had heard the night before. This time there were actual footsteps
directly above her instead of just amorphous whispers coming
from all sides. Helen didn?t know what would be worse?going up
there and finding a gang of intruding monsters or finding nothing
at all. For a moment Helen wondered if she was starting to crack
up. She decided not to go up to check. She?d seen enough ghosts
already that day.
The next morning, Helen went to see Dr. Cunningham. After a few
minutes of flashing a penlight in her eyes and thumping her on the
chest, Dr. Cunningham told her father that there didn?t seem to be
any permanent damage done. Then he yelled at Helen and told her
she was far too fair to be walking around without a hat on. She
didn?t know how it had happened, but after one trip to the doctor
her meltdown had been brushed off as nothing more than the carelessness
of not keeping her head covered. At least the checkup got
her out of school for the day.
When she got home, Helen opened her computer and spent a few
frustrating hours online trying to find some information on the
three women who were plaguing her. Every search she did overwhelmed
her with so many possibilities that her task seemed hopeless,
and she couldn?t narrow it down because she didn?t have any
real context for what it was she had seen. Were they ghosts? Demons?
Or just her own personal manifestations of crazy? It was entirely
possible that she had hallucinated the whole thing, and now
that she didn?t feel so enraged she was almost starting to think
maybe she had had heatstroke. Almost.
Claire came over in the afternoon to deliver some bad news. ?The
whole school thinks you?re on your way to an institution as we
speak,? she said as soon as they sat down in the family room. ?You
should?ve come in today.?