Marie never did leave the house on Route 9 in Ludlow. But she did move into her own room down the Hall, Ellie's childhood bedroom, about a week later.

College for Eileen became a slow kind of Hell following Halloween night. Enough of her classmates immediately knew the significance of the Creed family name to make sure that the rest were informed in short order. Whispers and stares followed her to every class and through the hallways. Eileen caught bits and pieces of some of the conversations as she made her way to class, half trying to hide.

"Did you hear what happened to her little brother?"

"Did you hear about her Dad!?"

"He snapped and killed the whole family I heard!"

"I can't believe she came back here!"

"Doc Creed, her Dad, he went on a murder spree, back in '84!"

"Did you hear what happened on Halloween?"

"Her Father is a mass murderer!"

"Did you hear how she flipped out on Halloween!?"

"I heard she's as loony as her Old Man!"

"- totally insane, like her Dad!"

"-crazy as her Father!"

And that was how Eileen began to feel, as though she were going crazy. It wasn't all that far off, really, was it? Mental illness could be hereditary, and her Father must have been really out there, if he had done what he was supposed to have done. Eileen found herself going to classes and going home and that was it. Anywhere she went on campus she was followed by stares and whispered conversations, and it felt like it had gotten worse even from the townies now. So, it was better for her to just stay at home as often as she could.

Marie had taken to directly cursing out anyone she caught whispering or staring, but the effect was minimal. A couple of these instances had escalated into near fist fights, and Marie couldn't be with her 24/7. Tommy's rumors that Eileen and Marie were a couple had made the issue worse, and Marie's fierce protectiveness had mostly cemented the idea in the heads of everyone on campus and half the townsfolk.

With all of this swirling around in her mind, and with her newfound efforts at tuning out the conversations that were constantly happening around her, Eileen made her way towards her car. She stepped out into the street that separated the campus buildings from the parking lot with her head bowed low, both to avoid the sharp bite of the Maine wind and to avoid making eye contact with anyone. She took three long brisk steps before powerful hands grabbed her shoulders and yanked her backwards hard enough to almost knock her off her feet.

Eileen started to spin around, dropping her books and ready to fight, assuming this was some type of hazing, or maybe some boys who wanted to hear the story straight from the source and wouldn't take no for an answer, when she was almost knocked off her feet again. This time it was the wind of an oil tanker passing no more than two feet from her. She realized with dismay that it was only that far because it had veered away, crossing over the centerline to do so. Now she heard the air horn blatting its warning, and she could see the words "Orinco", written in red along the shiny silver barrel of the truck, blur past. One of her textbooks had been run over by the wheels. The binding hadn't just ripped; the spine had completely exploded. The pages blew in a flurry after the tanker, the front and back cover still connected by only a few strands of frayed threading. That was almost me… Eileen thought sickly, staring at the ruined book. Then she thought of her brother, and suddenly she sat down hard on the side of the road. Her legs didn't want to hold her up anymore.

The man who had pulled her back away from the road grabbed what he could of her things before they blew away and sat down beside her. "You alright?" he asked hesitantly. She looked at him, really seeing him for the first time, and saw that he was handsome. His hair was blonde and his eyes were green, his face chiseled. He was wearing blue sweatpants and a gray sweatshirt with running shoes. Eileen tried to answer but gave up, nodding her head instead.

"I'm sorry I grabbed you like that. I tried calling you, but you didn't even look up. You were going to walk right in front of it." He held his hand out to her and offered a slight smile. "I'm David."

Eileen felt herself returning the smile on reflex. "I'm glad you did. We definitely wouldn't be sitting here talking if you didn't. I'm Eileen."

David stood and helped her to her feet. "Oh, I know who you are, I've heard." His expression was a strange mix of sympathy and understanding.

Eileen felt her face reddening. "I'm sure everyone has by now. I didn't realize I was recognizable on sight, though."

David shrugged. "Well, maybe not to everybody." He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked both ways down the street. "They're assholes, but they'll get tired of it quick enough, most of them. Trust me, I know from personal experience." He looked at Eileen again. "If you aren't busy, do you want to get a coffee or something?"

