Bright grass rolled over long hills that overlooked the water. Down below, houses perched on the edge of a series of lowering cliffs. 

“Don’t wander over too close to the cliffs,” Mr. Rodriguez called, standing closer to the small, old tower in his city worker uniform. “Stay on the trail paths.”

“Got it, Dad,” Marsh called. 

Trinity hadn’t known Marsh’s father worked at Charter’s Hill, even though she knew he worked for the city in the tourism sector. She felt a little safer knowing the group was supervised by someone trustworthy. 

But, what did she think would happen? Maybe Victoria would try to kiss her again, but only if her friends were distracted. Maybe Victoria would try to hypnotize her again. Trinity folded her arms together, thinking about it. There was something exciting about the idea, yet something terrible. She had not forgotten how ruthless Victoria had been in putting Harlan out of commission in the hotel room, and did not exactly imagine she wanted her to have that much control over her. 

It was a warm day, but Trinity still shivered. 

Wind whipped through Victoria’s hair as she led the group, with Harlan following closely behind her. Marsh followed at an unreadable pace: not too eager, yet not obviously hesitant, either. Trinity clasped her hands together and wrung them. If only she had been able to tell Marsh what she could not. 

Trinity walked at the back of the group, alongside Dot, whose tall, red high heels caused her legs to bow like an infant fawn’s as they struggled for balance on the pebbled stones of the trail path. Trinity did not mind the delay of their pace. Staying with Dot would keep her safe, either from strangers on the trail or the very companions they joined on the trip to the hill, and it put more distance between Trinity and the visiting spouses. 

The distance was pleasant. Victoria was charming but wanted her own way with Trinity, and Harlan was kind, but produced a guilt in her she wished she did not have to bear. Dot, meanwhile, was the same Dot as ever, and bright as a daisy as she took in the sunlight streaming across the grass and a rare eagle overhead. 

“It’s unfortunate, what happened to you last night,” Dot said. 

“I’d really rather not talk about last night. Really. Let’s pretend it didn’t happen,” Trinity suggested. 

“Okay, if you insist.” Dot waved to Marsh. “Hey, don’t go on too far ahead without us!”

Marsh called back with a smile, “I might have to catch up on the fun I missed yesterday, but now you have to catch up to us.” 

Dot pouted, though it was a front for her amusement. “Boo. I should have asked your professor to make you rewrite the exam today.” 

“We should keep an eye on Marsh today,” Trinity suggested in a whisper. “Just in case something happens.” 

“Why?” Dot asked. “What would happen? Marsh knows these trails better than any of us. Maybe they should be looking out for us,” she laughed. 

What would happen? Well, first of all, Victoria would… 

There was no fog in the sky, but much closed in over Trinity’s mind. Her jaw fell loose and her eyes fluttered as she lost the thought and all of its accompanists completely. Her walking pace fell still.

“Trinity?” Dot stopped and lightly shook her friend. “Earth to Trinity. Are you receiving signals or something from E.T.?” Dot peered at each of Trinity’s ears. 

“Hmm?” Trinity shook her head, emerging from her daze. “I’ve never seen that movie.” 

“Yeah, I haven’t either. What’s going on with you?” 

“What’s going on with me? Because I haven’t seen E.T.? I don’t really care for alien movies, that’s all.” 

Dot’s voice raised. “No, because you went all strange a moment ago. Head in the clouds, like you were on standby.” 

Marsh turned around and walked toward Trinity and Dot, leaving Victoria and Harlan up ahead on the trail. They set their brown corduroy backpack down beside them and pulled a water bottle from the side pocket. “Maybe she’s experiencing depersonalization or derealization or something. Trinity, how are you feeling?” 

Dot nodded. “Oh, right. Hey Trinity, do you feel like you’re not real, or everything else is not real?”

“I’m fine, you two, but thanks for your concern.”

“Trinity said we should look out for you,” Dot told Marsh. “You’re not planning on going after the blueberries on the side of the hill, are you?”

“With my Dad working here? No way. Besides, I’m not getting myself killed over some blueberries.” 

The hill was steep, and picking the blueberries on its far side was generally disallowed in the name of safety. 

“See, Trinity? Marsh will be fine.”

“It’s not the blueberries I’m thinking about,” Trinity insisted. “It’s…”

Her thoughts shut down like a house party breached by cops. Each time she tried to tell what she could not, each time the trance washed over her mind again, its potency grew stronger and stronger, and she could not climb her way back up to the surface. Trinity closed her eyes and gave in to the thoughtlessness that permeated her. Her head fell forward. She swayed. 

Two snaps clicked next to her face, then Marsh said, “Trinity, wake up.” 

Trinity’s eyes blinked open. 

“Dot, how could you not have noticed, considering what we’re dealing with?” Marsh asked, hushed, with a dart of their head back in Victoria’s direction. “Trinity has been hypnotized.” 

“What?” Dot exclaimed. “Like again, and not just in the airport?”

“Shh.” Marsh glanced between Victoria and Dot. “Don’t let them hear you.”

“Why? We know she’s a hypnotist. Are we supposed to let Trinity have all of the fun? No fair.”

The corner of Marsh’s mouth twitched. “Does it look like Trinity is having fun right now?” 

“Oh, maybe this is one of those abreaction things,” Dot suggested. “I’m sure Victoria will fix it if we tell her.” 

“Don’t tell her, please,” Trinity begged. “I don’t want her to know that you know.”

“Come on, she won’t think worse of you for responding like this to the hypnosis. Mistakes are made, things happen.” Dot shrugged. “We can ask her to fix the problem now before it gets worse.” 

