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Dark
Solstice
Though
Anna had come out to the garden seeking a moment of peace, the
winter-brown stonecrop plants and the feathered tops of the dried
grasses faded into the background. Shivering, she pulled Sean’s wool
coat tighter around her. As she watched the last pink of dawn disappear
from the sky, her surroundings blurred.
Disconcerted, she pitched forward, scraping her knee on a stone. The
cold earth against her palms was the only reminder of where she was.
As the
rush of images burned through her, she fought to shut them out. Face
after face—her
mother’s determined chin, her sister Maggie’s mischievous smile, Aunt
Elsbet’s dimpled cheeks, Anna’s own sprinkling of freckles—worn
by strangers.
There
were men among them, but the women captured Anna’s attention. Each of
them in turn wore a necklace of sapphires, rippling with otherworldly
light. When she reached out to touch the gems, her hand closed upon
frozen chunks of earth.
“Sean?”
Her whisper was instinctive, seeking comfort although she knew he wasn’t
nearby.
“That
didn’t just happen.” The fierceness in her voice startled a flock of
sparrows, and as they winged past her, she allowed a moment of longing
for… What?
“No.”
Squaring her shoulders, she rose and turned to the house.
Unpacking ought to be all the distraction she’d need to forget—whatever
the hell that was. Pushing the unnerving experience out of her mind,
she vowed to sort through the jumble of boxes in the kitchen and start
stripping wallpaper.
As she
pushed through the patio doors, she tossed her coat and boots aside and
drew her eyebrows into a line of determination. If life was ever going
to get back to normal, unpacking was as good a place as any to start.
Making a
half-hearted effort to organize a box of utensils, she acknowledged a
slow, queasy feeling. A second before the splintering crash, she bolted
to her feet. Sean.
“No!”
Her only
coherent thought was that she wanted him safe, but the surge of energy
shooting through her left her unsteady on her feet. When her brain
caught up with her instincts, she sorted out the direction of the
gut-wrenching noise. Garage.
As she
sprinted across the kitchen, eerie silence followed the crash, and the
distance between her and the garage seemed to triple in size. “Are you
all right?”
Her
voice trembled as she tugged open the door. A fetid smell lingered in
the air, out of place with the normal garage odors. Shivering, she
brushed aside the thought that something wasn’t right and turned her
attention to Sean.
“I’m
okay.”
Sean
stood in the center of a pile of broken glass and cracked window
frames. Pausing to shove her feet into the work boots he’d left by the
door, Anna crunched through the debris and circled to check for
injuries. His golden brown hair, T-shirt, and jeans were covered with
glass splinters. A bruise the size of his fist darkened his left arm,
and shallow scrapes covered his forearms.
“I was
trying to take the old storms out for large trash pick-up day.” He
glanced up at the empty row of metal hooks overhead. “I’m not sure what
I tripped over, but I lost my balance while I was reaching for a window
and fell into the whole row. They came down like dominoes.”
When
they’d had new windows installed before they moved in, she’d pointed out
that the ancient storms, suspended precariously from a storage rack in
the garage, would have to go. She hadn’t counted on the chore becoming
a disaster.
“You’re
sure you’re not hurt?”
“A few
of the frames hit my arm on the way down, but other than that, I’d say I
was lucky.”
Her
stomach still churning as she imagined what could have happened, Anna
rolled her eyes at the understatement. Wincing as tiny shards of glass
poked his chest and back, Sean stripped off his shirt, picked his way
out of the mess, and stripped off his jeans. That accomplished, he
stood beside the wreckage in his boxers and running shoes.
“Now
what?” Despite his brush with mayhem, the lines and angles of his lean,
runner’s body were loose and relaxed.
Leaning
closer to inspect the splinters peppering his back, she tugged her
ponytail over her shoulder and fidgeted until brown tendrils encircled
her fingers. When she pulled a glass fragment from his shoulder, he
winced, then adopted a look of stoic endurance.
Before
long, she’d cleared the worst of the splinters from his arms and back,
but her unease increased as she scanned the clutter of broken frames and
glass and failed to spot anything that could have tripped him. With
years of track and field behind him, and the natural grace of a runner,
he was anything but clumsy. That, combined with the strange odor, had
her nerves on edge.
“Why
don’t you take a hot shower? Anything I missed should come out after a
good soak, and you’ll get those scrapes cleaned up while you’re at it.”
If it
weren’t for the remaining bits of glass, she’d join him. She wanted to
press against his damp skin until there wasn’t enough room between their
bodies for a water droplet, and she was able to forget the sound of
shattering glass and the accompanying bolt of fear.
“I’ll
clean up in here before Isaiah and Damon show up to help sand the living
room floor.” Sean shed his glass-covered shoes before stepping into the
kitchen.
As the
last of the adrenalin faded, she shuddered at the thought that this
might be related to the strange events that had plagued her lately.
After trailing her fingers over the red spots where she’d removed
splinters from Sean’s chest, she sank down onto a chair and propped her
elbows on the kitchen table. The room felt overheated after the chill
of the garage, but when she tugged off her hooded sweatshirt, she
shivered as air penetrated her turtleneck and brushed against her clammy
skin.
