Lost in Darkness Read online

  Dana waved her hand. “No...no. It’s just a headache. A bad headache.”

  “You want me to get you something for it?”

  “Please.”

  Dana’s mother hurried from the room.

  The swarming purple ghost fish had vanished from Dana’s vision. Although her head still pounded, the pain was more dull, not as intense. She was able to look around her now.

  The teddy bear that she had propped beside her head before she went to sleep was missing.

  She felt her belly fill with ice. Where was that thing? He couldn’t have just jumped off the bed and run away...could he?

  Timidly, Dana leaned toward the edge of the bed and peeked over it. Was the teddy bear hiding under the bed? When she leaned down to look, would he spring up at her and clamp his sharp jaws onto her face?

  Her heart fluttered when she saw the teddy bear on the floor. He lay on his back smiling up at her. No purple eyes, no sharp teeth. Just a cute teddy bear with a purple bow around his neck. She must have knocked him off the bed with her arm during the nightmare.

  Dana sighed, and slowly swung her legs out of bed. Moving carefully to keep her headache in control, she stooped and picked up the doll, carried him across the room, and placed him on a shelf inside her closet.

  “Sorry, Ethan,” she told the bear, shutting the door. “Just for tonight, okay?”

  She wanted to push the chair of her desk against the door, so she would hear him coming if he returned to attack her again, but she realized how stupid that was. It was just a teddy bear, not some evil monster anxious to drain out her brain!

  She climbed back into bed, and her mother returned. Dana swallowed the two white pills with a gulp of water, and then eased herself back under the blankets.

  “You okay now, hon?” her mother asked.

  “I’m okay.” She smiled weakly.

  “You want me to shut out the light?” her mother asked as she moved toward the door.

  “No...no. Um, I might read for a few minutes.”

  “Okay, honey...but I’ll leave the door open so I can hear you if you need me.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  “Sweet dreams.”

  Yeah...right, Dana thought. She gave her mother a little wave and an even littler smile.

  She didn’t want to read. It was the same lie she had told the real Ethan, back in the hospital.

  Dana glanced over at the white louvered doors of her closet. She wondered if the teddy bear could see her through the spaces between the wooden slats, but she knew she was still being foolish. She rolled onto her side so she couldn’t see the closet doors, and shut her eyes.

  Just a nightmare. Another stupid nightmare...

  * * *

  Dana had just finished vacuuming her bedroom, and thought she’d do her parents’ room next. Maybe she’d do the whole house, even though she hadn’t been asked. She was so bored that household chores had become a welcome activity. It was something to do. Though she knew it was for her own good, Dana felt grounded.

  Enough was enough. When her mother got home from work, Dana was going to ask her if she could walk down to the library for an hour or two. It was just a short stroll from her house; down the street, one street crossing, then a few buildings to the right. Okay, she’d even ask her mother to drop her off in the car, then pick her up later, if it made her feel any better. But she had to get out of this house! It wasn’t like she was asking to go over a friend’s place, or anything...though a number of Dana’s friends often met to do homework at the library on Tuesday and Thursday nights, when it remained open till nine. Tonight was Tuesday, and Dana was hoping that Noelle or Sandy might be there. Maybe even Sophie.

  Even if none of them were there, it would be a change of pace, and she could take out a few books to read at home. She needed to do some research for one of her school assignments, anyway, now that her mother was letting her catch up on her homework.

  Dana thought she had a good chance of convincing her mother. And if she didn’t bend, well, then maybe her father would.

  It was already late in the afternoon; Mom would be home shortly. Excited about her plan, Dana glanced at her bedside clock, then pushed aside the curtain to her second floor window. Below her, the street looked bleak and chilly. The autumn leaves in the yards and sidewalks had turned a dingy, crumbling brown. Winter was well on its way. The sky was a slate gray, and the empty branches of trees were like rows of giant skeleton hands grasping at the dark clouds.

  Someone was standing directly in front of her house, and Dana lowered her eyes to look. She hadn’t noticed the figure at first.

