Suspicious Minds (Stranger Things Novels #1)(46)

Brenner had been smug and solicitous and given her a complement of vitamins to take home. That was new. “Some of the drugs we’re testing may have side effects…abdominal swelling or nausea. Let me know if they do—don’t visit your usual doctor, because they won’t know what to do. At any rate, these should help your brain recover from the paces we put it through here.”

“Uh, thanks?” she’d said, and bit her tongue on asking why they were being put through the paces and whether the gifted children he had here got vitamins, too. Maybe they got those new Flintstones ones. Whatever the case, she’d throw them away as soon as she got home.

Now he might have been telling her to go deeper, but Terry’s concentration was such that it didn’t penetrate. She actively didn’t listen to the sound of his parody of a soothing voice. She breathed and she looked inside herself and then she imagined going further…further…

She traveled over a desert that turned into the tile of the hallway outside, and then into ice that made her feet so cold she shivered. The first water she reached belonged to a beach, sand between her toes, an ocean from a vacation one summer. They’d shared a motel a block from the waves with one of her dad’s soldier buddies and his family. Terry had eavesdropped on the mothers, sitting with their heads together at the outside tables at night while the kids exhausted themselves on the diving board. They hardly remembered that Terry wasn’t a diver, and so she could linger and catch snatches of conversation.

“Nightmares?”

“Yes, sometimes so bad he doesn’t sleep for days…”

“Does he take it out on you? On the girls?”

These formed a large part of her idea of adulthood. Now, wandering through an acid test, she decided that yes, she’d been right, but it was also far weirder.

That was when the the darkness she’d been seeking surrounded her. The nowhere-everywhere. How long it had taken to get there, she didn’t know. But memories, that yearning in them, somehow she thought memory and the void were similar. A space that connected people.

No smell, no taste.

There was nothing here, nothing but Terry.

Until she saw a face in front of her.

Gloria. A light in the darkness.

The other woman sat with her eyes closed. “Gloria, wake up,” Terry whispered.

She gave no indication of seeing or hearing Terry. And then she was gone between one breath and the next.

Terry kept walking, feet splashing in the water. But nothing else came. She was alone.

Eventually, Terry opened her eyes and pretended to tell Dr. Brenner the secrets of her past on cue. The less he knew about this newfound ability of hers, whatever it was, the better.

He never left the room, and so there was no way of getting to Kali again.





7.


The oven made the small kitchen at home overly warm and completely cozy. The radio blared big band Christmas music and, for once, Terry was okay with that.

“Don’t do it,” Andrew teased. “Don’t kill again!”

Terry plucked a still-warm gingerbread man off the baking sheet, held it aloft, and bit off its head.

“Poor Mr. Bread.” Andrew shook his head sadly.

“Mr. Bread?” she asked around the mouthful.

“First name Ginger. Last name Bread. Or it was, until he died via the sudden loss of his head.”

Terry cracked up.

Even the Hawkins lab took a break for the holidays. They’d had two weeks off, and while Terry itched to get back to the investigation, she luxuriated in not going there. Andrew had to go home to his folks’ for the holiday tomorrow, but they had this Christmas Eve together at Becky’s. Speaking of…

“Are you two kissing?” her sister called. “Or is it safe?”

“I can’t kiss and laugh at the same time,” Terry said.

“You could with practice.” Andrew leaned over and kissed her nose.

“I’m coming in there,” Becky said. “I need to start the potatoes.”

Becky was in a better mood than normal, too. The first few holidays without their parents had been devastating. She’d had to try to put on a good show for Terry, but neither of them wanted it. Having Andrew here—even with his looming draft call—made the house feel less empty. She and Becky had already agreed to go to the movies tomorrow to stay busy. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was playing. Becky had a serious thing for Robert Redford.

“Hey, come in here for a sec,” Andrew said, pulling Terry into the living room. The artificial tree lights winked, the same angel they’d had as long as she could remember at the top. There was a sparse scattering of gifts underneath.

“I want to give you one of your presents alone.” Andrew hunted and came up with a medium-sized box he’d brought that day.

She knew if she turned it over there would be a smooshed mess of wrapping paper and tape on the bottom. He’d wrapped it himself. But it looked nice from this angle.

“Oh?” Terry said, accepting it.

“Go on.”

She did love opening a present. She ripped into it with gusto and gasped in complete surprise. “A Polaroid camera? This is too much!”

“It’ll come in handy, though, on your mission.” He ducked his head, a little shy. “And, you know, if you send me letters you could include pictures sometimes. So I can see you when I’m gone.”