The strange woman moved on as soon as she saw Rachel returning.

Rachel looked distressed. "She hasn't been bothering you, has she?"

The old woman had told me the orderlies were murderers and I might be next on the list to die. I'd say I was bothered. I'd been in a maze of confusion ever since I woke up alone in that white room. And each minute that passed I felt more and more freaked out. The only thing I knew with complete clarity was that I wanted to get out of this place.

I opened my mouth to share my thoughts but suddenly stopped. A strong urge came over me to keep what the old woman said to myself. Would Rachel even believe me if I told her?

Rachel seemed to be a kind woman. She obviously cared a great deal for her son. I had no reason to doubt her words or sincerity, but something strange was going on here—I could feel it in my gut.

I looked up to see a nurse standing beside Rachel, arms outstretched. She held a cup of water in one hand and two white pills in the other. Both of them looked at me expectantly, so I reluctantly reached out for the pills and made a show of swallowing them.

But I didn't.

Instead, I slipped them under my tongue. When they weren't looking, I spat them out and tucked them under the blanket in my lap.

Whatever was going on, I wanted a clear head. More importantly, I needed to remember who I was and how I'd gotten here.

The nurse walked away. Rachel stayed. She moved next to her son and looked down at her watch. "Visiting hours are almost up. I'll be heading home. This place may be low security, but they're still sticklers about the visiting schedule." She reached out and stroked her son's arm and then stopped and looked up at me. "I hope to see you again when I come back."

I forced a smile. "Thanks for the pudding."

"Take care of yourself, and hopefully, you'll start feeling better soon." She hesitated a moment, hovering over her boy. It was obvious she didn't want to leave. She gave a long sigh, turned away, and walked out of the room.

I studied Dean. He hadn't shown any sign of following our conversation. I wondered if he could hear us. Did he have any clue what was going on around him?

"Help us." It was the voice again, this time from behind me. I whipped my head around. No one was nearby.

The old woman said Dean was important, that I had come here for him. None of it made sense. But I had a chance to give Dean a closer look now that Rachel was gone. I started to get out of the wheelchair, but Rachel was right—my body remained shaky after that sedative. So instead, I rolled my chair over until it sat parallel to Dean's.

The feeling of being watched washed over me. I glanced across the room. The orderly closest to us stared directly at me with a serious expression on his face. His body looked tense, as though he was ready to move at any moment. Did he think I was going to harm Dean? I gave the orderly a half smile. He frowned. I tried to look unthreatening and reminded myself to make slow, small movements. The last thing I wanted to do was piss someone off. The sedative they gave me earlier had taught me to be more careful, act more compliant, and play smart if I was going to get myself out of here.

I leaned over and peered into Dean's face. There was no reaction. I waved my hand in front of his eyes. He didn't even blink in response. Man, his eyes were blue, like the color of the ocean. There was something about him that seemed oddly familiar. I leaned closer, my gaze lingering on a very wide forearm attached to surprisingly fit biceps. Shouldn't he be all wasted away after a year in a wheelchair?

I looked over my shoulder to find that the orderly had turned his attention away from me. Casually, I lowered my hand, reached over, and pinched Dean's arm as hard as I could.

Nothing. Whatever world he was in, my actions didn't seem to penetrate it.

The old woman's rantings seemed more and more wild now. How could this comatose guy be the reason I was here? I couldn't deny that there was something about him that felt...intimate. Had I hooked up with this guy? No, not possible. Rachel said he'd been like this for over a year.

Still, something about him almost surfaced in my memory, but the thought floated away before I could make sense of it. Frustrated, I slumped back against my chair.

A nurse walked up to me. "It's dinnertime. I'm here to help you to the cafeteria."

Another nurse came up behind Dean, and they proceeded to wheel us across the room and out the big, metal doors. They pushed us down a maze of hallways littered with doors, some of them ajar. I looked into the open ones as we passed by and saw furnished offices and clinical-looking rooms. The more I saw of this place, the more helpless I felt. How would I ever be able to find my way around well enough to navigate this maze on my own? Maybe the floor plan lay buried somewhere in my missing memories.

But something about the place discouraged me from wanting to wander. Whether it was the smell of stale disinfectant covering a background odor of musty rot or the dark shadows that seemed to lurk around every corner, I found myself shuddering at the thought of exploring by myself. I breathed a sigh of relief when we finally went through a pair of swinging doors and entered a cafeteria filled with people.

Metal picnic tables arranged in neat rows lined the room. At the front, two women behind a glass-topped counter dished out food. People stood in line, red plastic trays in their hands.

The nurse wheeled me to the end of a table and pushed my chair forward until I was snug against it.

"Tonight, it's macaroni and cheese," she said, patting my shoulder a couple times before she left me. She walked over to the front of the line and grabbed a tray. A few minutes later she came back, the tray piled high with food.

"I'll be back for you in a half hour." She moved away so quickly I didn't have a chance to say thank you.

I looked down at the tray. This time there were utensils, although they were plastic. I picked up the fork and started eating. As I ate, I looked around the room. Dean's nurse wheeled his chair to a table close by, but she didn't leave. Instead, she sat next to him, slowly lifting food up to his mouth. I watched in fascination as he opened his mouth, and she shoved the food inside. Dean closed his mouth as if on cue and started to chew. How was it possible that this guy—who didn't seem to know what was going on around him—knew there was food in front of him and he should chew?

Every time the nurse lifted up a spoonful of macaroni and cheese, Dean dutifully opened his mouth. He chewed and swallowed, and the whole process started over again. If he could eat, there had to be some sort of awareness inside him, somewhere deep. Both of us were stuck—him inside his body, and me inside this place. I hoped to get out of here as soon as possible, but how long would Dean be trapped? Would his consciousness ever surface? I wondered what it would take for the Doctors to reach him, or if it was even possible.