  It was a young man, and he was staring directly up at her.

  Dana gasped and backed away from the window, letting the curtain drop back into place.

  It couldn’t be. Couldn’t be!

  It had only been a dream. A dream brought on by her head injury. He wasn’t a real person...

  Dana was terrified to return to the window, but she knew she must. She had to see if the boy standing down there was real, or a figment of her imagination.

  Slowly, she approached the window again. She hooked one finger behind the curtain, and drew it back just a sliver. He won’t be there, she thought. It’s impossible. I only imagined it was him...

  But the street wasn’t empty, as she expected it would be. He was still there, in the same spot, still staring up at the window. Could he see her one eye peeking out at him?

  It was the blond boy from her dream in the hospital. The one who had waved for Dana to join him in the dazzling light. The boy who had been wearing white, like a doctor.

  His clothing was no longer all white. He wore jeans, a jacket over a cozy looking sweater. But his appearance was exactly the same, otherwise. Blond hair brushed back, with a few strands fallen across his forehead—an intense forehead, like a young Beethoven. Intense eyes, and a small serious mouth. It wasn’t a coincidence. It couldn’t be. If it was someone else, why would he be gazing directly at her window like this? No...this boy knew her, just like she knew him. At least, they had met once before in a dream.

  Maybe I’ve seen him somewhere before, Dana reasoned. Before the accident. Maybe a long time ago, but my mind recorded him. Then I dreamed about him after I had the accident.

  So why is he here now? she asked herself.

  No. Dana couldn’t fool herself. She knew that she had never seen this boy before that strange dream.

  As she spied on the youth, a small smile came to his face. He slipped one hand out of his jacket pocket, and began to wave toward himself. He was gesturing for Dana to come downstairs and join him.

  He must have seen her peeking eye. He knew she was still watching him.

  Again, Dana backed away from the window as if she had seen a ghost standing down there in the street. A ghost that was urging her to join it.

  “I’m losing my mind,” she said to herself in a very soft voice. “The accident must have damaged my brain.” She turned to glance at herself in her mirror. “I’m going crazy,” she said, wagging her head.

  There was only one way to find out, one way to be sure.

  Dana left her bedroom. She crept down the stairs in her socks, very softly. At the bottom of the stairs, she took her own jacket down from a peg. She swallowed. Maybe he’s the crazy one, not me, she thought. She looked around for a weapon in case he tried to harm her. Nothing in the front hall looked promising, and she couldn’t bear the suspense of waiting any longer. Without even bothering to peek out the window in the front door, Dana unlocked it and flung it wide open.

  She noticed two things at the same time. Her mother’s car was pulling into the driveway...and the boy was gone.

  Dana stepped out onto the front walk, and looked down the street to the left, and then to the right. There was no sign of him anywhere.

  “I am going crazy,” Dana whispered to herself. Her eyes became moist with the beginning of tears. “I’m going crazy,” she repeated.

  From the side
of the house she heard the car door shut, then her mother walked briskly around the house toward her. “Honey, are you okay? You look upset.”

  Dana threw her arms around her mother and gave her a tight squeeze. “Just a little lonely,” she lied. But then she added, “It’s a little scary being alone.”

  That part wasn’t a lie.

  6

  Dana was certain that her mother had agreed to bring her to the library because of Dana’s strange behavior when they embraced outside the house. Dana had told her she was lonely, and Mrs. Tower no doubt believed it would be good for Dana to get out of the house for a few hours. “I think you’ve got cabin fever from being cooped up in here, hon,” Mrs. Tower had said, smiling. “We’ll have dinner when Dad gets home, then I’ll take you to the library. I’ll pick you up at nine; how’s that? But if you feel sick or tired or anything, you call me, okay?”

  Dana had given her mother another hug, but this one inspired by gratitude, not fear. “Thanks, Mom.”

