I used Katherine's key card to let us through the side door of her dorm and led her past half-empty vending machines to the RA's apartment. Katherine shared a room on the second floor with Penny Cooper, a third-year journalism major, but I had no intention of leaving her there in her current state.
Rachel opened her door while we were several steps away and rushed to help. She wasn't exactly tall but had a good four inches on Katherine and easily took my girlfriend's weight from me, shaking her long, raven-black pony-tail over one shoulder. I took a step back, hands on my knees, panting. Even if I'd been cured, my muscles weren't any stronger than they'd been two days ago.
"Shit, Tom, what's going on?" Rachel glared, hurrying Katherine through her door.
"I told you on the phone," I managed between breaths, "I have no idea."
Rachel's dorm was half again larger than others I'd seen, with a double bed against one wall. She maneuvered Katherine on top of the blanket, tucked a pillow behind her head, then turned on me.
"She's wasted." Her eyes threatened, but they were also confused and her manner reflected disappointment and worry more than the blind rage I'd expected.
"I don't know why. She was drinking a beer, but—"
"Where did she get a beer?"
"From my refrigerator."
"Fuck, Tom, why are you buying beer, are you trying to kill yourself?"
"No, I—"
"Did she get any of your drugs in her beer?"
"What? No, of course not!"
"None of that date rape shit?"
"Scopolamine? Rach, do you even hear what you're saying?"
Her eyes burned hot for another second, then flickered and dimmed, accompanied by a long sigh, "I'm sorry, I know you wouldn't hurt her on purpose, but I've never seen her like this. You can't tell me it doesn't look suspicious."
"It's freaking me out too."
Rachel tensed as if she were about to start yelling again, but she pressed her lips together and kept it to herself, then turned back toward Katherine, shoving her hands into the back pockets of her cutoffs while she took stock of her friend.
"I'm sorry about this," I offered once more, "I didn't know what else to do. I didn't want to leave her in her room."
Rachel looked back and barked a short laugh, "I'm glad you didn't. Penny would MacGyver the shit out of her."
"She'd what?"
Rachel held up a finger for each point, "Unconscious body, permanent marker, cell phone camera, Twitter . . ."
"That's kind of what I was afraid of," I nodded. Penny wasn't a terrible person, but her idea of fun often outweighed everyone else's sense of decency.
Rachel sighed, crossed her arms, and gave me a hard look. "Well, you aren't staying," she marched forward suddenly, forcing me backward toward the door, "I'll call you if anything changes."
"Wait, why? I want to—"
"You're not bunking down in my room, Tom, I need to sleep at some point. You asked me to make sure she's okay and I will. I've got it from here." I was back in the hall and Rachel's body blocked her doorway, muscles clearly defined beneath the overhead lights.
"But can't I . . ."
"No naked bingo for you tonight, bro. Sorry." she said, and backed out of sight, closing the door on me.
I turned to see Gloria, one of the girls who had been with Katherine the morning before, walking toward me with a hand over her face to stifle a laugh. The sandy-haired co-ed walking with her mouthed, "naked bingo" openly at me as they passed.
I leaned back against the wall and stared at the ceiling, asking myself what the hell had just happened. I'd never been drinking with Katherine so maybe she was a lightweight, but I doubted even I would have reacted so strongly to the few sips she took. As a pharmacology student, my mind went to drugs, but I couldn't think where she might have been exposed. Maybe it happened before she came over. She wasn't dressed like she'd been at a class, so she could have stopped by a party and someone tried to spike her food or drink. The thought sowed a seed of rage in my chest and I choked it down.
Could Rachel have been right about my medication ending up somewhere it didn't belong? I never cleaned up the pills in my bathroom, but Katherine hadn't been in there until after she started acting crazy. I couldn't imagine her taking one, but I saw no other explanation.
If it were true, Rachel would tear me to pieces.
With no realistic alternatives, I left the building, got into my car, and drove home, white-knuckling the steering wheel with worry. Rachel will call, I told myself, if anything happens, she'll call. Katherine will be fine.
***
I couldn't sleep. My phone read eleven thirty. Katherine had been at Rachel's for a couple hours and both were probably down for the count. I reclined on my sofa fully clothed and not sleeping. Every half hour or so I'd catch hints of more weird distortions in my vision whether my eyes were shut or not, but they were never very clear, mere curiosities that floated through my mind, just beyond my perceptions. Then they'd fade and my thoughts would return to their infinite loop.
