Forty-Four Box Set, Books 1-10 (44) (10 page)

I had spent the previous night going from one stupid web site to another. Psychics, palm readers, tarot card experts all willing to help as long as I had a credit card number to enter.

“What class is this for?” he asked.

“English. It’s a paper. We could pick any topic.”

“And you chose paranormal activity. Hmmm…” he said, rubbing his chin and writing some more. “That makes sense.”

“It’s a pretty popular subject these days,” I said.

“Pretty interesting too, I imagine, after drowning in the lake and almost dying,” he said, smiling.

I sat back in the chair as if he had slapped me. It still hurt when people brought up my death and I wasn’t expecting it, even if there was no malice behind his words.

I took a breath.

“Sorry, Abby, I didn’t mean anything by that. It’s only that if it were me, in your situation, I would be investigating all that kind of stuff too. Probably would have done it a lot sooner. You went through quite an amazing event. We don’t talk about it much, but I hope we can. It really is remarkable.”

He tapped his pen against his teeth, something he did when he was thinking.

“Well, I only asked because it’s for a paper I’m doing. For school, that’s all. I thought you would know something,” I said.

It came out angry. I couldn’t help it.

“Actually, there has been quite a lot of scholarly research done in that field during the past decade or so. A lot of academics take psychic phenomenon very seriously. And I’m not talking about those phony TV shows or 1-800 numbers. I’m talking about studying real people having actual paranormal experiences.”

That made me feel a lot better. Maybe I wasn’t so crazy after all. Maybe these things were common, like Kate had said.

“Of course, a lot of people don’t believe in any of it. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen,” he said.

“What about you, Dr. Krowe? Do you believe that a person could have a vision or know that something is going to happen or see something happening in a dream?”

He crossed his legs.

“That’s complicated. First I would have to determine the psychological state of the person. I believe that a lot of the people who experience paranormal activity have underlying psychological conditions.”

My chest tightened. In other words, he was saying that they were nut cases. Suddenly I wished I hadn’t started this conversation. I should have kept my big mouth shut. Jesse was right.

Dr. Krowe’s eyes narrowed.

“But if you are able to rule out any sort of psychology problem, I actually do believe that some of those things happen,” he said. “I mean, I think we’ve all been touched in some degree by strange phenomenon that can’t be explained.”

He paused.

“Abby, you’ve never spoken too much about your accident. Maybe it’s time.”

I sat back again. My body tensed, but I had to be brave. I had to go forward. I wanted more of my memories back. And that last breakthrough happened when I was sitting in the same chair, so I figured I might as well open up a little more.

“Would you like to talk a bit about it today? I mean, it’s probable that your interest in the paranormal is related. And perhaps it would be good to explore some of what happened, as well as some of your feelings about it.”

I had done it. Pandora’s Box had been opened and nothing was going to close it back up.

“Okay,” I said.

“What do you remember about that day?”

I thought for a moment. I hadn’t thought about that day in a very long, long time. I had pushed it down far in my mind.

“Nothing, really,” I said. “Just waking up in the hospital. Everything was white and I was really sore. Cold and scared. Kate was crying next to me. Later they told me that I had drowned in a lake and that I had died and they brought me back to life. That’s about it.”

“What about before that. What do you remember before you fell through the ice? Take a moment. What were you doing that day?”

I closed my eyes. The soft, buttery leather was comfortable and I heard the faint buzz of the heater humming in the background. I tried to remember.

“I remember the lake,” I said. “I remember it was white, that it looked like a snowy meadow.”

“Good. Stay with it, Abby. What were you doing on the lake?”

I really didn’t know. I had no idea.

“I’m not sure,” I said.

“What time was it?”

“There is light in the sky. It must be the afternoon, I guess. Maybe it’s snowing.”

“Good. And why are you on the ice?”

I smiled and opened my eyes.

“Because I’m a moron,” I said. “A big, huge moron.”

I looked away to the trees outside trying not to cry as Dr. Krowe wrote in his notebook.

