Sunlight made a bright, creamy design on the drawn blind. Filtered
sunlight filled the bedroom, like a coolly glowing liquid. The birds
were chirruping 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 Tansy
had not made an expedition into the country this whole spring. He'd
talk 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 hungry. Must be late.
He opened an eye and focused the bedroom clock. Twelve thirty-five?
Say, just when had he got to bed last night? What had he been doing?
Memory of the past few days uncoiled like a loosed 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
degree 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 and 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'd 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 Tansy 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 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.
"Tansy," he called. "Tansy!"
He walked through the house, with the vague apprehension that she might
have passed out before getting to bed. They'd been drinking like fish.
He went out to the garage and made sure that the car was still there.
Maybe she'd walked to the grocer's 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 pen point had gouged through the
paper--and it broke off twice in the middle of a sentence, but it was
undeniably in Tansy'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 four-inch 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 pen 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 she knew,
she had talked to them gayly, 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 so 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.