It had to have been the benzo.
It couldn't have been.
Benzodiazepine might knock you out, but its surface effects were more like Xanax than alcohol, and Katherine had behaved as if she'd just left a bar at two in the morning after a four-hour bender.
I had picked up and counted the little blue pills when I returned home and I was fairly sure they were all there. I tried to keep careful track of them because both missing a dose and forgetting I'd taken one could end in disaster. Doubts continued to nag. I took comfort in the fact that Rachel hadn't called. She acted tough—hell, she was tough—but she genuinely cared.
It didn't help me sleep.
I finally sat up and sighed, looking for something to do, maybe something so boring it would knock me out. Reaching over the side of the sofa, I picked up the book written in Younger Futhark, determined to translate at least one word before morning.
There's a reason I'm not a linguist, apart from a general lack of interest. Languages don't come easily to me, and even with the proper tools I have no skill in cryptography. Some of my education helped; I knew how to conduct research and I could think critically about a problem, but it was mind numbing work. Exactly what I hoped for.
By two-thirty I'd managed to find a published dissertation that included a cipher key which was surprisingly helpful, so I stifled a yawn and did what I could with the first few pages. I didn't get very far, but the book was obviously what it appeared to be, a botany journal.
In the end, translating old Scandinavian texts wasn't interesting enough to distract me or boring enough to knock me out. I had given up and was about to toss it back onto the bundle when an inscription caught my eye. Near the bottom of the last page was a word in Roman letters, "Ketilriðr," followed by "12 Maius 874." There was no way that could be right. I looked at it again, trying to force it to mean something other than the obvious. If it really was a date, and I understood it correctly, the volume in my hands was well over a thousand years old!
***
Words appeared behind a pale, thin wall of linen, blurry and indistinct. I grabbed a fistful of fabric and yanked it down, but the words had vanished. Behind the curtain Katherine lay on a rumpled bed, arms folded across her chest, while Rachel sat asleep in her chair, quiet and still. A dark figure, framed in smoke and ash, rose out of the shadows, threatening, menacing...
A ringtone startled me awake and I scrambled for my phone. "Yeah," I said, bleary and half alert.
"Hey Tom. Kath just went back to her room."
"Rachel? What time is it?" I stifled a yawn, squinting at the sunlight through my living room window.
"Quarter of seven, why? Thought you were a morning person."
"I am. Had trouble settling down last night."
"Yeah, well Kath slept like a rock and woke up without a hangover." Rachel paused before asking, "Are you sure you don't know what happened?"
"I can say it again if it'll make you feel better." It came out more irritable than I'd intended, but Rachel dismissed it.
"She doesn't remember anything, Tom."
"What do you mean?"
"She woke up confused and I told her you brought her over to sleep it off. Had no idea what I was talking about." Rachel hesitated again, "She doesn't remember being with you last night."
"That's . . . how is that even possible? We spent two hours watching that stupid Bay City show,"
"Marco's pretty hot," she said helpfully. "Anyway, she's a blank this morning. She doesn't even remember what she told me last night, some shit about eating your cookies before asking for a goodnight kiss."
"A kiss?" I still had trouble focusing.
"From you, not me. She got upset when I told her you went home," Rachel stopped to give me time to process.
"Okay," I said. Nothing else came to mind.
"Alright, well I told you I'd call, so I'm calling," She seemed finished but didn't hang up.
"I'm . . ." I yawned again, "I'm sorry Rach, I was dreaming, still kind of dazed."
"Didn't mean to give you shit," she added as though she hadn't heard me.
"Yeah, you did, but it's okay. I'm glad you called and thanks for your help last night. Should I come see her?"
"You can but she won't be here. Said she was going out for breakfast, I think she just wants some time alone." I understood, but it didn't make me feel any better. I wanted to be there for her, try to work out what happened, but it wasn't about me. Katherine would deal with it in her own way and invite me when she was ready.
"Okay," I repeated, "I guess I'll talk to you later."
There was a moment of hesitation on the other end of the line, "Tom?" Rachel's voice had softened so much I could hardly believe it was hers.
