside I don’t know what

I’m going to do with all these departmental responsibilities on my shoulders classes having to be dismissed stop Gap instructors to be obtained and the deadline on next year’s catalog tomorrow here come into my study and he pushed Norman through a huge living room expensively but stiffly furnished into a

Dingy book lined cubby hole with one small window I’m almost going out of my mind he said I haven’t dared stir out of the house since Evelyn was attacked Sunday night what haven’t you heard he stopped and looked at Norman in Surprise even here he had been trying to Pace up

And down although there was not room enough why it was in the papers thought I wondered why you didn’t come over or call up I kept trying to get you at your home in the office but no one could locate you Evelyn’s been in bed since

Sunday and she gets hysterical if I even speak of going out of the house just now she’s asleep thank heaven it was born in on Norman that sautel was not even aware that he had been out of town hastily he related his trumped up excuse he wanted to get back to what had

Happened Sunday night there was an idea forming at the back of his mind but it was still nebulous for the moment he neglected the real purpose of his visit just my luck sautel exclaimed tragically when Norman had finished the whole department falling apart the very first

Week I’m in charge of it and young stackpool laid up with the flu we manage said Norman sit down and tell me about Evelyn unwillingly sautel cleared a space so he could perch on the cluttered desk he groaned audibly when his eyes chanced to light on papers concerned

With urgent business it happened about 4:00 Sunday morning he began still aimlessly fiddling with the papers I was awakened by a terrible scream Evelyn’s bed was empty it was pitched dark out in the hall but I could hear some sort of struggle going on downstairs a bumping and threshing

Around suddenly he jerked up his head what was that I thought I heard footsteps out in the front hall before Norman could say anything he went on oh it’s just my nerves they’ve been acting up ever since well I picked up something a vas and went downstairs about that

Time the sound stopped I switched on the lights and went through all the rooms in the sewing room I found Evelyn stretched unconscious on the floor with some ghastly bruises beginning to show around her neck and mouth beside her lay the phone we have it there because Evelyn

Has so many occasions to use it I nearly went frantic I called the doctor and the police Norman knew now what must have happened when Evelyn regained Consciousness she was able to tell us about it although she was terribly shaken up it seems the phone had rung

She went downstairs in the dark without waking me just as she was picking up the phone A man jumped out of the corner and attacked her she fought him off oh it drives me mad to think about it but he overpowered her and choked her unconscious Norman listened with grim

Satisfaction thank heavens I came downstairs when I did that must have been what frightened him off the doctor found that except for bruises there weren’t any other injuries even the doctor was shocked at those bruises though he said he had never seen any quite like them the police think that

After the man got in the house he called Central and asked them to ring this phone pretending he thought the Bell was out of order or something in order to lure someone downstairs they were puzzled as to how he got inside though for all the windows and doors were shut

Fast probably I forgot to lock the front door when we went to bed one of my pieces of unforgivable carelessness the police think he was a vicious burglar but I believe he must have been a Madman besides because there was a silver plate on the floor and two

Of our silver Forks jammed together strangely in other odds and ends and he must have been playing the phonograph in the sewing room because it was open and the turntable was going and on the floor was one of Evelyn’s speech records smashed to bits yes the picture was all very clear

Now what Norman had forgotten to take into consideration was the everpresent possibility of reaction if magic miscarried like the kick of a gun or better like the breach of a gun blowing up when he had severed the wire at Bayport the thwarted agency of death had instantly struck back at the cender and

Afterward Evelyn sautel had invented the obvious Story one thing bothered him if the police should Trace that phone call and an effort to prove their own Theory they would find it had been placed by Norman sailor at Bayport but the worst they would only convict him of a

Peculiar lie for the present he would say nothing about it it’s all my fault sautel was repeating mournfully Norman remembered that sautel always assumed that he was guilty whenever anything hurt or merely upset Evelyn I should have awakened I should have been the one

To go down to the phone when I think of that delicate creature feeling her way through the dark and lurking just ahead of her that oh in the department I tell you I’m I’m going out of my mind poor Evelyn has been in such a pitifully frightened State ever since you wouldn’t believe

It good thought Norman if she’s really frightened she may be easier to deal with the idea of pity never occurred to him moreover if what he had been told about the lodgment of captive Souls were true then Tan’s Soul had suffered equally with that of Evelyn sautel here

In this very house on Sunday night I tell you I haven’t slept a wink sautel was saying if Mrs Gunnison hadn’t been kind enough to spend a couple of hours with her yesterday morning I don’t know how I’d have managed even then she was too frightened to let me stir my God

Evelyn but it was really impossible to identify the agonized scream except that it had come from the upper part of the house crying out I knew I heard footsteps he’s come back sael ran Full Tilt out of the study Norman was just behind him suddenly conscious of a very

Different fear it was confirmed by a glance through the living living room window at his empty car he beat sautel up the stairs and was first to reach the bedroom door he stopped sautel almost gibbering with anxiety and guilt ran into him it was not at all what Norman

Expected the pink silk cover liet clutched around her Evelyn sautel had retreated to the side of the bed nearest the wall her teeth were chattering and her face was a dirty white beside the bed stood tany for a moment Norman felt a great sudden hope then he saw around

Eyes and hope shot away with sickening swiftness she was not wearing the veil and that heavy makeup with those Rouge cheeks and thickly carmed lips she looked like some indecently dobbed statue impossibly grotesque against that background of ridiculously feminine pink silk hangings but a hungry statue sautel scrambled past him shouting what’s

Happened what’s happened he saw tany I didn’t know you were here when did you come in in then you frightened her the statue spoke and its quiet accents hushed him oh no I didn’t frighten her did I Evelyn Evelyn sael was staring at tanyan abject wide-eyed Terror and her jaw was

Still shaking but when she spoke it was to say no Dany didn’t frighten me we were talking together and then I I thought I heard a noise just a noise dear sautel said somewhat taking back yes like footsteps very quiet Footsteps in the hall she did

Not take her eyes off tany who nodded once when she had finished Norman accompanied sautel on a futle search of the top floor when they came back Evelyn was alone tany’s gone out to the car she told Norman weakly I’m sure I just imagined those footsteps but her eyes were still full

Of fear when he left her with sautel fussing about straightening the coverlet and shaking out the pillows as he went down the stairs he became aware of a hard object in his pocket and he remembered the loose site egg he had not placed it but as things

Stood now he must first no more tany was sitting in the car staring ahead he could see that the body was still dominated by its one emotion he did have to ask a question she does not have my soul were the words I questioned her at length as a final

And certain test I embraced her that was when she screamed she is very much afraid of the Dead what did she tell you she said that someone came and took my soul from her someone who did not trust her very much someone who desired my soul to keep as a

