Chapter Four

Helen sat down numbly in front of her television. The night had passed in an uneasy slumber, alone in her big house. She hadn't gotten any calls from Quinn, and her own calls to her missing daughter didn't go through. The wind howled outside, banking snow up against the bricks of her home. The city of Lawndale was shut down by the storm. Early as it was, she had already dressed, though casually, since she wouldn't be going to work today. She had come down before daybreak, to drink coffee, and watch the news.

Dozens of accidents had taken place over the night, but no fatalities so far. The State Police and the Lawndale police had both put out an alert on Sandi's car, and the four missing girls, but they wouldn't officially be missing until that evening. Her early morning call had only yielded the news from exhausted dispatchers that both state and local law enforcement had their hands full with the massive, slow moving blizzard.

A lot of people had spent the night in their cars, stuck on the highway behind massive drifts, that the overworked snowplows couldn't keep up with. There had been many cases of frostbite, and the tv and radio both repeated bulletins on how to deal with it, and for people to stay home. All phone lines were overworked, power had been lost in places. Helen had thought about taking her SUV out, but the obvious futility of it, in the massive storm, had stopped her.

The mothers of the other girls had also sounded tired. Both Mrs. Rowe, and Mrs. Blum-Deckler were living in front of their own televisions. Linda Griffin had gone to work, to better monitor the news from her position as marketing vice president of the local tv station, though she hadn't sounded all that concerned. Helen still fumed at the offhand way Linda had put it, "Helen, I'm sure the girls just spent the night in the car and couldn't call home. It's not like they were lost at the North Pole. They only drove a hundred miles away, after all."

Jake was stuck in New York on his consulting job. She hadn't heard yet from Daria in Boston, but depended on her oldest daughters great common sense to wait out the storm. She had tried to call her, but the lines had been busy all night.

Restless, Helen threw herself into a frenzy of paperwork, researching her latest case. But her eyes kept turning to the tv screen, and the unending scenes of blowing snow and stalled cars. Her day passed slowly. She finally gave up, and just sat on the living room couch, idly switching from channel to channel. She walked up to Quinn's bedroom, and just stood in the doorway, looking in. Quinn's nightgown was tossed on the unmade canopied bed, the walls covered with boy band posters. Several schoolbooks were on the dresser, along with the pages of an unfinished report.

She stepped across the hallway, and looked into Daria's room. Other than making the bed, and straightening up a little, she and Jake had left it alone. Daria's posters and models were gone with her to college, as well as her computer. The walls were still covered with padding, and the stubs of sawn bars still blocked the windows. The former owners had kept their schizophrenic mother in the room, and Daria had liked it that way, mostly to annoy her parents and sister. Helen sighed in regret at not being able to bond with her brilliant, though unconventional, oldest daughter until just before her graduation.

Sadly musing that Quinn was only a few months away from graduation and leaving for college herself, Helen slowly descended the stairs. Quinn running down the stairs for one of her numerous dates, or to meet her friends in the former Fashion Club, would soon be just a memory, like Daria studying, or watching tv with her artist friend, Jane Lane. Standing by the front window, staring out at the blowing snow, a lonely mother blinked back her tears.

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Quinn brushed Sandi's damp hair from her sweat covered brow, her touch seeming to calm Sandi's shivering body. She was curled up on her side, huddled next to Quinn on the broad wooden bench. Stacy was brushing her hair, while Tiffany carefully checked her makeup in her compact mirror. Considering it was very dark inside the cabin, except for the firelight, she was doing a very good job. Quinn sighed and looked around at the inside of the old cabin, seeing nothing but what she had seen before. She had seldom felt so dirty, except for that one camping trip her family had taken in the woods.

Daria had told her that she, and her parents had all gone crazy from hallucinogenic berries her dad had picked for them for breakfast. The only thing she really remembered about the trip were vague images of being a fairy, and waking up in the hospital after she had had her stomach pumped. Daria had teased her for weeks later, hinting at things she had done, but couldn't remember. She had had mud smeared on her face, and both she and her mom had dirt and sticks in their hair.

Quinn sighed in frustration, for all their bickering, she and Daria were sisters, and she missed her. After the breakup of the Fashion Club, she and Stacy had started studying harder, and had started to pull away from Sandi and Tiffany. The other two girls tried, but both had problems keeping up academically. Still, they both tried, Sandi showing a thoughtful, considerate face she had carefully hidden for the past two years, and Tiffany a shy, subtle, sense of humor.

Quinn had known Sandi and her mother had been having some fierce arguments, but Sandi had always downplayed them. Still, this wasn't the time or place for revelations. Sandi groaned deeply, her hands clutching her belly in sudden pain, though she didn't wake up. Quinn turned and held her shoulders down so she didn't fall off the bench.

"Sandi!" Stacy blurted out as she and Tiffany hurried over. "Quinn, I thought she just had a fever! Why is she having stomach cramps, too!?"

"I don't know! I'm not a doctor! Has she been sick like this before?" Quinn shouted back in frustration.

"If she has, she never told me!" Stacy said helplessly. "Tiffany, do you know anything?" Tiffany blinked, but shook her head, her dark eyes wide in shock..

Sandi suddenly screamed out in sudden agony, fighting her friends hands as they tried to hold her down. She fell to the floor with a loud thump, arching her back, and screaming out something, before she went suddenly limp. Only her loud breathing reassured the other girls she was still alive, as they knelt around her in horror.

Quinn bit her lip in indecision at what she should do. Sandi laid before her, breathing loudly, on the dusty wooden floor. Stacy was across from her, her hands clenched to her mouth, her own breathing loud, almost spastic. Tiffany was next to her, a look of fear on her face.

"Qu-inn?" she said even more slowly than normal, "What Sandi just said..."

Quinn looked at her in confusion. "Tiffany, she didn't say anything! It was just gibberish."

Tiffany looked back at the redhead with a rare determination. "No, Qui-nn, it was-n't. It was the same words I heard, last night, before I saw the cabin.I don't know what she said, or what language it is, but it's the exact same words!"

Quinn and Stacy stared at Tiffany, as she stared back at them.