Chapter III:

"This is where you claim you were held?"

One of the detectives was staring at her, skepticism all over his face. Another was walking through the small room, looking around, but already she seemed to be losing interest.

"Yes." Elena nodded. Things were coming back to her slowly from the night she'd disappeared, now, bits and pieces. Arguing with a girl with blond hair and sharp eyes. Storming off into the woods. Footsteps behind her. This small, dark room. A hand forcing something into her mouth. A woman's faint, cold voice, vaguely familiar. Don't worry, dear. It's just a little something to help you sleep.

"Do you remember who took you?"

"I...I don't know. A woman, I think, but...I don't know for sure." Elena said, a sinking feeling in her stomach. It would only give them another reason to not believe her. But it was the truth. At first she'd thought it was her mother that had done it. But the voice in her memory was not her mother's. Had she been taken by someone else? But then how had she ended up with Mary for most of her life? It only left her with more questions.

"We're going to need more than that, Miss Drake." He said, frowning. "I'm not sure what you want us to do. You claim to be Spencer Hastings, but you have no evidence that can verify any part of your story."

"Look, I know I was here." Elena argued. "I've had nightmares about this room, I remember being here. How did I find this place, if this is all something I'm making up? Why would I go through all this trouble?"

"I don't think you're lying, Miss Drake, but I do think you're not well." The detective replied, reaching for her arm and turning her around before cuffing her wrists. "I'm going to have to detain you for a psychological evaluation."

"Spencer was my best friend. I knew her well." Emily spoke up. "I don't know if she's Spencer or not. But Spencer's body was never found, and it's possible -

"That girl is dead, Miss Fields." He said gravely, turning to her. "In the vast majority of cases, the child that has been kidnapped is killed within 48 hours of their disappearance. No evidence has ever been found to support the idea that Spencer Hastings is alive."

Elena did not resist as he led her away, down the hall and out of the church. She knew she should be angry. She wanted so badly to be angry. But she just felt empty, like she was somewhere far away.

They took her to a room in a tall, Victorian-style building.

It was small. The only furniture in the room was a desk and a bed and the windows were barred with iron. Something about it felt suffocating.

When she tried to open the door it was locked. She could not leave, and the familiar feeling of being trapped made her stomach go tight with fear and her heart start pounding. She tried to calm herself down, but all she could think of was that small, dark room and she started to feel like she was coming apart.

Elena pounded on the doors in a blind panic until two orderlies came in, wrestling her onto the bed and injecting her with something that made her whole body feel tired and heavy and her surroundings fade into a strange, indistinct fog. What felt like days passed in this haze; occasionally she would hear a voice or two, see shadows above her, but then she would slip back into darkness and dream.

Her dreams felt like memories. Sometimes she'd dreamt of the lake where Emily had taken her, of the voices and faces of Spencer's friends and family, of conversations she'd never had and places she'd never been. Other times she'd dreamt of the dark room, of a cold hand over her mouth. Of being taken up a stairwell into a room filled with candles and strange symbols, of a knife against her throat and a woman's voice.

You will be the vessel of God, it whispered, and she woke, heart pounding. Mary was standing beside her bed, silent as a ghost, looking down at her with a face full of sorrow.

"When you were young, you never could sleep through the night, could you?" She mused, sympathy in her eyes. "You cried so much back then."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Elena demanded, once she'd found her voice. This is not real, she thought, but it felt as real as her dreams. "Why did you take me?"

The woman did not answer. "I'm sorry, Elena. I know you never asked for this. It's not something I asked for, either." She said, reaching out to her with a hand. "But I do love you. You know that, don't you?"

Tears in her eyes, Elena reached for her mother's hand. But the woman was already gone. She was alone.