by Kay Hooper
Quentin knew. He also didn’t care.
He needed to watch Diana, so that’s what he did. Leaning against the window frame, no longer even conscious of the room he was in, he watched.
And waited.
“If he didn’t think so before, the man certainly thinks you’re nuts by now,” Diana muttered to herself as she got out of the shower and dried off. “Way to go, telling him all the gory details. Everybody knows they don’t keep you drugged to the gills for a couple of decades if you don’t have a lot of problems.”
The worst thing was, Diana wasn’t at all sure what Quentin’s gut-level reaction had been. Oh, he’d been all compassion and understanding on the surface, saying all the right things, insisting that being medicated for most of her life didn’t mean she was sick. Just that the doctors hadn’t understood.
Oh, yeah, she believed that. Probably about as much as he really believed it. But she couldn’t tell what he thought, not for certain. She didn’t think she was very good at reading people’s expressions, due mostly to a lack of practice; drifting through life on her medicated cloud, what other people thought or felt hadn’t seemed, very often, to matter.
It mattered now. She didn’t know why, or at least didn’t want to admit it to herself, but it mattered to her what Quentin thought of her. And he undoubtedly thought she was hopelessly damaged goods. It shouldn’t have hurt, that, because she’d always known it.
Now he knew it too.
Angry at herself and so tired that her thoughts were going in even more circles than usual, Diana pulled on a pair of silky pajama bottoms and a matching camisole. It was still fairly early, but she needed sleep and she needed it badly.
She went into her lamplit bedroom and turned down the bed, then sat on the edge and hesitated for only an instant before opening the nightstand drawer. The prescription bottle rolled a bit with the movement of the drawer, then stilled. She picked it up reluctantly.
This medication remained in her system only a few hours, only long enough to allow her to sleep. Her doctor had promised that, had sworn it, and since he was the one who had taken her off all the other medications, she believed him.
Still . . . the bottle was full.
Diana resisted taking as much as an aspirin now. Even with the scattered, restless thoughts and inability to focus on anything for very long, the raw emotions and almost painfully sharp senses, she preferred this state to what had gone before.
She had, mostly, drifted through more than twenty years of her life. She didn’t want to drift anymore.
But she needed desperately to sleep, and she was afraid of what might happen if she didn’t. So she shook a couple of pills into her hand and took them, washing them down with a sip of water from the bottle on her nightstand.
She got into bed and turned off the lamp, then lay back on the pillow. She felt an impulse to go to the window as she had so many nights before, but with an effort ignored it.
Sleep. She needed sleep. All this would make sense to her if she could only sleep.
Her mind continued to chase itself in circles for some time—she refused to look at the nightstand clock to see just how long it went on—but eventually quieted.
And, finally, she slept.
Diana opened her eyes and sat up in bed, oddly unsurprised to find herself in the gray time.
She knew it was still night, even though her bedroom was lit with that oddly flat, colorless twilight she recognized. It was always the same, in the gray time. Never darkness or light, just . . . gray.
She thought she had slept for hours, but didn’t bother looking at the clock on the nightstand. It wouldn’t show her anything. One of the truly spooky traits of the gray time was that there was no time there. Here. Clocks, whether digital or not, were faceless, featureless.
Wherever this place existed, it lay somewhere outside time; Diana had figured out that much. Yet she also had the sense that it was a place of movement, a place between the living world she knew and whatever came after it.
Not the spirit realm Quentin had spoken of, not exactly. More like the doorway, the corridor, connecting the two worlds.
She threw back the covers and got out of bed, aware of the chill of the room, a chill that even seeped upward through the plush carpet so that her feet felt like ice. She knew she should find her slippers or shoes, find a jacket or at least a robe, but didn’t bother. It wouldn’t make a difference, she knew that. It was always cold in the gray time. Cold to the bone.
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 grayness, 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 do
n’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?”
“To show you something. So you’ll really start to believe.”
“Show me what?”
“A secret place.”
“Becca—”
“There are secrets everywhere, Diana. Remember that.” She pointed off to the side, where the door to this barn’s tack room stood closed. “One of them is in there. Tell him to look for it. Tell him it’s hidden there.”
“What’s hidden there? Becca—”
The little girl tilted her head to one side, her expression solemn. “In the attic too. There’s something you need to see up there. It’s important, Diana. It’s very important.”
