"I was on an interstate highway," she remembered as a sign flashed through her memories. "Heading south. Took me more than an hour to find a phone and call my father. He was... not happy. As scared as I was, or so it seemed to me." She paused, then added, "There was a new clinic the next week. A new doctor. A new treatment."
"I'm sorry, Diana."
She looked at him. "That was one time I was more than willing to try whatever treatment the doctors offered. I was fourteen years old, Quentin, and I woke up on an interstate highway at five o'clock in the morning driving my father's Jaguar at nearly eighty miles an hour. I was afraid I'd been trying to kill myself. I think my father was afraid of the same thing."
"And the doctors?"
"Did they believe I was suicidal?" Her shoulders lifted and fell. "Over the years, some did, I'm sure. But I never did any of the things suicidal patients were supposed to do. Never tried to slit my wrists or hurt myself in any other way. If you discount the blackout experiences, of course. I never tried to hoard medications. Never talked about killing myself, never drew pictures to indicate suicide was on — or under — my mind."
"What about the blackouts? Frequent?"
"There haven't been that many, really. Maybe two a year, and mostly I come out of them in my bed or just sitting in a chair. Like I've been asleep. Dreaming dreams I can never remember."
"The subconscious tends to be a good guardian, and protects us from what we can't or don't need to endure," Quentin said. "I wouldn't be surprised if realizing you're psychic now doesn't open a few doors for you, though. You may begin to remember those dreams. And those experiences."
That was a scary possibility, Diana thought. Maybe even more scary than not remembering anything. She said, "One of my doctors became convinced that the blackouts were caused by an adverse reaction to one or more of the drugs prescribed for me. That was almost a year ago."
"He took you off everything?"
She nodded. "The first couple of months were... hell. It was a supervised withdrawal, so I had to be hospitalized. Watched. So many of the medications had been prescribed to quiet my mind and keep me calm."
"Sedatives," Quentin said. "Antianxiety meds. Antidepressants."
"Yeah. When all those were taken away from me, even gradually, it was like I went into hyperdrive. I lost twenty pounds because I couldn't be still. I talked so fast no one could understand what I was saying. I couldn't sleep, and nothing could hold my attention more than a few minutes at a time. My father wanted them to put me back on the meds because of the state I was in. But the doctor, bless him, held firm. And after the first weeks, my mind was finally clear enough so I could be firm too."
After a moment, Quentin asked, "How long had it been since you'd been completely off medications?"
Diana didn't really want to tell him, but finally said, "The first medications were prescribed when I was eleven. From that point on, there was always something, usually more than one drug at a time. But always something. I'm thirty-three now. You do the math."
"More than twenty years. You've spent two-thirds of your life drugged."
"Just about into oblivion," she agreed.
CHAPTER 8
Madison said, "I don't think this is such a good idea."
"Why not?" Becca wanted to know. "We have to do something, and we don't have much time. Trust me, you don't want to be here when it comes back."
"Are you sure it will come back?"
"Of course I'm sure. It always comes back."
"Maybe this time—"
Becca shook her head. "It's going to keep coming until they stop it. And they won't be able to stop it until they know. Until they understand."
Madison hesitated, then said unhappily, "But she looked so scared. When he left her alone a little while ago, and she locked the door behind him. Even if she is a grownup. She looked so scared."
"I know. But she can change things here, or at least she might be able to try. She's the one we've been waiting for, I'm sure of it. She saw Jeremy, and that's what matters most, what we have to remember. I think she's seen Missy too, so—"
"Who's Missy?"
"You haven't met her yet," Becca said. "She's been here even longer than Jeremy was. She usually stays in the gray time, though, and doesn't come out much, even when somebody opens the door."
"Why not? Isn't she lonely there?"
"I expect so. But she's more afraid of what happens out here. I expect that's because she knew what it would do to her even before it did."
"Really?"
"Uh-huh. She was special, like you are. I expect she's trying really hard to find a way to stop it this time."
"So she can leave The Lodge?"
"I expect so."
Suddenly irritated, Madison said, "Well, I expect it won't be easy, or she could have done it by now."
Becca chuckled. "Does it get on your nerves, me saying 'expect' so much? My mama always said it. Used to get on my nerves too. But now I like to say it, I s'pose because it reminds me of her."
Her ready sympathy stirred, Madison said, "Your mama isn't here?"
"Not here at The Lodge. She's on this side of the door, but I can't see her, of course. Can't talk to her. We were just supposed to stay here a little while, her and my brother and me. They stayed a long time, looking for me. They stayed longer than they meant to, looking for me. But they couldn't find me, of course. They had to go home, sooner or later. So they did."
"And left you here?"
"Well, they couldn't take me with them. They couldn't see me. And even if they had, I didn't have any bones to show them, not like Jeremy."
Madison eyed her new friend uneasily. "I'm glad you don't have any bones, Becca, 'cause I'd just as soon not see them."
"Fraidy cat."
Staunchly, Madison said, "Yes, I am. I don't like bugs, either, or snakes, or anything gross." She bent down and picked up Angelo, who had begun to whine a bit, telling herself the action was to comfort him rather than her.
"Well," Becca said, "all I can say is that you'd better help us try to stop it when it comes back this time. Because if we can't..."
Madison waited, watching as Becca turned frowning eyes toward the cottage several yards away.
"If we can't," Becca continued softly, "there'll be more than bones for them to find. For them to see. A lot more."
Quentin paced the sitting room of his suite, restless and more than a little uneasy. Diana had closed down immediately after telling him about spending most of her life medicated, her face without expression and eyes going shuttered, and after the day she'd had he hadn't dared push her to continue talking.
Not yet, at least.
He was, truthfully, grateful for the time to try to sort through what she had told him so far. He wanted to help her, needed to, and he had nothing to go on except the instincts that urged him to probe carefully, to ask questions when she seemed ready to talk and to offer bits of information about the paranormal as she seemed able to accept it. It was all he had to guide him, that and what she told him about her life and experiences.
A horror story if he'd ever heard one.
Two-thirds of her life spent medicated.
Jesus.
Quentin found it hard not to blame her doctors, and especially her father, for not being open-minded enough to at least consider the possibility that there had been nothing wrong with Diana from the beginning. But they hadn't. Faced with the inexplicable, with experiences and behaviors they didn't understand and were frightened by, they had acted swiftly, with all the supposed knowledge of modern-day medicine, to "fix" her "problems."
Even before she hit puberty, for Christ's sake.