Hostage and for other reasons Mrs Gunnison and he had seen it and not known the knuckles of his hands were white on the steering wheel that puzzled look of a appeal that Mrs Gunnison had given him for an instant tany had managed to look out of her eyes and he had not known

It end of chapter 13 Professor Carr finished his inspection of the first five sheets yes he said these are undoubtedly equations and symbolic logic Norman had been pretty sure they were but he was glad to hear a mathematician say so the hurried reference he had made to principia Mathematica had not altogether

Satisfied him the capitals stand for classes of entities the lowercase letter for relationships he said helpfully ah yes Professor carrk voice became a trifled diffident and he rubbed his chin beneath the white bandik but what did they refer to if I may ask you could perform operations on the

Equations couldn’t you without knowing the references of the individual symbols Norman countered most certainly and the results would be valid always providing that the original references had been made correctly then here’s my problem Norman went on hastily there are 17 equations on that first sheet as they stand they

Are not consistent with each other now I’m wondering if one simple underlying equation doesn’t appear in each of the 17 jumbled up with a lot of non-essential terms meaningless procedures each of the other sheets presents a similar problem H Professor Carr began to finger a pencil and his

Eyes started to go back to the Intriguing sheet but he checked the movement I must confess I’m rather curious about those references he said and added innocently I wasn’t aware that there had been attempts to apply symbolic logic to Sociology Norman was prepared for thisi

Be frank with you Lyn thickum he said I have a pretty wild off tril Theory and I’ve promised myself I won’t discuss it until I have a better idea of whether or not there’s anything to it carrk face broke into a reminiscent smile I think I understand your

Sentiments he said I can still recall the disastrous consequences of my announcement that I had tected the angle of course I was only in high school at the time he added hastily though I’m still convinced that I gave my teach a bad half hour he finished with a touch of Pride when he

Next spoke there was a Sly twinkle in his eyes nevertheless I’m very much peaked by those symbols as it stands they might refer to anything I’m sorry said Norman I know I’m asking a lot of you not at all not at all twiddling the pencil car glanced

Again at the sheet something seemed to catch his eyes this is very very interesting he said I hadn’t noticed this before and his pencil began to fly about the sheet deftly striking out terms neatly inscribing new equations the single vertical Furrow between his gray eyebrows deepened in a moment he was wholly

Absorbed with an unbathed sigh of relief Norman leaned back he felt dog tired and his eyes hurt those five sheets represented 20 hours of uninterrupted work Tuesday night Wednesday morning part of Wednesday afternoon even at that he couldn’t have done it without tany to take notes from his

Dictation he trusted the accuracy of her mindless neurons more than those of a conscious person the agile old fingers had half filled a fresh sheet of paper with derived equations their Swift orderly movements did not disturb but rather intensified the quiet almost monastic mathematical atmosphere of the small office if Mrs

Gunnison had not shown her herself to be so resourceful he was thinking he might have managed without using symbolic logic in car but she was no evain sautel to strike out viciously and then collapse no her competence and coolness Under Fire were of quite a different

Sort she had become very Elusive and he had even been balked in the simple job of secretly planting a certain object in her home and even if he had managed he was doubtful whether he would have succeeded with the rest of the plan something of a decidedly stronger sort

Was necessary something new something basic car shoved a paper toward him and immediately started working on the next sheet you found the underlying equation car seemed almost annoyed at the interruption surely of course his pencil was once more darting about sorry to be making all this work for you said Norman

Wondering just what was the meaning of the brief ultimate equation he could not tell without his code car spared him a glance not at all I’m enjoying it always did have a knack for these things though it’s not exactly my field and then he was busy again the afternoon Shadows deepened

Norman switched on the overhead light and car thanked him with a quick preoccupied nod the pencil flew three more sheets had been shoved across to Norman and car was finishing the last one when the door opened Lind to come came the sweet voice with hardly a Trace of reproachful whatever is keeping you

I’ve waited downstairs 15 minutes I’m sorry dear said the old man looking at his watch and his wife but I’d become so absorbed she saw Norman oh I didn’t know you had a visitor she said whatever will Professor sailor think I’m afraid that I’ve given him the

Impression that I tyrannize over you and she accompanied the words with such a quaint smile that Norman found himself echoing cars not at all Professor sailor looks dead tired she said peering at Norman anxiously I hope you haven’t been wearing him out lindum oh no my dear I’ve been doing all

The work her husband told her she walked around the desk and looked over his shoulder what is it she asked pleasantly I don’t know he said he straightened up and winking at Norman went on I believe that Behind These symbols Professor sailor is revolutionizing the science of

Sociology but it’s a great secret and in any case I haven’t the slightest idea of what the symbols refer to I’m just being a comptometer with a polite by your Leaf nod toward Norman Mrs Carr picked up one of the sheets and studied it through her thick

Glasses but when she saw the mass rows of symbols she put it down mathematics is not my forte she explained I was such a poor scholar nonsense Flora said Carr whenever we go to the market you’re much quicker at totaling the bill than I am

And I try to beat you too but that’s such a little thing CED Mrs Carr delightedly I’ll only be a moment more said her husband returning to his calculations Mrs Carr spoke across to Norman in a half whisper oh Professor sailor would you be so kind as to convey

A message to tany I want to invite her for bridge tomorrow night that’s Thursday with holda Gunnison and Evelyn sael lyam has a meeting I’ll be glad to said Norman quickly but I’m afraid she might not be up to it and he explained about the food poisoning how too too terrible observed

Mrs Carr couldn’t I come over and help her thank you Norman lied but we have someone staying with her how wise said Mrs Carr and it sounded as if she really meant it Carr put down his pencil there he said I’m done with further expressions of thanks Norman gathered up the sheets

Really no trouble at all Carr assured him you gave me a very exciting afternoon he added wistfully I must confess that you’ve aroused my curiosity lynum dots on anything mathematical especially when it’s like a puzzle Mrs Carr told him why once she continued with a kind of roguish

Indulgence he made all sorts of tabulations on horse races um yes but only as a concrete example of the calculus of probabilities Mr Carr interposed quickly but his smile was equally indulgent her hand was on his shoulder and he had reached up his own to cover hers frail yet somehow

Hearty withered yet somehow fresh they seemed like the perfect aged couple I promise you Norman told Carr that if I revolutionize the science of Sociology you’ll be the first to hear of it as soon as he was home Norman got out the code W was the identifying letter at

The top of the first sheet he thought he remembered what that meant but he looked it up just to be sure W to conjure out the soul yes that was it he turned to the supplementary sheet covered with cars calculations and carefully decoded the final equation C notched strip of copper