  And now here she was, walking up the marble stairs into the Eastborough Library. She had been confined to the hospital and then her home for so long, it seemed like she hadn’t stepped inside this building in a thousand years. It was a weird feeling, like she had been reincarnated and was remembering places from an earlier life. It was almost like she really had been killed in her accident, and had been reborn as someone else.

  In the front room of the library she scanned the titles of the newest arrivals, and she browsed through several of them. None really caught her interest, and anyway, she really did have a few school projects she could be working on. She decided to go look in the computer system for books about Brazil, for her report on the street kids of Rio de Janeiro.

  After consulting the computer, Dana found the proper aisle. She took off her coat and draped it over the chair in front of the little desk at the end of the aisle. There was a window behind the desk, and it was pitch black outside. She saw her reflection in the black glass clearly.

  Dana was just about to turn around and look for her books when she saw another figure reflected in the glass. It was a young girl, standing behind her. The girl had appeared so suddenly that Dana almost gasped. She turned to face her.

  The girl smiled. “Hi. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

  She was about fifteen, sixteen, Dana assumed, and very pretty. Her hair was short and straight, so blond it was almost white, and her blue eyes had the mischief of a cat. Her front teeth were crooked in a cute way, her grin big and friendly. Like her eyes, it was full of mischief.

  “That’s okay,” Dana told her.

  The girl started looking at titles in the book shelves. She plucked out a book about Egypt. “Ah-hah!” she said. “Here it is.” She grinned again at Dana. “I’m doing a report on the ancient gods of Egypt. You know, Horus, Anubis, Bast...”

  “Horace?”

  “Horus. He had the head of a falcon. Anubis had the head of a jackal. And Bast was a goddess.” The girl’s grin grew even wider, like the grin of the Cheshire cat. “Bast had the head of a cat.”

  “Oh. Neat.”

  “Yeah, neat. Well, nice talkin’ to ya.”

  “Okay,” said Dana, not quite sure what to say to her nameless friend.

  The girl stepped out of the aisle and was gone. Dana shrugged, returned to her own research. She found the several books she was looking for and took them to the little desk. She sat down and put on the fluorescent light. In a few moments she had forgotten about the strange girl.

  From the corner of her eye she saw another person in the aisle, searching through book titles. Dana lifted her head to have a look, and she almost choked on her own breath.

  It was the same girl she had spoken to before. Except, a few minutes ago she had been a blond. Now, her hair was red.

  The girl looked up and grinned. She had those same crooked teeth. “Hi,” she said. “Sorry if I scared you.”

  “Um, hi. Your hair...”

  “Yeah? What about it?”

  “It’s red.”

  “Yeah. My hair is red. And your hair is blond.”

  “I know. I mean...didn’t you have blond hair just a second ago?”

  “No. Did you have red hair just a second ago?”

  “Hey, look,” Dana said. Was this some kind of joke? “I don’t know if you’re wearing a red wig now, or if you were wearing a blond wig before, but—”

  Suddenly, a second girl entered the aisle. She was an identical copy of the red-haired girl...except that her hair was blond.

  “You’re twins!” Dana exclaimed.

  “You are perceptive, aren’t you?” said the red-haired girl, grinning.

  Both girls wore entirely black clothing, which had helped cause Dana’s confusion. Even the length and style of their hair was the same; only the color set them apart. They both had eyebrows darker than their hair, so Dana believed both girls dyed their hair. Maybe they did it so people could tell who was who.

  The blond spoke. “I’m Celeste. In Latin that means ‘heavenly.’” She giggled. “This is Vesta. In Latin that means ‘guardian of the sacred fire.’”

  “Your names are Latin but you don’t look Italian,” Dana observed, not sure what else to say to these friendly strangers. “Then again, my name is Dana and that means a Danish person, but I’m not Danish—so what’s in a name?”

  Vesta, the redhead, said, “Our last name is Sebastian, so we’re not Italian.”

  “I’m Dana. Dana Tower. Nice to meet you.”

  “I’m interested in names,” explained Celeste. “My brother’s name is Hebrew; it means ‘steadfast.’ And he is, too. He’s pretty stubborn. And strong.”

