I couldn’t understand how I could be conscious and unconscious at the same time. Inside myself I was shouting out for someone to hear me, but my voice was silenced even though my mind was not. I would have rather been back in the safe haven of our mind, but there was no salvaging what had been lost.

My feeling was gone. It was like I was a stiff corpse, and I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t dead. The dead can’t think and they can’t hear. There sounds of birds chirping that signified the morning, but I didn’t know where I was.

I came to the conclusion that Carla must have transported me elsewhere. I thought that we must have been somewhere in the country. My sense of smell was weak, but I could smelled fresh flowers and the clean mountain air. Carla was always with me. I tired of her idle talk. Most of the time she would read to me from those stupid romance books and boring magazine articles. I wanted to hate Carla who acted like a masochist, but I felt nothing but grateful. I knew she was only caring for me because of Mary; but if Carla only knew the entire situation was concocted by Siercy she probably would have washed her hands of me.

Mary believed her dead, but there was no way Siercy would ever die. Her influence still remained. I must have been in a reclining position when Carla stomped in. I could hear the door opened, but Carla never let the door swing all the way open. She would push it open just enough to squeeze herself through, and she always wore those squeaky shoes. I felt a headache coming on any time she wore them.

“Good morning, Marianna,” she said. “I hope you feel up to going outside. I know what you’re thinking. The sun hurts your eyes, but you don’t have to worry about that. I have your glasses right here.

“Oh, goody,” I thought. Carla was trying to be the Mary Poppins type. Then I thought to myself that this might be the reason for my trying to kill her.

At this moment I wished I could talk if only to shut her up. She kept jabbering on and on about nothing. Only the knock on the door saved me from her nonsense.