I careen over jagged rocks, roots, stumps. Don’t think tuck head don’t think tuck head. The bag shreds until parts of me are exposed. Sometimes I’m feet first, sometimes head. I coil my body tighter, my back into a hard shell. Leaf and rock enter the open top and fill the bag. Twice I am ensnared, twice I jam my elbows and knees into the earth, hurtling myself over obstacles. With every gyration I am farther away from him.
I’ve been falling forever when the mud slows me to a halt. Loam and grit blur my vision, but moonlight throws the ledge into relief. I’ve dropped at least eighty feet, and my body, thickened ankle and all, is bruised horrendously, but intact. I am covered in warm blood and mud. My hands are free. The bag hangs off me in shreds.
I’m not dead.
Even if the noise of me hurtling down the chasm woke him up, I just put eighty feet between us. For the first time, I feel like I might get home.
*
“Julia, I’m going to count from one to five, and at the count of five you’re going to feel wide awake, fully alert, and completely refreshed. One, two…” Ricker counts.
“I’m awake,” I say.
“Three, four, five.”
“I said, I’m awake.”
“How do you feel?” Ricker asks.
I prop myself on my elbow. “Better than I usually feel, because I’m here and not in the middle of class, for example. There’s nothing worse than the stares you get when you’re standing there gaping at a wall, with no clue if you’ve been doing it for five seconds or fifteen minutes.”
Ricker’s pen freezes midair. “You’re saying this isn’t the first time you’ve had a regressive memory?”
“It’s the first time I’ve made one start.” I swing my legs off the couch and sit up. “Though yesterday, I made one stop.”
Ricker breathes hard through her nose. “I require total honesty in this room. Is there a reason you never mentioned your memories before?”
“They’ve really just revved up since I’ve been back at school. I’m not the one with the diplomas, but I’d say that makes sense.”
Ricker’s eyes flick to the diplomas on the wall. She catches me catch her, and frowns. “Triggers most certainly cause memories to emerge. And now, triggers are all around you. So yes: it makes sense, as you say.” She ducks her head and starts scribbling; I lean forward slightly to peek at the page, because it feels like a power move. Get things back on the right track and such. Boundaries.
I really do like her.
“So we’re on the same page,” I say. “I mean, think about it. The Berkshires were basically sensory deprivation. Besides the trees—which for a while were not my thing, but I’m warming to perennials—there was nothing to do. All I had were my weekly e-mails from Liv. And my appointments with Patty Petty. She was whacked. Did you know she tried to make me dance?”
Ricker refolds her legs, flashing a brilliant smile over her pad. She’s openly, undisguisedly, blatantly not listening.
“You’re smiling. Why are you smiling?”
Ricker looks up. “If memories emerge, it’s a sign that the survivor has found a safe environment and has reduced the level and frequency of her daily dissociation. Now her repressed memories may be brought to her conscious mind.”
“As far as signs go, that sounds like a good one to me.”
“It’s a sign your mind is working toward something.”
“It’s an almost-anniversary present to myself.” I say this, hoping she’ll say something about the fact that we are nearing the one-year mark of the Shiverton Abduction, in news-speak. But I’m thinking Ricker’s the type to forget to buy a card.
She touches my knee. “It is a good sign. Tell me again. You began to have a memory?”
“My friend’s jacket had buckles on it. When they clinked, they reminded me of the sounds Donald Jessup’s jacket made.”
She rises and walks to the bookshelf. “But you were able to draw back, realize you were in the present, and stop it?”
“Right. I stepped outside of myself, sort of. Told myself it was her jacket, not his.”
“Her?” She pulls down a gold-embossed book.
“My friend. Alice,” I lie. “What, is that weird?”
She flips through the book. “It’s unusual. Not unprecedented, but unusual.”
Nervous she’s going to ask about Alice, I count cracks in the leather couch. There are seventeen. She runs her finger along a page. I clear my throat. “When do we get to talk about what I remembered?”
“Regression therapy can be an intense experience.”
“Trust me, I’m familiar. Imagine being thrown from an airlock. It’s like being on the receiving end of a mighty suck,” I say.
“Because of their intensity, I generally don’t like to examine sessions right away. There should be a benefit from hypnosis, a sense of relaxation and wellness that you spend some time enjoying. We’ll discuss it at our next appointment.”
“Wait, what? We’re not going to talk about it? Don’t you think some of the stuff Jessup said was weird?” I ask.
“I need time to listen to my recording. I can’t really say.”
“I get that we’re not evidence-gathering here. And I’m not saying I want to start talking to the police again. But I thought maybe we could talk about it—”
“Julia,” Ricker interrupts me.