Free Dark on the Other Side by Barbara Michaels

she had to
know.
    “What made me faint, Hank?” she asked, in a sweet,
worried voice.
    “I can’t be sure, my dear, until we run a few tests.”
    Linda stopped, pulling on his arm.
    “But you gave me every test you could think of. You said
I was fine.” Her voice rose; with an effort, she got control of
herself. “I hate being jabbed with needles,” she said meekly.
    “Many people do.” Gold’s chuckle would have deceived most
listeners. “My own nurse—would you believe it, I’ve got to give her a
tranquilizer before I can take a blood sample. I think you’re very good
about it, Linda.”
    “But if the other tests were normal—”
    “My dear, that was just a routine physical. There are
rare diseases and deficiencies that require specific analysis. I may
have missed something.”
    “Such as what?”
    She didn’t look at the doctor; she looked at Michael, now
only a few feet away. And she knew.
    “My dear child, I can’t possibly speculate. It could be
anything from an allergy to a chemical deficiency. Perhaps you can give
me the clue—something you ate or drank, something you did today…. Come
along, now, you ought to be in bed; we’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
    The pressure of his arm increased and Linda went with it,
no longer resisting. She had found out what she needed to know. During
Gold’s final speech, Michael’s eyes had met hers. There must be some
truth to this business of ESP, she thought. She had asked, silently;
and he had answered, in equal silence.
    As she went through the doorway, Michael seemed far away
from her. She was tired; so tired she could hardly move her feet. The
doctor’s strong arm half lifted her up the stairs. As she went, through
the thickening mists of sleep, she heard Gordon speak his guest’s name,
and knew that they would be settling down for a long talk as soon as
Andrea left. The pill, the damned sleeping pill; she wouldn’t be able
to creep downstairs to listen, as she had listened to other
conversations. But it didn’t matter. She knew what they would say as
well as if she were in the room, invisible and percipient.
    II
    “Thanks, yes,” Michael said. “I could use a drink.”
    Gordon nodded and went to the bar, which was concealed in
what had been a Hepplewhite sideboard. Glancing around the room, in the
mental equivalent of a man brushing himself off after a crawl through
the woods, Michael reorganized his shaken faculties. The secretary,
Briggs, wasn’t in the room; that was why Gordon was doing his own
bartending. Come to think of it, Briggs had not reappeared after
fetching the doctor. The man must have some idea of tact after all.
    Andrea was still very much with them, though, and Michael
wondered how Gordon planned to get rid of the old woman. The man’s need
to talk crackled in the air like electricity, but Michael thought he
would not bare his soul in front of the witch. Witch…It wasn’t so hard
to believe, seeing Andrea as she looked now. Excitement and the damp
night air had loosened her frizzled hair so that it hung in limp locks
across her cheeks. Witch locks…another appropriate word whose meaning
he had never considered.
    “One for the road, Andrea?” Gordon spoke without turning
from the bar.
    “Subtle as a brick wall,” the old woman cackled. “Forget
it, Gordon, I can take a hint without being primed like a pump. I’m
going.”
    She heaved herself up from the couch in a mammoth flutter
of skirts and jangle of beads. She was too good an actress, Michael
thought, to leave without a good exit line. Gordon seemed to feel the
same way; he turned with a glass in each hand and stood watching
Andrea. Andrea did not disappoint them. Drawing herself up to her full
height, she thrust out an arm and pointed a fat finger at Gordon.
    “You jeered at me tonight, Gordon Randolph, for fighting
the powers of darkness. Take care—for They are not mocked. The time may
come when you will beg on your knees for the help you despise now. Be
sure