999_ Twenty-Nine Original Tales of Horror and Suspense - Al Sarrantonio [330]
“It’s the Disturbed Ward of a lunatic asylum.”
Case glanced up at the psychic. He looked puzzled.
Trawley was staring at him intently.
“And some of the inmates,” she finished, “are dangerous.”
Case held her gaze without expression, unblinking.
“Yes, no doubt,” he said finally.
“No doubt.”
“Getting back to Raudieve and the tapes …”
“Oh, yes, do.”
“He gave up the experiments when the voices grew threatening. But before that he’d asked them, ‘Does God exist?’ and back came the answer, ‘Not in the dream world.’ When I read that it chilled me for some reason. Don’t know why. Then it suddenly occurred to me that the dream world wasn’t there—it was this one.”
For a time Case probed the psychic’s eyes.
She broke the silence.
“Did you ever remarry?” she asked.
Case said, “No.”
Bright yellow sunlight shafted through the window.
They turned their heads and stared out at the sky.
“Ah, sun. The storm’s broken,” said Case.
“So it has.”
“The sky’s a wonder after rain, don’t you think? There really are some very lovely things about this world. Sometimes we tend to grow attached to its griefs.”
Trawley turned to him. Color had risen in her face.
“What do you mean?”
Case shrugged and stared down at the table. “I once heard of a woman addicted to surgery. She had endless unneeded operations. Not in a masochistic way, you understand. She’d simply grown attached to the pain. She couldn’t bear to be without it for too long. It had become her very reason for existence.”
He looked up and met her riveted gaze.
“We’ll have a séance later?” he asked her.
Trawley looked flustered and ill at ease.
“Very possibly,” she answered him tersely. “We’ll see.”
Case turned to the window, staring out moughtfully, and his brow began to wrinkle a little as he nodded and murmured to himself, “Perhaps we should. Yes, maybe this time we should try something new.”
Trawley stared. “ ‘This time,’ did you say?”
Case turned to her blankly. “I’m sorry?”
“You said, ‘This time.’ What did you mean by that?”
Case looked foggy. “I haven’t a clue. My mind wandered.”
She stared at him steadily. “Yes. That happens to me, too.”
‘"I’m so sorry.”
She picked up her teacup.
“So you teach at Columbia,” she commented.
“Yes.”
“Such a stimulating atmosphere to work in. Do you live near the campus, by chance?”
“No, I commute,” said Case. “Why do you ask?”
“Oh, just curious, that’s all. No special reason.” Trawley sipped at her tea, and as she set down her cup it made a tiny but prolonged faint clattering sound against the brittle porcelain of the saucer. Case darted a glance to the cup, her trembling hands. She lowered them swiftly to her lap and out of sight. After a moment Case lifted his gaze.
“You’re still worried about Dare?” he asked quietly.
“Yes,” said Trawley. “I’m worried about all of us, really.”
“Don’t be concerned,” Case told her.
“Why not?”
“Nothing ever seems to happen here until dark.”
“Boys? Where are you, my babies? Are you here?”
Lost and forlorn, confused, frightened, Dare made his way slowly along a hallway. Setting out to find his dogs, he had entered the hall from which Morna had first been seen to emerge, and in moving from hall to connecting hall he’d soon found himself wandering in a maze and completely unable to retrace his steps.
He opened a door and looked into a bedroom.
“Boys? Are you here? Maria? Pompette?”
Through a window sunlight sifted into the room, thin and filtered through the branches of giant oaks. A narrow beam had found its way unbroken to a bureau. Dare stared; he thought it odd that no dust motes danced within it. The next instant the dust motes appeared in the beam, swirling swiftly in a spiraling Brownian movement. For a moment Dare contemplated this event, then dismissed it and again called out softly, “Here,