“Come on, stay with it, Abby. It’s important. There has to be a reason you are out there. Were you ice skating? Playing hockey with your friends? Why are you on the ice?”

I thought some more but I really had no clue why I was out there.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything about that day.”

“Except you’re sure about being a moron? Sure that you would just walk out onto a frozen lake and fall in. You’re positive about that.”

I shrugged.

“I don’t know. But, there’s something,” I said.

“Something, what?”

“Something I feel bad about. Something I did. That’s why I think I’m a moron. I mean, obviously. I blew it, Dr. Krowe. I fell through the ice, right? I mean, nobody made me go out there. It was just me. And it was stupid. I lost my life in that lake, regardless of what they brought back.”

I knew I sounded bitter and I didn’t want to be bitter. But the words spilled out and I hadn’t been able to stop them. I should have been appreciative, thankful for being alive and brought back from that awful darkness that engulfed me in those 44 minutes.

Jesse had done the math. He had figured out that I had been dead for 44 minutes. Exactly.

Dr. Krowe held his pen, waiting for more. But I didn’t have anything more to say.

“I think we should go there, Abby. To the lake,” he said, piercing the awkward silence. “I think you know there are missing pieces and you could find them there. It’s up to you to figure all this out, and I want to help.”

Chills shot through my body. The idea of going back to the place of my nightmares made me want to vomit. I never wanted to go back. Ever. I shook my head.

“No,” I whispered. “I can’t.”

“Well, it’s completely up to you,” he said. “I can’t force it, but I’m pretty sure it would help in your recovery. There are things you need to know, and I think you’re ready.”

I didn’t understand what he was talking about. Although I wanted all my memories back, I didn’t see how returning to the lake would help me get them. And it felt like it was too high of a price to pay.

But something else inside, something deep, told me to stop fighting, to face my fears.

“All right,” I finally said. “I’ll go back. But not yet.”

“Good,” Dr. Krowe said, looking up from his notes. “Good.”

CHAPTER 23

Kate and I headed to the hospital after I finished my homework. It was cold outside, a dark winter night, but clear with a zillion stars spread across the sky. On the way over, I couldn’t stop thinking about what Dr. Krowe had said. It whirled around my mind as we walked up to the sliding glass doors.

A lot of things had changed since the accident. Everything actually. And it seemed like Dr. Krowe was telling me that if I went to the lake where I drowned, my old life would float back to me. Was it really that simple? I wasn’t so sure.

But the one thing that Dr. Krowe had asked burrowed in my brain like a leech. What was I doing out on that frozen lake? For some reason, I had never really thought about that before. I wouldn’t have been ice skating and I was sure I wasn’t goofing around, either. There had to be a reason. I needed to figure that part out. I needed that particular memory back to make sense of everything else. It was the key. I could feel it.

But first things first.

We planned on meeting Dr. Mortimer in the quiet waiting room of the orthopedic section of the hospital. It was empty. Framed paintings of the Cascade mountain range were hanging on the walls, large leafy plants were in the corners, and big overstuffed chairs were everywhere. It didn’t look anything like the waiting room downstairs in the ER and I was betting that he came here a lot on his breaks to catch a few minutes of peace.

We walked around looking at the art until we heard the elevator. Dr. Mortimer walked out wearing scrubs with a stethoscope hanging from his neck.

“It feels like a long time since I’ve seen you, Abby,” he said. “How are you doing?”

I was wondering if he had been avoiding me these past few weeks, given his new relationship with Kate.

“Good,” I said.

His eyes had a sparkle and he was surrounded by light, which grew brighter when he turned his attention toward Kate.

“Hey, Kate, good to see you, too,” he said, beaming.

“Hi, Benjamin,” she said.

Benjamin! Things really were different. She glanced at me after she said it and we all laughed nervously. She still hadn’t talked to me about whatever it was that was going on between them, but she did tell me that she was planning on having a talk with Matt on the weekend.

We sat down.

“Kate told me about your memory breakthrough. That was just the best news, Abby. I’m really, really happy for you.”

