Page 44 of The Last Session

“Yep. You want?” She held up the pen. “It’s just nicotine. I can’t even imagine being high here. Can you?”

“At the castle? No way. Too overwhelming. And thanks, but I’m good.”

She passed me in a cloud of sandalwood perfume and peered out the window. “How are you feeling about this place?”

“It’s… interesting,” I said. “Different from what I expected.”

“Me too. They must work miracles to charge what they do.” Mikki watched me, blowing out a plume of mint-scented smoke. “What are you here for?”

Oh, not much, just doing some amateur sleuthing around a missing child actor I met in a psych ward.

“Um, you know. Dating issues and stuff. You?”

“Same.” She shrugged. “I’m sure you’ll hear all about it soon. But as a therapist, you’re probably used to talking about this stuff.”

“Well, not in a group setting like this.” My chest tightened. “I’m kind of dreading it, to be honest.”

“I’d rather get a root canal. But my therapist pushed me to go.”

It felt calming to commiserate. But I should also be doing said sleuthing. “So you heard about this place from your therapist?”

“Yeah. She said they were doing ‘cutting-edge’ work.” Mikki used finger quotes. “Whatever that means. What about you?”

“I heard the podcast.”

“Oh yeah. I got sucked into that too. We’ll see what the famous Moon and Sol are like in real life. No one can bethathappy.” She paused, hands on hips. “Do you think it’s weird that we haven’t seen them yet? Like, where are they?”

“No idea. We should ask Grace.”

She glanced at her phone. “We still need the Wi-Fi password.”

“Yes. We do.” Not having any connection to the outside world was making me feel even more on edge.

“What’s that?” Mikki pointed to my eighth-grade diary, which I’d tossed on my bed.

“Oh.” I put a palm over the cheekily grinning cat, embarrassed. “It’s an old diary. Where it all began, you know?”

She scrunched her nose and smiled. “I do.”

A male grunt from outside made me jump and Mikki spin around.

“Hello?” he called. Not Jonah or Ramit.

Mikki pulled the door open. “Hi?”

“Suitcase.” A man with a reddish, scruffy beard and a black baseball cap waited on the other side. “Which color?” His voice was sharp, almost gruff.

“Mine’s blue. Oh, thank you.” I grabbed the handle and pulled it in the yurt.

“Mine’s the black one.” Mikki strode outside. “Wow, how’d you bring all three?”

I’d seen only one photo on that art site, but our luggage carrier did in fact appear to be Steven Leister, the mosaic artist. I leaned out the doorway to watch him follow Mikki to her yurt next door.

An hour later, I was lying in a lounge chair, my stomach filled with homemade hummus and cut veggies and buttery popcorn, a ginger lemonade sweating on the tiny table next to me. Karen and Dawne were in the heated pool, chatting and laughing. Mikki, on my left side, was fully engaged with the now-shirtless Jonah beside her. She’d changed into a black bikini that made my flowery one-piece feel childish. Ramit had left to shower before dinner—maybe he had anxiety about being naked in front of everyone too.

Despite Jonah’s proximity, I felt drowsy and relaxed in the sunshine. A flowering bush nearby released the sweet scent of honeysuckle, and a wind chime tinkled delicately. When was the last time I’d been on vacation? Not for years—COVID, grad school, and my first social work job had kept me homebound. Now, my body felt heavy and immobile, like it was melting onto the plush beach towel.

Grace had gotten us the Wi-Fi password—healing123—and I’d immediately texted Dom that Jonah the PI was here too. She’d responded with a series of exclamation points. And then:Hmm well maybe you really ARE on to something…

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