Кей Хупер - Chill Of Fear

Where was Alison working today? Hadn't she said something about the North Wing? Yes, because she'd been unhappy about the assignment; she was one member of the staff who was easily spooked, and was convinced The Lodge was haunted. Particularly that wing.

Ellie had never shared that conviction, largely because she was singularly uninterested in ghosts. Even if they existed, they were dead, so why worry about them? It wasn't as if a ghost could hurt anybody, after all.

Still, as she slipped through corridors and crept up stairways, Ellie was conscious of a weird impulse to look back over her shoulder. She'd rarely seen The Lodge so seemingly deserted, maybe that was it. Or maybe it was just because she was unusually jumpy today, unusually anxious.

Those pregnancy hormones, probably.

She had searched two floors of the North Wing without success. Not that she knocked on every door, of course; she was just looking for Alison's cart. But it was nowhere to be seen, and by the time Ellie climbed yet another set of stairs, she was getting as weary as she was impatient.

She got tired so easily these days, dammit. And that hardly boded well for her ability to hide her condition from the eagle eyes of Mrs. Kincaid.

"He has to come," she murmured as she rounded another corner. "He has to."

"Who has to?"

Almost jumping out of her skin, Ellie stared at someone else who wasn't supposed to be here. "Just — talking to myself," she said hastily, and before that could be questioned, added, "What're you doing up here?"

"Waiting for you," he said.

Diana looked around the still, silent lounge, vaguely interested as always in the peculiarity of this. The strong Victorian colors were gone, the patterns of fabrics and wallpaper muted and blurred now. No lightning flashed outside the blank, silvery sheen of the windows. No thunder rumbled. Everything was gray and silent and cold.

Diana knew Quentin was still sitting beside her, but when she turned her head, he wasn't there. And for a moment, she felt a rush of terror as she wondered if she would be able, this time, to find her way out of the gray time.

"It'll be harder," a sweet voice said. "You're deeper in now. I'm sorry. It has to be this way."

Diana looked toward the door and felt only a little shock to see the sister she had never known. Every bit as thin, pale, and haunted as she had appeared on the veranda, this time she was speaking aloud in a voice much older and wiser than the years she had lived. Her oval face was solemn.

"Missy." As always, Diana's own voice sounded strange and hollow to her ears. She wished she could feel something other than sadness for this unknown sister, but that's what she felt. Sadness. Because Missy had been cheated of her life, and because Diana had been cheated of her sister.

Nodding, Missy said, "We don't have much time."

"There's no time here," Diana said. "I've figured out that much."

"Yes, but he's with you. On the other side of the door you opened. He won't wait very long before he... interferes. He's afraid for you."

"Afraid I'll get... stuck... here."

"Yes."

"Will I?"

"I don't know. I only know that you need to be here, and that now is the best time. While it's storming. There's a lot of energy while it's storming, energy that helps you. Please, Diana, come with me."

Determined to control some part of this rather than be pulled along like a puppet, Diana said, "Tell me one thing. Are you my sister?"

Missy didn't hesitate. "Yes."

"Then why don't I remember you?"

Missy took a step back, then turned toward the door. "Come with me, Diana."

Diana wasn't surprised her second question had gone unanswered; she was only surprised her first question hadn't as well. She got up and followed Missy from the room. "Am I really moving?" she wondered aloud. "Or am I still sitting back there with Quentin?"

Walking without a sound down the gray hallway toward the stairs, Missy said, "You're here only in spirit this time."

Which was the more common way she visited the gray time, Diana knew. She had "awakened" too often in her bed or sitting up in a chair after such a "journey" not to know that much. Still, she had a question.

"Why? This morning was different."

"This morning, I needed to speak through you. I needed him and the other policeman to hear me. Bringing you through the door physically was the first step. You were sort of... connected after that. You felt it, the difference."

"I was cold. I couldn't get warm."

"Yes. I'm sorry about that, but I needed the connection for later. For the cave. So I could speak through you. But it took a lot out of you. More than I expected. I really am sorry."

Diana accepted the apology, but the farther she moved from Quentin, the more uneasy she became. "Where are we going?"

"There's something I have to show you."

Recalling Quentin's wry comment about the curiously unhelpful role spirits often played when there were too many questions and too few answers, Diana said, "Why can't you just tell me who killed you?"

To her surprise, Missy offered an answer. Of sorts.

"Because knowing who killed me wouldn't help you. Or Quentin."

It was the first time she had said Quentin's name, something that caused Diana a curious pang she couldn't have explained. "It would help him. It's — haunted him all these years."

"I know."

"Then don't you want peace for him? Don't you want him to put all this behind him and get on with his life?"

"Yes." Missy stopped and turned to face Diana in the cold, gray hallway. "I couldn't get through, all the times he was here before. I couldn't reach him. Even though he brought another medium at least once to try."

"He didn't tell me that."

"It was a long time ago."

"How do you know that? Time doesn't pass here."

Missy smiled faintly. "Because he was younger. Younger and very impatient and determined. I've always been able to see him from here. I just couldn't reach him." Her thin shoulders rose and fell in a shrug.

"You can reach him now. Through me. So why don't you tell him what he needs to know? Why don't you give him peace?"

"It's not mine to give him."

"That's not true."

"Diana, Quentin blames himself for not protecting me. For not saving me. But, most of all, he blames himself because, deep down inside, he knew what was wrong here. Or at least that something was. He could feel it, just like I could. Being psychic, being a seer, is something he was born, not something created in him the day he found me. The shock just woke him up, that's all."

"Missy—"

"He could feel what was wrong here, but he couldn't believe in it. He was older, maybe that was part of it. Maybe it was just that no one had ever explained why he was different, and so he decided not to be. Decided to be like everybody else. Decided not to pay attention to those feelings he couldn't explain. His mind told him to ignore what he felt, to doubt his senses. He listened to his mind, just the way you listened to the doctors all these years."

"That was different."

"No, it was the same. You knew you weren't crazy. You knew you weren't sick. But you listened to them anyway. Because, deep down, you were more afraid of the truth."

"I don't know what you mean."

"You know, you've always known, that the wall between the living and the dead isn't something solid. You've known that you could make doors and let us cross over. You've known that you could come through those doors to our side. You've known you could walk with us."

Missy paused, then added, "You've always been afraid of being trapped here, like those people you saw in the hospital when we visited Mommy. You knew what I knew. That they were just living bodies without souls."

Diana felt her throat tighten, felt the familiar tendrils of icy terror coiling deep inside her. The memory triggered by Missy's words was sudden and incredibly vivid. She was transported back nearly thirty years, her small hand held in her father's grasp, her short legs trying to keep up as he led her down a long, long hallway. A hallway with doors on either side, some open, some closed. Behind some of the closed doors was silence; behind others she could hear an occasional laugh or sob, and behind one a strange, sad wailing. Through the open doors she could see beds, some of them holding people who were sitting up, reading, watching TV.