Free Wheel of Stars by Andre Norton Page B

the only key was in her possession. Then—how—?
    Someone had entered. The weight of the pendant she now wore, the globe which still rested on the table when she returned to the kitchen—those were proof, solid uncomfortable truth. Tor Lyle?

    Picking up the ball of crystal she set it back on its wave base. Was this all some elaborate trick of his devising? Yet the pendant was Lady Lyle’s—not Tor’s. And the mistress of Lyle House was gone.
    Those dark, silent servants of hers—had one of them the skill to invade Gwennan’s house without leaving a trace, to bring this gift? Was it really a gift? Uneasiness fairly stirred in her—fleeting and swiftly gone.
    Gwennan turned to a cupboard, moved canned goods on the wide lowest shelf to leave space there enough to store the tray with its crystal. Pushing back the cans to hide it, she slammed shut the door, stood breathing a little faster. Perhaps if she hid the pendant, too, her hands moved towards that and then fell to her sides. No—this she must keep with her.
    If Tor was playing games she must be forewarned. Lady Lyle was the key—Gwennan believed that now if she believed nothing else. Perhaps the incense or smoke had been drugged. Yet she knew that Lady Lyle had prized this pendant. If she herself only knew more! Her head was beginning to ache.
    Tor’s approaching her this evening—wanting her to go to Lyle House. Her hands balled into lists, she slammed them down on the table with near bruising force. She was caught now—tightly—in something she could not understand. Her only hope was to keep a sensible rein on her imagination, to live as she always had. She went to pry the notebook out of her coat pocket, refusing to glance at her research from the olddocuments. No more of this either—no more of anything which had to do with “devils”, standing stones—or the people in Lyle House!
    Gwennan was ready to stuff the notebook into the old stove and drop a match on it, but she could not quite bring herself to do that. Instead she jammed it into the drawer of the desk in the corner next to the lumpy sofa. Then she set about preparing supper, determined to keep her mind firmly on the facts and figures of the report which she must put into final shape tonight.
    The dark was already thick outside and she could hear the wind rising. Though it was very late in the year for such a storm, she listened to the distant mutter of thunder. Without being conscious of what she did until she moved, Gwennan kept glancing at the windows. All she could see was the glass reflecting the lighted kitchen. For a moment she wished she had curtains which could be twitched across to cover the whole of those openings on the outside world. But the gingham ones hanging there were not meant to meet so. There was NOTHING outside but the night and the wind, raising clouds of leaves. Nothing!
    She ate slowly, one forkful after another, but she found the food tasteless, and her mouth seemed so dry she constantly sipped from the mug of chocolate she had prepared. The food lay heavy in her middle, and she was afraid of one of those bouts of stomach disorder of which she had been so much the victim during the last months of nursing Miss Nessa—when she had always been listening for a voice calling from the other room. Now she listened again, actually, with allher body it seemed, to the wind and to what must be distant thunder. So far there had been no flashes of lightning.
    Gwennan washed the few dishes. She had never felt so starkly lonely before. Perhaps if she got a kitten—the Newtons’ cat was always producing litters. She had thought vaguely before of asking for one. Miss Nessa had never welcomed pets which, she had stated firmly, were far more trouble than they were worth. But to have something alive beside her in this house now would be comforting.
    Comforting? What was the matter with her? She had never needed anyone before. Miss Nessa had been a duty, never a companion. Gwennan had