The Unquiet past

by Kelley Armstrong

  “And the crying stopped?”

  She nodded. “For a few minutes. Then it started again, from outside the room. I followed it into one of the rooms with a closet. I stepped in to look around. I was propping the door open with my foot, but I heard a scream and it startled me. The door shut, and I couldn’t get it open. I know there’s no lock. It just—it wouldn’t open.”

  Jackson stiffened. His hand dropped to his pocket, pulling out the switchblade. “Like someone was holding it closed.”

  “I don’t think so. I’d slipped into another time, so I couldn’t move the door. But there was no way to know it was a different time, meaning I didn’t realize what was going on. So I panicked. I was trapped. That’s what those little rooms were for. Locking people in. Like the boxes.”

  He frowned over at her.

  “They were restraints,” she said. “Like straitjackets.”

  He shook his head. “Psychiatric hospitals did use things like that—cribs—but they were outlawed more than fifty years ago, and they weren’t like those boxes. They were…well, cribs. With slats so the person inside could see out. Even that’s horrible. Those boxes?” He shook his head. “They’d never use something like that.”

  “They did,” she said. “There are gouges on the inside. Bloody gouges from the woman trying to claw her way out. That’s what I heard. She was scratching in the box and pleading to be let out. When I opened it, I saw the marks. There and inside the closet.”

  He stared at her.

  “You can see for yourself,” she said.

  “Then they’re real.”

  “That’s what I said. There are gouges—”

  “No, your visions. If you heard someone inside the box, crying and scratching to get out, and then you opened it and saw scratch marks, that means you aren’t imagining these things. They really are happening. Well, no, they did happen. It’s like the opposite of a psychic ability. Instead of seeing the future, you see the past.”

  He went quiet, as if lost in his thoughts. Tess didn’t interrupt. She was busy thinking too. This hadn’t occurred to her. If she’d heard a thing and then proved it happened, that was the answer she’d been searching for, wasn’t it? Proof that she wasn’t hallucinating? That somehow she’d opened a door into the past and peeked or stepped through. Unless…

  “Can you check the box and the closet?” she asked.

  “Hmm?”

  “Check to make sure you see what I did. So we’ll know.”

  “Good idea,” he said and pushed to his feet.

  The scratches were there. Old ones, caked with dried blood, exactly as she’d seen them. No blood in the closet, just the scratches. And dents too—she saw those now. Dents as if someone had pounded on the door.

  Jackson found signs of locks on the outside of both the box and the closet. They’d been removed, but the holes were there.

  “I…don’t get it,” Jackson said, fingering the holes. “Why would someone do this?”

  “Restraint.”

  He shook his head. “Restraint presumes the woman was trying to hurt herself. That’s common in psychiatric care, like I said. You don’t want a patient harming herself or others. Restraints are a last resort, but if they’re needed, they are used. Sedatives. Straitjackets. Padded rooms. But the people in these hurt themselves trying to get out. They panicked. It makes no sense to restrain someone in a box where they can move but can’t see anything. Panic is guaranteed. It would trigger the fear of being buried alive.”

  “What?”

  He didn’t seem to notice the sharpness in her voice and replied calmly, still examining the door. “Fear of being buried alive. Poe practically made his career writing about it. It’s a common phobia.”

  “It is?”

  “Sure. That’s the basis of claustrophobia. Even when you know rationally that you can get out, there’s a primitive part of your brain that doesn’t care.” He glanced over at her, lit by candlelight. “Have you ever been falling asleep and your whole body flails?”

  She nodded.

  “It’s called a hypnagogic jerk. People think it dates back to primates and a fear of falling—out of trees or whatever. When you’re about to fall asleep and your body goes limp, sometimes that primitive part of the brain misinterprets it as falling.”

  “Is there anything you don’t know?”

  She meant it as a compliment, but he tensed, averting his gaze, his jaw tightening.

  “I don’t mean—” she began.

  “It’s all right,” he said gruffly. “I go off sometimes. I know. I’ll watch it.”

  “No. I like it.” She felt her cheeks flush and was happy for the flickering candlelight. “I mean, I like learning. Especially interesting stuff like that.”

  He nodded and busied himself checking the inside of the door, clearly uncomfortable with the turn the conversation had taken, and she cursed herself. It didn’t matter if she liked hearing him lecture—pointing out that he did lecture drew attention to something that others must not have appreciated.

  “Back to the subject,” she said.

  “Yes.” The word came on an audible hiss of relief. “I was saying that restraining someone this way wouldn’t be therapeutic. It’s torture. Which makes me wonder if this place”—he looked around—“isn’t what we thought it was. Not a hospital but…” He rubbed the back of his neck, uncomfortable again but in a different way. “You said you hear women. There are people, like that jerk we ran into, who kidnap them for…bad things.”

  “This isn’t that.”

  “We don’t know—”

  “It’s something to do with medical treatment.” She told him about the man she’d seen and the calendar and the conversation she’d overheard.

  “That doesn’t necessarily mean it was a hospital,” he said. “But it doesn’t sound like…the other thing.” He glanced over. “You said he was writing in a journal?”

