Alan cursed The Light and he cursed Joe Metzger, but most of all he cursed himself for letting things get to this point. He should have known, should have foreseen…

But what to do now? This was an impossible situation, yet he shied from the unpleasant decision it called for.

He should say no to these people. They had come to him expecting to be healed, and anything less would disappoint them. To agree to see them and then withhold the power would be unconscionable.

The trouble was, they were looking for miracles. And if he supplied them, they would talk. God, how they would talk! And then the National Enquirer and the Star and all the rest would be knocking on his door. Followed soon by Time and Newsweek.

To protect himself and his ability to practice any sort of medicine, he would have to lie low for a while. With nothing new to fuel it, the controversy would die down and eventually be forgotten. Then he could start using the power again.

Until then he would be just another G.P. Good ol' Doc Bulmer.

He had no choice. He was backed into a corner and could see no way out.

"Tell them I'm not taking any new patients," he told Denise.

The nurse rolled her eyes skyward. "Thank God!"

"Why do you say that?"

"Well," she said, suddenly hesitant and uncomfortable, "you know how you are about turning people away."

"This is different. This is chaos. I won't be able to see anybody with that mob outside. They've got to go."

"Good. I'll tell Connie and we'll shoo them out."

Alan headed for his office as Denise bustled toward the front. As he flipped through some of the morning mail, he heard Connie's voice rise to make the announcement. She was answered by a rising babble of voices, some angry, some dismayed. And then he heard Denise shouting.

"Sir! Sir! You can't go back there!"

A strange voice answered: "The hell I can't! My wife's sick and she needs him and I'm gonna get him!"

Alarmed at the commotion, Alan stepped out into the hall. He saw a thin, balding, weathered-looking man in an equally weathered-looking double-knit leisure suit striding down the hall toward him.

"Just where do you think you're going?" Alan said in a low voice, feeling anger boil up in him.

That anger must have shown in his face, for the man came to an abrupt halt.

"Are you Dr. Bulmer? The one in the paper?"

Alan jammed a finger into the man's chest. "I asked you where you're going?"

"To… to see the doctor."

"No, you're not! You're leaving! Now!"

"Now wait. My wife—"

"Out! All of you!"

"Hey!" someone yelled. "You can't kick us out!"

"Oh no? Just watch! Connie!" His receptionist's worried face appeared around the corner behind the crowd. "Call the police. Tell them we have trespassers in the building interfering with patient care."

"But we need care!" said a voice.

"And what's that mean? That you own me? That you can come in here and take over my office? No way! I decide whom I treat and when. And I don't choose to treat any of you. Now get out, all of you. Out!"

Alan turned his back on them and returned to his office. He threw himself into the chair behind the desk and sat there, watching his trembling hands. His adrenaline was flowing. His anger was genuine and had been effective in confronting the crowd.

His heart finally slowed from its racing tempo; his hands were steady again. He stood up and went to the window.

The strangers were leaving. In singles and pairs—walking, limping, in wheelchairs—they were returning to their cars. Some were scowling and muttering angrily, but for the most part their faces were withdrawn, vainly trying to hide the crushing disappointment of one more lost hope.

Alan turned away so he would not have to see. They had no right to take over his office, and he had every right to send them packing. It was a matter of self-preservation.

Then why did he feel so rotten?

People shouldn't have to feel that way. There was always hope.

Wasn't there?

Their forlorn expressions hammered at him as he sat there, assaulting him, battering his defenses until he felt them crumble. He flung open his office door and strode up the hall. He couldn't let them go away like that, not when he had the power to help them.

I'm going to regret this.

He hated stupidity. And he had decided to do something very stupid. He was going to go out into the parking lot and tell those people that if they went home and called up and said they had been here this morning, his receptionist would make appointments for them.

I can do it, he told himself.

If he was scrupulously careful to swear each of them to secrecy, maybe he could make it work without screwing himself.

It would be like walking a tightrope.

How good was his balance?

JUNE

___21.___

Alan

"I knew it would come to this!" Ginny said from behind the morning paper at the breakfast table.

"Come to what?" Alan said. He was pouring himself a second cup of coffee at the counter.

"As if things weren't bad enough already—now this!" She pushed the paper across the table onto his place mat.

It was the local weekly, the Monroe Express. She had it folded open to the editorial page. Alan's gaze was immediately drawn to the headline in the upper left corner:

THE SHAME OF SHAMANISM

"Cute," Alan said.

"You won't think so after you've read it." Ginny's voice had taken on the belligerent tone that had become too familiar during the past few weeks.

Alan glanced down the column. It took up half the editorial page. He spotted his name. Uneasy now, he began reading.

Most of the first half was a rehash of the notoriety that had surrounded him for the past few weeks; then it became more pointed. It spoke of the fund-raising drive for Monroe Community Hospital's new expansion program, of how extra beds were desperately needed in the area, of how the hospital had to keep a dozen or so patients on cots in the hallways at all times because of the chronic need for new beds. The closing paragraphs chilled Alan:

And so we wonder here at the Express what the Board of Trustees of Monroe Community Hospital will do. Will they wait until a single staff member's unsavory notoriety undermines the institution's credibility as a health care facility, thereby jeopardizing its certificate of need applications? Or will they take the reins of leadership in their teeth and confront Dr. Bulmer on this matter?

Granted, Dr. Bulmer is not solely to blame for the brouhaha that surrounds him, but the fact remains that he has done nothing to stem the rising tide of speculation and hysteria. Under normal circumstances we would respect his right to decline comment on the wild stories about him. But when that silence acts only to feed the fire, a fire which threatens the expansion of a facility so vital to the health care of our community, then we must demand that he speak out and refute these sensational tales. And if he will not, then we see it as the duty of the Board of Trustees to reconsider his position on the staff of Monroe Community Hospital.

"They've got to be kidding!" Alan said, a knot of disquiet tightening in his stomach. "They're identifying me with the hospital. That's ridiculous! I could see it if I was a board member but I'm—"

"You're a doctor on the staff!" Ginny said. "If you look like a kook, then they look like kooks for keeping you on. Simple as that."

"Why can't they just leave it alone?" Alan said, more to himself than to Ginny.

"Why can't you? That's the question! Why can't you give an interview or something and say it's all a crock?"