He nodded T Toral sunwise he frowned he would have expected them to cancel out good thing he had gotten a mathematician’s help in simplifying the 17 equations each representing a different people’s formula for Conjuring out the soul Arabian Zulu Polynesian American Negro American Indian and so on the most

Recent formulas available and ones that had known actual use a deadly amonita bother he had been certain that one would cancel out it would be a bit of time and trouble getting a death cup mushroom and there was another even more difficult item well he could manage

Without that formula if he had to he took up two other sheets V to control the soul of another Z to cause the Dwellers in a house to sleep and set to work on one of them in a few minutes he had assured himself that the ingredients presented no special difficulties save

That Z required a hand of Glory to be used as well as the graveyard dirt to be thrown onto the roof of the house in which sleep was to be enforced but he ought to have little difficulty in filching a suitable severed hand hand from the anatomy lab

Now he was getting somewhere with Z he could place the charm in the Gunnison house tomorrow night and with v activated conscious of a sudden reaction of weariness he pushed back his chair for the first time since he had come into the house he looked at her she sat

In the rocking chair face turned toward the drawn curtains when she had started rocking he did not know but the muscles of her body automatically continued the rhythmical movement once it had begun with the suddenness of a blow longing for tany struck him her intonations her gestures her mannerisms

Or funny fancies all the little things that go to make a person real and human and loved he wanted them all instantly in the presence of this Dead Alive imitation this poor husk of tanzy only made the longing less bearable and what sort of a man was he

Be puttering around with ult formulas while all the while he there are things that can be done to a soul she had said servant girls of the Gunnison have told stories he ought to go up there and take by force what was his the reaction was immediate how could

You take by force what was without form or material being how could you use Open Force against someone who had your dearest possession as a hostage no these repugnant occult formulas were his only hope and he had gotten his usual punishment for making the mistake of looking at her deliberately he moved to

The other side of the table so his back was to the rocking chair but he was Restless his muscles itching with fatigue poisons and for the moment he could not get back to the work all sorts of questions were plaguing his mind suddenly Norman spoke why do you suppose

Everything has become violent and deadly so abruptly what I believe they call the balance was upset was the answer there was no interruption in the steady rocking how was that he started to look over the back of his chair but checked himself in time it happened when I ceased to

Practice Magic The Rocking was a gring monotony but why should that lead to violence it upset the balance yes but how can that explain the abruptness of the shift from relatively trivial attacks to a deadly maliciousness The Rock in had stopped there was no answer but as he told

Himself he knew the answer already this women’s Warfare was very much like trench warfare or a battle between fortified lines a state of Siege just as thick reinforced concrete or armor plating nullified the shells so counter charms and protective procedures rendered relatively futile the most violent onslaughts but once the armor and

Concrete were gone and you were out in a kind of No Man’s Land then to fear of the Savage counterattacks that could be launched from such highly fortified positions was a potent factor in discouraging direct assaults the natural thing would be to sit Pat snipe away and only attack if

The enemy exposed himself recklessly besides there were probably all sorts of unsuspected hostages and secret agreements all putting a damper on violence this idea also seemed to explain why Ten’s apparent ly Pacific action had upset the balance what would any country think if in the midst of a war its enemy scuttled

All his battleships and dismantled all his aircraft apparently laying himself wide open to attack for the realistic mind there could only be one likely answer namely that the enemy had discovered a weapon far more potent than battleships or aircraft and was planning to ask for a piece that would turn out

To be a the only thing would be to strike instantly and hard before the secret weapon could be brought into play I think he started to say then something perhaps a faint whing in the air or a slight creaking of the floor under the heavy carpet or some less

Tangible sensation caused him to glance around with a writhing jerk sideways he managed just managed to get his head out of the path of that descending metal flail which was all he saw at first with a shocking swish it crashed downward against against the heavy back of the

Chair and there its force was broken but his shoulder which took only the end of the blow went numb clawing at the chair arm with his good hand he threw himself forward against the table and Whirled around he recoiled from the sight as from another blow throwing back his good

Hand to save himself from overbalancing she was poised in the center of the room having sprung back cat-like after the first blow failed almost stiff-legged but with the weight forward and stocking feet the slippers that might have made a noise were laid by the rocking chair in

Her hand was the steel poker stealthily lifted from The Stand by the fireplace so as not to make the slightest warning rattle there was a life in her face now but it was life that chomped the teeth and drooled life that pinched and flared the nostrils with every breath life that

Switched hair from the eyes with quick angry flirts life that glared rly and steadily and there was more than that with a low sow snarl she lifted the poker and struck not at him but at the chandelier overhead yet even as pitch Darkness flooded the tightly curtained room he

Realized what that more than animal life was there was no conclusive reason but from a multitude of almost indefinable Impressions too many to be realized separately he knew with chilling certainty that the beastial spirit animating Tan’s body the crude and unfinished Soul conjured into her body

Possessing her body as it used to be said demons possessed the bodies of the insane Was the Same Soul that had animated the stone creature that had crept from the roof and then the darkness was complete there was A Rush of soft footsteps he ducked to one side nevertheless the swish came perilously

Close there was a sound as if she had dived or rolled across the table after he eluded the headlong Rush he could hear the slur of papers skidding and the faint crackle as some drifted to the floor then silence except for the rapid snuff snuff of animal breathing he crouched on the carpet

Trying not to move a muscle straining his ears to catch the direction of that breathing abominable he thought how inefficient the human auditory system is at localizing a sound first it came from One Direction then another although he could not hear the slightest rustle of intervening movement until he began to

Lose his sense of orientation in the room he tried to remember his exact movements in springing away from the table as he had hit the car carpet he had spun around but how far was he facing toward or away from the wall in his Zeal to avoid the possibility of

Anyone spying on tany he had blacked out this room and the bedroom and the blackout was effective no discernible atom of light filtered through from the night outside he was somewhere on what was beginning to seem an endless expanse of carpet and somewhere else on that

Expanse it was could it see and hear more than he could it discern form in retinal patterns that were only Blackness to Tan’s human soul what was it waiting for now even the rapid breathing was no longer audible it possessed cunning this might be the darkness of

Some jungle floor roofed by yards of matted creepers civilization is a thing of light when light goes civilization is snuffed out he was rapidly being reduced to its level perhaps it had counted on that when it smashed the lights this might be the inner chamber of some primeval cave and

He some cloudy minded primitive huddled in abject Terror of his mate into whose beloved form a demon had been conjured up by the witch woman the brwy fat witch woman with the Sullen lip and brutish eyes and copper ornaments twisted and matted red hair should he grope for his

