“Maybe a necessary lesson,” Quentin said.

“His lessons are always necessary—I’ve learned that much in the past few years. And very necessary then, considering Samuel did the same thing to try to trick me. Though I still say sending that other medium in to pretend to be you just gave Samuel the idea for later.” She frowned at the memory; she had forgiven Bishop when he’d confessed because they all did, but it still bothered her both because he had done that and because he’d found another psychic outside the unit who had been familiar with the gray time and able to enter it at will.

Until then, she’d believed it was a place or time completely unique to her own abilities. Bishop had told her the other medium experienced the gray time differently from her but hadn’t explained just what he meant by that.

Quentin said, “Bishop also said it wasn’t likely you’d encounter many spirits there just to deceive you. Samuel was . . . well, unique.”

“I know.”

“And that the psychic he sent in not only tended to avoid the gray time but had a few personal problems that pretty much precluded his going in for no good reason.”

“Yeah, I know. And I believe him about that.”

“So what was it about the spirit guide this time that bothered you?”

“I don’t know—that’s the problem. There was just something odd about him. The way he looked. The way he acted. Weird as it sounds, there’s a feeling, maybe an extra sense that works only there, in the gray time, of what’s normal. That visit wasn’t normal. Daniel wasn’t.”

“I wonder . . . Maybe he came from Salem.”

That startled her, but as she considered the idea she found her mind didn’t reject it. “I’ve never really thought about where they come from. As in, any particular place. I mean, there were all those spirits at The Lodge, from there, but that was different. I saw most of them there, the way mediums usually see spirits, not in the gray time. Well, sort of. And I was different then, a lot more uncertain about things. To say the least. But I know more now. I’m sure of more. In the gray time . . . guides are usually unconnected—or seem unconnected—to whatever it is they need me to do. Detached, in a way.”

“Just there because they were sent?”

Diana understood the question. “Yeah, pretty much. It was the way it always felt with the guides, as far as I can remember, that they’d been sent to do a job. That it was why they made contact with me. I had the same guide more than once, and whatever they told me was never . . . personal. Not about me. Not about them. Their job was to guide me wherever it was I needed to go, tell me what I needed to know. A task they’d been set. But Daniel . . . he didn’t feel that way. He was just . . . different. Even before he showed us the zombie murder victims. I don’t know why.”