Lady of Hay by Barbara Erskine (reading an ebook TXT) 📕

He thinks it's an allergic reaction to electric force fields, or something. " She gave a little laugh. "He said I'd probably be the sort of person who pukes under pylons. "

Nick managed a smile. "But you didn't tell them about the regressions, did you?"

She shook her head. "They'd have locked me up, Nick. And kept me in for a month for psychiatric tests. If anyone is going to do any tests on me, it's going to be Carl Bennet. " She glanced up at him under her eyebrows. "Would you come with me, Nick, if I went back to him?"

Nick frowned. She saw his fingers clench and unclench around the handle of his knife. "As an observer, Jo, " he asked quietly after a long pause, "or as another patient?"

She went up at about nine. Nick did not stop her. Nor did he suggest he go to bed too. Instead he let himself out into the street and began slowly to walk toward the church.

The churchyard was shadowy. It smelled of new-mown grass in the evening twilight as he sat down on the wall and lit a cigarette, feeling the dew soaking into his shoes. He could see the bats flitting in and out of the darkness of the yew trees around him and once or twice he heard their faint sonar squeaks. Slowly it grew dark. He knew he ought to go back. Mrs. Griffiths would probably be waiting to lock up, but somehow he did not want to leave the quiet velvet night. He ground out his third cigarette into the grass with his heel, conscious that the dew was striking chill all around him now. Moths had begun to crawl over the streetlight near by, fluttering desperately in its harshness. He watched as the bats swooped through the pool of light, taking the mesmerized insects in quick succession before wheeling out into the darkness again and circling for another swoop. In the distance he heard a clock chime eleven. Reluctantly he stood up.

Jo was asleep. He clicked on the lamp beside his bed but she did not move and for a moment he stood looking down at her. He had described the strange thing in his mind as a shutter. It was more like a shadowy incubus, lying sleeping in his brain, that every now and then shook itself and stirred and murmured. And when it spoke he had to obey. He felt the prickle of fear touch the skin at the back of his neck as his mind skidded obliquely away from the lurking suspicion that had begun to haunt him. But there was one thing he had to face. Whatever it was, this alien part of him, Bet was right, it threatened Jo.

Gently he pulled the sheet up over her shoulders, touching a strand of her hair as he tucked it around her. Asleep she looked so vulnerable. Why should any part of him want to harm her? Bet had seen it. Her bantering and flirting had stopped the moment she had seen the other being in his eyes. And Judy. What was it she had said to him? You weren't regressed. Sam told you who you were and then he told you what to do. He sat down on his bed thoughtfully. But his first attack on Jo had been before Sam had hypnotized him. And Sam would never want him to hurt Jo. Angrily he pushed away the echo of his mother's voice. You must never let Sam hypnotize you, Nick.... Did he find out who you were in Matilda's past? What did he let you remember?

He remembered suddenly Judy's expression as he had moved toward her in the living room of his apartment, intending to take her glass and refill it. She had backed away from him, and he had seen in her eyes the same fear and uncertainty he had seen in Bet's; Judy too had glimpsed the stranger in him.

Jo stirred on her bed and flung out her arm, but she did not wake. Nick looked down at her, then he walked away to the other side of the room. He did not dare let himself touch her again.

She woke at dawn. Her eyes strayed sleepily around the unfamiliar room focusing on the open window for a moment, then she started to shake.

She sat up, clutching her pillow to her chest, burying her face in it as she tried to control the terror that flooded through her. The memory had returned all at once, just as it had before, the details three-dimensional in their clarity. Castel Dinas in the threatening storm, Prince John, the drunken men, and her own vulnerability and fear as the king's brother made his intentions clear.

She clutched the pillow tighter, seeing again the handsome, drunken face above her, feeling his brutal hands on her breasts, feeling her absolute powerlessness before his determination.

"Are you all right, Jo?"

She stifled a scream as Nick's hand closed over her wrist, and, tearing herself from his grasp, she threw herself to the far side of her bed. "Don't touch me!" She slid out of the bed, still holding the pillow, and backed away from him. She was trembling violently.

"I'm not going to touch you, Jo. " Nick moved back. He sat on the side of his own bed, his eyes on her face. "You've had a bad dream, that's all. "

"A dream!" Her face was white as she stared at herself in the dressing-table mirror. "Do you think a dream did this? And this?" She thrust her wrists at him and then her shoulder in the thin silk nightgown with its ribbon straps. Both were bruised and there was a long scratch on her neck near her collarbone. Her throat was bruised and swollen.

Nick stared at her in horror. He had become- suddenly very cold. "Jo! I hope you don't think I did that, for Christ's sake. I didn't do it!"

"Didn't you?" She was like a trapped