The Color of Fear by Billy Phillips, Jenny Nissenson Read Free Book Online Page B

half-full train bound for Guildford.
    After the train departed the station, Caitlin pulled out her phone and did a Google search for Mount Cemetery. She found a map. Located Dodgson’s grave. Marked it. Then she mapped out a route from the Guildford train station to Mount Cemetery. It would be about a fourteen-minute walk. Not too bad.
    Caitlin exhaled a big breath, sank into the warm seat and peered out the window. She focused her thoughts on Jack, on the delight she felt when he had asked to her to the masquerade ball. She’d never expected it. And then on Jack asking her—not Piper—to participate in this daring cemetery escapade. She even let herself imagine being more than friends with Jack, imagine it being more than her one-way crush. Suppose if, just maybe, he really did like her?
    Charcoal-colored storm clouds sparked with internal flashes of lightning outside her window, interrupting her thoughts.
    Caitlin bit her bottom lip.
    Her body sensed the vibration of the train riding the rails full tilt. They were long gone from the station. Traveling farther and farther from home. She was alone. Heading to that graveyard in … Guildford .
    Caitlin was suddenly thirteen again. It was one year ago.
    Her mouth dried up. Neck muscles tensed drum tight. She picked at a fingernail. Sometimes she would pick a nail till it bled because the shock of seeing her finger bleed took her mind off the breathless panic attack—the lesser of two evils.
    There were no paper bags on board this train. There was no getting off this train. And, as utterly foolish as she knew the thought was, she couldn’t help thinking that there was no magic wand to wave away the tide of anxiety rising in her chest.
    She became light-headed. Herbreaths became shorter and faster and more irregular.
    She was seized by a sudden urge to flee this wretched train, to get back home at that very instant. To the safety and warmth of her bed.
    The train was cruelly indifferent to her horror: it hurtled onward like a bullet.
    She sat on her hands.
    Caitlin Fletcher was in the middle of a full-on panic attack. And there was no one to help her and nowhere to go.

Caitlin was certain she was going to pass out any second. Then she remembered a technique she read about in a book on anxiety. Do the opposite of what your stress-fueled impulses are demanding .
    Caitlin did it. She held her breath. She did it in roaring defiance of a panic-stricken mind that screamed, Breathe, girl, breathe !
    If she listened to her irrational thoughts, they would control her. If she defied the urge to guzzle air by the gallon, her nervous system would eventually force her to sip oxygen. It would force her respiratory system to function in a calm, regulated manner. At least, that’s what was supposed to happen.
    After about twenty seconds of holding her breath, Caitlin’s mouth burst open with a slow, soothing exhalation. As she blew out the deep breath, she immediately felt a sense of calm. She held her breath again. She waited until her body compelled her to exhale. The calmness and depth of her breathing deepened deliciously. She was still shaky, but the insanity was passing. She had survived.
    After a few stops in the forty-two-minute ride, the train slowed and braked to a halt at the Guildford station.
    Although there were still quite a few passengers on board, only the oddest-looking of the bunch disembarked with Caitlin. One man in particular was rail thin, with an elongated neck, a protruding Adam’s apple, and oversize eyes. He reminded Caitlin of an ostrich.
    She quickly made her way to a lonely sidewalk. Hulking tree branch shadows, cast by streetlamps, nodded at her as if they knew why she was there. She checked the map on her phone. Mount Cemetery was located atop a hill that overlooked the Guildford town center.
    Though it was damp outside, it wasn’t very cold. She checked her phone for the time: 7:22. She was late, but at least Jack would be there by now and she