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 animal, her shoulders pressed against the wall. “How do I know it wasn’t you?”

“It wasn’t, Jo.” Nick moistened his lips nervously with his tongue. “You were asleep last night when I came back from my walk. I didn’t touch you. I slept here in this bed, until just now when you woke me. For God’s sake, Jo! Do you think I could do that to you in your sleep and you not wake?” He was breathing heavily. “You’ve had a dream. Another regression in your sleep. It wasn’t anything to do with me, Jo.”

She was a little calmer now. He saw her arms still defensively clutching the pillow, her face pinched and white. “No,” she breathed at last. “It was at Castel Dinas, I remember now.” She took a deep painful breath. “We rode there with the prince’s men. There was a storm and the castle guard was terribly frightened-of the ancient gods. I don’t know who they were. Celts, or Druids, I suppose, but they still walk the hills. John and I were there. Alone.”

“John?” Nick whispered. He could feel the goose bumps rising on his skin.

Jo looked at him directly for the first time. “Prince John,” she said. They stared at each other in silence.

Nick tried to swallow the sudden bile that had risen in his throat. “And he did that to you?” he said slowly.

She nodded. He could see the accusation in her eyes. “It was you, Nick-”

“No!” He launched himself from the bed. “Jo, get a grip on reality! It was not me! You were in a trance. No one touched you except inside your head. I took you to the hospital and they kept you there for hours while they examined you. There wasn’t a mark on you. Not yesterday, not last night. It happened in your sleep, Jo!” Gently he took the pillow from her and put it back on the bed, then he caught her hands. They were ice-cold. “Jo. I think we should see Bennet. As soon as possible.” He pushed her into a sitting position on her bed.

She was looking up at him. Tentatively she raised her hand and traced her fingers lightly over his eyes and nose. Suddenly her eyes filled with tears and she threw her arms around his neck. “Oh, Nick, don’t let it be true. Please,” she cried desperately. “Don’t let it be true.”


***

After-dinner cigar smoke wove around fluted silver candlesticks and drifted up to the high ceiling, curling beneath the plastered moldings. Ponderously Sam stood up, a glass of port in one hand, and walked down the long table to a vacant chair near its head. He put down his glass and extended his hand. “Dr. Bennet? My name is Samuel Franklyn.”

Bennet looked up and surveyed him briefly, then he indicated the empty place beside him. “Please, sit down, Dr. Franklyn. I hoped we might meet here this evening,” he said. He reached for the decanter. “We have a patient in common, I believe.” He glanced up once more, his eyes narrowed. “One of the most interesting cases I have ever come across. Cigar?”

Sam shook his head. “She has finally changed her mind about our conferring-now that it is too late for me to stop your becoming involved-did she tell you?”

Bennet raised an eyebrow. “She did not. But I did intend to have a word with you anyway, I must confess.” He was studying Sam’s face with interest. “When did you last see her professionally?”

“On the twelfth. You were away, I believe.”

Bennet nodded slowly. “I saw her the following week. We had a very disturbing session during which I tried, at her request, to suggest to her that her interest in her past life would lessen or be lost altogether. She rejected the suggestion and became very disturbed. It was necessary to sedate her. I have not spoken to her since then. She missed her next appointment.” Thoughtfully he kept his eyes fixed on Sam’s face.

“She went to Wales.” Sam took a sip from his port. “She decided to try to check some of the facts and locations of these regressions for herself. And now, I gather, she has begun to regress spontaneously.”

Bennet sighed. “Autohypnosis. I was afraid that might happen.”

“And not entirely involuntary, I think. I gather you believe in this reincarnation?”

Bennet smiled warily. “I try to be objective about my patients. In fact I had contacted one or two people with whom I would like to have confronted Joanna. A medieval historian. A linguist who would question the Welsh she has begun to speak from time to time. A colleague, Stephen Thomson-you’ve probably come across him-all of whom would be better equipped to judge the material she is producing. They could tell us so much about where all this is coming from if she could only be persuaded to return.”

Sam gave a slow smile. “She will return, I’m sure of it. My brother is with her in Wales at the moment, and I think he’ll see to it, one way or another, that she comes back. You met my brother, I believe?” he added thoughtfully after a moment.