The Dark Door by Kate Wilhelm Read Free Book Online Page A

good you do reasonable. You call the evil you see irrational, evil behavior done by people who need help. In that context even evil becomes reasonable. Your own rationality is dangerous, Constance. It can be a trap more deadly than you can conceive.”
    “What a terrifying world you live in,” she said softly, chilled by his death that seemed too close now, too imminent.
    “For me there is no terror,” he said, and she believed him. His personal serenity was unshakable, his faith beyond question. “You see my world as terror filled because I admit to absolutes—absolute good and evil, absolute faith and belief. I see your world as even more terrible, Constance. You can’t measure good and evil with a relative yardstick. When you see absolute good you have to search for hidden motives, puzzle out a compensation system, even if the good is your own. I’m afraid that when you are confronted with absolute evil, you will find your rationality gone, and without reason or faith, you are truly lost. Then you become a tool of evil, no more than that; or you die.”
    “I’m not afraid of death,” she whispered. “That isn’t evil. Death is part of all life. You know that.”
    “We pass on our knowledge of death, our fear if it’s present. Some feel it as a tap, others as a blow. But when that death is brought about by a confrontation with evil, what we pass on can be a fatal blow and those we leave behind feel it that way. Some recover. Many don’t, and they in turn pass it on, ever harder, ever more insistent, ever stronger with the force of evil behind it. It multiplies its effects until someone is strong enough to deny it again, to quell it for the time being. It doesn’t die, it waits for a new victim to start the game again.”
    Constance stood up abruptly. “I have to go. I’ll be late.”
    Patrick rose also. “Remember when our paths crossed over twenty years ago? How outraged you were that I had become a priest. You told me very firmly that if I ever tried to convert you, our friendship would end. I never did, did I?”
    “Of course not,” she said coolly. “Nor I you.”
    He laughed and took her hands. “Goodbye, Constance. Thank you for the apples. For all your goodnesses.” He did not immediately release her; his hands were hot.
    “Why did you talk to me like this now?” she asked, making no motion to draw away.
    “I don’t know. Ever since you called, I’ve had a darkness in my mind about you. My dreams are… troubled these days, dreams of old friends, people I have loved, people I must speak to, people I must ask to forgive me for injuries so old they seem to belong to someone else. People I must warn. At least one person I felt I must warn. You.” He studied her face, then kissed her on the forehead. “I feel that you’re in grave danger. I’m sorry.”
    Whenever Charlie and Constance got to town together they had lunch at Wanda Loren’s restaurant on Amsterdam, half a dozen blocks from the apartment they had lived in for so many years. The neighborhood never changed yet was always different, Charlie thought, as he strode briskly, half an hour late. One shop vanished, was replaced with another not very different. Fondue was out, yogurt in. Sushi houses had appeared; the Italian restaurant that used to serve the world’s best veal in marsala was gone. An Indian restaurant was there instead. The crowds were exactly the same people, he felt convinced, just wearing different clothes. Suits for men and women were in; casual jeans and tee shirts out. The air smelled the same, a poisonous mix of exhaust fumes and metal and people. The noise level was the same, five decibels above tolerable. He ducked into Wanda’s.
    “Hey, Charlie, how are you, for Chrissake! She’s here already.”
    Wanda greeted him with a hug. She was four feet ten inches, weighed too much to talk about, she always said, and had a beautiful face, a cameo face with perfect lines, almond shaped eyes, and not a blemish or