In a farmhouse in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, an Amish girl lies feverish and delirious in bed. Her mother anxiously wipes her forehead with a damp cloth, then stops when she hears a horse approaching outside. She goes to the kitchen, and looks out the window as a horse and buggy rushes to the door. “Is that Josiah?” she asks hopefully. She turns to her friend, “The fever won’t break. I’m fearing for her, Miriam.” Miriam grasps her arms reassuringly.

A young man named Josiah runs in with a block of ice explaining that he had to go all the way to the market to get it. The women quickly break up the ice, put it in a bowl, and rush upstairs. The girl is still delirious and seeing a vision of a red cloth whipping in the wind in front of a bright blue sky. Abruptly, she opens her eyes and calls, “Mother!”

Her mother enters the room, looks at her daughter in shock and drops the bowl of ice. “Oh, Father in Heaven,” gasps Miriam, leaning on the doorframe for support. The daughter is lying on the bed with both arms outstretched and blood dripping from her wrists. She mutters repeatedly, “You don’t know me. You don’t know me. You don’t know me…”

A little boy sits and plays with his baseball glove and ball while a sick woman sleeps in a hospital bed next to him. Suddenly the woman begins to convulse. The boy reaches for her as hospital attendants rush into the room. She reaches for the boy calling, “Paul!” The little boy calls “Mommy!” while a nun pulls him from the room. As the door shuts, a ringing telephone wakes Paul from his nightmare.

Paul sits up in bed and answers the phone groggily. It’s Alva, explaining that an orderly in a hospital in Pennsylvania contacted him with a story. He is downstairs and wants Paul to join him to investigate.

Later, Paul and Alva arrive at Lancaster General Hospital. “You say stigmata and people see blood pouring from the palm of a person’s hand. But, in actual crucifixions, they always went in through the wrists…hands would tear,” explains Paul. “If she is bleeding from the wrist it could be miraculous intervention, but it most likely is a suicide attempt.”

“That’s the problem,” replies Alva. “You see, she is bleeding from the wrists, but according to the information I was given, there aren’t any wounds.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” replies Paul. “A real stigmata has real wounds.”

“You’re the expert,” concedes Alva as they walk into the girl’s hospital room.

Alva introduces Paul and himself to the girl. Her name is Hannah. He tells her that they’d like to talk to her about why she is there and asks her if she knows why she is in restraints. “They said I was violent,” she replies in confusion.

“We were told you were brought here because your wrists were bleeding,” explains Paul. He crouches down next to her bed, “Has this ever happened before? Did you cut your own wrists?” She answers no, but Paul persists, “Do you know why they were bleeding?” She sighs and tells him it is because she dreamt it.

Hannah’s mother and doctor walk into the room. The doctor demands to know who Alva and Paul are and what they are doing there. Paul explains that they look into things like stigmata. The doctor tells them to leave but Alva tells the doctor that the girl did not try to take her own life. The mother looks at Alva and says, “I told them the same thing, but they don’t believe me. I knew bringing her here was a mistake.”

Alva continues, “So tell me, if this girl did try to cut her own wrists, why are there no wounds?”

“Of course there are wounds,” scoffs the doctor.

Alva challenges the doctor to show him the wounds and the mother seconds this idea. Reluctantly, the doctor removes a bandage exposing Hannah’s wrist, which is covered in dried blood. As he wipes away the blood, it becomes clear that there is no wound. “That’s impossible!” claims the doctor. “There must be some kind of mistake. There were wounds when they brought her in.” Alva and Paul exchange glances.

Back at the farmhouse at night, the mother lights a lamp while Josiah carries Hannah inside, wrapped in a blanket. Paul and Alva follow them in the door as Hannah is carried upstairs. An Amish man and a young girl come into the kitchen. The man asks the mother in German, “Who are these strangers, Elizabeth?” She tells him that they are not strangers but friends. The man is unconvinced. “This is for our bishop. Not English men.” Alva explains to him in German that they respect their ways, but they think they can help the girl.

Josiah comes back downstairs and informs them that Hannah is sleeping but is still warm. Without saying another word, the man goes upstairs and Elizabeth follows. Josiah says to Alva, “Ignore Caleb. He is an elder and will always be suspect of strangers.” He invites Alva and Paul to sit down.

“Is Hannah crazy?” asks the little girl named Emma. Alva tells her that he doesn’t think so as he sits at the table. “Then why does she act so weird?” the little girl wonders. Paul asks her what she means.