Axe and seek to smash the demon from her skull where it was hiding or should he seek out the witch woman and throttle her until she called off her demon but how could he constrain his wife meanwhile if the tribe found her they would slay her instantly it was the

Law and even now the demon in her was seeking to slay him with thoughts almost as murky and confused as those of that ghostly primitive Forerunner he sought to Grapple with the problem until he suddenly realized what was waiting for already his muscles were aching he was getting twinges of pain from his

Shoulder as the numbness went out of it soon he would make an involuntary movement and in that instant it would be upon Him cautiously he stretched out his hand slowly very slowly he swung it around until it touched a small table and located the large book he had

Remembered was there clamping thumb and fingers around the book where it projected jeed from the table Edge he lifted it and Drew it to him his muscles began to shake a little from the effort to maintain absolute quiet with a slow movement he launched the book toward the center of the room

So that it hit the carpet a few feet from him the sound drew the instant response he had hoped for waiting a second he Dove forward seeking to pin it to the floor but its cunning was greater than he had guessed his arms closed on a heavy cushion that it had hurled toward

The book and only luck saved him as the poker thed against the carpet close by his head clutching out blindly his hands closed on the cold metal there was a moment of straining as it sought to break his grip then he was sprawling backward and the footsteps were

Retreating toward the rear of the house he followed it to the kitchen a drawer jerked out too far fell to the floor and he heard the chilling clatter and scrape of collery but there was enough light in the kitchen to show him its silhouette he lunged at the UPR

Raised hand holding the long knife caught the wrist then it threw itself against him and they dropped to the floor he felt her warm body against his the touch of it an instant check to violence he dared not harm it and yet viciousness animated it to the last

Limits of its strength for a moment he felt the coldness of the flat of the knife against his cheek then he had forced the weapon away he doubled up his legs to protect himself from its knees it surged convulsively down upon him and he felt Jaws clamp the arm with which he held

Away the knife teeth sawed sideways trying to penetrate the fabric of his coat cloth ripped as he sought with his free hand to drag her body away from him then he found her hair and forced back the head so the teeth lost their grip it dropped the knife and clawed with both

Hands at his face he seized the fingers seeking his eyes and nostrils it snarled and spat at him steadily he forced down the arms twisting them behind it and with a sudden effort got to his knees strangled sounds of impotent Fury came from its throat only too keenly aware of

How close his muscles were to the trembling weakness of fatigue he shifted his grip so that with one hand he held the straining wrists with the other he groped sideways jerked open the lower door of the cabinet and found a length of cord end of chapter 14 chapter

15 it’s pretty serious this time Norm said Harold Gunnison a couple of Trustees really want your scalp Norman drew his chair closer as if the discussion were the real reason for his visit to gunnison’s office this morning Gunnison went on I think they’re planning to rake up that Margaret Van

Business and start yelping that where there’s smoke there must be fire and they may try to use Theodore Jennings against you claim that his nervous breakdown was aggravated by unfairness and undue severity on your part Etc Norman nodded Mrs Gunnison ought to be here soon the maid had told him over

The phone that she had just left for her husband’s office of course those two matters aren’t enough in themselves Gunnison looked unusually heavy-eyed and grave but they have a bad taste and they can be used as entering wedges the real danger will come from a restrained but concerted attack on your conduct of

Classes your public utterances and perhaps even trivial details of your social life followed by talk about the need for retrenchment where it is expeditious you know what I mean he paused what really bothers me is that pards cooled toward you I told him what I thought of sel’s appointment but he

Said the trustees had overruled him he’s a good man but he’s a politician and Gunnison Shrugged as if it were common knowledge that the distinction between politicians and scientists went back to the Ice Age Norman roused himself I’m afraid I insulted him last week we had a long talk and I blew up

Gunnison shook his head that would explain it he can absorb insults I’ve always said he was a good politici if he sides against you it will be because he feels it necessary or at least expeditious I hate that word on the grounds of public opinion you know his

Way of running the college every couple of years he throws someone into the wall Norman hardly heard him he was thinking of teny as he had left her the trust up body the lulling jaw the horse heavy breathing from the whiskey he had finally made it guzzle he was taking a

Long chance but he dared not give it an opportunity to carry off or destroy the body it had usurped at one time last night he had almost decided to call in a doctor and perhaps have tany placed in a sanitarium but if he did that he would

Be unable to protect her and might lose forever his chance to restore her rightful self for similar reasons there was no friend he could call on for help now that his efforts to exercise The Thing by sorcery had failed he had to strike quickly at the source of the

Usurping agency but it was not pleasant to think of such headlines as professor’s wife a torture victim found trust in closet by mate that’s really serious Norm gison was repeating my wife thinks so and she’s smart about these things she knows people his wife obediently Norman

Nodded hard luck it had come to a head now gunson continued when you’ve been having more than your share of troubles with sickness and whatnot Norman could see that Gunnison was looking with a faint shade of inquisitiveness at the strip of surgical tape close to the

Corner of his left eye and the other one just below his nostrils but he attempted no explanation Gunnison shifted about and resettled himself in his chair Norm he said I’ve Got the Feeling that something’s gone wrong you can weather this blow all right you’re one of our

Two three best men but I’ve got the feeling that something’s gone wrong all the way down the line the offer his words conveyed was obvious enough and Norman knew it was made in good faith but only for a moment did he consider telling Gunnison even a

Fraction of the truth it would be like trying to take his troubles into the Law Courts and he could imagine with the sharp almost hallucinatory vividness of extreme fatigue what that would be like imagine even if the thing were exercised out of her body putting tany in the

Witness box you say Mrs sailor that your soul was stolen from your body yes you know that to be a fact yes you are conscious of it no I am not conscious how then bang of the judge’s gavl if this taring does not cease immediately I will clear the court or Mrs Gunnison

Called to the witness box and he himself bursting out with an impassioned plea to the jury gentlemen look at her eyes watch them closely I implore you my wife’s soul is in there if you would only see it then the judge harshly remove the man sailor but even such a

Trial was an impossibility in this day and age and his method for writing the wrong that had been done must necessarily be as far outside the law sorcery is outside the domain of recognized science what’s the matter Norm he heard Gunnison asked the genuine sympathy of the voice tugged at him confusedly

Groggy with sudden sleepiness he tried to Rally himself to answer Mrs Gunnison walked in hello she said I’m glad you two finally got together almost patronizingly she looked him over I don’t think you’ve slept for the last two nights she announced Brusly and what’s happened to your face did that

Cat of yours finally scratch it Gunnison laughed as he usually did at his wife’s frankness what a woman loves dogs hates cats but she’s right about your needing sleep Norm the sight of her and the sound of of her voice stung him into an icy wakefulness she looked as if she had