I took in the rest of the room and watched my fellow diners consume their meals. Forty or so folks sat scattered around the cafeteria. A few were dressed in white hospital gowns like me, but most wore sweatpants and T-shirts. The crowd consisted of all ages and races.

A slender man in his twenties came over and sat down across from me. Within moments it became clear that he was a bundle of nervous energy. His fingers ran through his blond hair a few times before he started fidgeting with his tray. He moved his milk carton incessantly. Back and forth, and back and forth. When he finally got around to his food, his left hand kept tapping the tabletop while he ate.

He mumbled to himself, "Have to get more salt for protection. Can't forget the salt. They'll be coming again tonight." He looked over his shoulder and then back at me. He suddenly focused on my face. "I'm Andrew. If you're not going to eat that roll, can I have it?"

"Sure," I said, passing it to him.

I took another bite of mac and cheese and watched Andrew as he picked small pieces off the roll. He piled the pieces on the side of his tray. Once the bread was all in a pile, he reached for a piece and started to chew it. "So, you're a healer."

"Sorry...what?"

He gestured toward my wrist. "The blue swallow. The sign of a healer. We don't get many healers in here."

I turned over my right wrist and for the first time noticed a tattoo in the shape of a swallow.

"Next time I have a headache, can I come to you to get rid of it?" he asked anxiously.

I just stared at him, not sure how to respond. I looked down at the tattoo again. I'm a healer? I had no recollection of what that meant or entailed. Were people supposed to come to me to heal their headaches? "You mean I'm a nurse or something?"

Andrew was watching me closely now. "They gave you the Styrmir treatment. I heard. The rumor mill in this place... Word spreads like wildfire. The staff love to talk in front of us—it's like sometimes they forget we're even there."

He gestured toward Dean. "Now that boy can keep a secret." He smiled and picked up another piece of bread. "Your memories completely shot? Not surprising. The first time I had lightning therapy, I forgot I hated green beans. I ate nothing but green beans for two weeks until one day I remembered." He shook his head in disgust at the memory.

His hand whipped across the table and grabbed my wrist. He turned it over and studied the tattoo. "From the look of your tat, you're part of a Scottish clan. They said your name is Colina Campbell. Campbell is Scottish, see? The Scottish live in a closed community. It's not like you see a lot of them out in public, healing strangers. Not like the travelers. The travelers work more in public places." He let go of my arm and studied me quietly for a few minutes. "You look fairly young. How old are you?"

"I'm not sure." I answered his question while still trying to process the deluge of information he'd dumped on me.

"I'd say nineteen, maybe twenty. That would mean you're a newbie healer. Most folks don't start training seriously until they hit their late twenties. Now me, I'm a reader. Or I used to be." Andrew shook his head and looked down at his bread. "Too many voices screaming in my head. I couldn't keep control as I got older. It was all too much." He lifted a leather cord from around his neck. On the end of it sat a purple pouch. He patted it comfortingly. "This puppy right here helps mute my powers."

I just stared at him, trying to absorb what he was saying.

He gave me a reassuring smile. "Not to worry, I can't hear a thing you're thinking. You wouldn't believe how weirded out people get around my kind. They're always worried we'll pick up their deep, dark secrets." He laughed, but the laughter sounded strained. "Not that I haven't picked a secret out here and there. If I told you all the things, I've heard over the years..." He stopped and seemed to catch himself.

Andrew stared at a spot over my shoulder for a long time and then focused on me again; the stillness was jarring after his constant movement. "If you're a healer, you're a young one. But it's odd—I've never known a Scottish healer to be put in a place like this. Normally, the clans can help their people, help their folks that have lost their balance. That can't control their magic. That's why we're all here, right? Because we can't control ourselves. Because now we're labeled potentially dangerous, and folks are scared of having us around." He gave a long, nervous laugh.

I'm a young healer from a Scottish clan. If this guy's right, and clans usually help their own kind, why am I here? Where's my family? That last thought filled me with inconsolable sadness. Why was I suddenly so sad?

Breaking the silence, I said the first thing that came to mind. "Have you been in here long?"

"Six months, four days, and seventeen hours." He gave me a sheepish smile. "Not that I'm counting."

He lifted a small packet of salt from his tray. "You'll have to be careful. See the salt?" He pointed to the packet tucked under my plate. "At every meal, make sure you keep it. You need to get enough of the stuff to sprinkle across your doorway and across the windowsill."

He had rapid-fire switched topics again. Trying to keep track of everything he said was exhausting. And could I even believe any of it? "Sorry, I'm supposed to do what with the salt?"

"You use it to keep the spirits out." He touched the pouch around his neck. "This thing is great at blocking the thoughts of the living, but it doesn't work at all when it comes to keeping out the dead." He lifted up the salt packet and gave me a salute with it. "Ghosts, my young friend. The place is chock-full of them. They don't often come out in the daytime." He looked around, an expression of fear on his face. "At night's when you have to worry. And it's not pretty, I tell you. They're not happy ghosts. Not that I've ever heard of many happy ghosts, but these spirits seem especially angry and powerful."

Ghosts. Andrew thought ghosts roamed around the hospital at night. First a murder plot, and now irritated spirits. I wondered what other kinds of delusions I might hear about from my fellow unbalanced patients.

And then I reminded myself, You wouldn't be in this place if you were in control of yourself.

When I didn't sayanything, Andrew went back to shuffling his milk carton around his tray."You'll see. Just wait. Tonight, after midnight, if you're one of the mage-bornfolks, you won't be able to stop hearing them. Not these ghosts. Even thosewith the smallest amount of magic seem to sense when these spirits are around."

***