Der Schädelring: Thriller (German Edition)

still in the wastebasket.
    Julia was tempted to plug it in again, to see if those same haunting numerals were still frozen on the display. But what if they were? Or, almost as bad, what if they weren't?
    Had someone taken her screen down, perhaps crawled in through the window she had somehow forgotten to lock? Or had the wind really blown off the screen while she was at work?
    Or had she opened the window and forced herself to forget?
    Julia sat on the bed and picked up her cell phone, punching the top number in her book.
    "Hello?" came that comforting voice.
    "Hi, Dr. Forrest?"
    A pause. "Yes."
    "It's me, Julia Stone. Sorry to bother you at home."
    "That's quite all right, Julia. That's why I gave you my number." Someone else's voice, a man's, was in the background. Julia couldn't make out the words. "Is there a problem?"
    Of course there's a problem , Julia wanted to scream. After four months of therapy, you've probably figured that out by now .
    But that was misplaced rage, the kind of thing that didn't bring awareness and healing. That was abdicating responsibility, as Dr. Forrest had so carefully explained. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and said, "I . . . I think I'm having another episode."
    "Worse than the last one?"
    "Not as intense, but longer in duration. I'm imagining things." Julia tried to sound matter-of-fact, almost bored. She related the stories of the clock, the VCR, and the footprints at the window.
    "Hmm. Have you been keeping the journal like you promised?"
    Julia nodded before remembering that Dr. Forrest couldn't see her. "Yes."
    "Did you write down those incidents?"
    "No."
    "Julia, it's very important that you keep track of everything out of the ordinary, each thought or idea, each fear. I'm very disappointed in you."
    "I . . . I'll try harder from now on."
    "You do want to get better, don't you?"
    "Yes."
    "You know that you have to work hard at it. You have to fight. I can help, but only if you let me. Will you let me, Julia?"
    "Yes."
    "Can you come by the office tomorrow?"
    "Sure. But tomorrow's Saturday."
    "We'll just squeeze in a little extra session. The problems are very close to the surface. You just have to let them go, bring them into the light."
    "What time should I come by?"
    "Eleven in the morning."
    "Okay. What should I do tonight?"
    "Try not to worry. Think about the things we've worked on. The truth is locked inside you. The body remembers what the mind tries to forget. Pay attention to your dreams."
    "Thanks, I'll do that. See you in the morning."
    "Bye. And Julia?"
    "Yes?"
    "We'll beat this thing."
    Dr. Forrest hung up. Julia slid the cell back on the nightstand. She wrote the clock incident in her journal and added the part about the VCR. Lastly, she wrote down her dream of bones. Then she drifted into an uneasy sleep.
    Bones.
    Rattling at the window, hanging dry and dusty in her closet, tumbling around on the floor of her childhood bedroom like so many Barbies and wooden blocks.
    The bones stitched themselves into a skeleton.
    Julia was four. She got up from the bed. Chester Bear had fallen behind the headboard, but she didn't retrieve him. Instead, she went to the door, listened to the voices in the next room, turned the knob.
    The skeleton stood before her, its skull grinning like a jack-in-the-box puppet.
    She tried to cry out, but then its hard clattering fingers were on her, dirty-white, squeezing, sharp, insistent. The skeleton pulled her from the room, dragged her into the living room. Daddy was gone. The bad people in the robes stood around, watching her. She opened her mouth to scream but a blanket was thrown over her. The wool scratched her skin.
    She was carried from the house into the cool dark night. A long time later, maybe hours, the blanket was pulled from her. Two of the people in robes held her. Others stood watching in the darkness. They took her clothes and tied her. Someone stuck a needle in her arm.
    She was laid on a stone, its hard chill sinking into her flesh. The bad people circled around her. She wanted to yell for help, but she was so tired, so sleepy.
    Candles burned near the stone, along with other things in clay pots. Trees loomed overhead under the bright, full face of the moon. A sweetish, heavy smoke filled the air. The bad people began swaying, singing slow songs that made her blood freeze in her veins.
    One of the bad people stood over her and held out his hands. A large ring, of a silver skull with tiny red jewels for eyes,