Chapter 6
Hannah opened her eyes.
"Oh, thank God," Paul said. He seemed to be almost crying. "Oh, thank God. Do you see me? Do you
know who you are?"
"I'm wet," Hannah said slowly, feeling dazed. She touched her face. Her hair was dripping. Paul was holding a water glass. "Why am I wet?"
"I had to wake you up." Paul sagged to the floor beside the couch. "What's your name? What year is it?"
"My name is Hannah Snow," Hannah said, still feeling dazed and bodiless. "And it's-" Suddenly memory rushed out of the fog at her. She sat bolt upright, tears starting to stream from her eyes. "What was all that?"
"I don't know," Paul whispered. He leaned his head against the couch, then looked up. "You just kept talking-you were telling that story as if you
were there. It was really happening to you. And nothing I could do would break the trance. I tried everything-I thought you were never going to come out of it. And then you started sobbing and I couldn't make you stop."
"I felt as if it were happening to me," Hannah said. Her head ached; her whole body felt bruised with tension. And she was reeling with memories that were perfectly real and perfectly hers... and impossible.
"That was like no past life regression I've ever read about," Paul said, his voice agitated. "The detail...
you knew everything. Have you ever studied-is there any way you could have known those kinds of things?"
"No." Hannah was just as agitated, "I've never studied humans in the Stone Age-and this was real. It wasn't something I was making up as I was going along."
They were both talking at once. "That guy," Paul was saying. "He's the one you're afraid of, isn't he? But, look, you know, regression is one thing... past lives is another thing... but this is crazy."
"I don't believe in vampires," Hannah was saying at the same time. "Because that's what that guy was supposed to be, wasn't it? Of course it was. Caveman vampire. He was probably the first one. And I don't believe in reincarnation."
"Just plain crazy. This is crazy."
"I agree."
They both took a breath, looking at each other. There was a long silence.
Hannah put a hand to her forehead. "I'm ... really tired."
"Yeah. Yeah, I can understand that." Paul looked around the room, nodded twice, then got up. "Well, we'd better get you home. We can talk about all this later, figure out what it really means. Some kind of subconscious fixation... archetypical symbolism... something." He ran out of air and shook his head.
"Now, you feel all right, don't you? And you're not going to worry about this? Because there's nothing to worry about."
"I know. I know."
"At least we know we don't have to worry about vampires attacking you." He laughed. The laugh was strained.
Hannah couldn't manage even a smile.
There was a brief silence, then Paul said, "You know, I think I'll drive you home. That would be good.
That would be a good idea."
"That would be fine," Hannah whispered.
He held out a hand to help her off the couch. "By the way, I'm really sorry I had to get you all wet."
"No. It was good you did. I was feeling so awful- and there were worse things about to happen."
Paul blinked. "I'm sorry?"
Hannah looked at him helplessly, then away. "There were worse things about to happen. Terrible things.
Really, really awful things."
"How do you know that?"
"I don't know. But there were."
Paul walked her to her doorstep. And Hannah was glad of it.
Once inside the house, she went straight down the hall to her mother's study. It was a cluttered comfortable room with books piled on the floor and the tools of a paleontologist scattered around. Her mother was at her desk, bending over a microscope.
"Is that you, Hannah?" she asked without looking up. "I've got some marvelous sections of haversian canals in duckbill bones. Want to see?"
"Oh... not now. Maybe later," Hannah said. She wanted very much to tell her mother about what had happened, but something was stopping her. Her mother was so sensible, so practical and intelligent....
She'll think I'm crazy. And she'll be right. And then she'll be appalled, wondering how she could have given birth to an insane daughter.
That was an exaggeration, and Hannah knew it, but somehow she still couldn't bring herself to tell. Since her father had died five years ago, she and her mother had been almost like friends-but that didn't mean she didn't want her mother's approval. She did. She desperately wanted her mother to be proud of her, and to realize that she could handle things on her own.
It had been the same with the notes-she'd never told about finding them. For all her mom knew, Hannah's only problem was bad dreams.
"So how did it go tonight?" her mother asked now, eye still to the microscope. "That Dr. Winfield is so young-I hope he's not too inexperienced."
Last chance. Take it or lose it. "Uh, it went fine," Hannah said weakly.
"That's good. There's chicken in the crockpot. I'll be out in a little while; I just want to finish this."
"Okay. Great. Thanks." Hannah turned and stumbled out, completely frustrated with herself.
You know Mom won't really be awful, she scolded herself as she fished a piece of chicken out of the crockpot. So tell her. Or call Chess and tell her.
They'll make things better. They'll tell you how impossible all this stuff about vampires and past lives is. ...
Yes, and that's the problem. Hannah sat frozen, holding a fork with a bite of chicken on it motionless in front of her.