“Why?” The question had barely emerged when a sudden flash made Diana blink. For an instant, just a split second, she thought she smelled hay, thought the grayness all around her changed. “Becca, why?” she repeated quickly.
“Because it’s the truth. And you need to know the truth. Until you know that, you won’t understand what’s happening here.”
Another flash brought Diana the smell of hay and horses and the sight of fluorescent lights stretching down the barn’s hallway. She felt a sudden warmth grip her upper arms and realized instantly what was happening right now, this moment.
She was being pulled back.
“Becca, what is it? What is the truth?”
Another flash. Then another. She could see Quentin now, in the flashes, standing before her.
“I can’t tell you, Diana. You have to find it out for yourself. You and him. You need him. Because—”
“—it’s coming,” Diana said as she opened her eyes.
“What’s coming?” Quentin demanded, his hands tightening on her bare and chilled upper arms.
A horse snorted nearby, making her jump, and the strong if pleasant scents of hay and horses were suddenly thick in her nostrils. The strips of fluorescent lights down the barn’s hall seemed so bright they hurt her eyes. She wondered vaguely if they remained on all night, then decided that Quentin had probably turned them on when he had followed her into the barn minutes—or maybe hours—before.
Her feet felt like ice. She felt like ice.
“Diana, what are you doing down here? It’s five o’clock in the morning.”
She blinked up at him, for a moment totally baffled, her mind a blank. But then she remembered.
She remembered all of it.
“I was . . . following,” she murmured.
“Following what?”
“Not what. Who.”
Quentin’s frown deepened, but before he said anything else, he took off his zip-up sweatshirt jacket. “Here, put this on. Your skin’s like ice.”
Diana looked down at herself, abruptly aware of her very skimpy attire. The silky camisole was clinging to her chilled flesh like a second skin, leaving nothing to the imagination. Feeling heat rise in her cheeks, she hastily shrugged into the jacket, wrapping herself in the warmth and scent of his body.
“Christ, your feet are nearly blue,” Quentin said. “The stable manager used to keep extra boots and sometimes shoes in the tack room, but it’ll be locked. I need to get you back to the cottage.”
Realizing more by intuition than any movement of his that he meant to pick her up and carry her, Diana took a step toward the tack room and said, “The door isn’t locked. And we . . . we can’t leave yet.”
“Why not?”
Without answering, Diana w
ent to the door, only dimly aware that her feet really were numb; she could barely feel the rough pavers beneath them. She turned the door handle and stepped up into the wooden-floored tack room.
It was Quentin who flipped on the light switch as he entered close behind her, saying, “Good, they still keep the extra stuff here.” He went to the other side of the large space, where a low shelf held riding boots and several pairs of shoes.
Diana stood looking around her. Secret place? Was there a secret place here? All she saw was a tack room, a roughly eighteen-by-twenty-foot space crowded with saddles on stands, and bridles and halters and lead ropes on pegs, and numerous utility trays on shelves holding brushes and combs and hoof picks and other grooming equipment and supplies.
“Sit down, Diana.” He took her arm and led her to one of the two long benches placed back-to-back down the center of the space. Diana sat on the nearest end of the bench, but reached for the shoes he held in one hand before he could sit down beside her.
“I’ll do that. You take a look around in here.”
He frowned down at her. “What am I looking for?”
Diana hesitated only an instant before replying, “A secret.” She bent over to pull on the fairly new-looking but definitely too-large running shoes he had found for her.
“Everything’s pretty much out in the open here,” Quentin noted, looking around. “Except for the first-aid cabinet over there, I don’t see any closed storage at all. What kind of secret could be hidden here?”
Diana didn’t hear in his voice any sign of humoring her, and she saw only intent interest in his face when she straightened and looked up at him, but she was still wary of saying any more than she had to, at least for now.
Not because she feared he’d think she was crazy, but because she was afraid she’d convince herself of that fact if she started talking.
“Diana?”
“What’re you doing down here, anyway?” she asked abruptly.
Quentin replied matter-of-factly, “I looked out my window last night and realized I could see your cottage. And something told me to watch. That little voice I hear sometimes. So I did. Saw you come out and head toward the stables a little while ago. It seemed like a good idea to follow you.” He paused, then added, “It wasn’t a blackout, was it? Your eyes were closed. You were walking in your sleep.”