Been sleeping 10 hours a night for some time an expensive green suit set off her red hair and gave her a kind of Buxom middle-aged Beauty her slip showed and the coat was buttoned in a disorderly way but now it conveyed to Norman the effect of the privileged carelessness of

Some all powerful ruler who is above ordinary standards of neatness for once she was not carrying the usual bulging purse he did not trust himself to look into her eyes eyes his hand stole from his pocket to the crevice at the back of the chair he

Pushed the Loosey egg out of sight then he stood up don’t go yet Norm Gunnison told him there’s a lot we should talk about yes why don’t you stay Mrs Gunnison seconded sorry said Norman I’ll come around this afternoon if you can spare the time or tomorrow morning at the

Latest be sure and do that said Gunnison seriously the trustees are meeting tomorrow afternoon Mrs Gunnison sat down in the chair he had vacated my regards to tany she said I’ll be seeing her tonight at the cars that is if she’s recovered sufficiently and to know that Tan’s Soul was listening to

The thoughts behind those words in complete intimacy he walked out rapidly and shut the door behind him while his hand was still on the knob he saw Mrs gunnison’s Green purse lying on the table and Beyond it the display case of items and physical chemistry in that one long moment he

Smashed the plan he had been contemplating and built a new one there was one girl in the outer office a student employee he went up to her desk Miss Miller he said would you be so kind as to get me the grade sheets on the following people and he rattled off half

A dozen student names the sheets are in the recorder’s office Professor sailor she said a little doubtfully I know but you tell them I sent you Dr Gunnison and I want to look them over obediently she took down the names as the door closed behind

Her he pulled out the top drawer of her desk and found the key for the display case where he knew he would find it on the bunch with the rest a few minutes later Mrs Gunnison came out she did not see him at first because he was standing to one side of the

Door I thought I heard you go out she said sharply then in her usual blunt manner are you waiting for me to leave so you can talk to Harold alone he did not answer he glanced at her nose frowning a little she picked up her purse there’s really no point in you’re

Trying to make a secret of it she said I know as much about your troubles here as he does in fact considerably more and to be honest they’re pretty bad her voice had begun to assume the arrogance of the Victor she smiled at him he continued to look at her

Nose and you need pretend you’re not worried she went on her voice reacting irritably to his silence because I know you are and tomorrow Pard will ask for your resignation what are you staring at nothing he answered hastily averting his gaze you saw SMUD on my nose oh no

No with an incredulous sniff she took out her mirror glanced at it puzzled for a moment then with a shrug held it up for a detailed inspection of her face now was the moment if only he could gauge it right he was taau with expectation cold with a feeling that the

Threads of Destiny had come into His Hands the second hand of the wall clock seemed to stand still he dared not wait longer in a soft yet straining voice he uttered the words break glass shattered Soul scatter glass come soul with a swift crackling not very

Loud yet with a tinkle to it the mirror in Mrs gunnison’s hand puffed into a little cloud of iridescent dust instantly he felt a weight add itself to his mind a tangible Darkness pressed down upon his thoughts and his mind seemed to grasp instinctively at the

Darkness and hold it there the gasp of astonishment or fear that issued from Mrs gunnison’s lips was cut short what seemed a loose stupid look flowed slowly over her face but that was only because her face lost all expression whatsoever he stepped up to her and took her arm

Come with me he said it’s your best chance docilely she followed him into the hall near the stairs they met Miss Miller returning with a handful of large cards I’m very sorry to have to put you to the trouble he told her but it turned out that we didn’t need them you had

Better return them to the recorder’s office the girl nodded with a polite but somewhat Ry smile professors as Norman escorted Mrs Gunnison out of the administration building the darkness pressing upon his thoughts parted as black storm clouds might part at Sunset letting through a narrow beam of crimson light so through

The painfully bright slit in the darkness lying against his thoughts there poured a flood of impotent Red Rage of obscene anger in a moment this cleared and an intelligible thought appeared appeared this thought as the rage preceding it was so intolerably like Mrs Gunnison such an intense

Concentration of what he had known only in diluted form that his mind almost lost its hold on a dark entity pressed against it for a moment his thoughts quailed at the touch of naked personality he stared ahead and his steps wandered like those of a drunken

Man but only for a moment how did you do it was the thought his own thoughts rallied and before he realized it had answered it was the prince rert mirror from the display case the warmth of your fingers shattered it I held it lightly in folds of my cchf while transferring

It to your pocketbook when the mirror breaks and the reflection is shattered the soul is temporarily caught outside at such times it is vulnerable all this without the Machinery of speech to delay it flashed in an instant he must be more cautious from now on where are you taking my body

To our house what do you do you want my wife’s Soul there was a long pause the slit in the darkness closed then opened again you cannot take it I hold it as you hold my soul my soul hides it from you and my

Soul holds it I cannot take it but I can hold your soul until you return my wife’s soul to her body what if I refuse your husband is a realist he will not believe what your body tells him he will consult the best alienists he will be very much grieved

But in the end he will commit your body to an asylum he could s defeat and submission and a kind of panic too in the texture of the answering thought but defeat and submission were not yet admitted directly you will not be able to hold my soul you hate it it fills you

With a pits your mind will not be able to endure it then in immediate substantiation of the statement there came through the slid a nasty trickle growing swiftly to a Spate his chief detestation were quickly spied out in rasped upon he began to hurry his steps so that the Mindless Hulk beside him

Breathed hard there was Anne came the thoughts not in words but in the complete fullness of memory an came to work for me eight years ago a frail looking little blonde but able to get through a hard day’s work for all that she was very submissive and a prey to

Fear do you know that it is possible to rule people through fear alone without an atom of direct force a sharp word a stern look it’s the implications that do it not what’s said directly gradually I gathered about myself all the Grim Prestige that father teacher and

Preacher had had for an I could make her cry by looking at her in a certain way I could make her wrie with fright just by standing outside the door of her bedroom I could make her hold hot dishes without a whimper while serving us at dinner and

Make her wait while I talked to Harold I’ve looked at her hands afterward similarly he lived through the stories of Clara and Millie Mary and mingard he could not shut his own mind from hers nor could he close the slit though it was within his power to Wi

It like some foul Medusa or some pulpy carnivorous plant her soul enfolded and clung to his until it seemed almost that his was the prisoner not symbiosis but parasitism and there was Trudy Trudy worshiped me she was a big girl slow and a little stupid she had come from a farm

She used to spend hours on my clothes I encouraged her in various ways until everything about me became sacred a treaty she lived for my little signs of favor in the end she would do anything for me which was very amusing because she was very easily embarrassed and