“For the last few weeks she has acted like…I don’t know…someone else,” explains Josiah. He continues to tell them that she has been sleepwalking and had been found last week by the police in the middle of the night dancing on the roadside.

Paul asks them what their father says about this. “My father is dead,” replies Emma flatly. Josiah clarifies that her father drowned rescuing Hannah when she was seven. She had fallen through the ice in the lake. Once his mother got Hannah out of the water, she thought she was dead. Five minutes passed before she breathed.

When Elizabeth and Caleb return to the kitchen, Alva asks them if they can speak to Hannah. Elizabeth demurs, telling him it is late. Paul begins to say he understands when laughter erupts from upstairs. They all rush to Hannah’s bedroom where Hannah is sitting up on the bed laughing hysterically.

Paul approaches the bed. “Hannah, can you hear me?” he asks.

“Who are you? What are you doing in my room?” asks Hannah in a bored voice. Paul introduces himself and tells her they met at the hospital. “Are you a doctor? I’m sick of doctors traipsing through here,” mocks Hannah. Paul looks around the room wondering where “here” is. “God these things itch,” mutters Hannah, scratching at her wrists. Paul looks at her carefully. “Would you stop staring at me?” she demands. “You’re giving me the creeps. Who are you again?”

“Paul. Paul Callan,” he replies as he pulls up a chair by her bedside and sits down.

“Paul Callan,” she giggles. “You’re cute Paul. You got anything to drink?” At the doorway, Elizabeth flinches and looks down.

When Paul says no, she confides, “She hides the booze now…the mother from hell Nazi. I don’t think they keep it in the house anymore. They’re afraid I’ll go on one of my ‘binges’ again.” She looks towards downstairs and shouts, “I hate you! Hear that?”

She asks Paul if he ever feels alone, like the people who are supposed to love you don’t even know you exist. Paul admits that he sometimes does. Hannah gets up from the bed and walks to the dark window and looks out. “I’ve looked out this window since I was a kid,” she says. Paul asks her to describe what she sees. She looks at Paul strangely, but complies, “The buildings, the big church, the endless stream of cars…it’s weird…living up in the sky makes everything below you seem small.

Paul looks at Elizabeth then back to Hannah. He gets an idea and asks Hannah what her name is. After a moment, she answers, “My name is Lucinda. But people call me Cinda. Lucinda Morgan Bryant.” From the door, Elizabeth winces and Caleb grasps her arm in support. Abruptly Hannah moves away from Paul. “I need to sleep,” she says.

Paul asks how he can talk to her again. Hannah reaches for a pen and proceeds to write her phone number on the back of Paul’s hand. “Call me. Unless you’re some pervy old guy ‘cause I’m not into that.”

Outside, Paul joins Alva sitting on the porch stairs and tells him that the number she gave him has been disconnected. Paul begins to worry that they made a mistake taking her out of the hospital. He explains that she has all the signs of multiple personality. “How does a multiple personality have its own telephone number?” asks Alva.

Paul mulls this over, then looks at his hand again. “Does this look like a 6 to you?” he asks showing Alva his hand. Alva tells him thinks it is a zero and Paul calls the corrected number on his cell phone.

When Paul gets off the phone, Alva asks him what he found out. Paul explains, “There is a Lucinda. She died ten years ago.”

The next morning, Paul and Alva are in the barn using their laptop computer to check in with Evelyn. “Well, it’s not the happiest story…father is a lawyer, mother is an art dealer. Ten years ago they lost their only child to suicide. She was eighteen,” explains Evelyn. Paul carefully takes notes as Evelyn continues, “Her name was Lucinda Morgan Bryant. She died December 12. It made headlines at the time. Her parents were New York socialites.” Alva asks if there is any reason the girls would know of each other. “Nothing that I can see,” replies Evelyn.

Paul asks Evelyn how she found the information. She explained that she found it online and adds that anyone with a computer or even a library card could have found the information. Furthermore, the phone number that Hannah gave Paul is a listed number. “Paul, do you think this girl is faking it?” asks Evelyn. Paul admits it is a possibility.

Evelyn e-mails them a photo of Lucinda, which Alva prints out. She is a sophisticated looking girl with short blonde hair. Paul looks at the photo wondering why she would kill herself. “Why don’t you ask her?” prompts Alva.

Paul knocks on Hannah’s door and then walks into the room. Hannah seems different and nervous. She doesn’t know who Lucinda is. Paul tells her that she has been sleeping a lot and asks if she has been having any dreams. Hannah hesitates then says, “I dream that I am falling and then everything is cold and dark.” Paul tells her that she has been talking in her sleep and saying she is someone else.

