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"I went into the bathroom and washed the slimy semen off my legs. I washed my hands. Then I came back, and I took my rosary out of the nightstand. Big Ramona had found it for me. It was a garnet rosary from my First Communion. Lynelle's gift. I started to say it.

"But I couldn't meditate on the mysteries. I thought of the stranger. What if he came back to Blackwood Manor? If the Hermitage was destroyed, what would he do? I pictured h

im, those fiery dark eyes. How perfectly furious he had been, pivoting wild as a dervish as the broken glass assaulted him.

"And if I went to sleep, I'd dream of Rebecca. "

Chapter21

21

"GOBLIN WAS on time for the meeting with the panel of psychiatrists. He was my faithful duplicate again, and the look of contempt and boredom had vanished from his face. He put his arm around me and I could see that he was afraid of what was to happen with the panel.

"As we entered the room -- Goblin, me and Aunt Queen -- I felt for one moment: What could it be like if I were to trust these people? If I were really to make an appeal to them? Could they help me, not with some cooked-up psychiatric diagnosis but with an active assault on Rebecca and Goblin and on the panic that had driven me to the Hermitage? Could they be a party to my efforts to fight the trespasser?

"My own sheer disloyalty to Goblin, born out of a brand-new fear, put me to shame. But, not being able to read my mind, for all his new attainments, he had no clue of it.

"I quietly demanded that a chair be placed beside me for Goblin to sit, and I laid my hand on his knee and felt him relax. I glanced at his profile and found his eyes chilly as he looked at the panel. I told the panel that, though they couldn't see him, Goblin was sitting to my left and that he was looking at them and hearing everything being said by us.

"As for the panel, I was soon certain that it was impossible to expect anything exceptional from any member of it, and the examination was largely an uneventful half hour.

"Two of the doctors were young, sterile and heartless men, interns, I figure, and the one woman on the panel seemed tentative and overeager to please, and the chairman of the board was a big heavyset doctor who seemed himself to be suffering from terminal depression.

"Winn Mayfair was there and he studied me in dignified silence. His was by far the most interesting face.

"I told them quickly, and dryly, my whole story. I kept back nothing except the most recent and private details of my erotic relationship with Goblin. Of his heroics I made much. Of our sexual contact, I said nothing. When I described my love affair with Rebecca and the burial of her remains, the visits of the Mayfair Medical lab to the Hermitage and the attendance of the FBI, they looked to Aunt Queen, who confirmed what she could readily.

" 'You do realize,' said the heavyset head doctor, 'that no fingerprints whatsoever were found in the bathroom where you were supposedly attacked. Nothing on the walls, the lavatory or on the pieces of glass that could be examined. ¡¯

"I hadn't known, and I was bitterly disappointed that I had to be told such a thing in these circumstances.

" 'The trespasser didn't touch anything but me,' I said quietly, my face burning with restraint. 'The glass was in fragments. ¡¯

" 'You also know,' said the chairman of the panel, 'that your housekeeper Ramona didn't see this intruder, and none of the guards on your property saw him either. ¡¯

"Again, I was hurt that Aunt Queen had not told me these things before, but I swallowed hard on my anger and simply shrugged.

" 'Dr. Winn Mayfair can tell you,' I said. 'My injuries weren't self-inflicted. ¡¯

"We had come to an impasse.

"Then the doctors put the same routine questions to me that child psychiatrists had used years ago, with a few new wrinkles, such as, Did I hear voices? Did Goblin ever tell me what to do? Did I ever suffer blackouts? Did I know my own IQ? Had I no interest in attending college? I gave simple answers. I wanted it to be over.

"At last Winn Mayfair asked me in a very quiet and respectful voice whether or not he and the others could do anything for me. Did I perhaps have questions for those who'd been questioning me?

"I was completely taken aback by this. I never expected anything so friendly or reasonable. Common sense told me to stop and think this over. But then I heard myself responding:

" 'No, I think this has gone on long enough. I presume you will confer and send us word of your diagnosis?¡¯

" 'We'll do that, if you like,' said Dr. Winn. 'We thank you for coming. ¡¯

" 'You talk like I'm a specimen,' I said, ignoring Aunt Queen's little gasp. 'Was I brought here for your sake or mine?¡¯

"Dr. Winn was unfazed by the sharpness of my tone.

" 'This is a teaching hospital, Quinn,' he said. 'It's reciprocal what goes on. As for your diagnosis, let me tell you now it's perfectly obvious that you're not a manic-depressive, a schizophrenic or a sociopath. Those are the ones that worry people. ¡¯

"He rose to his feet -- a signal to all those present -- and this time he shook my hand and 'applauded' my patience.