  “I did. And I know where he put it.”

  Twenty

  ON THE WAY to the basement office, Tess began to backtrack from what she’d said. Of course, there was no way of knowing that the journal would be there. In fact, it probably wasn’t. If the man had hidden it, he’d have taken it when he left.

  “If it’s not there then it’s not there, Tess,” Jackson said as he walked ahead, carrying the candle. “It doesn’t mean I’ll doubt the rest of what you said. You already proved it with the scratches.”

  He picked the lock on the drawer and checked underneath it while Tess held the candle. The strap was there, but it was impossible to see if it still held a book, and Tess barely breathed as he reached in and pulled out…the journal.

  Jackson turned to the first page, squinting and scowling. “His handwriting’s awful.”

  “Reading it by candlelight doesn’t help. Let’s get upstairs near the fire.”

  Once back in the library, Jackson settled on the hearth. Tess tried not to read over his shoulder. Then she tried not to pace. She had equally little success with both, and after about five minutes, he scowled at her. “Sit. You’re blocking my light.”

  Which was impossible, considering she wasn’t between him and the fire. Still, she sat. And fidgeted, until she couldn’t stand it any longer.

  “What does it say?”

  “Medical stuff.”

  “I figured that. What kind?”

  “Psychiatry.”

  Tess let out a sigh. “You’re not telling me anything I didn’t already know.”

  “Then stop asking.”

  She bent over his shoulder, getting in his light for real now.

  “Thérèse…”

  “If you aren’t going to tell me…” She reached for the book.

  He snatched the journal away. “Can we not fight over a paper product in front of a blazing fire?”

  She resisted the urge to fold her arms and say, It’s mine. I found it first. Immature but true. She settled on: “I’m the one who needs answers here, Jackson. It’s fine that you’re
curious, but what happened here is kind of important to me.”

  He closed the journal and looked up at her. “About that. Did we have a talk earlier about honesty?”

  She turned his scowl back on him. “I’m not five.”

  “I never said—”

  “Don’t talk to me like I am then. I can’t be more than a year younger than you, and I might not be quite as smart, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t treat me like an idiot.”

  A sigh. “I’m not—”

  “You are.” She mimicked his words. “Did we have a talk earlier about honesty?”

  “All right. Maybe I shouldn’t have worded it like that. But the fact remains that you have to be honest with me. If I’m helping you get answers, I need to know the whole picture. You should have told me what you heard last night. You should have told me you were going downstairs tonight and why.”

  “No.”

  His brows rose. “What?”

  “No, I shouldn’t have. Last night you hauled me up and kicked me out. Imagine what you’d have said if I told you I heard voices down there. Maybe I shouldn’t have gone into the basement alone tonight, but do you know how many people I’ve told about these things before you? One. I’ve been seeing these visions all my life, and I have told exactly one person.”

  “You mean recently. Since you grew up.”

  “No, I mean since forever.”

  He shook his head. “As a child, you would have told someone. That’s natural. They would have dismissed it as imaginary friends, so you’ve forgotten that you mentioned it. But when you were little, you wouldn’t have known that you shouldn’t talk about it.”

  “I did.”

  “Tess…”

  “All my life, I’ve been terrified of anyone finding out. My gut has always told me to keep it a secret, so I have, and the only other person I’ve ever told is my best friend, and only because he—”

  “He?”

  “Yes, he,” she snapped. “Because I knew he wouldn’t judge me. I can’t say the same for you, and the only reason I explained was because you caught me, and I decided I wouldn’t lose anything by telling you. So in hindsight, yes, I should have told you about that Steve guy before you interviewed him. But this? No. It was not pertinent to the investigation, and I did not put you in any danger by failing to tell you.”

  “You put yourself in danger.”

  “That was my choice. Now, what does that journal say?”

  He looked as if he wanted to argue the matter further but seemed unable to find a basis.

  “Just read it to me,” she said.

  “Fine.” He lifted the book into the firelight. “October 5. Today J. showed signs of improvement. We decreased his dosage and implemented a strict dietary regimen of raw vegetables, fruits and lean meats. While I have my doubts this will help his mental condition, it may improve his overall health and strengthen his mind to fight his depression. This afternoon, P. taught me to play euchre, and we are hoping to encourage Dr. T. to join us. Later, I sat outside with a novel. I find the country air most refreshing and—” Jackson looked over at her. “Shall I continue? Or may I skim and find information that’s actually useful?”

  “It’s all like that?”

  “Mostly. It isn’t a record of deep, dark secrets, Tess. It’s an actual journal, apparently by a young doctor who was involved in a project here.”

  “Project?”

  “Don’t ask me what kind. Obviously, treating mental illness, primarily depression it seems, but that’s all—”

  “That’s something,” she said. “More than we had. Go ahead and skim, but when you get anything to add to the picture, tell me.”

  “Oui, mademoiselle.”

  After about an hour, Tess made him put the book down. Reading cramped, faded handwriting by firelight was a struggle, and by then he was blinking hard and wincing as if suffering from a headache, though he wouldn’t admit it.

