Speaking in Tongues

flashed.
    Megan felt a wave of heat crinkle through her face. “I—”
    “Don’t hesitate,” he whispered. “Say what’s on your mind!”
    She blurted, “Bett’s getting ready for a date, putting on makeup, staring in a mirror and poking at a wrinkle, like she’s hoping it’ll go away. She always does that. Like her face is the most important thing in the world to her. Her looks, you know.”
    “And what do you think as you watch her?” His dark eyes were fervent. Her mind froze again. “No, you’re hesitating. Tell me!”
    “ ‘Slut.’ ”
    He nodded. “Now that’s wonderful, Megan.”
    She felt swollen with pride. Didn’t know why. But she did.
    “Brilliant. Now give me a memory about your father. Fast!”
    “Bears.” She gasped and lifted a hand to her mouth. “No . . . Wait. Let me think.”
    But the doctor pounced. “Bears? At the zoo?”
    “No, never mind.”
    “Tell me.”
    She was shaking her head, no.
    “Tell me, Megan,” he insisted. “Tell me about the bears.”
    “It’s not important.”
    “Oh, it is important,” he said, leaning forward. “Listen. You’re with me now, Megan. Forget whatever Hanson’s done. I don’t operate his way, groping around in the dark. I go deep.”
    She looked into his eyes and froze—like a deer in headlights.
    “Don’t worry,” he said softly. “Trust me. I’m going to change your life forever.”

Chapter Two
    “They weren’t real bears.”
    “Toys?”
    “Bears in a story.”
    “What’s so hard about this?” Dr. Peters asked.
    “I don’t know.”
    Crazy Megan gives her a good burst of sarcasm. Oh, good job, loser. You’ve blown it now. You had to tell him about the book.
    But the other side of her was thinking: Seven weeks of bullshit with Dr. Shiny Head Hanson and she hadn’t felt a thing but bored. Ten minutes with Dr. Peters and she was hooked up to an electric current.
    Crazy Megan says, It’s too hard. It hurts too much.
    But Bill couldn’t hear C.M., of course.
    “Go on,” he encouraged.
    And she went on.
    “I was about six, okay? I was spending the weekend with Tate. He lives in this big house and nobody’s around for miles. It’s in the middle of his cornfields and it’s all quiet and really, really spooky. I was feeling weird, all scared. I asked him to read me a story but he said he didn’t have any children’s books. I was really hurt. I started to cry and asked why didn’t he have any.He got all freaked and went out to the old barn—where he told me I wasn’t ever supposed to go—and he came back with this book. It was called The Whispering Bears. Only it turned out it wasn’t really a kid’s story at all. I found out later it was a book of folk stories from Europe.”
    “Do you remember it?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Tell me.”
    “It’s stupid.”
    “No,” Peters said, leaning forward again. “I’ll bet it’s anything but stupid. Tell me.”
    “There was a town by the edge of the woods. And everybody who lived there was happy, you know, like in all fairy stories before the bad shit happens. People walking down the street, singing, going to market, having dinner with their families. Then one day these two big bears walked out of the woods and stood at the edge of town with their heads down and it sounded like they were whispering to each other.
    “At first nobody paid any attention then little by little the people stopped what they were doing and tried to hear what the bears were saying. But nobody could. That night the bears went back into the forest. And the townspeople stood around and one woman said she knew what they were whispering about—they were making fun of the people in the village. And then everybody started noticing how everybody else walked funny or talked funny or looked stupid and they all ended up laughing at each other, and everybody got mad and there were all kinds of fights in town.
    “Okay, then the next day the bears came out ofthe forest again and started whispering, blah, blah, blah, you get the picture. Then that night they went back into the woods. And this time some old man said he knew what they were talking about. They were gossiping about the people in town. And so everybody figured that everybody else knew all their secrets and so they went home and closed all their windows and doors and they were afraid to go out in public.
    “Then—the third day—the bears came out again. And it was the same thing, only this time the duke or mayor or somebody