Page 3 of In Her Fears
A small sound from the bed pulled Jenna back to the present.Jill’s eyelids fluttered, her fingers twitching against the white hospital sheets.Jenna sat up straight, pulse quickening.
“Jill?”she called softly.“Jill, can you hear me?”
The woman’s eyes opened slowly, unfocused at first, then gradually taking in the sterile hospital room.They were pale blue, clouded with confusion and medication.
“Where...?”Jill’s voice was thin, barely audible over the machinery.
“You’re in Trentville Memorial Hospital,” Jenna said, keeping her tone gentle.“You’re safe.Do you remember me?”
Jill’s gaze settled on Jenna’s face, and for one heart-stopping moment, Jenna thought she saw a flash of recognition.But it faded as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by wary confusion.
“Who are you?”Jill asked, shrinking slightly against her pillows.
The disappointment was crushing, but Jenna had weathered this before.Each visit had been the same—Jill awake but disoriented, with no recollection of her previous moments of clarity.
“I’m Sheriff Jenna Graves,” she said, gesturing to the badge clipped to her belt.“I’m one of the people who found you in the mine.We’ve met several times since then.”
Jill's eyes darted around the room, taking in the IV stand, the monitoring equipment, and the closed door.
“Am I in trouble?”she asked, her voice suddenly small and frightened.
“No, not at all,” Jenna assured her.“You’re here to recover.You’ve been through a traumatic experience.”She paused, weighing her next words carefully.“Jill, when you first woke up after we rescued you, you seemed to recognize me.You called me Piper.”
The name hung in the air between them.Jill’s brow furrowed, her lips pressing into a thin line.
“I don’t know anyone named Piper,” she said, but there was a quaver in her voice that made Jenna wonder.
“Piper is my twin sister,” Jenna pressed gently.“She disappeared twenty years ago, when we were sixteen.I’ve been looking for her ever since.”
Jill’s breathing quickened, the monitor beside her bed registering the increase in her heart rate.“I don’t—I don’t remember.I don’t know why I would say that.”Her hands clutched at the blanket.“Maybe I was confused.I’m often confused.”
"It's okay," Jenna said, though it wasn't."I'm just trying to understand.Do you remember anything about your life before the mine?Where did you live?People you knew?"
Jill's eyes took on a strange, distant quality."I lived in the light.Before the dark came.The dark had many hands and many needles."She looked down at her arms, marked with track marks and bruises in various stages of healing."The needles sang to me.They sang about the emptying."
Jenna fought to keep her expression neutral.This wasn’t the first time Jill had slipped into these kinds of paranoid confabulations.The doctors had explained it might be a result of prolonged trauma, drug use during captivity, or an underlying mental condition exacerbated by her ordeal.
“What about before the dark?”Jenna tried again.“Do you remember family?Friends?”
“The stars,” Jill said suddenly, her eyes widening.“The stars told us where to go.We followed them into the desert, but the desert wasn’t sand, it was people.People with empty spaces where their thoughts should be.”She grabbed Jenna’s wrist with surprising strength.“They’re listening.They’re always listening through the walls.”
Jenna gently disengaged herself.“Who’s listening, Jill?”
“The ones who want to take pieces of us and put them in jars.They collect things that aren’t theirs.”Jill’s voice dropped to a whisper.“They took my name and put it in a box.Now I only have the one they gave me.”
“Jill isn’t your real name?”Jenna asked, leaning closer.
“Names are just sounds that stick to you until they don’t,” Jill replied, a hint of lucidity breaking through.“I had another sound once.Before the road and the van and the needles.”
“Do you remember what that sound was?”Jenna felt her heart rate increase.A real name could be traced, could create connections, could lead to answers.
Jill opened her mouth, then froze, her gaze fixed on something beyond Jenna’s shoulder.Jenna turned to see Nurse Daniels standing in the doorway, her expression stern.
“Sheriff Graves,” the nurse said, her voice clipped.“May I speak with you outside, please?”
Jenna hesitated, reluctant to leave when Jill seemed on the verge of revealing something important.But the woman had already retreated into herself, her gaze once again unfocused, fingers plucking absently at the blanket.
“I’ll be right back,” Jenna promised, though she knew Jill might not even remember she’d been there at all.
