SMALL WORLD by Tabitha King

Author:Tabitha King [King, Tabitha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 1981-04-01T21:00:00+00:00

Leyna was genuinely faint when the Hand came back. She lay limp and unresponsive in its embrace. The smell of food again assaulted her when she dared open her eves again. She was back on her bed. The commode next to it supported the silver tray. This time the smells were of broth and buttered toast. When she lifted the covers from the dishes, she cooed with delight. She didn’t notice the wall being replaced. The broth was astonishingly good and she couldn’t help slurping a little as she consumed it.

Afterward she could lie back and feel almost whole again. Amazing what food does for a person, she thought, and wondered if it had something to do with the question of her sanity or not. It was true that hunger could make a person crazy, create chemical imbalances that distorted one’s perceptions of reality. That wasn’t what the Voice of Dorothy had meant though, she was sure of it.

The Voice was her madness and the Face that went with it and its terrible Hands. This room, the bed, the food she had just eaten, that was all as real and sane as could be. The fullness of her belly told her that. She had to be a little bit sane just to be able to consider the question.

Then the Voice spoke again. Leyna flattened herself into the pillows, thinking no, no, no. If It heard her thoughts, It ignored them.

“Look in the wardrobe. There are clothes for you there.”

She waited for It to speak again. For one, two, five minutes. It was silent. She decided It had delivered its message and gone away again.

There was no reason not to see if It spoke the truth. She felt as if she were trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle, though she had no idea what It pictured, and that this might be one small piece. And she was cold and self-conscious when she was out of bed.

When she left the bed, she was certain that Someone watched her. A quick survey of the room revealed no visible cameras in the corners of the ceilings. Sometime soon, she promised herself, she would search for hidden ones.

The wardrobe was one of those relentlessly well-made pieces of furniture that testified to some ancestor’s personal solidity. She admired the smooth, deep finish and the brasswork, the japanning on the doors. It was the sort of thing that fetched tens of thousands of dollars at auction. The appraisal made her reassess the room. It was very well furnished, indeed. A rich person’s room, in a rich person’s old house. Another piece of the puzzle.

Musing on that, she opened the right-hand door of the wardrobe and peeked into the empty darkness. She hesitated, then threw open the left-hand door. Red and white gleamed at her, throwing the light back to her in brilliant clarity. She reached out instinctively to caress the material, silk the color of blood, a satin that was as blindingly white as a snowfield at high noon.

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