Chapter 3

Water. She was underwater. How hadnt she realized she was underwater? The water was ice-cold and her heart was pounding in her chest, but there had been no shock of sudden submergence, no muffled scream of fear. But how shed gotten here seemed irrelevant right now. Her lungs were already burning… she needed to reach the surface. But which direction was that? Thrashing in the depths, she had no perception of how deep she was, or even of which direction was up. Panic began to seize in her, but something was holding it back. Some sense of surety still lingering… she could handle this. Her new friends had told her that.

Ivy kicked her legs, punched her arms through the water, forced herself to stay calm as she felt the cold water moving steadily past her body. It was pitch dark down here, but she could make out a kind of gradual increase in visibility — the water above her wasnt light, exactly, but it was certainly less dark. It was enough to confirm she was heading in the right direction, which was enough to settle her panic. She kicked harder and harder, lungs burning for air, heart pounding hard in her chest. There was enough oxygen in a human body to keep it going for a few minutes at least… longer than most people thought.

And abruptly, before shed even realized she was nearing the surface, she felt cold wind on her face and she took a deep, shrieking gasp of air. Her wet hair clung to her face as she treaded water, blinking her eyes hard to clear them enough to look around. It was barely any brighter up here than it had been in the depths… that, and the freezing cold air, told her that it was much later now than it had been when shed gotten into her car. Disorientated, she focused on catching her breath, mind racing. Her car… the drive… the traffic. The decision to take a shortcut. The truck, speeding out of the parking lot, the driver drunk and distracted. And then… she waited for her memory to fill in the gaps, but nothing came. Only darkness. Darkness, and a dreamlike encounter with glowing figures who psychically reassured her that everything was alright. And now, here she was, treading water.

Okay. So she had some memory missing. That was okay. Deal with that later. The priority, right now, was to get out of the water. The effort of swimming was warming her limbs a little, but she knew it was only a matter of time before the cold became life-threatening. Shed spent enough time playing in the snow as a kid to know how quickly the cold could sneak up on you. But which direction was out? All she could see around her was the choppy surface of the water, lit only by occasional glimpses of starlight from the dark sky above, half-covered by clouds. She looked around as best she could as she caught her breath, doing a full spin as she assessed her options. Was that a glow of light in the distance, or was she imagining it? Eerie, how completely dark it was out here.

Pick a direction and swim in it, Ivy,she told herself firmly. Its a lake, therell be a shore whatever direction you choose. So she started swimming, legs kicking, cold water tugging at her sodden jacket. Her boots felt heavy and cumbersome on her feet, but she was hardly going to stop to take them off, not in the middle of a lake. At least, she hoped it was a lake. The water that kept slopping into her mouth wasnt salty, so she was fairly sure she wasnt in the ocean. It would have been ridiculous to have gotten to the ocean from Columbus without remembering it… but then again, it wasnt as though there were lakes this size anywhere near her, either. No matter where she was, there were going to be quite a lot of puzzle pieces to put together regarding how shed gotten here.

But by the time she felt her feet hit solid ground, she was far too exhausted to worry much about that. Gasping for breath, she kicked her legs faster, making the awkward transition from swimming to wading as she felt the water growing shallower. Up ahead of her was a sandy inlet, and beyond it, a grassy rise… still no sign of lights, no indication that she was anywhere near any human settlements. That was fine by her. She sloshed her way out of the water at last, water pouring from her clothes, boots squelching with every step. Shame about the outfit, she thought faintly as she headed for the grass. Something told her that the dry-clean only blazer she was wearing wasnt going to make a full recovery after being submerged in a lake.

At least she was alive, she thought as she shrugged off the blazer and sat down heavily on the grassy rise to catch her breath and get her bearings. Alive was good, especially when it came to car accidents like the one that shed… been in? Narrowly avoided? Her memory didnt seem to have returned to her, and she frowned as she revisited the last thing she remembered. The speed that truck had been moving at… there was no way shed avoided a collision, either with the truck itself or with the building shed swerved into in an attempt to avoid the truck. But a cursory inspection of her body told her she was completely uninjured. No aches and pains, not so much as a lingering headache to indicate what had happened.