  “So what’s his name?”

  Both twins replied at the same time. “Ethan.”

  Dana felt like both girls had seized hold of her heart with that one word. “Ethan?”

  “You sound like you know him,” said Vesta.

  “I think maybe I do.”

  “He’s here. Studying. Do you want us to take you to see him?”

  Dana felt both very shy and very excited. She suddenly became very self-conscious about her appearance...her worn, faded sweatshirt and her jeans with their ragged knees. But what if she didn’t get this chance again? There was no time to go home and dress up, was there?

  “Sure,” she told them.

  “Well, get your books and come on over to our table,” Vesta invited her.

  Dana gathered up her books and her coat and joined the twins, walking in between them down the length of the library. There were few people at the center tables tonight, but she saw two people sitting at the last table near the back wall. They sat opposite each other. A boy and a girl. The girl’s back was turned to Dana, but she could see the boy clearly. It was him—Ethan, from the hospital. He saw Dana, too, and a wide grin spread over his handsome face.

  “Well, well...look who it is,” he said.

  “It’s a small world,” Dana said as she neared the table. “I just met your sisters, here.”

  “It must be Fate at work,” Ethan joked.

  When Dana had almost reached the table she saw that Ethan and the girl seated across from him were holding hands on top of the table. The sight of this made it feel like someone had dropped a heavy stone through Dana’s body to thump into her stomach.

  And then the girl turned around to face Dana, and it was like an even heavier stone fell into her guts.

  She should have recognized the girl’s hair, dyed a red color that was almost maroon. The girl holding hands with Ethan was Sophie.

  “Hey, Dane,” she said. “You’re out and about, huh? You look great.”

  It looked like Sophie, but it sure didn’t sound like Sophie. The Sophie Dana remembered was glum and moody. This Sophie clone sounded happy, cheery. She actually had a grin on her face, as if she was the long-lost sister of Ethan and the twins, with their great big smiles.

  “Good to see you, Soph,” Dana said weakly.

  Sophie and Ethan let g
o of each other’s hands. Sophie got up from her chair to give Dana a hug. “Sorry I didn’t come to see you in the hospital, girlfriend,” Sophie apologized, clapping her friend on the back.

  Dana slipped out of Sophie’s arms. “Hey, no problem.”

  “I saw Dana in the hospital,” Ethan boasted.

  Sophie looked at him. “So...you two know each other, huh?” Her smile diminished a bit. She sounded a little confused. Maybe a little worried.

  “I was going in to see my grandmother, and I found Dana instead,” he explained. “We had a nice little talk, didn’t we, Dana?”

  “Yes, we did,” she replied. She wanted to thank him for the teddy bear but held her tongue. She could see that Sophie was on the verge of jealousy, and she didn’t want to hurt her friend. But Dana felt more jealous than Sophie did, she was willing to bet. She felt guilty for it. She felt foolish for it. After all, she barely knew the boy. She had no claims on him. Still, it was hard for her to control her feelings. Part of her was happy for Sophie, who had always had a hard time getting boys to like her. But part of Dana—a larger part—resented her friend. It felt as if Sophie had stolen Ethan from her.

  “This is cool,” Ethan said, “all of us here together.”

  “Your mother told me you had some new friends you were hanging out with,” Dana said, trying to sound normal.

  “I met Celeste and Vesta first,” Sophie explained, “and then they introduced me to Ethan. They all go to Farmington High.”

  “I see,” said Dana.

  “Hey, sit down!” Ethan invited her.

  “I really shouldn’t,” Dana stammered. “I just had to pick up a few books for my report. I should be getting back home.”

  “Aw, c’mon, sit with us for a little while. This is great! I didn’t know you and Sophie were pals.”

  Vesta and Celeste both took hold of Dana’s arms, one on either side of her. Their grips were loose but she still felt trapped. They guided her into a chair. Vesta said, “Sit down or we’ll have to use force, kid!”

  Dana sat. She felt like she had no choice.

  “How do you feel?” Ethan asked.