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  Darcy remembered clearly that it had been nothing but a blank wall.  Now, Dominic went through the opening and the scene tugged her forward as Dominic reached up to turn on a light, descending another staircase that must lead down to a basement or crawlspace.  A part of the house Darcy hadn't seen.
    Everything flowed forward around her until Dominic was halfway down the staircase.  It wasn't far enough for Darcy to see what was down below.  The scene ended in blackness and murk down there.  Dominic turned around then, and suddenly he was looking right at her.
    "Do you understand?" he asked.
    Darcy was startled out of her trance.  With a deep breath she came back to herself, pushing up and into reality like a swimmer surfacing from a deep dive.  Her lungs burned to fill with air and her heart thumped hard in her chest.  The world spun and refused to stand right side up.
    "Darcy?  Darcy are you all right?"  Her mother's voice was frantic and she was suddenly grabbing Darcy by the arms and pulling her up from the floor.
    Crying out, Darcy nearly fell over onto her knees.  Her legs were numb from sitting in one position for so long.  Feeling rushed back into them on pins and needles as vertigo swept over her.  Which way was up?  "Mom," she said weakly, her tongue thick.  "Mom, don't!  I can't…I need a minute."
    Her mother supported her until her knees stopped shaking.  When she was able, Darcy gingerly hobbled over to the couch and sat down.  "You can't pull me out of a communication like that, mom.  You have to let my body ease back into the world of the living.  Otherwise I can get physically sick or fall over on my face and break something."
    It was then that Darcy noticed how pale her mother's face was.  She hadn't been prepared for what she'd seen.  Her daughter, deep in a trance, probably looking like she was dead.  How long had she been in the meditative state?  Holding her head with one hand she turned to the clock on the wall and found it was almost noon.  Hours.  She'd been in that state for hours.  During a communication, time could seem to move slower or faster than it really did.  She could be in that state for just a few minutes and live a whole lifetime.  Or, she could spend a day lost to the trance and have it feel like only a few seconds.
    To a ghost, time had no meaning.
    "Mom, where's Smudge?" she asked.  It was all she could do to get that question out.  A headache had bloomed with throbbing intensity behind her eyes.  She needed aspirin and caffeine, and a nice soft pillow would be great.  First, though, she was worried about her cat.  Where was he?
    "He jumped away as soon as you, uh, woke up," her mother explained.  "Dear me, Darcy.  Is it always like this?  I mean, when you go talking to ghosts in your head?"
    She had to laugh at the way her mom said that.  Talking to ghosts in her head.  Well.  She guessed that was as close to the truth as anything else.  "Sometimes.  Sometimes it's easier, sometimes it's harder."
    As if she could tell what Darcy had been thinking, her mother ran to the kitchen and returned with a glass of water and two aspirin.  Darcy took them gratefully, even though a nice tall glass of soda would have been better.
    "Did you find out what you needed to know?" her mom asked.
    Darcy swallowed back the aspirin, then drank the rest of the water in one long swallow.  "Sort of," she answered.  "At least I have a place to start."

Chapter Four
     
    Puzzle pieces that didn't fit.  That's what Darcy had.  Lots of them.  The door in Belinda's living room that lead to a downstairs space.  A poltergeist.  Dominic's strong love for Belinda.
    Right now the pieces didn't even form a picture, let alone anything useful.  She'd need to talk to Belinda again.  Just not now.
    Now, she was meeting Jon.
    Hard to think of it as a date.   "Meeting" was the best she could come up with.  Her stomach was in more of a knot now than it had been when her