"What's up?"
"If you're headed this way, can you swing by the dorm?"
"You said not to bother." I replied, confused.
"Not for Kath, for me."
"What?"
She cleared her throat and said, in a much more natural tone, "Just if you have a second, it's no big deal. I gotta go."
"Uh, bye," I answered, but she'd already hung up. What could Rachel possibly want from me? I thought about showering but passed on it in case Katherine called, so I opted for washing my face and running a damp cloth through my hair to freshen up, then I rolled up my sleeves and made pancakes for breakfast. They were even edible.
When I pulled into the dormitory parking lot, Rachel was already standing in the door, talking with some of her residents. She had on her cutoff jeans from the night before and a teal, satin camisole that looked like the top half of a set of pajamas. When she saw me coming, she waved to her friends and they left, cautiously watching me approach.
"Hey," she greeted me without quite meeting my eyes.
"What's up? Did Kath . . ."
"It's not about her, I just wanted to tell you..." she hesitated, then looked down at her hands. "I had some fucked up dreams last night."
"Kath would be a better person to discuss your dreams with," I replied, confused.
She shook her head, "No—yeah, I guess, but that's not why I asked you to stop by." She took a breath and continued. "I dreamed you were trying to get into the room. Kath and I were inside and you kept banging on the door and shouting. Scared the hell out of me. But you got inside, broke the door or some shit, I don't remember, then you walked right past us and grabbed this guy who had been there the whole time, I just didn't see him—like I knew he wanted to hurt us but I never saw him." She shivered involuntarily. "That's when I woke up. There was more but that was the part that got to me." Rachel hugged her arms as if part of her was still in that dream.
"What do you mean?"
"I told you I trusted you, that I knew you wouldn't hurt Kath. But part of me believed you did something to her, and I was just waiting to find out what."
"I'd never—" I prepared to defend myself, but Rachel got there first.
"I know." she didn't quite shout it but her next words were more controlled. "But it wouldn't stop scrolling through my head, and that fucking dream... I just had to say sorry, to tell you to your face. You're a good guy, Tom, and you didn't deserve it." She finally looked at me directly, her dark eyes asking me to understand. "But these are my girls, and Kath..."
Rachel didn't finish, but she didn't have to. They'd been neighbors since Freshman year and Katherine thought of Rachel as a sister. I was sure the feeling was mutual.
"It was just a dream, Rach."
"It was more than that. It was in my head, and I feel shitty for thinking it."
"Okay, but I have something to add." I wasn't offended but wanted to give her the absolution she was looking for.
"What?"
"I didn't call you because you trusted me, you were the first person I thought of because I knew you'd look after her. You did exactly what I expected, even when you kicked me out. She was safe with you, and I knew she'd be ok. I don't need you to trust me to know I can count on you."
Her eyes widened as if she'd been slapped and I braced myself, anticipating a reprimand for being too sentimental, but instead she lifted her hand and wiped a tear from her eye.
"Oh, fucking hell," she said quietly, "don't you dare tell anyone."
I almost, almost tried to joke with her, but I didn't want to die so soon after just two days of feeling healthy, and simply shook my head.
Then she shocked me further. "Since you've seen the worst I might as well ask for a hug."
"What? You're not a hugger."
"It's just a thank you, don't make a big deal out of it. Shut up and do it before someone sees," she hissed, and lifted her hands toward me, her expression stern but otherwise unreadable.
I stepped into her arms and put mine around her. Her body was firm and warm. The skin of her forearms pressed against my neck and I felt another shiver ripple across her shoulders. She hugged back tighter than I'd have expected for longer than she should have. Heat rose in me the way it had in the apartment the night before.
I retreated quickly and looked down, too ashamed of how I felt to meet her eye, then regretted it immediately. She wasn't wearing a bra under the camisole.
"Um," I said while my mind stammered back toward conscious thought, "Thanks Rach, eh—I need to get to class."
"Yeah," she said, clearly agitated but otherwise unreadable, "Thanks."
I nodded stupidly because I couldn't think of words that wouldn't sound worse and returned to my car without looking back. As I drove out of the parking lot, I saw Rachel in the rear view mirror, still standing in her doorway, but I couldn't tell if she was watching me leave.