could have fallen in ... not really any bears
around here ... but she never gets hurt ... creek ... bear ... twisted
ankle ... dark ... cold....) She had veered from her course and
started in the direction of the first thought, but now they were
coming from all sides and she had no idea at all which way to go. She
ran wildly then, first one way, then the other, sobbing and calling.

[Illustration]

"Lucilla!" The voice sliced into the night, and the dark mountainside
and the frightened child were gone. She shuddered a little,
reminiscently, and put her hand over her eyes.

"Somebody found me, of course. And then Mother was holding me and
crying and I was crying, too, and telling her how all the different
thought at once frightened me and mixed me up. She ... she scolded me
for ... for telling fibs ... and said that nobody except crazy people
thought they could read each other's minds."

"I see," said Dr. Andrews, "So you tried not to, of course. And
anytime you did it again, or thought you did, you blamed it on
coincidence. Or luck."

"And had that nightmare again."

"Yes, that, too. Tell me about it."

"I already have. Over and over."

"Tell me again, then."

"I feel like a fool, repeating myself," she complained. Dr. Andrew's
made no comment. "Oh, all right. It always starts with me walking down
a crowded street, surrounded by honking cars and yelling newsboys and
talking people. The noise bothers me and I'm tempted to cover my ears
to shut it out, but I try to ignore it, instead, and walk faster and
faster. Bit by bit, the buildings I pass are smaller, the people
fewer, the noise less. All at once, I discover there's nothing around
at all but a spreading carpet of gray-green moss, years deep, and a
silence that feels as old as time itself. There's nothing to frighten
me, but I am frightened ... and lonesome, not so much for people, but
for a sound ... any sound. I turn to run back toward town, but there's
nothing behind me now but the same gray moss and gray sky and dead
silence."

* * * * *

By the time she reached the last word, her throat had tightened until
speaking was difficult. She reached out blindly for something to cling
to. Her groping hand met Dr. Andrews' and his warm fingers closed
reassuringly around hers. Gradually the panic drained away, but she
could think of nothing to say at all, although she longed to have the
silence broken. As if he sensed her long