“Lucinda?” she asks. Paul nods and asks her if she is sure she doesn’t know who that is. Hannah looks down and tells Paul only that the name makes her sad.

In the kitchen, Elizabeth shows Alva drawings that Hannah made as a child. “We don’t encourage our children to draw themselves. We have a prohibition against graven images but she loved it so much I had to let her,” explains Elizabeth. She braces herself and goes on to say, “I may lead a simple life Mr. Keel, but I am not a simple woman. You need to tell me what is going on.” Alva tells her he isn’t sure and asks her if there was ever a point that Hannah was different.

“After my husband died, but everything was different in this house. I was different. Hannah was different. She would lock herself away in her room and draw for hours,” says Elizabeth. She explains that it happened 10 years ago on December 12 when Hannah was seven. Alva confirms in Paul’s notebook that Lucinda died on December 12 as well.

Alva points to a picture of two girls and asks who the little girl is holding hands with Hannah. Elizabeth replies, “Oh, that’s her imaginary friend…Linda.”

Later, outside, Paul and Alva confer. “So the same day that Lucinda slits her wrists, Hannah’s father dies rescuing her,” ponders Alva.

“So you are saying that Hannah is possessed by Lucinda’s ghost?” asks Paul.

“No, I think we are dealing with a case of reincarnation”.

“Reincarnation,” repeats Paul dubiously.

“Professor Ian Stevenson of the University of Virginia is an expert on the subject. He described an incident in India where a child appeared to die. Now, when the child was revived, he claimed to be an entirely different person – a person who in fact had been killed at the same time as the child’s accident,” explains Alva. He admits that this isn’t exactly what is happening here. “Hannah, still with us, has revived and with her comes Lucinda. You see, cases like this are few and far between, but they can still be classified as reincarnation.”

Paul doesn’t buy it. “Why not?” contests Alva.

“Why not?” repeats Paul in frustration, “Because we haven’t exhausted the other alternatives! Maybe she does have a personality disorder. Maybe she’s faking it. Maybe she has a brain tumor. Souls just don’t randomly take over other people’s bodies. It doesn’t make sense!”

“Well, what does make sense?” Alva counters. “We die and if we’ve been good we go to heaven and if not we go to hell?” Alva stands up and approaches the clean sheets hanging on the clothesline. “I’m worried that she is slowly slipping away and eventually she will be gone forever,” admits Alva as he looks at the sheets. “Stevenson followed the child in India for fifteen years. The original soul never returned.”

“I can’t accept that. Elizabeth is not going to lose her daughter!” exclaims Paul.

“What do you have in mind?” asks Alva as he holds a sheet that still has a blood stain from Hannah’s wrist on it. Paul decides that he will go to New York and speak to Lucinda’s parents. “You think there is value in it?” asks Alva as he tears away a bloodstained portion of the sheet. “I wouldn’t waste any time. The clock is ticking.”

In the night, Hannah wakes up, gets out of bed. She walks barefoot down the dark road repeating, “Madison 316, across the spire and near the green. Madison 316, across the spire and near the green…”

In New York, Paul goes to Lucinda’s apartment. Paul apologizes for intruding as he sits down with Lucinda’s parents. He asks for their help. He explains about Hannah but the parents claim to have no knowledge of her. The father asks what he means when he says she thinks she is their daughter.

“Well, she takes on a whole other personality. This personality calls herself Lucinda Morgan Bryant. She says things Hannah never would.” Paul consults his notebook, “‘She hides the booze now, the mother from Hell Nazi.’” The mother closes her eyes as if in pain. Paul continues, “‘I don’t even think they keep it in the house anymore…scared I’m gonna go on one of my binges…’” Paul looks up.

“Mr. Callan, what exactly do you want from us?” asks the mother point blank. Paul explains that they want to rule out any chance of contact between the two families. The father stands as says he is sorry, that they don’t know those people and that they can’t help him.

Paul stands too and thanks them for their time. His cell phone rings and he excuses himself to answer it. It’s Evelyn with the results from the blood stained sheets. “The blood isn’t Hannah’s. It’s AB negative…very rare. It’s only found in one percent of the population,” Evelyn tells him. Paul looks surprised, thanks her and hangs up.

Paul returns to the parents and finds out that Lucinda’s blood type was AB negative. Paul asks them to sit down again. “Can you tell me why your daughter committed suicide?” asks Paul.

As the mother quickly says no, the father offers, “She was on drugs, we didn’t see it.” He admits that they weren’t looking very hard. “If your child acts like she doesn’t need you long enough, eventually you make the mistake of believing her.”

