Free Out of Nowhere by Gerard Whelan

monastery,’ the abbot said, ‘Brother Thomas came to see me. He was very frightened, because he thought he was catching whatever it is that’s wrong with the majority of our guests. He thought he was seeing things.’
    ‘Seeing things? Like what? What did he see?’
    ‘He saw … he saw you stop by the well. Then you leaned over and looked down into the water. And just then, as Thomas watched, Fräulein Herzenweg appeared beside you – literally. She didn’t walk over to you. She simply appeared, out of thin air, standing beside you and looking at you with some concern. You jumped up, obviously startled, and turned to look at her. But she was gone. She’d disappeared – like a light going out, Thomas said.’
    Stephen felt the blood drain from his face.
    ‘But that was a hallucination,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mention it to anyone. I thought I mightn’t be let go on the trip.’
    ‘So. You did see it too. And do you think Brother Thomas shared your hallucination?’
    ‘No. That’s not possible. But Kirsten simply wasn’t in the courtyard. She was with Philip.’
    ‘I know,’ Paul said. ‘So when Thomas told me his story, I reassured him that he wasn’t going mad and I told him to rest. The youngster is overwrought – we all are – and people see things when they’re frightened. The mind under stress does peculiar things. But when I spoke to Philip yesterday before you left, he mentioned that Fräulein Herzenweg had a moment’s faintness just before you came along. Perhaps she had, after all, gone outside to clear her head. Philip hadn’t mentioned it, but then he didn’t say that she didn’t go out.’
    Stephen could see that this latest mystery was cause for concern. Was there really some contagious form of madness loose in the world? What was it – an experimental weapon of some kind? But that would suggest that some terrible war really had broken out.
    ‘You think the madness might be spreading?’ he asked the abbot in a hushed voice.
    Paul sighed.
    ‘I haven’t finished my story,’ he said. ‘I sent Thomas to rest, but of course I didn’t dismiss his story – one can’t dismiss any oddity in this situation. I just thought I’d check with you when you returned.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘Fräulein Herzenweg was with Philip when you and Thomas saw her, there’s no doubt about that. But she did report an odd passing weakness just before you came in. She described it as a strange pulling sensation in her head. She couldn’t recall ever having such a feeling before – of course, that meansnothing in the circumstances.’
    Stephen frowned. ‘But you’re not taking seriously the notion that …’
    He stopped. What, if anything, was the abbot suggesting?
    ‘When your party came back,’ Paul continued gently, ‘it was obvious that something very bad had happened. Philip said he had to talk to me immediately.’
    He seemed unsure how to go on. He leaned forward and stared into Stephen’s eyes again.
    ‘I’m certain you’re telling me the truth as you know it,’ he said. ‘And I’m equally sure about Fräulein Herzenweg. Tell me, the weakness you felt in the courtyard, did it feel in any way odd ?’
    ‘Odd? No. It was just a weakness.’
    ‘And later? In the library? Did you have any peculiar feelings then?’
    Stephen was getting angry. He wanted to retort that he’d had several peculiar feelings, mainly the certainty that he was going to be murdered. But then he thought of what Paul had just said about Kirsten’s description of her weakness, a “strange pulling sensation in her head”. He suddenly remembered the moment in the library when he’d heard Kirsten’s scream, and the weird twisting sensation he’d felt in his own mind.
    It had been a very odd feeling, but in the later excitement he’d forgotten it. Was the abbot suggesting that it was connected with that morning’s hallucinations? Had something like that happened again – had someone else seen Kirsten? But the