licker
sidewise, but he was outside her range of vision. "I don't LIKE
having you sit where I can't see you," she said crossly. "Freud may
have thought it was a good idea, but I think it's a lousy one." She
clenched her hands and stared at nothing. The silence stretched
thinner and thinner, like a balloon blown big, until the temptation to
rupture it was too great to resist. "I didn't see the truck this
morning. Nor hear it. There was no reason at all for me to slow down
and pull over."

"You might be dead if you hadn't. Would you like that better?"

The matter-of-fact question was like a hand laid across Lucilla's
mouth. "I don't want to be dead," she admitted finally. "Neither do I
want to go on like this, hearing words that aren't spoken and bells
that don't ring. When it gets to the point that I pick up a phone just
because somebody's thinking...." She stopped abruptly.

"I didn't quite catch the end of that sentence," Dr. Andrews said.

"I didn't quite finish it. I can't."

"Can't? Or won't? Don't hold anything back, Lucilla. You were saying
that you picked up the phone just because somebody was thinking...."
He paused expectantly. Lucilla reread the ornate letters on the framed
diploma on the wall, looked critically at the picture of Mrs.
Andrews--whom she'd met--and her impish daughter--whom she
hadn't--counted the number of pleats in the billowing drapes, ran a
tentative finger over the face of her wristwatch, straightened a fold
of her skirt ... and could stand the silence no longer.

"All right," she said wearily. "The girl at Karry Karton thought about
talking to me, and I heard my phone ring, even though the bell was
disconnected. G.G. thought about needing backup material for the
conference and I went to the library. The truck driver thought about
warning people and I got out of his way. So I can read people's
minds--some people's minds, some of the time, anyway ... only there's
no such thing as telepathy. And if I'm not telepathic, then...." She
caught herself in the brink of time and bit back the final word,
fighting for self-control.

"Then what?" The peremptory question toppled Lucilla's defenses.

"I'm crazy," she said. Speaking the word released all the others
dammed up behind it. "Ever since I can remember, things like this have
happened--all at once, in the middle of doing something or saying
something, I'd find myself thinking about what somebody else was doing
or saying. Not thinking--kn