Gray's Domain: Purgatorium Series, Book Two (2 page)

Her parents looked up at her when she approached their table.

“Can I sit with you?” she asked.

“Of course,” her mother said, her brows in a v. “You don’t have to ask.”

She noticed they had waited for her before making their plates. “Let’s go get some grub, then.”

As they filled their plates with eggs, hash browns, fruit, and muffins, her father warned her that they planned to leave as soon as possible.

“But this place is helping me,” Daphne said, which wasn’t a lie. “I want to finish the therapy.”

Her parents exchanged looks of surprise, and when they returned to their table to eat, her father said, “Well, that’s good to hear, Daph. An absolute relief.”

Daphne noticed tears brimming in his eyes, and she flooded with guilt over what she planned to do to them.

“We’ll stay as planned, then,” her mother said, pulling the scarf a little further down on Daphne’s head.

Daphne flinched from her mother’s touch, causing her mother to frown and look away, down at her plate.

“I’m sorry,” Daphne muttered. She hadn’t realized how angry she still felt toward her mother. She had so many feelings bottled inside of her, and for some reason, most of the negative ones were brought on by her mother.

Maybe it was because she had said those words that continued to haunt Daphne: “You mean you heard and did nothing?”

Daphne had wanted to die then. She had wanted to curl up in a ball and die.

The past is immutable, she reminded herself as she twirled the silver bracelet on her wrist. We can only learn to live with it.

As they ate, she listened to her parents recount what had happened the night before with the ghosts. Daphne fought hard not to smile, especially at her mother’s exaggerations—there were ten or twenty? They were all over six feet tall? Before they had finished eating, though, Hortense appeared beside their table, looming over Daphne like an evil spirit.
No, like Prospero
.

“I need to speak with you privately in my office,” she said to Daphne. “Please come by when you’re finished.” Then she looked at Daphne’s parents, gave them a curt nod, and left the dining hall.

Chapter Two: Fear Profiles

Daphne sat in the green chenille chair across from Hortense Gray’s messy desk in an office overflowing with paintings, books, sculptures, a loom, and an upright piano. Hortense was just now closing the lid on her old-fashioned record player, which was plunked on one side of her desk. She wore a strange smile.

“I’m pleased you decided to stay,” Hortense said, sitting back in her high-back leather chair behind the desk. “You’ve had a taste of how things work on the other side, I presume?”

Daphne nodded, unable to prevent the smile from crossing her face.

“Good.
Very good. I’m glad to hear that.” The doctor shuffled a few papers around on her desk and opened a file. “I asked you here because we need to discuss the fear profiles for your parents and Brock.”

“Fear profiles?”

“Of course. I’m sure you’ve realized by now it was no coincidence that your therapeutic games played on your worst fears.”

“That wasn’t hard to figure out.”

“Your parents and Cam gave me the information I needed to set up the games.” Hortense cleared her throat. “Now I need information from you to design therapy tailored to your parents and Brock. Let’s start with your father.” She sat up and picked up a pen. “What would you say is his worst fear?”

Daphne thought about that. “Well, you can’t use his very worst one, because that’s helicopters.”

“Of course we can. Arturo Gomez travels in his private helicopter on and off the island all the time. He would be thrilled if we incorporated it into an exercise.” Hortense leaned forward. “But tell me, what exactly about helicopters frightens your father? And do you have any idea why?”

“I think it’s called PTSD or something? My dad was in the military.”

“Is that right?” Hortense asked. “Did he see any action?”

“In the Gulf War. He never talks about it. I only know because my mother told me.”

“So your mother told you he doesn’t like helicopters? He never told you himself?”

“A long time ago, when I was little, we went on a cruise, and I wanted to go on a helicopter ride at one of the ports. I was kind of a brat about it, so Mother pulled me aside and told me that they make my dad really, really sick. That’s all I know.”

Hortense wrote something down in her file, nodding. “That’s helpful information.”

“You don’t think that would be too much for him, do you?” Daphne asked.

“It will be good for him. Trust me.” Hortense made another note. “What other fears does your father possess?
Heights? Blood? Spiders?”

Daphne shook her head. “He’s not afraid of any of those things. I really can’t think of anything else except…” Daphne stopped, unsure if she should reveal what had popped into her head.

The doctor looked across her desk at her. “Except what?”

Daphne sucked in her lips and shrugged.

The doctor smiled. “Except losing you. Isn’t that what you were about to say?”

Daphne nodded, feeling the blood rush to her face. Was she so transparent?

“That goes without saying,” Hortense said. “It doesn’t take a psychologist to see that both of your parents, and even Brock, fear your death more than anything else, even the loss of their own lives.”

Daphne’s mouth dropped open. “I wouldn’t say that. I don’t think…”

“It’s obvious you don’t think your mother and Brock love you with the same intensity as your father.”

“That’s not true,” Daphne replied automatically. It couldn’t be true, could it? Now she began to wonder if
maybe it was. Maybe she
could
admit it now. She always felt that her dad loved her more than anyone else.

Hortense gave her a patronizing smile and said, “Let’s move on to your mother.”

“My mother is easier. She doesn’t like the outdoors and is afraid of just about anything small that crawls—spiders, bugs, lizards.”

“Oh?”

“They don’t even have to be dangerous or poisonous. Even roaches have her running and screaming across the room.”

“That does sound easy.”

