It’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you, she thought.
She felt guilty telling her story to Reeny. She didn’t spend as much time with her sister as she should, and when they did manage to get together, it seemed she usually asked Reeny to help her with one problem or another. But today she couldn’t help it. She needed to talk to someone about what had happened last night – and the weirdness that had occurred at work today – and who else could she turn to but her sister?
She smiled nervously at Reeny.
“You’re awfully quiet.”
Reeny started, as if Lori’s words had brought her out of a daze.
“It’s a hell of a lot to take in.”
“I know. You probably think I’ve lost my mind.”
She hoped Reeny would protest, would say she didn’t think anything of the sort. Her silence hurt worse than Lori had expected.
“So everything was fine until the woman with the weird eyes started talking to you in the grocery store.”
“Yes. No bizarre encounters, no strange nightmares. Not before her.”
Reeny nodded slowly. Lori had the impression she did this more to give herself time to think than because she was agreeing with what she’d said.
“And you think this mysterious group – the Cabal – is behind all of this.”
The idea sounded crazy coming from her sister, like sign-the-commitment-papers-and-lock-her-up crazy. But she nodded.
“And you believe that the things you dreamed about – the Nightway, the tower – are real.”
Lori wanted to deny it, to tell Reeny that of course she didn’t think that those dreams were real, or at least a different kind of real. She’d have to be insane to think that, right? But she said nothing, and Reeny went on.
“Do you think the Cabal—” she grimaced as she said the word, “—somehow got to Katie and Melinda and…what? Did something to them?”
That’s exactly what she thought, but she said, “I don’t know.”
Reeny took a sip of water. Another stalling tactic, Lori thought. Reeny put her glass down on the table and sat back in her chair.
“If it was anyone else but you telling me all this, I’d think they were playing some kind of sick joke on me or they were….” She trailed off.
“Nuts,” Lori finished.
Reeny nodded. “But unless you’ve suddenly developed a dark sense of humor – I mean really dark – or you’ve had a stroke or a psychotic break in the last couple days….”
Lori felt encouraged by her sister’s words.
“Does that mean you believe me?”
“I didn’t say that. I mean, come on. It’s a lot, Lori. A whole fucking lot.”
Lori felt disappointed, but she didn’t blame Reeny. She was sure she’d feel the same if their positions were reversed. But before she could say anything else, Reeny held up a hand to stop her.
“But let’s say for the sake of argument that it’s true. It all seems to come down to that one message, the one that the Cabal gave you.”
“Confess and atone,” Lori said. “Or suffer.” Speaking the words caused her to shudder.
“A lot of the things that have happened in the last day could count as you suffering, couldn’t they? Like you’re being punished for something you did.”
Lori thought about this for a moment. Goat-Eyes had delivered the Cabal’s message, and after that, everything had started going to hell for her. Almost getting hit in FoodSaver’s parking lot by that poor man. The shadow creatures breaking into her apartment. Her nightmare of being tortured in the Vermilion Tower. Officer Rauch leaving the message on her bathroom mirror. Melinda and Katie turning psycho…. She supposed all of those incidents could be looked at as ways of making her suffer.
She nodded.
“And the Cabal wants you to confess to something you did – or at least what they think you did – and make amends for it somehow. So if you can figure out what they think you’ve done, then you can atone for it, whatever that entails. And once you do—”
“It’ll be over,” Lori finished.
“That would seem to be the logical conclusion. As logical as any of this shit can be, anyway. So whether this stuff is real or…I don’t know, some kind of message your subconscious is trying to send you, it all comes down to the same question: What could you have done that the Cabal would think was so bad they need to punish you in both the real world and the dream world?”
Aashrita’s face came immediately into Lori’s mind, but she banished the image just as swiftly.
“I don’t know,” she said.
Reeny looked at her for a long moment. She might be the younger sister, but she’d always acted like the older of the two, and she could always tell when Lori was lying to her. She’d gotten even better at assessing her truthfulness since she’d become a mother. But Lori had banished the thought of Aashrita so thoroughly that she didn’t remember having it in the first place. Eventually Reeny relaxed, evidently satisfied that Lori had told the truth.
“Then I suggest you figure it out fast and do whatever you need to in order to make it better. Otherwise, things are going to get worse. Probably a lot worse.”
Reeny’s warning wasn’t phrased in the same language as the Cabal’s, but her words were still chilling, so much so that Lori looked at her sister’s left pinky finger. But the nail was free of polish. Reeny noted Lori’s examination of her finger, but instead of getting angry that her sister would entertain the notion, however briefly, that she was a member of the Cabal, she looked sad and sympathetic.
“Promise me something,” Reeny said.
“Anything.”