That didnt necessarily mean she wasnt hurt, of course. She could have sustained the kind of head trauma that didnt feature pain as a noticeable symptom. The memory loss was certainly consistent with that… though she felt surprisingly coherent, otherwise. Sitting here, catching her breath on the grassy rise by the lakeshore, Ivy realized that if anything, she felt better than she had when shed left the courthouse. Was it the adrenaline of nearly drowning, chasing the weariness out of her system? If so, she was headed for a hell of a crash sometime soon. But for now… best to take advantage of the clarity.

First things first, her clothing. She did her best to wring out the worst of the lake water from her clothes — first her blazer, then the top that was clinging soddenly to her torso. The pants she was wearing, at least, were made of a kind of polyester that didnt seem capable of holding much water. Her socks were another question… they squelched as she yanked her boots off with some difficulty, and she wrinkled her nose as she wrung them out. Overall, she didnt feel much drier when she was dressed again, but until she got somewhere dry and warm, it was going to have to do.

Already, the cold was biting at her again, and she knew that sitting here much longer wasnt going to help. So she got to her feet, scanning the area for some clue as to where she was. No clues eventuated… save for a primitive dirt road behind her that reached off into the gathering dark beyond. Judging by the way it curved, it continued for at least some distance along the shore of the lake. Boots still squelching, Ivy took a few steps down the road, unsure whether she should turn right or left… but there was the same amount of darkness in both directions.

Flip a coin,she told herself with some amusement. She needed to get moving if she was going to keep warm. And there was nothing in the other directions available to her… behind her was only the lake, and ahead she could just make out the edge of what looked like a thick forest, dense trees with no sign of even a path as rudimentary as the dirt road she was standing on.

So she turned left and set off at a decent pace along the road, hoping that she wasnt headed for a dead end.

It was clear, as she walked, that she wasnt in Columbus anymore. A body of water as big as the one she was walking by simply couldnt be found in the city limits. She wracked her brain as she walked, trying to think of potential options nearby… the reservoir, maybe? Buckeye Lake? Maybe one of those had a section of shoreline as remote and seemingly untouched by civilization as the shore she was currently walking along. It was as good a guess as any, she supposed. The question of how shed gotten there, of course, was another one entirely. Shed lost time, that much was clear. It was much later at night now than it had been when shed gotten into her car. But had she lost hours… or had she lost days?

For the first time since shed pulled herself out of the lake, Ivy felt real fear bite at her heart, the adrenaline of immediate survival fading to reveal the prickling dread beneath. She didnt like the idea that shed lost time, didnt like the idea that things had happened to her that she couldnt remember… especially didnt like the swirling possibilities associated with finding herself in a lake in the middle of the night. Had someone else been involved? The driver of the truck, perhaps? Had she been thrown from her car unconscious, only to be picked up by the red-faced driver and driven out of town? Her seemingly lifeless body hurled into a reservoir… she shuddered as she remembered flashes of evening news stories about the discoveries of bodies on the shores of lakes. Had the driver, thinking hed killed her, disposed of her body? Was that how shed gotten here?

But how could that be, when she was unharmed? As she walked, shed been checking herself more thoroughly for injuries, combing through her wet hair to explore her scalp for tell-tale signs of trauma. She hadnt found so much as a scratch. And she couldnt think of any kind of cocktail of drugs, no matter how expertly selected, that could cause this kind of thing without also contributing some very noticeable side effects. Aside from the cold and the confusion, she felt fine. So what else could explain this kind of memory loss, this kind of complete dissociation from reality? Trauma, her psychologists mind suggested, sending another chill through her. What if it wasnt physical injury that had obliterated her memory — what if it was her mind protecting her from experiences too horrible to recall?

Maybe it would be safest to leave this line of enquiry alone for the time being, she thought, and the shiver that ran up her spine had nothing to do with the cold night air.