Diana left her bedroom, vaguely interested to see how featureless the cottage seemed without color or shadows, but not interested enough to stop. There was somewhere else she had to be.
She left the cottage, stopping on the path that led from her door. Waiting. The lights out here looked strange and dull, not bright but merely a paler shade of gray. The shrubbery and flowers planted in pots and beds all around the cottage were eerily still and held that same one-dimensional appearance, like a grayish copy of a picture that had once held vivid color.
Not a breath of air stirred the cold twilight, though a faint, slightly unpleasant smell lingered. It wasn't something Diana had ever been able to identify, though it was somehow familiar. There were no night sounds, no pulse of life. There never was.
"Diana."
She turned slightly and looked at the little girl standing several feet away. A pretty child, with what seemed, in the colorless gray-ness, to be very fair hair surrounding a heart-shaped face.
"Hello." Diana noted the hollow sound of her own voice, the almost-echo. Different from the child's voice, which was perfectly clear. That, also, was normal for the gray time.
"You have to come with me," the little girl said.
Diana shook her head slightly, not negation but impatience. "The last time I followed one of you, it was to a grave."
The little girl frowned. "But Jeremy was on the other side. Your side. You know the difference. And you know the rules."
Diana did know, and quite clearly. In the gray time, her memory was perfect, her understanding absolute. For all its eerie strangeness, the gray time was a place in which she felt in control. But she also knew the dangers involved.
"I know this is not a safe place for me to be, in between two times. Two worlds."
"You can't stay long," the little girl agreed. "Keeping the door open is dangerous, that's one of the rules. And if you close it while you're still inside, you'll be trapped here. I don't expect you'd like that."
"No. I don't expect I would."
The little girl smiled. "Then we'd better hurry."
"What's your name?" Diana asked, because she always did.
"Becca."
Diana nodded. "Okay, Becca. You're the one who called me?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"There's something you need to see." Another frown drew her brows together. "And we really do have to hurry."
"I've spent hours here before," Diana protested, but followed nevertheless as Becca turned and led the way toward the distant stables.
"I know. But being on our side here — here at The Lodge — is much more dangerous for you. Besides, he'll be here soon, and he won't let you stay."
"He? Becca—"
"This way. Hurry, Diana."
Knowing from long experience that protest was useless, Diana followed her guide. They were always like this, taking her places, insisting that she see what they wanted to show her, do what they asked of her. Or just listen to them.
She had listened to a lot of them, over the years.
"Why is it more dangerous for me to be here while I'm at The Lodge?" she asked, hoping for at least one answer.
"Because it started here."
"What started here?"
"Everything."
Diana wondered if she'd expected the "answer" to make sense. Tough luck, if she had.
"Becca, I don't understand."
"I know. But you will."
Diana picked up her pace, since Becca definitely had, and followed the little girl into the first of three barns making up The Lodge's stables. They walked down the long, silent hall, past stalls with their half-open Dutch doors. Diana didn't have to look to know that each stall appeared empty.
She also knew there were a dozen horses stabled here. Here in this barn at The Lodge. Not here in the gray time.
It had taken her a while to get accustomed to that.
There were no animals here, not because they lacked whatever energy or spiritual essence survived death, Diana believed, but because nonhuman creatures seldom lingered in the gray time, caught between two worlds due to guilt or anger or unfinished business. Only people did that.
"Not much farther," Becca said over her shoulder.
"Becca, is this about you?"
"I called you, didn't I?"
"We both know that doesn't mean anything. I had one guide who called me a dozen times, and it was never about him."
Becca stopped about halfway down the hall and turned to look steadily at Diana. "This time, it's about you."
"Me?"
"Yes."
"What do you mean?" Diana crossed her forearms over her breasts and rubbed her upper arms with her hands, trying to fight off the chill. Not that it helped. It never did.
"You were always meant to come here, Diana. To The Lodge. You've been tied to this place your whole life."
"How could that be? I've never been here before."
"Connections."
"Is that supposed to make sense? Because it doesn't."
Becca shook her head slightly, but said, "Things have to happen the way they happen. When they happen. Do you think it was an accident that the doctor took you off all the medicines when he did? That there's been just enough time to get your mind clear and all those chemicals out of your body?"
"Just enough time?"
"Enough time for you to be ready when you came here."
Diana was conscious of a new chill, a deeper one. There was something wrong here, something different. She had talked to guides for more than twenty years, and this... this wasn't the way those conversations had gone.
Like Jeremy and his bones, most of them had needed her to act on their behalf. To find something for them. To pass on some sort of information. To finish their unfinished business. It wasn't about her. It was never about her.
Becca nodded, as though she had heard those unspoken thoughts. "It feels different, doesn't it? That's because you're here, really here, in the flesh. You could do it sometimes before, when you blacked out, but never when you were asleep. When you were asleep, it was just... like a dream. Only a part of you was here, on this side. The medicines mostly kept the rest of you from crossing over."
"I'm not dead," Diana said slowly.
"No, of course not. That's not what this is about. It's time, Diana. Time for you to start remembering the places you go to when you sleep or black out. Time for you to realize what you can do. What you've been doing most of your life. Time to come here, and meet him, and begin to find the answers you need. It's all part of your journey."
Confused, Diana said, "But I won't remember. When I'm awake. I never remember."
"You never remembered before because of the medicines. They couldn't keep you from doing what you had to do, but they could keep you from remembering. Think about it. You haven't blacked out since they took the medicines away."
"The drawing. The painting."
"He explained to you. That was different from the blackouts. That was just like a kind of daydreaming."
Diana was silent.
"If you let yourself remember now, let yourself understand and believe, there won't be any more blackouts, Diana. There won't need to be. It'll still be easier to open the door and come here when you're asleep, but you'll be able to do it when you're awake. Whenever you want to. If you believe."
"It's not that simple."
"Isn't it? You're halfway there. You've been remembering your dreams," Becca said.
"Nightmares," Diana said involuntarily. "And I don't remember, I just... They scare me."
"They're supposed to."
That young, grave, sweet voice sent another of those deeper chills darting through Diana, and she fought an urge to take a step back. Instead, she said, "You called me. Brought me down here. Why?"