He finished off with half a dozen lame generalities. He knew they must be quite inappropriate, for the looks grew more puzzled.
But the class seemed very remote. A shiver was spreading downward from the base of his skull, all because of a few words that had printed themselves in his mind.
The words were: A fingernail has flicked a psychic filament.
He shook his head, jumbling the type. The words vanished.
There were thirty minutes of class time left. He wanted to get away. He announced a surprise quiz, chalked up two questions, and left the room.
The cut finger had started to bleed again through the bandage, and there was blood on the chalk.
And dried blood on the obsidian knife. He resisted the impulse to finger it, and sat staring at the top of his desk.
It all went back to that witchcraft business, he told himself. It had shaken him much more than he had dared to admit. He had tried to put it out of his mind too quickly. And Tansy had appeared to forget it too quickly, too. A person could not shake an obsession that easily. He must thrash it out with her, again and again, or the thing would fester.
But with Tansy seeming so happy and relieved the last three days, that might be the wrong course to take, the selfish course—