Eileen and David spent the next three hours at the only diner in Ludlow, being served coffee and eventually blueberry pie from a very cranky and suspicious waitress whose heavy makeup and blue eyeshadow made her look like Divine with a red beehive haircut. It didn't take long before they were chatting like old friends. David had been raised from the age of two by his paternal Grandparents. He hadn't seen his Mother since he was five, and had no idea if she was still alive or not. His Father had died when he was thirteen, and he hadn't seen him in more than 5 years by then. He'd been very close with his Uncle, his Father's younger brother. He was only twelve years older than David, and they had been raised as brothers, until his Uncle died in an accident when David was eight. His Grandmother died when he was fifteen, and his Grandfather died two months before he started college. David was 21 now, and had started his Junior year in September. He'd have a Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering in 18 months, but planned to stay on and get his Masters. He was hoping to graduate with a job at the Orinco plant in Orrington.

Eileen had never met anyone else who had lost their entire family at a young age. It made her feel less isolated when David told her how hard it had been to lose his uncle, and how the kids at school had told stories about grizzly accidents when they found out he had died. And it was nice to have someone not treating her like she was a pariah because of her family history. It took David pointing out that it was a weird reaction to hear something tragic had happened to someone and single them out and ostracize them for it before it sank into Eileen that it really was odd.

"You know, you're going to be one of the Campus Weirdos now, too." Eileen told David when she dropped him back off at his dorm. "You spent time with me, it's catchy."

David threw his head back and laughed. "We'll see about that. But, the ones who do that, aren't worth having around anyway. Keep that in mind." Eileen watched him walk into the building before she pulled away, hoping he wouldn't be a stranger.

David did not become a stranger; he, Eileen and Marie instead became inseparable, as much as they could with their three very different Majors at least. Fairly popular, David's acceptance of Eileen went a long way to getting the whispers to calm down, at least on Campus. Around town, Eileen still tended to get the side-eye, particularly from the elderly Ludlow natives, but somehow that wasn't so bad with having her little self-made family. This group support was how the trio found themselves at the Bangor Pharmacy together to see if the Pharmacist would give Eileen a courtesy refill of her vitamins. She had forgotten to find a doctor in Maine to write her a new prescription with everything that happened over Halloween, and was hoping she might get away with it since she had moved all the way from Chicago.

The Pharmacist's response was implacable. "Miss Creed, I warned you the past two months that this prescription would need to be renewed before it could be filled again. I'm very sorry, but there is nothing I can do for you. You will need to get a new prescription written out." He paused for a moment, looking at David and Marie on either side of her before deciding to continue anyway. "And I would not recommend waiting. Certain medications should not be stopped suddenly or you run the risk of unpleasant side effects."

Eileen sighed internally. "Is there anything I could take over the counter for now? It's just a vitamin, there has to be something similar…" She trailed off when the Pharmacist looked at her like she had grown a second head.

"Miss Creed! You are on Hypnocil." He told her. Eileen looked at him blankly. "Hypnocil is a strong anti-psychotic medication, generally used for Dream Suppression in individuals with violent Night Terrors." The Pharmacist informed her. "This is not a vitamin, and there is certainly nothing over the counter that would be similar in any way."

Eileen felt like she had been punched in the stomach. She had been taking that medication daily since she was a little girl, as far back as she could remember. Her Grandmother had always referred to it as her special vitamin, and Eileen had never questioned what the medication was, what kind of vitamin she needed. She had always assumed she was just chronically low on iron or Vitamin D or something and so had a prescription-strength supplement. The last thing she needed was anyone on campus finding out she had been on anti-psychotics for the last decade. That would start the rumor mill churning all over again.

"I don't understand." Eileen finally stammered. "I've been on that medication since I was little. They don't give that kind of medicine to children, do they?" she asked, almost hopefully.

"It's a bit unusual" the Pharmacist agreed "but it isn't unheard of. Especially in cases where there has been severe trauma." He continued after a moment of thought. "However, Hypnocil is usually not administered long-term. It's meant as a stepping stone while therapy practices are learned and take effect. I've never heard of anyone being on it for longer than six months."

"I've been taking it for over ten years." Eileen told him numbly. "And I've never been under the care of a therapist, not that I can remember."

The Pharmacist tapped the prescription bottle Eileen had brought in with her. "Why don't you start by giving the prescribing physician a call? Dr. Everett Curless it says on here." He took a moment to look through his records "It's a Maine phone number, address is up North a ways, Aroostook County, near Fort Fairfield." He scribbled the contact information down on a notepad and handed the sheet of paper to Eileen. "He should be able to give you access to your records, and hopefully refill that prescription for you."