Never lost her painfully acute sense of shame but now he was at the door of his house and the unclean trickle of thoughts ceased and the Slit narrowed to the tiniest watchful crack he shephered Mrs Gunnison to the door of Tan’s dressing room he pointed at the for

Huddled on the blanket he had thrown across the floor it lay as he left it eyes closed jaw Laing Breathing heavily take away what you have conjured into it he commanded there was a pause a black spider crawled off Tan’s skirt and scuttled across the blanket even as

There came the thought that is it he lunged out and cracked it under his heel as it escaped onto the flooring he was aware of a half cloaked comment it Soul sought the nearest body now faithful King Will Go On no more errands for me I will have to find another

Dog return what you have taken he commanded this time there was a longer pause the slit closed entirely the bound figure stirred as if seeking to roll over the lips moved the slack jaw tightened conscious only of the black weight against his mind and of a sensory

Awareness so acute that he believed he could hear the very beating of the heart in Tan’s body he stooped and cut the Lash ings remove the carefully arranged paddings from wrists and ankles the head rolled restlessly from side to side the lips seemed to be saying Norman Norman the eyelids

Fluttered and he felt a shiver go over the body and then in one sudden glorious flood like some flower blooming miraculously in an instant expression surged into the face the limp hands caught at his shoulders and from the wide open eyes a lucid sane Fearless

Human soul peered up at his not for one instant after that wonderful relief could his mind hold the repellent Darkness pressing against it and the Swift lifting of that Darkness was a relief almost equal to the First with one venomous beaten glance Mrs Gunnison turned away he could hear her footsteps

Trail off the front door open and shut then his arms were around tany and his lips were against hers end of chapter 15 chapter 16 urgently she pushed him away from her eager lips we D be happy Norm she said we D be happy for one single moment a

Disturbed and apprehensive look clouded the longing in her eyes as if she had become conscious of a Great Wall shutting out the sunlight when she answered his unspoken question it was almost in a whisper as if even to mention the name might be dangerous Mrs Carr her hands tightened on his arms

Conveying to him in a physical way the immediacy of their danger Norman I’m frightened I’m terribly frightened for both of us my soul has learned so much things are different from what I thought and they’re much worse he took hold of her shoulders straightened her up you’re safe he told

Her and there was a scowling strength in his face and his voice I’ve got you back and I’m going to hold you I have powers you don’t know about yet they can never touch you again oh Norman she began dropping her eyes conflicting emotions evident in her

Expression I know how Brave and clever you’ve been only I know the risks you’ve run the sacrifices You’ve Made For Me wrenching your whole life away from rationality in the bare space of a week enduring of your own free will the beastliness of that woman’s naked

Thoughts which I was able to endure only because I was forced to and you’ve beaten Evelyn sautel and Mrs Gunnison fairly and at their own game but Mrs Carr her hands transmitted her trembling to him oh Norman she only let you beat them she wanted to give them a fright

And she preferred to let you do it for her that’s always her way but now she’ll take a hand to herself I think you’re exaggerating he said slowly what what you’ve gone through was enough to finish you a dozen times but we we’ll talk about it first I’ll get a

Drink and yet he began to think tany is not the sort to exaggerate the fact that she’s gone through so much and come out so magnificently is itself a proof that she would not give way to unnecessary fears he would have to watch himself his physical weakness coupled with

Repugnance for what he had done was liable to bias his judgment and make him believe anything that promised peace and rest he rubbed his eyes and blinked them shaking his head relief was making him relax too much he downed a stiff drink and poured himself another better go easy with that though

Up to a point it would help but then it would be worse than nothing at all this car he hadn’t paid much attention to her he’d even wondered if she were concerned at all still that might only mean exceptional cunning and yet she seemed such a silly Old Goat but that might be

Pretense tany had been in a position to learn a lot when he got back to the bedroom tany had changed from her torn and creased dress into one of white wool which he had always liked very much but which she had not worn for some time he remembered

She had told him that it had shrunk and become too small for her but now he sensed intuitively that in the joy of her return she took a naive pride in her youthful body and wanted to show it to best advantage it’s like coming into a new house she

Told him with a quick little smile that momentarily cut across her apprehensive look or rather like coming home after you’ve been away for a long time you’re very happy but everything is a little strange it takes you a while to get used to it now that she mentioned it he

Realized that there was a kind of uncertainty about her movements gestures and expressions like a person convalescent after a long sickness and just now able to get up and about she had combed out her hair so that it fell to her shoulders and she was still in her bare feet giving her a

Diminutive and girlish appearance that he found very attractive he felt a growing impatience with the possible dangers threatening him although he knew such an attitude to be unwise he’d smash anyone who tried to harm her or keep them apart she barely sipped her drink and then put it

Aside back of everything is Mrs Carr she began abruptly it was she who brought Mrs Gunnison and Evelyn saale together and that one act speaks volumes women are invariably secretive about their magic they work alone a little knowledge is passed from the Elder to the younger ones especially

From mother to daughter but even that is done grudgingly and with suspicions this is the only case Mrs Gunnison knew of I learned most of this from watching her soul in which three women actually cooperated it is an event of revolutionary importance betokening heaven knows what for the future even

Now I have only an inkling of Mrs Carr’s Ambitions but they involve vast augmentation of her present powers for almost 3ar of a century she has been weaving her plans her real age is closer to 80 than 70 Tan’s voice was rapid and she had grown pale again Norman was listening

Intently she seems an innocent and rather foolish old lady straight laced yet ineffectual but that’s only part of a disguise along with her cing voice and simpering manners she’s the cleverest actress imaginable underneath she’s hard as Nails cold Where Mrs Gunnison would be hot athetic Where Mrs Gunnison would

Be a slave to appetites but she has her own deeply hidden hungers nevertheless she is a great admirer of Puritan Massachusetts sometimes I have the queerest feeling that she’s planning by some unimaginable means to reestablish that witch ridden so-called Theocratic community in this present day and age

She rules the other to by fear in a way they are little more than her apprentices you know something of Mrs Gunnison so you will understand what it means when I say that I’ve seen Mrs gunnison’s thoughts go weak with Terror because she was afraid that she had slightly offended Mrs Carr Norman

Finished his drink his mind was slipping away from this new Menace fumbling at it instead of grasping it firmly he must whip his mind awake tany pushed her drink over toward him and Mrs gunnison’s fear is Justified for Mrs Carr has Powers so deadly that she has never had

To use them except as a threat her eyes are the worst those thick glasses of hers she possesses that most feared of Supernatural weapons against which half the protective charms and recorded magic are intended that weapon whose name is so well known throughout the whole world

That it has become a laughing stock of Skeptics the evil eye with it she can blight and wither with it she can seize control of another Soul at a single glance so far she is held back because she wanted the other two punish for certain trifling disobediences and put

