The House in the Pines(65)

Could this be why Maya’s eyes had seemed to skip over the word hypnosis and why her ears couldn’t seem to hear it? Had Frank implanted a posthypnotic suggestion in her mind designed to keep her from figuring out what he’d done? She could almost feel it there, alien, invasive. A seed that had sprouted its pale tendrils through her brain.

Maya dropped her phone to the bed. She couldn’t stand to look at it anymore.

She wanted to scrub out the inside of her skull, could almost feel his words worming through her. She had a word now for what he had done to her.

But could hypnosis kill people? Was that possible? Even with all the recent scientific research she’d found online, the word made her think of stage tricks, a man in a suit making hammy volunteers quack like ducks. It made her think of the magic shows Aubrey had loved, which Maya had always found cheesy. But this clearly wasn’t the type of hypnosis Frank’s father had practiced. Steven had said he taught at Williams College, and if this was true, the college, along with both journals that had published his research, had erased all signs of having been affiliated with Oren Bellamy.

Yet—according to the Clear Horizons website—he had singlehandedly developed a “proprietary therapeutic method” for treating patients, one with a “100 percent success rate.” Frank had said his father was brilliant yet dangerous, that he had hurt people but not physically. Now Maya thought she understood. Oren didn’t have to touch anyone to hurt them. He did it with words, just like his son. Frank learned from his father.

Maya had to tell someone. She would tell her mom. Dan. The police. She turned on the light, got back into her sweatpants and shirt.

Her mom didn’t wake as Maya peeked her head through the door of her bedroom. She slept on her back, mouth open, blankets pulled up to her shoulders. The clock read 9:17. Maya paused here.

Claiming Frank had hypnotized her would make her sound as delusional as she had seven years ago. It’s like he has some kind of power. No one had believed her then, and no one would now, not even her mom, unless she had proof.

She crept back to her room, thoughts tumbling. She turned off the lights, then turned them on again. She rocked back and forth on the bed, hugged herself. It wasn’t enough to point out that Frank’s dad was a hypnotherapist. She had to prove that Frank was too, and that the hypnotism they had practiced was somehow deadly. She began to cry. It was like a caged animal had been released from her chest. The truth that wouldn’t let her sleep, that had lurked just beyond her grasp for the past seven years, was finally out in the open.

Either that or she’d lost her mind again.

The only person who knew for sure was Frank.

Steven had told her she could find him at the Whistling Pig most nights. The bar was less than a mile away. She downloaded a voice memo app on her phone. Tested it out, talking at different volumes with the phone tucked into her waistband, covered by her shirt, then beside her, hidden in her purse. The sound was best when she kept it in her purse. She found the cream-colored cashmere sweater she had worn to dinner with Dan’s parents stuffed in her backpack; this would look better than the faded T-shirt she had on. She would pretend like she just so happened to be in town and decided to have a drink at the Whistling Pig. She would act like she was happy to see him.

Like it had never occurred to her that Frank might have killed her friend, or that it was him calling her on the landline the other night, perhaps worried that she was starting to remember. She went to the bathroom for more of her mom’s cover-up, but the mirror told her there was only so much she could do. Her eyes were sunken, her lips bloodless and chapped.

Maya looked unwell, but she felt stronger than she had in years. She finally had the words for what happened to her. Frank had hypnotized her, planted his suggestions, then made her forget, causing her to think she’d blacked out. She might never know exactly what he told her during that time, but now she felt sure that her nearly instant infatuation with him, her blindness to the warning signs that had been so apparent to Aubrey, were all part of his programming. He’d cultivated in her the perfect companion for himself to dwell in the cabin in his head.

Or tried to, anyway. Though he appeared to have succeeded with Cristina, who, after all, would never leave him, never hurt him or let him down. Maya splashed cold water on her face, clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering. She appeared broken down and weak, even more vulnerable that she must have when he lured her in at the library.

But she wasn’t.

This time her vulnerability would be a trap. She must have been an easy target for him then, hanging on his every word. Now she knew better. She wouldn’t get sucked into one of his stories.

She wrote her mom a note on the back of an envelope. Mom—if you find this, it means I need help. I’m at the Whistling Pig. She placed the note on top of the alarm clock in her room, then set the alarm for midnight.

She slid a chef’s knife from its block in the kitchen. She wrapped the gleaming blade in a dish towel and put it in her purse.

She closed the door quietly on her way out.



* * *



—

The Whistling Pig was on the ground floor of the old Berkshire Life Insurance Company, a stately gray building from the 1800s. The bar was tucked between a restaurant and a copy shop. She’d walked so that her mom would have the car if Maya needed rescuing. She paused to catch her breath before reaching for the heavy red door.