“It’s not a mistake we would make again,” adds the mother sadly. “If we’ve learned anything in the last ten years, it’s that you don’t get a second chance.”

The doorbell rings and the mother opens the door to find Hannah outside. “Can I help you?” she asks.

“Look, I’m sorry, I know I should have called, but don’t go all depressive, okay?” begins Hannah, rolling her eyes. “You were right. Are you happy now? They stole my bag, the loser, model freaks,” she continues as she walks in the room. The mother is shocked. “God, I am so tired…” She looks more closely at the mother. “Did you do something to your hair? Are you all right mom? You look…old,” she says turning away. “Hey D,” she says to the father as she walks in.

“It’s her,” says the mother shakily to Paul. “It’s her,” she repeats as the father comforts her. “She smells like Cinda,”

Hannah walks around the room confused. “When did you have time to paint? And you moved the coffee table…What’s going on?” she asks. The parents keep looking at her. Hannah asks where her dog is and the father explains that he died. “When, last night?” she asks distressed. She notices Paul. “I know you. Something’s wrong here…I don’t feel well,” she says as she rushes from the room.

In the bathroom, she vomits clear water into the toilet. She has a vision of Elizabeth reaching into the icy water and pulling the young Hannah out from under the ice. The young Hannah is then laid on the ice, covered in frost. She looks across the ice to see Lucinda looking back at her. The vision ends. Hannah coughs, her breath is visible as if she were exhaling frigid air. Paul watches in wonder.

Hannah goes into Lucinda’s room and looks out the window. Paul joins her and sees the view that she had described from the farmhouse. “I drowned,” she says softly. Paul realizes that Hannah is back. “I don’t know this place,” she tells him.

“You shouldn’t,” Paul agrees. Hannah tells him that she is going to lie down for a bit.

Paul’s cell phone rings. It’s Alva asking if Hannah is there. “Yeah, but I don’t know for how much longer,” answers Paul. “You better get up here fast.”

“She’s slipping away, isn’t she?” Alva asks. He says he’ll bring her mother. Paul urges him to hurry.

Paul sits on the bed next to Hannah. He asks her to stay here. “I think it’s over,” says Hannah dreamily.

“No it’s not,” argues Paul. “You have to fight this.”

Hannah starts to describe the “other” place, the farmhouse. She tells Paul about the day she drowned as she pictures it in her mind. “She plunges her arm through the ice and pulls me to air.” In her vision, Elizabeth begins CPR, then cries for help, alone on the ice. Finally, the young Hannah begins to cough and Elizabeth rejoices. The young Hannah lies on her side on the ice and stares across at Lucinda, who stares back at her. Elizabeth gathers Hannah into her arms and cries in relief. Beneath the ice, two hands knock in futility against the ice trying to break free, and finally disappear. “Mother saved me,” continues Hannah, “I never saw Father again.”

“I want to tell her I’m sorry, but I can’t see her face,” Hannah cries. She sees another vision of Elizabeth, in the kitchen washing dishes and a small hand pulling at her sleeve. Before Elizabeth can see who it is, the vision changes to a red cloth whipping in the wind. “Who will remember me now?” she asks.

“Don’t go,” says Paul urgently.

“Tell my mother I love her,” says Hannah peacefully.

“Stay here, Hannah, she’s on her way,” encourages Paul as he strokes her cheek. “Please don’t go.” Paul remembers being a small boy in the hospital as his mother reaches for him before the door closes. Hannah smiles at him and falls asleep.

Later that evening, Alva and Elizabeth arrive at the apartment and Hannah comes into the living room. Elizabeth reaches for Hannah and tells her that she is taking her home. “This is my home,” replies Hannah. “Mom?” she asks looking at Lucinda’s mother. Elizabeth, confused, turns to Lucinda’s mother as well and then back to Hannah. “I’m sorry, I don’t know you,” says Hannah.

“No, you’re wrong!” insists Elizabeth as she pulls Hannah to a mirror. Hannah sees Lucinda in the reflection. “Can’t you see who you are? You’re Hannah Cottrell!”

“Wait a minute,” Hannah tells her. She goes to an antique desk nearby, opens a small drawer and removes a key. She uses the key to open the desk and gets a pen and paper. “Write down your name and address and we’ll be sure to contact you if your daughter shows up,” she offers. Elizabeth is unsure what to do and looks at Paul.

