[indecipherable]. No, not this one: the [indecipherable], the one who [indecipherable]. He is ill. Ah, the blood, feel the blood, how it [sings?].

Here, Karras asked, "Who are you?" with the answer:

I am no me. I am no one.

Then Karras: "Is that your name?" and then:

I have no name. I am no one. Many. Let us be. Let us warm in the body. Do not

[indecipherable] from the body into void, into [indecipherable]. Leave us. Leave us. Let us be.

Karras. [Marin? Marin?]...

Again and again he read it over, haunted by its tone, by the feeling that more than one person was speaking, until finally repetition itself dulled the words into commonness. He set down the tablet on which he'd transcribed them and rubbed at his face, at his eyes, at his thoughts. Not an unknown language. And writing backward with facility was hardly paranormal or even unusual. But speaking backward: adjusting and altering the phonetics so that playing them backward would make them intelligible;. wasn't such performance beyond the reach of even a hyperstimulated intellect? The accelerated unconscious referred to by Jung? No. Something...

He remembered. He went to his shelves for a book: Jung's Psychology and Pathology of Socalled Occult Phenomena. Something similar here, he thought. What?

He found it: an account of an experiment with automatic writing in which the unconscious of the subject seemed able to answer his questions and anagrams.

Anagrams!

He propped the book open on the desk, leaned over and read an account of a portion of the experiment:

3rd DAY

What is man? Tefi hasl esble lies.

Is that an anagram? Yes.

How many words does it contain? Five.

What is the first word? See.

What is the second word? Eeeee.

See? Shall I interpret it myself? Try to!

The subject found this solution: "The life is less able." He was astonished at this intellectual pronouncement, which seemed to him to prove the existence of an intelligence independent of his own. He therefore went on to ask:

Who are you? Clelia.

Are you a woman? Yes.

Have you lived on earth? No.

Will you come to life? Yes.

When? In six years.

Why are you conversing with me? E if Cledia el.

The subject interpreted this answer as an anagram for "I Clelia feel."

4TH DAY

Am I the one who answers the questions? Yes.

Is Clelia there? No.

Who is there, then? Nobody.

Does Clelia exist at all? No.

Then with whom was I speaking yesterday? With nobody.

Karras stopped reading. Shook his head. Here was no paranormal performance: only the limitless abilities of the mind.

He reached for a cigarette, sat down and lit it. "I am no one. Many." Eerie. Where did it come from, he wondered, this content of her speech?

"With nobody."

From the same place Clelia had come from? Emergent personalities?

"Marin... Marin..." "Ah, the blood..." "He is ill...."

Haunted, he glanced at his copy of Satan and moodifly leafed to the opening inscription: "Let not the dragon be my leader...."

He exhaled smoke and closed his eyes. He coughed. His throat felt raw and inflamed. He crushed out the cigarette, eyes watering from smoke. exhausted. His bones felt like iron pipe.

He got up and put out a "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door, then he flicked out the room light, shuttered his window blinds, kicked off his shoes and collapsed on the bed. Fragments. Regan.

Dennings. Kinderman. What to do? He must help. How? Try the Bishop with what little he had? He did not think so. He could never convincingly argue the case.

He thought of undressing, getting under the covers. Too tired. This burden. He wanted to be free.

"...Let us be!"

Let me be, he responded to the fragment. He drifted into motionless, dark granite sleep.

**********

The ringing of a telephone awakened him. Groggy, he fumbled toward the light switch. What time was it? A few minutes after three. He reached blindly for the telephone. Answered.

Sharon. Would he come to the house right away? He would come. He hung up the telephone, feeling trapped again, smothered and enmeshed.

He went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face, dried off and then started from the room, but at the door, he turned around and came back for his sweater. He pulled it over his head and then went out into the street.

The air was thin and still in the darkness. Some cats at a garbage can scurried in fright as he crossed toward the house.