Eileen was able to get an appointment with Dr. Curless three days later. The receptionist had initially told her there were no appointments for more than a month, but agreed to make space for her when Eileen explained she was out of her prescription for Hypnocil, and Dr. Curless was the prescribing physician. "We don't want you short on that for too long." the woman had said in a rather pert chirp that left Eileen feeling uncomfortable. Both David and Marie ditched their classes to take the trip with her, and Eileen was immensely grateful for both of them.

The psychiatrist's office was in an unassuming single-dwelling home at the corner of a residential street. Only a small white wooden sign indicated that it was not simply another family home. The town itself was very small, and bordered on being truly rural. It reminded Eileen strongly of watching "The Andy Griffith Show" with her Grandfather when she was a little girl, sitting on his lap while he smoked a cigar after dinner. They passed two barefoot little boys, about 7 and 10, chasing a scruffy little dog as they turned onto the street, and Eileen smiled as she found herself looking expectantly for a man and a little boy with fishing poles walking down the quiet lane.

The waiting room was tiny, and the three of them seemed to take up the entire room. The receptionist, a middle-aged woman with steel blue hair, immediately went to tell the doctor they were there. Eileen recognized her voice from the telephone call. She paced the room, looking at an oil painting of what was clearly the Maine Wilderness in mid-Autumn and examining the wallpaper pattern a bit too closely.

Marie reached out and gripped her forearm lightly. "Relax, Ellie; everything is going to be fine." She offered a reassuring smile. "It's probably a misunderstanding or something, you'll see. There's no way they would leave a child on a medicine like that for so long, especially without monitoring."

Before Eileen could respond, the door opened again and a heavyset man with graying blonde hair and rectangular glasses appeared. He offered Eileen his hand with a jovial smile. His voice was friendly and booming. "Hello, Eileen! It's been a long time, the last time I saw you, you couldn't have been any taller than this." He put his hand close to his knee and laughed. "Come on back, and let's see what we can do about refilling that Hypnocil for you."

David and Marie stood to follow, and the Doctor stopped them. "Patient confidentiality, folks. Eileen will be back out shortly."

Eileen frowned. "No, it's fine, I want them to come back with me."

Doctor Curless clucked disapprovingly. "Are you positive? It's a bit unusual to have anyone joining you at a psychiatric consultation…"

"I'm positive." Eileen answered flatly, and motioned for David and Marie to follow. The Doctor shrugged and held the door for them and then ushered them all into an even smaller room.

"I apologize for the lack of seating, but as I said, this is rather unusual." Doctor Curless told David and Marie before turning his attention back to Eileen. "So, Eileen, how have you been? How are your Grandparents, what brings you back to Maine?" He paused and chuckled. "I hope you didn't come all the way out here just for the new script, I would have been happy to fax one over. It's how we've been handling it all these years."

"My Grandfather passed away a few years ago, and my Grandmother passed away in January." Eileen answered. She was beginning to develop a distaste for the psychiatrist. There was something in his demeanor that she didn't care for. "When my Grandmother passed away I found a box in the basement with some of my old belongings and some things that belonged to my parents. I didn't have any memory of any of it, so I came out to Maine to see if it would help me remember. It didn't, but the old house was still on the market, so I decided to buy it and go to the University of Maine for college."

The Doctor blanched noticeably under his spray-on tan. "You moved back to the old Ludlow house?" he asked, his voice an octave higher than it had been. "I wish you would have come here first, I would have advised against that, very strongly."

"Why?" Eileen asked in confusion.

"The lack of recall you are experiencing is by design. It's the Hypnocil, it's what it was prescribed for. Partially." The Doctor leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head. "What do you know about the medication and why you have been taking it?"

"Nothing." Eileen answered blankly. "I just found out three days ago that it was an antipsychotic. My Grandmother always called it my special Vitamin. I thought it was Vitamin D or something."

The Doctor nodded, more to himself than anyone else, it seemed, before beginning to speak slowly."How would you feel about me writing out a refill, and we end the discussion there?" he asked Eileen. "It's clearly been effective, and you don't seem to be suffering any repercussions from it."

Eileen's expression turned baleful. "I consider not being able to remember my parents or my brother to be pretty extreme repercussions." She told the Doctor, struggling to keep the anger out of her voice and failing. "I don't even know why I was prescribed Hypnocil in the first place, let alone why I should still be taking it."

The Doctor sighed. "Miss Creed, the purpose of the Hypnocil is to suppress traumatic memories. It is my professional opinion that in your specific case it would be counterproductive to go over your case history in any detail, and doing so would likely trigger you to be retraumatized."

