"Stigmata? Isn't that when people bleed on Good Friday or something?"
"Yes. Sometimes people who believe deeply in Christ's divinity exhibit bleeding marks on their hands and feet during the Holy Week. It was more common in the Middle Ages than now. In those days such people were considered blessed by God. I don't think the Catholic Church proclaimed any of it as out-and-out miracles, which was pretty smart of them. Stigmata isn't much different from some of the things the yogis can do. It's better understood now, that's all. The people who understand the interaction between the mind and the body-study it, I mean, no one understands it-believe we have a lot more control over our involuntary functions than they used to think. You can slow your heartbeat if you think about it enough. Speed up your own metabolism. Make yourself sweat more. Or make yourself bleed."
"You think Danny thought those bruises onto his neck? Jack, I just can't believe that."
"I can believe it's possible, although it seems unlikely to me, too. What's more likely is that he did it to himself."
"To himself?"
"He's gone into these 'trances' and hurt himself in the past. Do you remember the time at the supper table? About two years ago, I think. We were super-pissed at each other. Nobody talking very much. Then, all at once, his eyes rolled up in his head and he went face-first into his dinner. Then onto the floor. Remember?"
"Yes," she said. "I sure do. I thought he was having a convulsion."
"Another time we were in the park," he said. "Just Danny and I. Saturday afternoon. He was sitting on a swing, coasting back and forth. He collapsed onto the ground. It was like he'd been shot. I ran over and picked him up and all of a sudden he just came around. He sort of blinked at me and said, `I hurt my tummy. Tell Mommy to close the bedroom windows if it rains. ' And that night it rained like hell."
"Yes, but-"
"And he's always coming in with cuts and scraped elbows. His shins look like a battlefield in distress. And when you ask him how he got this one or that one, he just says `Oh, I was playing,' and that's the end of it."
"Jack, all kids get bumped and bruised up. With little boys it's almost constant from the time they learn to walk until they're twelve or thirteen."
"And I'm sure Danny gets his share," Jack responded. "He's an active kid. But I remember that day in the park and that night at the supper table. And I wonder if some of our kid's bumps and bruises come from just keeling over. That Dr. Edmonds said Danny did it right in his office, for Christ's sake!"
"All right. But those bruises were fingers. I'd swear to it. He didn't get them falling down."
"He goes into a trance," Jack said. "Maybe he sees something that happened in that room. An argument. Maybe a suicide. Violent emotions. It isn't like watching a movie; he's in a highly suggestible state. He's right in the damn thing. His subconscious is maybe visualizing whatever happened in a symbolic way... as a dead woman who's alive again, zombie, undead, ghoul, you pick your term."
"You're giving me goose-bumps," she said thickly.
"I'm giving myself a few. I'm no psychiatrist, but it seems to fit so well. The walking dead woman as a symbol for dead emotions, dead lives, that just won't give up and go away... but because she's a subconscious figure, she's also him. In the trance state, the conscious Danny is submerged. The subconscious figure is pulling the strings. So Danny put his hands around his own neck and-"
"Stop," she said. "I get the picture. I think that's more frightening than having a stranger creeping around the halls, Jack. You can move away from a stranger. You can't move away from yourself. You're talking about schizophrenia."
"Of a very limited type," he said, but a trifle uneasily. "And of a very special nature. Because he does seem able to read thoughts, and he really does seem to have precognitive flashes from time to time. I can't think of that as mental illness no matter how hard I try. We all have schizo deposits in us anyway. I think as Danny gets older, he'll get this under control."
"If you're right, then it's imperative that we get him out. Whatever he has, this hotel is making it worse."
"I wouldn't say that," he objected. "If he'd done as he was told, he never would have gone up to that room in the first place. It never would have happened."
"My God, Jack! Are you implying that being half-strangled was a... a fitting punishment for being off limits?"
"No... no. Of course not. But-"
"No buts," she said, shaking her head violently. "The truth is, we're guessing. We don't have any idea when he might turn a corner and run into one of those... air pockets, one-reel horror movies, whatever they are. We have to get him away." She laughed a little in the darkness. "Next thing we'll be seeing things."