The Break-Up Retreat(88)

My lips feel strange. Dry and stretched and numb.

I want to roll over and pull the covers over my head, but I can’t. I’m not lying down. I’m sitting.

Why am I not lying down?

There are memories, trying to reach me, but when I grasp for them, they scatter. Like they are taunting me.

“Come on, now.”

The voice isn’t happy, anymore.

A loud noise, and a sharp, stinging pain on the side of my face, and I have to open my eyes, now.

It’s very bright in here. Too bright. I recognize this place, but I can’t remember where it is, and that makes me feel like crying.

There is a face in front of mine. It’s smiling gently.

I know it, but I can’t recall who it is. I only know it’s someone who—someone who—

I open my mouth, but my throat is so dry, and I begin to cough.

“Here, honey.” She hands me a glass of water, helps me wrap my hands around it. It’s cold and smooth in my clumsy hands, but still, I manage to bring it to my lips and drink.

“Isn’t that better?” She reaches up to push the hair out of my face. Her touch is very light, and my eyes droop closed again as I lean into the touch.

“I’m tired,” I mutter.

“I know, honey,” she says. “I know you are. It’s the tranquilizer. You’ll feel better soon.”

“Where am I?” I search for her name, and when it comes back to me I feel a moment of triumph.

Anna.

I remember now.

When I try to say it out loud, it comes out slurred and slow, but she laughs. It’s a very nice sound. High and bright.

“Yes!” she says. “Exactly. See, you’re going to feel better soon. Drink some more water.”

I force my eyes open again, and I see her get up to her feet and walk away, hear her steps receding.

There’s someone else sitting there. I can see them, a shadow out of the corner of my eye. There’s a sound coming from them. Groaning, or sobbing.

But I can’t see them. I can’t even turn and look.

God, my head is pounding. There’s pain everywhere. In my face, in my feet, in my shoulder. My body doesn’t feel like it belongs to me; I’m hunched, and when I try to sit up, I almost slide off the chair.

“Hey, now, Isobel,” comes Anna’s voice again. “Take it very easy, sweetie, okay? You’re going to feel a little woozy for a while. That’s normal, it’s nothing to be scared of, but try not to move around too much.”

“Okay,” I whisper, and I try to drink from the glass again. I spill down my shirt, and it should embarrass me, but I am so thirsty, and so tired, that I can’t be bothered to care.

Anna—her name is Anna, but who is she?—comes back into my view. pulls a blanket back up around my shoulders.

“There.” She smooths it down. “You got very cold out there. I don’t want you to get sick.”

It dawns on me that I do feel cold. Or, not exactly; it feels like I have been cold, or I used to be cold.

I try to look up and look around, but my head is too heavy, or maybe my neck is too weak. The room is bright and warm. There’s a sound, coming from somewhere, a soft smattering of something, but otherwise it’s quiet.

Am I sick? Is this a hospital?

Maybe. I can’t remember.

When I manage to tilt my head, I see a window to my right. The outside is cloudy and gray, and I see a dark mass of water beyond it.

It makes something stir in my mind.

A flashing image. A pond. Water, cold water everywhere, and fear, and a face. Pale and perfect but . . . wrong.

A word comes to me.

“Himlafall. I’m at . . . Himlafall.”

It’s no more than a whisper, but it feels right.

I’m at the Himlafall Clinic. Yes. I was going to do something. It was very important.

But I can’t remember what it was.

My head rolls over to the other side, and now I can see more; a couch, opposite me, and a desk, and someone sitting in a chair. No, she isn’t sitting; she’s tied to the chair, and her eyes are wide and unblinking, full of tears, and there is a gag in her mouth, white fabric stained with dried blood, and the sight of it makes me start to dry heave.

Something is wrong.

The electricity was out. How did it come back on?

“Hey, hey.” Anna comes back to me, quick and swift like an angel. “Just breathe. You’re a little nauseous, that’s normal, but you’re going to be fine.”

I feel her hand against my stomach.

“Breathe all the way down into your stomach. There you go, as deep as you can.”

My body stills again, and my face feels wet.

“It’s okay.” Anna laughs again. “It’s all okay, sweetie. You don’t have to be scared. You’re going to feel like yourself very soon, all right? And everything is going to be just fine.”

“What happened?” I manage to say. It’s slurred, but clearer than it was, and I take some perverse pride in that.

Anna’s hand disappears from my stomach. She wipes the tears from my cheeks very softly, like a mother.

Like my mother, when I was very little.

“I’m so sorry I had to lie to you.” Her face contorts. “I had to set everything up, you see. I had to make sure nothing would ruin it.”