women favored: both tall without seeming coltish, and close enough of a size to wear each other’s clothes.
“It must be distressing to have the same nightmare over and again,” Dr Magnus prompted her.
“There have been others as well. Some recurrent, some not. Similar in that I wake up feeling like I’ve been through the sets of some old Hammer film.”
“I gather you were not actually troubled with such nightmares until recently?”
“Not really. Being in London seems to have triggered them. I suppose it’s repressed anxieties over being in a strange city.” It was bad enough that she’d been taking some of Danielle’s pills in order to seek dreamless sleep.
“Is this, then, your first time in London, Miss Seyrig?”
“It is.” She added, to seem less the typical American student: “Although my family was English.”
“Your parents?”
“My mother’s parents were both from London. They emigrated to the States just after World War I.”
“Then this must have been rather a bit like coming home for you.”
“Not really I’m the first of our family to go overseas. And I have no memory of Mother’s parents. Grandmother Keswieke died the morning I was born.” Something Mother never was able to work through emotionally, Lisette added to herself.
“And have you consulted a physician concerning these nightmares?”
“I’m afraid your National Health Service is a bit more than I can cope with.” Lisette grimaced at the memory of the night she had tried to explain to a Pakistani intern why she wanted sleeping medications.
She suddenly hoped her words hadn’t offended Dr Magnus, but then, he scarcely looked the type who would approve of socialized medicine. Urbane, perfectly at ease in formal evening attire, he reminded her somewhat of a blonde-bearded Peter Cushing. Enter Christopher Lee, in black cape, she mused, glancing toward the door. For that matter, she wasn’t at all certain just what sort of doctor Dr Magnus might be. Danielle had insisted she talk with him, very likely had insisted that Maitland invite him to the private opening: “The man has such insight! And he’s written a number of books on dreams and the subconscious—and not just rehashes of Freudian silliness!”
“Are you going to be staying in London for some time, Miss Seyrig?”
“At least until the end of the year.”
“Too long a time to wait to see whether these bad dreams will go away once you’re back home in San Francisco, don’t you agree? It can’t be very pleasant for you, and you really should look after yourself.”
Lisette made no answer. She hadn’t told Dr Magnus she was from San Francisco. So then, Danielle had already talked to him about her.
Dr Magnus smoothly produced his card, discreetly offered it to her. “I should be most happy to explore this further with you on a professional level, should you so wish.”
“I don’t really think it’s worth...”
“Of course it is, my dear. Why otherwise would we be talking? Perhaps next Tuesday afternoon? Is there a convenient time?”
Lisette slipped his card into her handbag. If nothing else, perhaps he could supply her with some barbs or something. “Three?”
“Three it is, then.”
•II•
The passageway was poorly lighted, and Lisette felt a vague sense of dread as she hurried along it, holding the hem of her nightgown away from the gritty filth beneath her bare feet. Peeling scabs of wallpaper blotched the leprous plaster, and, when she held the candle close, the gouges and scratches that patterned the walls with insane graffiti seemed disquietingly nonrandom. Against the mottled plaster, her figure threw a double shadow: distorted, one crouching forward, the other following.
A full-length mirror panelled one segment of the passageway, and Lisette paused to study her reflection. Her face appeared frightened, her blonde hair in disorder. She wondered at her nightgown—pale, silken, billowing, of an antique mode—not remembering how she came to be wearing it. Nor could she think how it was that she had come to this place.
Her reflection puzzled her. Her hair seemed longer than it should be, trailing down across her breasts. Her finely chiselled features, prominent jawline, straight nose—her face, except the expression, was not hers: lips fuller, more sensual, redder than her lip-gloss, glinted; teeth fine and white. Her green eyes, intense beneath level brows, cat-cruel, yearning.
Lisette released the hem of her gown, raised her fingers to her reflection in wonder. Her lingers passed through the glass, touched the face beyond.
Not a mirror. A doorway. Of a crypt.
The mirror-image fingers that rose to her face twisted in her hair, pulled her face forward. Glass-cold lips bruised her own.