  “So the writer is a young doctor of psychiatry,” she said. “He was here doing what seems to be legitimate research on willing patients.”

  “Right, though I can’t imagine…” He shook his head. “We don’t know exactly what they were doing, and when I tried skipping ahead, it didn’t make any sense. We’ll stick to the facts. They were doing psychiatric experiments with primarily—but not exclusively—depressive patients. So far, everything seems to be going fine. He’s happy with their progress. He’s satisfied with their methods…which he doesn’t explain.”

  His not explaining was the most frustrating part. As Jackson pointed out, all research was confidential—you didn’t want a rival stealing it. Even if you were testing a method of treatment, which you’d share later with other professionals, the fact that you’d discovered it was huge. You could publish lots of articles on it.

  “Those articles pay well?” Tess asked.

  Jackson laughed softly. “No, they don’t pay at all.”

  “So they compete to write articles they don’t make money on?”

  “Publish or perish.” He caught her look and laughed again. “Career death. It’s complicated. I know lots of academics, through my parents. You do research. You get it published. You get grants and do the lecture circuits, and that pays, but it certainly doesn’t make you rich. It’s all about the pursuit of knowledge. If you want to do that for a living, you need to get published.”

  “Is that what you want to do?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Become an academic? A professor?”

  Earlier, when she’d asked if he wanted to be a teacher, he’d looked startled, as if he’d never considered it. Now when she asked this, an odd look passed over his face, almost wistful, before he shook it off with a gruff “No, nothing like that,” then went on. “We know it’s psychiatric research, and it’s connected to McGill, because he mentions going down to the university to talk to someone in the psychology department.” He drummed his fingers on the book cover. “We should go to McGill.”

  “The university?” She wanted to say, Is that the right move? Rush back to Montreal based on a line in a journal? But then she realized he’d said they should go there. Together, meaning he was intrigued enough by this mystery that he wasn’t abandoning her at daybreak.

  “We could do that,” she said slowly.

  “McGill is a research school,” he said. “I know people in the psych department. There’s also someone in parapsychology I’d like to talk to.”

  “Parapsychology?”

  “It’s the study of paranormal phenomena. Clairvoyance, reincarnation, telepathy…”

  “There’s a field for that?”

  “It’s not an official one. Not at McGill. I just know a prof who does research in it, mostly exploring people’s reactions to it. But he knows all the various psychic abilities, so I thought…”

  He was talking about her visions. About getting answers.

  Jackson cleared his throat. “Obviously, that’s not a priority. It would just be something to check on while we’re there. My suggestion would be to take another look around the house in daylight. Then we can walk to town for breakfast. I’ll read more of the journal on the way, and if I find anything to suggest there are more answers here than at McGill, we’ll come back after we restock our supplies. Otherwise, we head for the city. Does that work?”

  It did.

  Twenty-One

  ANOTHER RUN THROUGH the house proved pointless. They’d surveyed the books, separately. They’d searched the main level, separately and together. They’d thoroughly scouted the basement the day before. If the house held more secrets, they were hidden like the journal had been, and to examine every nook and cranny would take days.

  By eight the next morning they were heading for town. When Jackson said he would read the journal on the way, he meant that literally. He read as he walked. Tess had tried that before, with a novel too engrossing to leave, but she’d tripped and bumped into things often enough to decide that reading was best left as a sedentary occupatio
n. Jackson seemed an expert, noticing obstacles before she could say a word.

  Jackson didn’t stop reading even when they reached the village. Gaze still on the journal, he handed her a dollar bill, grunted, “Get me whatever” and settled onto the curb.

  Tess managed to obtain breakfast without incident. She wanted to believe that a day with Jackson had vastly improved her French, but the shop clerks here were simply more patient with her than the girl in Montreal had been. The boulanger had even used the opportunity to practice his rudimentary English and given her a bag of day-olds free of charge. It was, she had to admit, a different experience than Jackson’s.

  She stopped in two more shops, filling her bag with food for the day. In the first, she’d asked to use the washroom—after making purchases—so she could clean up. She’d left her boots packed because they weren’t conducive to long walks, but she had tied the scarf in her hair again, and by the time she returned to Jackson, she felt more like herself. He didn’t even look up from the journal, just stayed on the curb and distractedly took whatever food she handed him, eating the bread and jam without a word. Only when he’d finished the bread did he snap the book shut.

  “McGill is our best bet,” he said. “The writer continues to be cagey about the experiments, but all the doctors involved in the project graduated from McGill’s medical school. He refers to the man in charge of the experiment as Dr. K. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say Dr. K. was a professor at McGill, and they came together under him. That’s usually how it works.”

  “We’ll go to McGill then.”

  The only way to get to the bus stop was the same way Tess had arrived—hitch a ride. It was safer with Jackson and in broad daylight. The road was busier too. But it took a long time to get a car to stop, and with each one that sped past, Jackson’s mood dropped. Finally, though, a van full of hippies pulled over. They were going all the way to the town with bus service. Their license plate was from Ontario, and they spoke English.