Teen Hyde (High School Horror Story #2)(31)

“So you’re sleepwalking.”

I clenched my fists. At first sleepwalking had seemed like the most logical explanation. I’d even hoped for that to be all it was. A childhood habit brought out by some weird form of stress. I felt my mouth shift into a crooked grin. “Is there such a thing as sleep driving?” I asked.

Dr. Crispin let out a puff of air. “I would say not.” He paused for effect. “Jessica, how much do you know about hypnosis?”

There was a second delay in my response as I was forced to remember that Jessica was the name I’d given him. “Only what I’ve seen on television.”

“Allow me to enlighten you then. The conscious mind,” he began, “is what you’re used to thinking about. It’s what you think of when you think of yourself. Who is Jessica Faire? That’s the conscious mind. The unconscious mind is everything else. The unconscious mind processes two million pieces of sensory information every second. The reality of which you’re aware is the product of what was sent to you by the unconscious mind. The conscious mind is more logical, rational, analytical, but it can only operate based off what the unconscious mind has chosen to give it.”

“So, you’re trying to tell me that my unconscious mind could choose not to send me all the information. It could be holding out on me?”

“Exactly. Have you ever gotten a bruise or a cut and not remembered how it got there?”

I thought about this. “… Yeah, I suppose so.”

“That’s because your unconscious mind decided not to share that piece of information with your conscious mind even though something clearly happened to cause it. Something capable of being remembered. Only you didn’t remember it.

“Have you ever smelled something that you didn’t even know was familiar and suddenly been flooded by a random memory seemingly long forgotten?”

“Yes.” I nodded more fervently, thinking of my grandmother and the smell of cinnamon gum.

“The job of hypnosis is similar to that of the familiar smell. Hypnosis is intended to make the unconscious mind cough up additional bits of information that it’s been hoarding for itself.”

The pulse thudded in my wrist and at the base of my throat. I felt as though I was walking closer and closer to the edge of a cliff and very soon I’d be looking over to see what lay at the bottom. “Okay,” I said. “I think I understand.”

“Good.” Dr. Crispin snapped the cover of his notepad closed and rested it on his knee. “You’ll be able to remember everything that happened here today, and in your altered state, I will not ask you to do anything that you don’t want to do. You understand?” I nodded again. “I’ll need you to listen very carefully to my voice. Using only my voice, I will lull you into a heightened sense of relaxation, a technique known as induction by suggestion. My sentences will be in time with your breaths, my words repetitive. Boring, even. Keep your breathing steady. Gradually, I will move from suggestion and begin making commands. There we’ll enter into the hypnotic state to explore the last time you can’t remember. From two nights ago. Are you ready, Jessica?”

My mouth went dry at the same time that my palms needed to be wiped once again on my pant legs. “Ready.”

“Okay, then. I want you to imagine a happy place. Perhaps a vacation from your childhood. Maybe at the beach or on a cruise or near a mountainside.” I chewed my lip, fighting back skepticism, and conjured up an image of me, lying in a hammock at the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas a few years ago. “Let your feet relax … and your toes relax. Consider letting your hips relax … your waist.” I nestled into the sofa, doing my best to release the tension that I’d been clinging to over the past few days. “What if you were flying? Imagine that the wind is whipping through your hair. No worries, no cares, no stress.” I continued to listen. The rise and fall of my chest evened out. My limbs went heavy with relaxation. “Sinking down and shutting down, sinking down and shutting down.” The sound of Dr. Crispin’s voice became more distant, like he was speaking to me from the other side of a pane of glass. “Return to the time two nights ago. You are there now. You can envision what you’re wearing.” An image came to me. I was changing out of my yoga pants and sports bra from practice that night. I was changing not into pajamas but into jeans and a tank top and a black hoodie. “Follow your own steps. Stay in the moment. The deeper you go, the deeper you are able to go.” I measured my breaths by his methodical intonation.

It was late. My house was dark. I was in the driveway, turning the key in the ignition. Driving. Driving toward Dearborn. In the direction of the university.

“Every word I utter is putting you faster and deeper into a state of deep, peaceful hypnosis. Where are you now?”

“I’m … at the end of a row of large houses. It’s nighttime.”

“Good. Continue walking down the street. Explore your surroundings.”

In my memory, I saw myself stopping in front of a fraternity house. Going in. The music was loud. The lights flashed, blinding me, even in my mind.

“Sinking down, shutting down…,” Dr. Crispin murmured.

I was looking for someone. My pulse sped up. In the present, I felt my fingernails dig into the leather.

“The deeper you go, the deeper you are able to go…”