After Debbie had been examined, and Joanna had taken some
photos of the scars, Amanda took her to one of the few cots they had on the
second floor of the Youth Center. Within
minutes Debbie had fallen asleep, and Amanda headed back to her office.
Joanna was inside, Clare with her.
“How old would you say the girl is?” Clare was looking over
the pictures Joanna had taken.
“She says she’s 18. I
don’t know for sure, though. She has no
ID. I have a call in with a friend over
at the Wheaton Police Department to look through some of their missing persons
cases, but he says he doesn’t think she matches any of their current
files.” Joanna’s arms were crossed in
front of her chest, her face tight and serious.
Amanda cleared her throat, doing her best to announce her
arrival. Clare looked up and
smiled.
“How’s she doing?” Clare put the photos down on Amanda’s
desk. “She looks a little dazed. Shock?”
“I don’t know.”
Amanda shook her head. “She needs
to be seen by a doctor. Joanna here did
what she could, but our facility is set up for STD testing and flu shots. She needs to be seen by an MD, and the police
need to be notified. They may need to do
a rape kit…”
Clare shook her head. “She wasn’t sexually assaulted.”
“How can you know that?” Amanda’s voice rose suddenly, and
she clasped a hand over her mouth in surprise.
“I know,” Clare held up one of the photos, “because for this
particular ritual to work, the subject needs to be a virgin. A complete virgin.” She handed the photo to Amanda. “This is part of a ritual to create the
Three.”
“The Three?” Amanda
glanced from the photo to Clare.
“The Three are a, well, three women, usually between the
ages of 16-18, who act as maidens for the goddess Sumthak, helping pave the way
for her return to the earth.”
Amanda glanced at Joanna, whose face had grown white. “Yes, that Sumthak. The same one that had almost possessed
me.”
Amanda could feel the room shift around her. This couldn’t be happening. All of that, all of the insanity and the
horror had been undone. Bobby and the
others had gone back, they had made it right.
Joanna had never been…
“ The fact that we all retain the memories of what had
happened, of all the events that had apparently been rewritten is proof enough
that Sumthak and her attempt at revival were not completely undone.” Clare leaned against Amanda’s desk, sighing. “That girl, Debbie, is a part of this. I don’t know how, yet, but I do know that
whoever did that to her chose her for a very specific reason, and we need to be
aware that they probably are going to come for her.”
Amanda’s head was swimming.
This couldn’t be happening. She
had buried that time in her life. She
had pretended it had never happened, because as far as everyone else in the
world was concerned, it never had actually happened. It was a fluke, a lost strand of time
abandoned in the ether of history.
Now it was back. Now the
memories were back, how Marie had ambushed her in the park, transforming into
that… thing. She could suddenly remember
how it had felt when those tentacles had wrapped around her arms, her legs,
lifting her off the ground, and then…
The dizziness became more intense. She tried to speak, but before the words
could leave her lips she collapsed.
Then there was just darkness. Peaceful, thoughtless darkness.
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