Into a position where they would have to beg her help but now she will act quickly she recognizes in you and your work a danger to herself Tan’s voice had become so breathlessly rapid that Norman realized she must be talking Against Time besides that she has another motive

Buried in the darkness of her mind I do not know what it is but sometimes I’ve caught her studying my every movement expression with the strangest avidity suddenly she broke off and her face went white I can feel her now I can feel her seeking me out she’s breaking through no

Tany screamed no you can’t make me do it I won’t I won’t before he knew it she was on her knees clinging to him clutching at his hands don’t let her touch me Norman she was babbling like a terrified child don’t let her come near

Me I won’t he said oh but you can’t stop her she’s coming here she says in her own body that’s how much she cares for your powers she’s going to take me away I can’t tell you what she’s going to make me do it’s too repulsive if she comes here I’ll stop

Her he said in a flat voice her babbling ceased slowly she lifted her white frightened face until it looked up at his you mean he nodded I’ve still got a few cartridges for the revolver his face was set Norman I can’t let you do it except

That I am in as much danger as you are yes a semblance of control came back into Tan’s face you might be able to do it she said softly she wouldn’t be expecting physical violence but she would have to be very quick if you hesitated for the tiny EST instant if

You gave her the slightest opportunity to fix you with her eyes you would be lost she would seize control you know the Cobra that spits Venom in its victim’s eyes it’s like that doly he tried to remember what you did when you committed a murder there

Was The Alibi what would that be and disposal of the body the furnace or he could steal some carboys of acid from the Kim lab what acid and would it be wise to steal it and then there was motive that would be his strong point the courts would not recognize his true

Motive he started tany was shaking him insistently hurry Norman she’s very close as if in some sticky nightmare of fear and rage and hate he made his preparations the curtains drawn the door barely unlatched so she could push her way in himself in the dark corner of the

Living room she would make a good Target outlined against that oblong of daylight suddenly tany slipped into his arms her body molded itself to his her moist lips found his own almost brutally he returned the kiss he heard her whisper breathlessly only be quick darling don’t

Let her look at you and then she had retreated to the bedroom doorway there were steps hurrying up the walk his emotions contracted to one tight knot he was conscious of the cold metal in his hand the door was pushed inward a thin form in Gray silk was

Silhou there instinctively he could make out beyond the side of the gun The Faded face the thick glasses his finger tightened on the trigger but the thick glasses were turned in his Direction and the silver-haired head gave a little shake a dull almost stupid look came over his

Face his jaw sagged quick Norman quick the gray figure in the doorway did not move the gun wavered then swung suddenly around until it pointed at tan Norman end of chapter 16 chapter 17 the small Restless breezes of night stirred the leaves of the venerable Oak standing like some Burly Guardian beside

The narrow House of the cars through the overlapping Shadows softly gleamed the white of the walls and a spotless pristine white that neighbors laughingly vowed the old lady herself came out after everyone had gone to sleep and washed them down with a long-handle mop everywhere was the impression of a

Neatly tended wholesome age it even had an odor like some old chest which a Clipper Captain had used to bring back elegant spices from his voyages in the China trade the house faced the campus the girls could see it going to classes and it reminded them of afternoons they

Had spent there sitting and straight backed chairs all on their best behavior while a wood fire burned Merrily On The Shining brass and irons in the white fireplace Mrs car was such a straight laced innocent old deer but her innocence was all to the good it was no

Trouble at all to pull the wool over her eyes and she did tell the quaintest stories with the most screamingly funny completely unconscious points and she did serve the nicest gingerbread with her cinnamon tea a light came on in the hall casting a p turn of gentle illumination through the New England

Fanlight onto the scroll work of the porch the six- paneled white door below the fan light opened I’m going Flora Mr Carr called your Bridge partners are a bit tardy aren’t they they’ll be here soon the Silvery voice floated down the hall goodbye linum he closed the door too bad he had

To miss the bridge but the paper they were going to hear on the theory of primes would undoubtedly be interesting interesting and one couldn’t have everything his footsteps sounded on the pebble walk with its edging of tiny white flowers like Old Lace then they reached the concrete and slowly died

Away somewhere at the rear of the house a car Drew up there was the sound of something being lifted then heavy plotting footsteps a door at the back of the house opened and for a moment Against The Oblong of light a man could be seen carrying in a smaller figure

Whose position suggest Ed the presence of certain restraints then that door closed too and for a while longer there was silence while the breezes played with the oak leaves with thriftless waste of rubber a luxurious black automobile jerked to a stop in front Mrs Gunnison stepped

Out hurry up Evelyn she said you’ve made us late again you know how she hates that I’m coming as fast as I can replied her companion plaintively emerging from the car as soon as the six Penal door swung open The Faded spicy odor became more apparent you’re very late dear came the

Silvery laughing voice but I’ll forgive you this once because I have a surprise for you come with me they followed the frail figure and rustling faintly hissing silk into the living room just beyond the bridge table with its embroidered cover and two cut glass dishes of Suits stood Norman

Sailor in the mingled lamp light and Fire Light his face was expressionless since tenzi is unable to come said Mrs Carr he’s agreed to make a fourth isn’t that a nice surprise and isn’t it very nice of Professor sailor Mrs Gunnison seemed to be gathering her courage I’m

Not altogether sure that I like the arrangement she said finally since when did it matter whether you likeed something or not came the answer sharp as a whiplash Mrs Carr was standing very straight sit down all of you when they had taken their places around the bridge

Table Mrs car ran through a deck flipping out certain cards when she spoke her voice was as sweet and silvery as ever here are you too my dears she said placing the queens of diamonds and clubs side by side and here is Professor sailor she added the King of Hearts to

The group and here am I she placed the Queen of Spades so that it overlapped all three off here to the side is the Queen of Hearts tany sailor now what I intend to do is this she moved the Queen of Hearts so that it exactly covered the Queen of Spades you

Don’t understand well it isn’t what it looks like and neither of you is especially bright you’ll understand in a moment Professor sailor and I have just had an ever so interesting talk she went on all about his work haven’t we Professor sailor he nodded he’s made some of the most

Fascinating discoveries it seems that there are laws governing the things that we women have been puttering with men are so clever in some ways don’t you think he’s been good enough to tell all those laws to me you’d never dream how much easier and safer it makes everything and more efficient efficiency

Is so very important these days why already Professor sailor has made something for me I won’t tell you what it is but there’s one for each of you and one for someone else they aren’t presents because I’ll keep them all and if one of you should do something

Naughty they’ll make it ever so easy for me to whisk part of you away you know what part and now something is going to happen that will enable Professor sailor and I to work together very closely in the future how closely you could never imagine you’re here to help that’s why

