"You don't even want to know," the girl accused. "You don't even care." And she turned and ran from the room.

The escalator whispered, and Abby stood in the center of the room looking at the empty doorway. She stood on the brink of a great precipice, balancing precariously, and for a brief moment she found herself believing what Dr. Gower had said. He was a fine man, and good, and he would not lie to her. Things her brother had said came to mind, once-harmless statements that seemed to take on new significance, as though he'd said them to prepare her for this moment. And suddenly, very suddenly, the world was tottering; dazedly, she made her way to a chair and sat limply in it.

Dr. Gower was gone now, and she would never see him again. She knew that, and she knew that despite the things she'd said, that it did matter that he was going. But then she had Linda to think of. Or was it really Linda that concerned her? She could take the girl along, certainly; that would even clear up the problem of Jimmy Stone. Was it really the marriage she feared, a fear based upon some secret mental block in her mind? The doubt returned then, and she wasn't sure. She wasn't sure of anything anymore. Abby had to think. She had to quiet her nerves and the frantic jumbled thoughts that had begun to race through her mind.

She felt dizzy and held a hand to one of the walls to steady herself as she walked to her bedroom. From the dressing table drawer she took a bottle of dreampills. The label was fuzzy to her eyes, but the word Danger stood out in bold letters. Abby swallowed three of the pills, which was two more than the safe dosage, and lay across the bed, eyes closed. The door to the room closed automatically.

"It's not true," she told herself again, a desperate urgency to her voice. "I've got to get away from these thoughts. Got to get away. Got—to—escape."

She felt drowsy, but the thought of what Dr. Gower had said persisted. It couldn't be true. It couldn't. And yet it might be; it was the possibility that disturbed her. That blank spot. Eighteen years ago. Eighteen years...

She drifted into a restless sleep. Mentally, she traveled across the familiar plains of her past to that strange dark canyon she couldn't recall. Her mind hovered frightened above the depths, failing to see through its darkness; then she passed to the other side, to her childhood, to when she was a young girl and her mother was alive.

The scene burst upon her with vivid 

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