Der Schädelring: Thriller (German Edition)

betrayals of Mitchell and Dr. Forrest.
    Maybe her borderline personality disorder drove her to leech sympathy out of everyone she met, a soul vampire who needed constant affirmation. Or maybe she had always been alone, unconnected, adrift in a world where even the past wasn't reliable. She had no tether, no foundation, and Walter seemed as solid as the Appalachian granite.
    Her face was hot from the fire. "He was one of them. A member of their coven. He let them take me across the field behind our house. They carried me into the barn. They were all in robes, and there was smoke in the air, and somebody had cut off a goat's head and impaled it on a stake. The bad people starting chanting, and they held me down while the man with the ring cut my stomach—"
    Another long silence. "And you were just a child," Walter said softly. "Like the girl Hartley killed."
    She nodded. She couldn't look at him. She hated her father, hated the Creeps, not just for the pain, but for the memories they had shackled her with. For the evil, poisonous seeds they had planted in her mind. She hated them for teaching her to hate. "The one who held the knife . . . I think it was my father. That was the night he disappeared."
    "Why do you think it was your father?"
    "Dr. Forrest told me."
    "The shrink that pretty much said you were the bride of Satan?"
    Julia gave a bitter laugh. "I know it sounds crazy. But the man with the knife wore a skull ring, with two rubies set in the eyes. I found the ring in my father's house when I went back to Memphis."
    "That's the ring you were talking about."
    "Someone took it from my purse."
    "Does anybody know you had it?"
    The bands of red and orange heat alternated in the glowing embers, hypnotic and ethereal. The rhythm of the rain had made her drowsy. She couldn't think clearly. "No. But I gave Dr. Forrest a pentagram drawing that somebody had left in my closet. Whoever it was had written 'Hello Jooolia' on it, misspelling Julia with three O ’s in the middle. Exactly the way my father did when he was teasing me."
    "So she knew someone had been in your house. Did you tell her about the ring?" Walter had moved closer, though he might have just shifted to be nearer the fire.
    "I don't think so." She glanced at him. The light was golden on his face.
    "Don't you remember what you told her?"
    Julia shook her head. "It's not that simple. You don't know what it's like to have the past all screwed up, so that you can't tell who to hate or who to trust or just who you're even supposed to be."
    Walter put his hand on her shoulder and stroked her wet hair. "One thing's been bothering me. You say you were part of a Satanic ritual when you were four. Well, if Snead was in on it, and knows that you're starting to remember, why didn't he just kill you? Why go to the trouble of all these tricks? The clock and the pentagram drawing and the ring and all that."
    Julia put her hands over her ears. Panic crept up in the form of shadows in the cabin's corners, all dark and sharp like the fingers of the past. She didn't want to fold up again, not in front of Walter. She bit her lip hard enough to hurt.
    "Hey, are you okay?" Walter asked.
    Walter had lost somebody he loved, and he hadn't been driven into the dark cellars of his own head. He got on with his life, hid his scars, and kept on breathing. He clung to his faith, however simplistic she thought it. Whatever was going on between him and God, it seemed to be working. And what did she have?
    She stood and paced the narrow room. Tears welled in her eyes, making her ashamed. She wasn't the only one who had suffered in this world. "I don't want be crazy."
    Walter moved quickly to her side. He cupped her chin in his hand and forced her to look at him. "Snead's real. Hartley's real. It's not your imagination. I don't know what they want from you, but I'm betting it's no good. And this Dr. Forrest—how long have you been going to her?"
    "Since I moved here."
    "And what good has she done?"
    "Well, at first we were making progress. She brought me out of my denial. She made me see . . . what really happened way back then." Julia closed her eyes to escape the intensity of Walter's gaze.
    "She told you your father gave you away as a sacrifice to Satan. Sounds to me like she did you one hell of a favor."
    Julia turned away from his sarcasm and sat with her back to the fire. "You can't run from the past."
    "Who says? What's so great about the past, anyway? Do we have to keep rubbing our