Hannah?” Michaela’s concerned face was barely an inch from my own. “Are you okay? You’re crying.”
I put my hands up to my cheeks. They came away wet.
I blinked. The room was so bright, but I could see shadows in the corner, shadows in the shape of men in black robes. I scuttled backward in my bed. “Behind you,” I whispered.
She turned around. “There’s nothing there at all,” she said. “It’s okay, Hannah. It’s just you and me, your pal Michaela Louise Adeline Carrington.” She smiled, and behind her the shadows slowly faded into nothing.
“I never knew your full name before,” I said.
Michaela retreated to the other side of the room and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Did something bad just happen—in the other place?”
“I don’t remember,” I lied.
“I never remember my dreams, either,” Michaela said.
But these aren’t dreams.
“What day is it?”
“Like I have any idea!” Michaela said, reaching down and picking fuzz off of her grippy socks. “Actually, no, I take that back. Your boyfriend’s not here, so it must be the weekend.” She threw the fuzz at me and laughed.
Then there was a knock on the door, and a nurse in Mickey Mouse scrubs stuck her head in. “You have a visitor,” she said.
“Is it my mom?” Michaela said, rolling her eyes. “Ugh, she was just here the other day!”
“I was actually talking to Hannah,” the nurse said.
Michaela and I turned and stared at each other.
“What the hell?” Michaela mouthed.
What the hell was right. I had no friends and no family—not in this century—and I’d never had a visitor, not in all my time at Belman Psych.
I couldn’t think of anyone it could possibly be, unless the baron had somehow learned to time travel, too. Then I almost laughed out loud. Because that idea, I knew, was truly insane.