In a coffee shop, Elizabeth sits with Paul and Alva. “I saw my daughter in that room but I didn’t feel her. She was gone,” says Elizabeth. Paul tells her that it is hard to understand. “My daughter is gone! She doesn’t know me!” she cries. “Why should I understand that?”

Alva starts to explain about reincarnation but she interrupts him. “I know what you are thinking. Why doesn’t this Amish woman turn to God? Well I can’t trust a God who would do such a thing. I don’t see the purpose in it,” she insists.

In the apartment Hannah traces her hand over the marks in a doorframe that show Lucinda’s height at various ages as she grew up. The marks stop when she is twelve years old. She asks her mother why she stopped measuring her. Her mother responds, “You grew up too fast.” She hands her a box full of clothes telling her that she couldn’t bring herself to give them away. Her mother smiles at her timidly and says, “I’m really glad you’re home.”

Alone in the room, Hannah tries on a long, flowing white dress with a red underskirt. She walks into the hall and overhears her parents talking about how they don’t even know her…Suddenly, Hannah tenses up as she sees the vision of the red cloth in the wind and says out loud, “You don’t know me.” She backs away, distressed.

In the coffee shop, Elizabeth says, “I don’t know what to do. I can’t leave my daughter, but how can I stay here when my family needs me?” As Alva is suggesting that either he or Paul stay there over night to keep an eye on her, his cell phone rings. He walks away from the table to answer it leaving Paul and Elizabeth alone.

Elizabeth realizes that she is not going to see Hannah again. “I’m so sorry. I tried to keep her here as long as I could,” Paul insists. “She wanted me to tell you she was sorry for the death of your husband and that she loved you.”

Elizabeth replies through her tears, “But it wasn’t her fault! Why did this have to happen?”

Paul considers this for a moment then says, “I was going to say that we can never know the reason these things happen, but the fact is, when you lose someone you really love, no reason is ever good enough.”

Elizabeth looks at him carefully. “You lost someone too? Your mother?” Paul is very broken up. “How old were you?” He tells her that he was five. Elizabeth ponders this. “Perhaps in a way I was lucky. Perhaps in a way I got ten more years than I was ever supposed to have.” Alva returns to the table and tells them there is a problem.

Back at the apartment, Lucinda’s parents tell them that she is gone. Paul goes into Lucinda’s room and looks around. On the mirror he sees the words “You don’t know me” written in lipstick. He returns to the living room. “What does ‘You don’t know me’ mean?” he asks.

“It was the last line in Cinda’s suicide note,” her father replies. Alva asks where she was when she cut her wrists. Her father explains that she was in the bathroom, but that wasn’t how she killed herself. She cut her wrists two weeks earlier. “Lucinda died by jumping off the roof of this building.” Hearing this, Paul starts thinking fast.

On the roof, Paul bursts from the stairwell calling out to Hannah as she stands on the ledge, her dress and hair billowing in the wind. He calls, “Hannah” again, but Elizabeth stops him. “Lucinda! Wait. Why are you doing this?” Elizabeth asks her.

“Because I am so angry! I want it to stop. All of it!” exclaims Hannah, “I want to go somewhere else.”

Elizabeth replies, “If you go somewhere else, you’ll just be starting again. You have your whole life ahead of you. Don’t give it up.”

Hannah looks at her. “You don’t know me. What do you care what I do with my life?” Hannah cries, turning back to look down at the street below.

Elizabeth continues, “Because I had a daughter who went away…and I never got the chance to let her know how much I’d lose if she were gone.”

“You don’t know me!” Hannah persists.

“Yes, I do, says Elizabeth. “You’re Lucinda Morgan Bryant. You have a family. You are their life. Please don’t throw that away.”

Lucinda’s mother steps forward and says, “She’s right. Please let us. Please.” Lucinda sobs, looking at the street again, then smiles and turns around. As she is turning, part of her red skirt gets caught in a vent pipe and her foot slips. She begins to fall but Paul pulls her to safety, leaving behind a piece of red cloth attached to the pipe, whipping in the wind. Hannah walks past the stricken Elizabeth and into her mother’s arms.

Back in her kitchen, Elizabeth washes dishes at the sink. A shadow passes over the window and Elizabeth looks up. From behind her, a child’s hand reaches up to tug on her sleeve. She turns around but she is alone in the room. After a moment, her daughter Emma runs into the room excitedly telling her that she has climbed to the highest branch in the oak tree. Josiah is right behind her, reassuring his mother that he had been there watching out for her. She picks up her daughter and they all sit down at the table to talk. Life goes on

Episode Summary written by amicab1

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