inking or what he was going to say, I felt good
about it, because I was so sure it was the same way with him and what
I was thinking. We didn't talk about it. There just wasn't any need
to." She lapsed into silence again. Dr. Andrews straightened her
clenched hand out and stroked the fingers gently. After a moment, she
went on.

"He hadn't asked me to marry him, but I knew he would, and there wasn't
any hurry, because everything was so perfect, anyway. Then one of the
company's clients decided to sponsor a series of fantasy shows on TV and
wanted us to tie in the ads for next year with the fantasy theme. Paul was
assigned to the account, and G.G. let him borrow me to work on it, because
it was such a rush project. I'd always liked fairy stories when I was
little and when I discovered there were grown-up ones, too, like those in
_Unknown Worlds_ and the old _Weird Tales_, I read them, too.
But I hadn't any idea how much there was, until we started buying copies
of everything there was on the news-stands, and then ransacking musty
little stores for back issues and ones that had gone out of publication,
until Paul's office was just full of teetery piles of gaudy magazines and
everywhere you looked there were pictures of strange stars and
eight-legged monsters and men in space suits."

"So what do the magazines have to do with you and Paul?"

"The way he felt about them changed everything. He just laughed at the
ones about space ships and other planets and robots and things, but he
didn't laugh when came across stories about ... well, mutants, and
people with talents...."

"Talents? Like reading minds, you mean?"

She nodded, not looking at him. "He didn't laugh at those. He acted as
if they were ... well, indecent. The sort of thing you wouldn't be
caught dead reading in public. And he thought that way, too,
especially about the stories that even mentioned telepathy. At first,
when he brought them to my attention in that disapproving way, I
thought he was just pretending to sneer, to tease me, because
he--we--knew they could be true. Only his thoughts matched his
remarks. He hated the stories, Dr. Andrews, and was just determined to
have me hate them, too. All at once I began to feel as if I didn't
know him at all and I began to wonder if I'd just imagined everything
all those months I felt so close to him. And then I began to dream
again, and to think about that lonesome silent world even when I was
wide awake."