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The olves broke in while Hannah Snoas in the psychologist’s office
She was there for the obvious reason "I think I’ insane," she said quietly as soon as she sat down
"And what ist’s voice was neutral, soothing
Hannah sed
Okay, she thought Lay it on the line Skip the paranoid feeling of being followed and the ultra-paranoid feeling that sonore the dreaht to the really weird stuff
"I write notes," she said flatly
"Notes" The therapist nodded, tapping a pencil against his lips Then as the silence stretched out: "Uh, and that bothers you?"
"Yes" She added in a jagged rush, "Everything
used to be so perfect I mean, I had h I have nice friends; I have good grades I even have a scholarship fro apart because ofcrazy"
"Because you write notes?" the psychologist said, puzzled "U ?"
"Notes like these" Hannah leaned forward in her chair and dropped a handful of crumpled scraps of paper on his desk Then she looked away miserably as he read thely young for a shrink, she thought His name was Paul Win-field-"Call me Paul," he’d said-and he had red hair and analytical blue eyes He looked as if he ht have both a sense of huht She’d seen the flicker of appreciation in his eyes when he’d opened the front door and found her standing silhouetted against the flaMontana sunset
And then she’d seen that appreciation change to utter blankness, startled neutrality, when she stepped inside and her face was revealed
It didn’t , straight fair hair and the clear gray eyes and one for the birthonally beneath her left cheekbone, pale strawberry color, as if soently across Hannah’s face It was permanent-the doctors had removed it tith lasers, and it had come back both tiot her
Paul cleared his throat suddenly, startling her She looked back at him
" ’Dead before seventeen,’ " he read out loud, thuh the scraps of paper " ’Remember the Three Rivers-DO NOT throw this note away’ ’The cycle can be broken’ ’It’s almost May-you knohat happens then’ " He picked up the last scrap "And this one just says, ’He’s co’ "
He smoothed the papers and looked at Hannah "What do they mean?"
"I don’t know"
"You don’t know?"
"I didn’t write theh her teeth
Paul blinked and tapped his pencil faster "But you said you did write the I adotten started, the words ca bursts, unstoppable "And I find them in places where nobody else could put the I woke up and I was holding that last one in my fist But I still don’t write them"
Paul waved his pencil triu them"
"I don’t res like that They’re all nonsense"
"Well" Tap Tap "I guess that depends ’It’s almost May’-what happens in May?"
"May first is my birthday"
"That’s, what, a week from noeek and a day And you’ll be?"
Hannah let out her breath "Seventeen"
She saw the psychologist pick up one of the scraps-she didn’t need to ask which one
Dead before seventeen, she thought
"You’re young to be graduating," Paul said
"Yeah My ht rade instead of kindergarten"