Woman by Richard Matheson Page A

playing mother.
     
         "Ganine, that hurts," he said. He didn't like the
feeling of ineffectiveness he could not control.
     
         Abruptly, he looked
startled. "It feels funny," he said without thinking.
     
         "I know," she
said. "That's because it's getting better."
     
         He wanted to contest what
she was saying but was unable to do so. He stared at her small, white hands as
they rubbed, almost caressingly, around his ankle.
     
         He felt, suddenly,
incredulous. "My God," he murmured. The pain was clearly diminishing.
He wanted to tell her but still felt the same nervous uneasiness about her.
     
         "It's better, isn't
it?" she said. It was not a question.
     
         He had to speak.
"Yes," he told her. "It is." Regardless of his continuing
apprehension about her, he felt a surge of physical comfort. "It's
incredible."
     
         "No, it's not,"
she said. "I can do it all the time."
     
         David felt that this was the
obvious time to question her about her unusual—some might consider it
miraculous— power. Amazement—and relief at the ending of pain—was now becoming
a need to understand what strange abilities she seemed to possess. Seemed? he thought. They were real.
     
         He didn't know how to start
though. "You've. . .done this before?" he asked.
     
         "I told you, with my
father," she answered, her expression one of almost smugness. It irritated
him but, somehow, he didn't dare react adversely to it.
     
         "The pain is gone
now," she told him. "You can walk." She removed her hands from
his ankle.
     
         "That's. . .it?"
he asked uncertainly.
     
         "Yes." She nodded,
smiling. "You can walk now."
     
         He hesitated, then had to be
sure that, what seemed to have happened, really had. Tentatively, he started
rising to his feet, putting weight on his ankle gingerly.
     
         Damn, he thought. It had
really happened. The pain was completely gone.
     
         "See?" she said.
"I told you."
     
         He walked around a little
bit. "I will be damned," he said, looking amazed. Ganine smiled.
"I'm glad I helped you," she told him.
     
         "Did you pass my wife
in the hall?" he asked.
     
         She looked taken back by the
question but shook her head. "I didn't see her."
     
         He couldn't imagine how that
was possible. But if Liz had seen her, she obviously would have come back and
more likely locked the door. He'd have to accept what Ganine had said.
     
         It occurred to him then.
"Why did you tell me you lived in this building?" he asked.
     
         She looked embarrassed.
"I was afraid that, if I didn't, you might not have talked to me,"
she said.
     
         That didn't make sense to
him but, once more, he hesitated to confront her in any way. "Have you. .
.demonstrated this ability of yours to anyone else?" he asked.
     
         "No," she said.
"Only you." Her smile was—he could not avoid the
observation—undeniably tender. "I have to like the person."
     
         Something about the way she
said it made him uneasy again. He remembered what happened to Val, even—as much
as he wanted to avoid the thought—Charlie. Could she do harmful things as well
as what she did for him? He stared at her with no idea what to say.
     
         "Where did your wife
go?" Ganine asked.
     
         An involuntary shudder laced
across his back. Why did she want to know? Could he avoid answering her? He
felt uneasy about that too.
     
         "To the hospital,"
he told her. "A friend of ours is there."
     
         "The man who fell down
last night?" she said, wincing at her memory of it. "Who had blood
coming out of his mouth?"
     
         Suddenly, David wanted very
much to get rid of her. Despite what she'd done to his ankle and despite her
obvious—that was almost unnerving as well— affection for him, he was totally uncomfortable with her again.