I knew that he meant it too, that it was almost as important to him as it was to me.

“And I know it’s just the beginning,” he said. “Keep working with Dr. Krowe. He’s a great psychiatrist and he’ll help you get it all back.”

“I think so, too,” Kate said.

Her phone rang and she pulled it from her coat pocket and frowned. It must have been Matt.

“I gotta take this but I’ll only be a minute. Promise,” she said, walking over to the corner.

“So, how’s the ER these days?” I asked. “No more dog attacks, I hope.”

“No, not since that one time, thank God,” he said. “Everything here is fine. Kind of same ol’, same ol’.”

I could see the energy shift as he talked about work. His lightness faded and I figured he was probably worried about a patient. Or maybe he was just tired.

“So, what about school?”

“School’s fine. Same ol’, same ol’ too.”

“You’ll be done with your senior year before you know it,” he said.

I didn’t like thinking about the future. I looked over at Kate, who was animated as she talked on the phone. I couldn’t tell if she was upset or not, just that her hand seemed to be doing most of the talking.

“Do you play golf?” I asked, knowing it came out of left field but wanting to change the subject. “Isn’t that what doctors do on their days off?”

Dr. Mortimer leaned back, his long legs stretched out in front of him. He yawned.

“Excuse me,” he said. “‘Days off.’ What are those?”

He rubbed his eyes. We both looked at Kate, who was now laughing nervously. She held up a finger signaling one minute.

“So have you had any other things come back?” he asked. “Memories, I mean.”

“No,” I said. “But Dr. Krowe wants me to go back to the lake.”

He was quiet as he thought about it.

“Wow, I imagine that would be hard,” he said. “You sure you want to do that?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

Kate walked up quickly and sat down next to him. He smiled as he watched her, lightness flooding back around him.

“Sorry, I had to take that,” she said.

“Okay, tell me what’s going on,” he said, leaning forward.

Kate told him everything, from the very beginning with the first dream of me seeing the mermaid tattoo on the homeless man’s neck to the vision about the murder of the arsonist. I watched him as she spoke, trying to gauge his reaction. He was straight faced through the entire story and I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

But as Kate finished up, the room around us changed. It grew darker, like the lights had dimmed, especially around Dr. Mortimer. Suddenly he had a layer of black moving around him. I stared at his face. Serious and brooding. I had never seen him like that before. It was obvious how uncomfortable he was.

I kept looking at the moving dark energy that surrounded him. When Kate started talking to me, I could barely hear her. She sounded as if her voice was underwater, muffled and soft. Dr. Mortimer came over to me.

“Abby, what is it? What’s wrong?” he asked, his words echoing in my head. Everything was falling away. “Do you have a headache?”

I shook my head. I didn’t.

And then it struck me. The blackness surrounding him was the same darkness that was around the killer in my visions.

I shivered. How could this be true? Dr. Mortimer a killer? It didn’t make any sense, but it felt true. Deep down, I knew it was right.

I took some deep breaths and everything came back in focus.

“I’m okay now,” I said. “Just light headed, that’s all. Sorry.”

“You sure?” he said, still looking at me.

“Yeah,” I said.

I was too scared to look him in the eyes and my mind took off, racing with thoughts about him being at the fire that night. He was the one in the woods, the one I was following, the one who killed the arsonist. Fear flooded my body and I had to get away. The darkness was still around him. I could still see it.

“Well, no, actually, I’m not really feeling so well. I think… I’m just tired,” I stammered, trying to think fast, but my brain was sludge.

How could this be? Had I really seen that right?

“Can we do this another time? I feel like I really need to just get to bed,” I said.

I stood up and smiled at Kate, hoping she would see that I needed to get away. But she didn’t.

“Abby, relax, would you?” she said. “We’re not done here.”

They both looked at me like I was crazy. I knew it must have seemed odd. But I grabbed Kate’s hand and led her away. We had to get out of that hospital. I would explain it all to her later.

I could tell she was embarrassed, but I didn’t care. I heard her making excuses as I rushed us out past the empty admitting desks.