She pushed the car door open.
They found her once, doing the same thing. A year after Rachel disappeared, during a time when the visions were at their most intense, Diana had driven a few miles out of town, out to a wooded area near the small regional airport that served the surrounding county. She didn't remember the drive there, nor did she clearly remember the impulse that sent her. She only knew that a surveying crew, three men who were measuring the land for a potential subdivision, found her on all fours in a clearing, digging into the soil and muttering about Rachel.
They called an ambulance, assuming that she was on drugs or had escaped from a local mental hospital, and Diana only remembered coming to in the emergency room, her mother by the side of the bed. Her fingernails were broken and bleeding, her clothes so dirty they had to be thrown away.
And since then, she had repeated this act on several occasions, and always while conscious and in full control of her faculties. If she had done it other times, wandered around in the apartment or even outside of it looking for Rachel, she didn't know.
Didn't really want to know.
The breeze picked up, shivering the leaves. They rustled like dry parchment, a sandpaper whisper. Diana didn't bother zipping up her jacket. She stepped past the front of her car, down the slight embankment into the berm and then up the other side where she gingerly, carefully, slipped through an opening in the barbed wire that was just big enough for her body. She smelled the rich scent of earth, and the dust of the fallen leaves filled her nostrils with a sneeze. But she held it in.
She stepped between the closest trunks, finding more trees and still more behind them, so that it felt like moving through a crowd of people, all of them taller and stronger and more imposing.
Her foot came down on a large rock, turning her ankle a bit, and even though she knew she needed to stop, that to be out there made no sense whatsoever, she continued to go on. She had to look. She couldn't go back.
She titled her head up. The canopy of trees blocked the moonlight and the stars. The ground was cast in darkness, and everything around her became shadowy and indistinct. She watched where she stepped, but there was little she could see. Large objects she could avoid, but small ones might trip her up.
Up ahead, she saw a break in the trees. The moonlight silvered across the forest floor, whitening the rocks, making them shine like polished bone.
It looked just like the visions.
She moved forward, more quickly now, disregarding the danger of falling or tripping.
Or getting lost. Losing her bearings or a sense of where the car was.
She couldn't stop. She had to move forward.
Diana paused at the edge of the clearing, resting her hand against the rough bark of a tree trunk. Her eyes had adjusted to the dark, and coupled with the moonlight, she was able to see the entire open area. There was nothing there. No people. No animals.
No bones.
"Rachel," she whispered.
The wind had slowed, leaving everything still.
She said the name again, like an incantation or prayer.
"Rachel."
On the far side of the clearing, a twig snapped. Diana jerked her head in that direction. She saw movement, heard the rustling of brush. But just as quickly, it stopped. Whatever had been there scurried away, off into the night. An animal. Nothing more, nothing less.
What am I doing here?
"Rachel."
She said the name again, but by that point, reality had set in. She was a woman, alone and unarmed, off the side of the highway in the woods that she didn't know very well.
She needed to leave. There was nothing for her there. It wasn't the place she so desperately sought.
She retraced her steps, moving quickly, and in a few minutes, she was relieved to see her car again. She climbed back to the road, arriving just as a semi went by, leaving a rush of wind in its wake, enough to nearly shake Diana off her feet.
She welcomed the roar, the buffeting of the air, the sharp sting of reality.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Diana waited in an alley just off High Street. It was after midnight, but the alley glowed with artificial light. There were two bars down there, holes-in-the-wall that attracted students from Fields. Some of them came out, but not the one she was looking for, so she waited. At times like these, she wished she smoked, if only for something to do with her hands. Rainwater stood in pools, and Diana paced a while before leaning against the wall and kicking at loose pebbles with her shoe. She didn't feel like going in among the smoke and the crowds and the noise.
Around 12:30, Jason emerged from Uncle Nick's. Alone. He started in the other direction, away from Diana, so she called out to him. At first, he didn't hear her.
"Hey," she said, raising her voice.
He stopped, looked back, squinting. "Diana?"
"It's me."