David interjected. "Correct me if I'm wrong, Doctor, but isn't Hypnocil intended as a short-term medication, precisely because suppressing traumatic memories is a short term solution intended to give the individual more time to work through them, and not to be used as a long-term permanent coping mechanism?"

The Doctor fixed a sour look on David. "I see someone passed Psych 101, very good." He turned back to Eileen to address David's point. "Hypnocil is generally utilized on a short-term basis of 6 to 12 months. However, not every traumatic event is something to be simply worked through. Some, like in your particular circumstance, Eileen, need to be buried deep and forgotten. I implore you. Please. Just let me refill your prescription and go on your way and forget about it."

Eileen shook her head. "No. I want my Case History. I want to hear all of it. Then I'll make an informed decision on whether I am going to continue taking the Hypnocil or not."

The Doctor grimaced. "You don't seem to understand. If I give you the details, there is a high probability that you won't be able to take the Hypnocil anymore. It is easier for a child to forget than it is for an adult. Once I make you aware of the circumstances, you will have the memories. The Hypnocil will most likely not have any effect on suppressing them any longer."

Eileen started to respond but Doctor Curless cut in again. "If you knew the details, and what you were going through before this treatment, you would never ask to be taken off the medication or have the knowledge returned to you. No one would. And I am afraid this is Pandora's Box; once it is opened, you will not be able to close it again."

"I don't care." Eileen said, frustrated. She knew she sounded like a petulant child, but she was becoming truly angry the more she was understanding. All of the guilt she had been carrying over forgetting her parents, and it wasn't even her fault! It was something that had been actively and purposefully done to her, and which she'd had no say in. And here Doctor Curless was still trying to keep her agency from her.

It was David who interrupted this time. "El, maybe you should listen to him…"

Eileen turned to him, shocked and hurt. "What? What do you mean, listen to him? Ever since I came to Ludlow in April I've been trying to remember something, anything, about my Mom & Dad, or my brother! And this is the reason I haven't been able to! Why would I just keep taking it?"

"Just hear me out for a minute, alright?" David said, his tone soothing. "I know you're angry, I get it, but you don't want to run into this without thinking. If you read your files now, and stop the Hypnocil, who knows what's going to happen? You might have a psychotic break, you might end up needing to be in-patient at a psychiatric facility. It's almost a guarantee you'll end up failing out of your classes. Is it really worth giving up your whole future, just to regain some old memories?"

Eileen's frustration was tangible. "Yes. It is. Maybe it shouldn't be, but it is. I need to know, I need to remember something about my parents, and my brother. Even if nothing else, they deserve to be remembered." And I'm the only one left to remember… Eileen thought to herself morbidly.

"Well, what if you just put it off for a while?" Marie suggested. David and Eileen turned to her, looking confused, along with the Doctor. "Don't read the files or stop the Hypnocil yet. Wait for Summer Break, or until you graduate maybe. You could take a few months after graduation to try to wean off the Hypnocil and start processing your case file and any memories it might stir up. And by then I should have graduated, too. I could take some time to help you work through things without classes being in the way then. And you never know, it might not seem as important in a couple of years."

Eileen looked back and forth between David and Marie. She wanted to scream. Did they not understand how important this was, how absolutely necessary? It wasn't just that she wanted to remember; she needed to remember. She felt like she wasn't a whole person anymore, with this giant black hole taking up her past. She wanted off the Hypnocil before it ate up more of her past. What if her Grandparents started disappearing into that black hole of amnesia next? What if she wasn't able to retrieve her memories anymore once she took the Hypnocil for too long? But she really couldn't argue with Marie's point. Now was definitely not the best time to be risking psychotic breaks. She didn't have anyone with the free-time to take care of her if she had withdrawal symptoms from stopping the Hypnocil, and that wasn't even with considering the possible psychiatric trauma that reading her case file could cause.

Eileen sighed in defeat. "Fine. You aren't wrong, it isn't the best time." She locked eyes with the Doctor. "But I will be back, Doctor Curless. As soon as I can, I am stopping the Hypnocil and reading through my Case File."

Doctor Curless' joviality returned instantly, as soon as Eileen agreed to delay stopping the Hypnocil. "Of course, of course; just let me know and I will get them together for you." It was clear that he believed Eileen would never be coming back, that life would simply take over and she would never find a good enough time.

As he escorted the trio from the office, Eileen made a silent promise, to herself and to her parents and brother. No later than the Summer after graduation… Just as soon as I get my Bachelors Degree.