You’re here open the dining room door Norman it was an old-fashioned sliding door gleaming white slowly he pushed it aside there there said Mrs Carr my second surprise I’m full of surprises tonight the body was lashed to a chair from Over the gag the eyes of tany

Sailor glared at them with impotent hate and a trapped fear Evelyn sawel half Rose stifling a scream you needn’t get hysterics Evelyn said Mrs Carr sharply it’s got a soul in it now Evelyn sael sank back lips trembling Mrs gunnison’s face had grown pale but she set her jaw firmly and put

Her elbows on the table I don’t like it she said it’s too open too risky I am able to take chances I wouldn’t have taken a week ago Dear Mrs car said sweetly in this manner your Aid in evence is essential to me of course you’re perfectly welcome not to help if

You don’t want to only I do hope you understand the consequences Mrs Gunnison dropped her eyes all right she said but let’s be quick about it I am a very old old woman began Mrs Carr with tantalizing slowness and I am very fond of life it has been a

Little dispiriting for me to think that mine is drawing to a close and for reasons I think you understand I have something more to fear in death than most persons but now it seems once more that I’m going to experience all those things that an old woman looks upon as forever

Lost the unusual circumstances of the last two weeks have helped a great deal in preparing the ground Professor sailor has helped a little and you my dears are going to help too you see it’s necessary to build up a certain kind of tension and only people with the right

Background can do that and it takes at least four of them Professor sailor he has such a brilliant mind tells me it’s very much like building up electrical tension so that a spark will be able to jump a gap only in this case the Gap

Will be from where I am sitting to there as she pointed at the bound figure and there will be two Sparks and then when it’s over the Queen of Hearts will exactly cover the Queen of Spades also the Queen of Spades will exactly cover the Queen of Hearts but it’s the things

You can’t see that are always the most important don’t you think you can’t do it said Mrs Gunnison you won’t be able to keep the truth hidden you think not on the contrary I won’t have to make an effort let me ask you what will happen if old Mrs Carr

Claims that she is young tany sailor I think you know very well what would happen to that dear sweet innocent old lady there are times when the laws and beliefs of a skeptical Society can be so very convenient you can begin with the fire Norman I’ll tell the others exactly what

They are to do he tossed a handful of powder on the fire it flared up Greenly and a pungent cloying Aroma filled the room there was a stirring at the heart of the world in a movement of soundless currents in the black void upon the dark

Side of the planet a million women moved restlessly in their sleep and a few woke trembling with unnamed fears upon the Light Side a million more grew nervous and unaccustomed Daydreams chased unpleasantly through their minds some made mistakes at their work and had to add again a column of figures or tie a

Broken thread or readjust the intricate mechanism of a fuse or detonators and a few found strange suspicion growing mushroom like among their thoughts a certain ponderous Point began to work closer and closer to the end of the massive surface supporting it not unlike a top slowly wobbling toward the edge of

A table and certain creatures who were nearby saw what was happening and skittered away terrified through the Blackness then at the very edge it paused the irregularity went out of its movement and it rode steady and true once more the currents ceased to trouble the void and the balance was restored

Norman sailor opened the windows at the top and bottom so the breeze might fan out the remnants of pungent Vapor then he cut the lashings of the bound figure and loosened the gag from its mouth in a little while she Rose and without a word they started from the room all this

While none of the others had spoken the figure in the gray silk dress sat with head bowed shoulders hunched dejectedly frail hands dropped limply at her side in the doorway the woman whom Norman sailor had loosed turned back I have only one more thing to say

To you all that I have told you earlier this evening was completely true including that matter of the devices he has made for each one of you and which I will keep close by me all completely true with one very big exception Mrs Gunnison looked up Evelyn sael half turned in her chair

The third figure did not move the soul of Mrs Carr was not transferred to the body of tany Salem this evening that happened much earlier when Mrs Carr had the easier task of exercising a lowly beastial Spirit from that body and then herself occupying the empty brain

Leaving the captive soul of tany Sailor trapped in her own aged body and doomed to be murdered by her own husband in accord with Mrs Carr’s well-laid plan for Mrs Carr knew that tany sailor would only have one panic-stricken thought to run home to her husband and

Mrs car was very sure that she could persuade Norman sailor to kill the body housing the soul of his wife under the impression that he was killing Mrs Carr and that would have been the end of tany sailor’s Soul since the soul dies or vanishes with the body it

Inhabits you knew Mrs Gunnison that Mrs Carr had taken tany sailor’s soul from you just as you had taken it from Evelyn sautel and for similar reasons but you dared not reveal that fact to Norman S because you would have lost your one bargaining point this evening you half

Suspected that something was different from what it seemed but you did not dare to make a stand and now as a result of what we have done this evening with your help the soul of Mrs Carr is once more in the body of Mrs Carr and the soul of

Tany Sailor is in the body of tany Sailor that is all and now good night the six- panel door closed behind them the pebbley path crunched under their feet how did you know was Tan’s first question when I stood there in the doorway blinking through those awful spectacles gasping after the way ID

Hurried with only the blind thought of finding you how did you know partly he said reflectively because she gave herself away toward the end she began to emphasize words in that exaggerated way of hers but that wouldn’t have been enough in itself she was too good an actress she must have

Been studying your mannerisms for years and after seeing how how well you played her part tonight with hardly any preparation I wonder that I ever did see through her then how did you it was partly the way you hurried up the walk it didn’t sound like Mrs Carr and partly

Something about the way you held yourself but mainly it was that headshake you gave that quick triple headshake I couldn’t fail to recognize it and after that I realized all the other things do you think said tany softly that after this you’ll never begin to wonder if I am really

I I suppose I will he said seriously but I believe I’ll always be able to conquer my doubts and tany laughed but he was not yet over being serious I think that tonight we were a lot closer to a much bigger danger than even we ever guessed he said he had not

Yet surrendered to the reaction that gripped tany there’s more behind this matter of the balance than we may realize there’s a lot we’ll do with this but we’ll want to go slowly and test every step of the way there were footsteps then a friendly greeting from the Shadows

Ahead hello you two called Mr Gunnison brid game over I thought I’d walk back with Lytham and then drive home with holda say Norman par dropped in to speak to me after the paper had been read he’s had a sudden change of heart on that matter we were talking about from what

He says the trustees may even cancel their meeting it was a very interesting paper Mr Carr informed them and I had the satisfaction of asking the speaker a very tricky question but I’m sorry I missed the bridge oh well I don’t suppose I’ll ever notice any difference and the funny thing is tany

Told Norman after they had walked on is that he really won’t end of chapter 17 end of the conjure wife by Fritz Liber

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