Der Schädelring: Thriller (German Edition)

tickled her cheek when he kissed her. She told Dr. Forrest these things, evidence against this cruel, freshly conjured memory.
    "All that may be true as well, Julia," Dr. Forrest said. "The mind tries to protect us. One of the ways it does that is by burying the bad memories deep in the basement, way down there where they're hard to dig up. It's natural that the mind lets you retrieve only the happy memories. A survival mechanism."
    "He loved me."
    "The body remembers what the mind wants you to forget. Don't you feel the pain in your stomach and chest? In all the places the bad people touched you?"
    Julia nodded. Her muscles were sore, her stomach felt as if someone had punched it with a fistful of nails, and the place between her legs—
    "I know it's hard for you, Julia," said Dr. Forrest. "But we have to do this all the way. We have to be honest. What else do you remember about your father?"
    "He . . . he told me bedtime stories when he tucked me in at night."
    "Would this take place in your bedroom, or in his?"
    "In mine."
    "Are you sure?"
    "Yes. Chester Bear was always beside me. There was an oak tree out the window, and a streetlight on the other side of it. My room almost always had stripes of shadows across it. We lived next to a farm, you could smell the chickens."
    "When he tucked you in, how did he do it?"
    "What do you mean?"
    "Did he help you put your pajamas on?"
    "Sometimes."
    "Were you ever naked when he tucked you in?"
    "Maybe."
    "Did he ever touch you in ways that felt wrong?"
    Julia thought of that creased face, those clenched features beneath the hood, the strange light in the eyes of the man who was going to cut her. Her father. She shuddered and looked down at her hands fidgeting in her lap. His blood was in her. Or maybe he thought of her flesh and blood as his possessions, free to give and take.
    "It's very important, Julia." Dr. Forrest leaned forward and touched her knee. "Other women have gone through the same experience. Do it for all of them." A pause and  a whisper. "For all of us ."
    Julia looked at the therapist, trying to read those somber gray eyes behind the glasses. Not her, too? Had this wise and supportive woman suffered through a similar experience? Was her compassion constructed on determination, perhaps seeking to resolve her own psychic wounds by applying salve to others?
    But Dr. Forrest had survived, had conquered the past and shed all its baggage. Dr. Forrest had not let abuse destroy her present and future life. The doctor was whole and healed.
    A surge of anger swept through Julia. Her life was being stolen from her. She was being raped and tortured more viciously today, by her fear and doubt, than she had been as a child. In this instance, the scar was worse than the wound, because at least wounds brought pain. Even pain was preferable to numbness.
    "Did he ever touch you, Julia?" The woman's voice had slipped from its calm professionalism into a sharp, firm tone.
    "I don't remember," Julia said, her eyes welling even though she thought she had drained her reservoir of tears.
    Dr. Forrest squeezed her wrist as tightly as the bad people’s ropes had. "He touched you, didn't he?"
    Dr. Forrest should know. Dr. Forrest had learned things about Julia that Julia herself hadn't accepted yet. But she wasn't going to take this last terrible step, she wasn't willing to throw open the cellar door and shed light on those bones. She couldn't force herself to face a memory that made her entire life a lie.
    "Okay, let's pretend for a moment," Dr. Forrest said softly, releasing her wrist. "It’s safer to play make-believe at first. Suppose he had touched you?"
    Julia said nothing.
    "How would that make you feel?"
    Julia looked at the clock. The session had lasted nearly two hours. The televangelist that had hijacked her VCR had threatened an eternity of fire and brimstone for sinners, and Julia wasn’t sure such a punishment could be worse than a life sentence inside her own skull.
    "I'm sorry," Julia said, rubbing her temples. "I think we'd better stop. My head's splitting."
    Dr. Forrest sat back and pursed her lips. "It's always hard to admit. Perhaps the hardest thing in the world. That a father's love could go so wrong—"
    Julia gathered her purse and headed for the door.
    "You're not alone, Julia," Dr. Forrest called after her. "You're never alone."
    Julia drove home, her thoughts jumbled. The world outside the car windows seemed unreal, a strange movie set onto which she had