Chapter 7

THAT NIGHT I DREAMT.

Molly and I come to the edge of the field of tall grass behind our house, the thick, second-growth forest standing like a dark impenetrable wall only a dozen feet away from us. There is something forbidden and ominous about these woods. So much so that I have difficulty even looking directly into them, as if they have the ability to look directly back at me. I try and focus my attention on Molly’s narrow back, her blonde hair that sways from shoulder to shoulder, until she turns to me with that mischievous smile of hers, shouting “Come on, Bec. Let’s do it.”

My stomach is tied up in double-knots.

Molly has no fear. Not of the woods, not of what we might find inside them, not of our father who has forbade us to ever enter them. But then I harbor enough fear for the both of us.

Molly turns, shoots me a smile. She begins to step across the invisible barrier between field and woods.

“Don’t!”

But it’s too late. She is already entering into a place from which there is no return…

I awoke to the sound of my cell phone vibrating atop the nightstand. At the same time, I heard a voice. The cell phone and the voice pulled me out of my dream, away from the open field, away from the danger that lurked there.

“Rebecca.” A whispered voice.

In my half-awake, half-asleep state, I heard the deep, raspy, guttural voice. The voice of a heavy smoker. In the darkness of the bedroom I found myself lying flat on my back, eyes open wide, gazing onto a black ceiling. Although my heart pounded, my body was paralyzed. I could not move my arms or legs. I could not breathe.

The windows were closed to the rain and the wind. The voice had to have come from inside my head. How could it possibly have come from anywhere else?

But it sounded so real, so close. As real as the cell phone. Real enough to make me awake. But then not awake at all. More like caught up in a state somewhere in between conscious and out cold.

I lay in bed unable to swallow, unable to move, unable to speak. I felt the urge to pee. But the down comforter had become my protective steel cage. No way I could attempt to get out from under the covers.

Directly behind me, the rain came down ever steady outside the window. If only I could have reached out for the nightstand, grabbed hold of the cell, opened it, and heard the voice of Robyn or Michael. The voices might have snapped me out of my trance, saved me from a nightmare too vivid for words. There was nothing I could do.

No choice but to lie on my back and listen.