“Once, there was a lizard on the wall in her bathroom, and she wouldn’t take a shower until my dad caught it and proved it was out of the room.”

Hortense chuckled.
“Sounds fun already.” She made a note in her file. “Anything else?”

Daphne thought for a moment.
“Horses. She won’t ride them. I don’t know why. When we went to Colorado a long time ago, she wouldn’t go with the rest of us on a trail ride.”

Hortense made another note and said, “Very good. What about Brock?”

“I don’t think he’s afraid of anything.”

“There’s got to be something. Everyone’s afraid of something. Think, Daphne.”

Daphne gnawed on the inside of her bottom lip, trying to recall anything, any little thing. He wasn’t afraid of small spaces, as he proved when he climbed into the tiny car of a carnival ride one night at the Poteet Fair as she watched from below. That same night, he proved he wasn’t afraid of heights as he held her trembling body on the Ferris wheel while he shouted, “Woo, hoo!” He’d flown several times for nationals in swimming and seemed to have no issues with airplanes. Bugs didn’t bother him. Elevators didn’t bother him, even though he always took the stairs if she didn’t feel up to riding. He drove the speed limit but wasn’t afraid of reckless driving either, as he’d proved to her once on a Malibu go-cart race track. Then she recalled one of many days they’d visited the pet store. He loved checking out the dogs and was trying to decide which breed of dog he most preferred. Not long after they broke up, he bought a Bernese Mountain Dog. Once, while they were visiting the pet store, she’d wanted to hold a snake, and he’d refused to even come near one.

“Snakes!
I’d forgotten about that. He says they creep him out. I don’t know if it’s
that
big of a fear, but it’s all I can think of.”

“We’ve used snakes in our therapy many times, so that’s no problem. Can you think of anything else?”

Daphne shook her head. Then she remembered what she’d wanted to say to Hortense. “But I have something else I want to say.”

“What is it?”

“Please don’t put my parents and Brock in any real danger. When I was bucked off that horse…”

“That was an accident.”

“But still…”

“There’s always some risk involved in any kind of therapy. The risks here might be greater than those in the traditional clinic, but the success rate can’t even be touched by conventional means.”

“Yeah, but…”

“Look, any time a doctor prescribes a drug, most drugs have side effects and even harmful effects, but when the good outweighs the harm, the doctor writes the prescription.”

Daphne frowned. She could have
died
. “Some risks are greater than others. Maybe horses are too unpredictable.”

“Not true. We’ve been using horses for ten years. Pearl is trained to run directly to Stan’s camp. You are the very first to have been bucked off before she completed her mission. The odds are still too good.”

“What if I would have died?”

Hortense frowned. “You didn’t.”

“Maybe the fact that Kelly had been away on maternity leave…”

Hortense nodded.
“Maybe so. In any case, she’s been working with the horses every day since. I don’t anticipate any more surprises.”

They were silent as Hortense made a few more notes in her file. Daphne gazed around the room, studying all the art. The painting of the girl about to lie down on her back in the stream was now up on the wall crammed between two other paintings of different styles. This reminded Daphne of her last visit to the Dr. Gray’s office and of the article she had found in
The Tempest.

“I finished
The Tempest
, by the way,” Daphne said, studying the doctor’s response. “I need to return it to you.”

“I told you to keep it.”

“There was something folded inside that I think you might want back.” Daphne’s heart raced.

“Oh? What was it?”

“A newspaper article about you.”

The doctor’s face drained of color. “Did you read it?”

Daphne nodded. “And I was wondering…”

“Yes?”

Daphne’s mouth went dry. “Did your father give you your scars?”

The doctor closed her file and folded her arms across her chest. “My father was a great man.”

Daphne looked at her lap, embarrassed for having asked the question. She wanted to run from the room. “I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologize. You’re a curious child. That’s a positive trait. Maybe one day, you’ll consider the field of psychology. You have the mind for it.”

Daphne looked up in surprise. She hadn’t expected praise. “Thank you.”

“Do you have any further questions for me?”

“No ma’am…except when will the games begin? And how will I know what to do?”

“Cameron will help you through them. And remember, the exercises are as much
art
as they are
science
. Part of my concept of living art is that the games are not scripted. I want you to improvise, be spontaneous. There is no right or wrong in this, okay?”

That was a relief. “Thank you, doctor.”

“You’re quite welcome. Thanks for your cooperation.”

Daphne took this as a dismissal, so she stood up and crossed the room to the door.

“Daphne?”

“Yes?” She stopped at the door and turned to face Dr. Gray.

“The only mistake you can make is to break the illusion. Under no circumstances should you warn your parents or Brock that none of it is real. In many ways, the games are as real as our experiences in the outside world, and a sudden breach in the illusion could ruin the therapy for all involved. Understood?”

“Yes,
ma’am.”

On her way back to her room from Hortense Gray’s office, Daphne noticed the young group she had come to think of as “the regulars,” which included Emma, Gregory, Stan, Vince, Dave, Bridget, and Cam—though Cam wasn’t with them at the moment. They stood at the edge of the pool still wearing their clothes from breakfast and were cheering on a race. Dave, the loudest and rowdiest of the group, was shouting Cam’s name. She ran over to join them and peered into the pool to see Cam racing Brock, who was a full length ahead of him.

“Hey, kiddo!” Stan greeted her as she moved beside him. He patted her back and said, “Cam is getting creamed by your boyfriend.”