“She did not make a mistake with her hypnosis, of that I am quite sure.” Trinity stepped back from her friends. “Everything she told me, she did quite intentionally.”

“How many times did she hypnotize you?” Marsh asked with both concern and envy in their voice. 

“Well, there was once at the airport, and then…” 

And then the kisses and the trance were so easy to stop thinking about. 

“It’s happening again,” Dot said. “She gets partway through an idea, and then she shuts off.” 

“She did it in the group chat, too. Maybe there’s a trigger involved.”

“Would it be a certain word? What did we say?” 

Marsh pondered for a moment. “Or, what did she say? It happens when she’s trying to convey something, right? She probably keeps stumbling into the trigger word.” 

“I guess there’s one way to find out, if Trinity doesn’t want us to tell Victoria about this.” Dot leaned in conspiratorially. “One of us is going to have to get hypnotized, so we can find out what Victoria uses as triggers.” 

“Hello back there,” Harlan called. “You’ve all been stopped for a while. Is something wrong?”

“Uh, my shoe,” Dot cried. “I’m having so much trouble walking with these shoes, and I think I twisted my ankle. Ow! Ow!”

Dot’s exclamation was enough to pull Trinity back to her thoughts. She glanced between her friends, sensing from their demeanours that something was up. Marsh, with a quiet seriousness they hadn’t projected before. Dot, hollering not in pain, but as a cover-up. 

Trinity suspected they tried to cover suspicion from the effects of Victoria’s suggestion. “Thanks, you two. I couldn’t ask for better friends than you.” 

Harlan and Victoria approached the group. 

“It really hurts,” Dot complained. “I might have to sit down for a moment.” 

“Help her to the grass,” Victoria told Harlan. 

“Right away.” Harlan hurried over to Dot, and with Marsh’s assistance, guided her onto the plush, green grass. 

“It hurts really badly,” Dot continued. “Ouch!” 

“Darn it,” said Marsh, rummaging around in their sage green and brown backpack, “I don’t have my ibuprofen with me today. I must have left it at home.”

“Marsh, go get your father,” Victoria instructed. “He should be trained for circumstances like this, should he not?”

“I’ll go with them,” Trinity added. 

Marsh nodded and bounded off across the hill, Trinity trailing not far behind them. 

“What the hell are you and Dot doing?” Trinity asked in a hushed tone, only when the people they left receded back into the horizon and she trusted she was far enough away from them that they would not hear her.

“Dot’s trying to get hypnotized.”

“And she thinks a very feigned sprained ankle is going to help with that?” 

Marsh shrugged. “It’s the best we’ve got for now, okay?”

“I don’t want both of you getting caught up in this the same way I have been. No way. I appreciate your help, but if Victoria does something nefarious to either of you, that just means we have more problems to deal with,” Trinity insisted.

“So Victoria is nefarious.”

“Did I say that?” Trinity shook her head. “I wouldn’t say nefarious, just…”

“Just nefarious.” 

Trinity looked over her shoulder. Dot, Victoria, and Harlan were distant dots. She had hardly realised how far she and Marsh had walked. 

Marsh stopped their motion too and turned around. “Is Victoria hypnotizing Dot?” 

“Do you think I can tell from here?” 

Marsh threw their backpack off of their shoulder and reached inside of it. 

“What are you looking for?”

“A way to see if Victoria is hypnotizing Dot.” Marsh produced from the bag a pair of binoculars, old and worn, but functional nonetheless. They popped the caps off of the lenses and peered into them. 

“Status report?” 

“Victoria is totally hypnotizing Dot.” 

Trinity rolled her eyes. “Forgive me for not being jealous.” 

“It looks like a butterfly induction. She’s moving her hands around like this.” Marsh halfheartedly mimicked the motion for a few seconds. 

“Is that so? Wait, you know the name of the… of course you do.” Trinity sat cross-legged on the grass. “Are they looking at us?”

“Victoria’s not. She’s looking at Dot. Stand up, Harlan’s looking this way.” 

Trinity rose. “Is he trying to tell her that we’re not moving?” 

“I’ll keep an eye out.” 

“Can he see the binoculars?” Trinity wondered. 

“We’ll hope he can’t.” 

Marsh continued to watch Victoria through their binoculars. Trinity waited for an update, but refrained from asking directly, in case that would be too distracting. She trusted Marsh to tell her if they saw something important.

After a couple of minutes, the binoculars fell from their hands and their head fell forward.

“Marsh? Oh my god, Marsh, are you okay?” It was a warm day, but not nearly enough for any high degree of heat exhaustion. Trinity shook Marsh gently. 

“Huh? Oh, I guess I got a little too invested there.”

“Too invested? In reconnaissance?”

“In watching Victoria’s fingers move, and then she snapped them, and…”

Trinity put her face in her hands. “Both you and Dot are hopeless. I’m serious, being hypnotized by Victoria isn’t as fun as we’ve fantasized about.” 

“I still don’t totally understand what you mean, but that’s why Dot is working hard to find out the trigger Victoria might have used.” Marsh picked up their binoculars from the grass. 

“I know what the trigger was, and she’s not going to find it out so easily.” Trinity exhaled her frustration. “I wish I could just tell…” 

The fog crept in.

“Never mind. But I mean it, both of you have to be careful. I don’t know if she’s planning to do the same to you as she did to me.”

Marsh looked through the binoculars again. “Uh oh, Harlan’s pointing this way. Let’s get a move on.”

Trinity and Marsh turned around and continued back to the old tower.