“Sean,
I…” She reached for his hand, squeezing until her fingers sank into the
flesh of his palm. “I know we said we’d forget about what I told you
the other night, but…” When he tried to pull away, she shook her head.
Although she didn’t know how, she couldn’t escape the feeling that what
happened in the garage was connected to her unsettling dreams.
“Damn
it, you’ve avoided talking with me since I mentioned my dream about the
boy. I know what I described spooked the hell out of you, but I have no
idea why. And now, this thing in the garage—nothing
makes sense. If I can’t figure out what’s going on, I’m afraid
someone’s going to get hurt. And I mean worse than scrapes, bruises,
and splinters.” Great, more presentiments. He’d love that.
Her
nerves frayed, she thought she caught a hint of movement out of the
corner of her eye, something dark and rat-like. But when she glanced
across the room, the scattered tools and packing boxes lay in
undisturbed piles. With an exasperated sigh, she silenced her
imagination and turned back to Sean.
Every
muscle in his body seemed coiled tight, ready to run, as she stood to
rest her hand on his arm. At six-two, he had a good five inches on her,
and when she looked up to meet his eyes, the pain she saw reflected
there made her feel small. She didn’t want to hurt him, but she needed
to know what it was about the dream that had hit a nerve.
Swallowing hard, she closed her eyes, as if she could sort out what had
upset him if she replayed the seemingly innocuous scene for the
hundredth time. The boy, baseball cap tipped backward over his scraggly
hair, chewed on a piece of licorice as he tagged along behind his
mother. As the child matched his steps to the staccato click, click,
click of his mother’s heels on the sidewalk, he bit off large chunks of
candy, but his expression was guarded.
“Fair
enough,” standing there, naked except for his green boxer shorts, Sean
looked vulnerable, almost frightened, “it was me.”
His
voice was so soft, she wondered if she’d heard correctly. “What?”
“Your
dream. That was me. My baseball cap, my licorice, my messy hair, my,”
his face contorted with the word, “mother.”
“I don’t
understand.” Her heart was pounding too fast, and she couldn’t seem to
catch her breath. A shadow darted under the table and rubbed itself,
cat-like, against her jeans, but she was too stunned by Sean’s words to
focus on the disturbance.
“The boy
in your dream, did he have a cast on his arm?”
“But I
didn’t tell you that.” Though she felt cold all over, beads of sweat
formed at the back of her neck, dampening her hair. “How could you
know?”
“I told
you. It was real. I was the boy in your dream.” He held her gaze, his
eyes so dark they looked more black than gray. “I never want to talk
about this again. I’m going up to shower.”
He
squeezed her hand, and then he was gone, leaving her to sort things out
on her own. She’d never seen a photograph of him as a child, hadn’t
known what his mother looked like. Though she’d met his father a
handful of times, Sean’s childhood was a mystery. All she knew was that
his mother left when he was twelve. Although she’d tried to respect the
wall he’d put up between himself and his past, lately she felt an almost
urgent need to crash through and see what was on the other side.
She
cupped her hands in front of her face, trying to shake off the dizziness
that threatened to overwhelm her. When her eyes caught a hint of
movement in the corner, she screwed them shut against the distraction.
The dream didn’t make sense. No wonder Sean had been upset. How could
she have seen something—known
something—that was
beyond her realm of experience?
That
alone would have been enough to upset him. But there was something
more, and whatever the dream meant to Sean, its significance was lost on
her. With a sigh, she rested her elbows on the table and buried her
face in her hands. Whenever she went looking for answers, she raised
more questions.
A
skittering noise by the corner cupboard jarred her out of her reverie.
She edged closer to the dark shadow hunkered down behind a pile of
unopened boxes. The odor of rotting meat filled the room, and every
hair on her body stood on end, but as she approached, whatever had been
there disappeared.
“Great.
Now I’m seeing things. That about completes my day. And it’s not even
noon yet.”
Still,
whatever she’d imagined slinking around the kitchen had kicked her body
into instant adrenalin alert, and a stubborn corner of her brain
insisted there’d been a real threat.
* * *
Rolling her neck to loosen
knots of tension she suspected were due more to her parents’ surprise
visit this evening than hours stripping wallpaper, Anna tugged on her
sleep shirt and dragged a comb through her tangled, brown hair. Just as
the blues and greens of the bedroom—an
oasis of peace in their wreck of a fixer-upper—started
to work their magic, she thought she saw something scuttle sideways,
crablike, across the floor.
A faint
odor of rot filled the room, but searching the closets, looking under
the bed, and shifting piles of boxes failed to reveal an intruder.
Unable to convince herself she was imagining things, she stalked across
the room, threw open the window, and knelt to gulp fresh, icy air.
Okay, so
she was stressed. On edge, questioning her judgment in buying the house
with Sean—sans ring or
further commitment—and
bedeviled by her parents’ disapproval on both counts. The house. And
Sean. Of course she’d feel a little uneasy. Despite the December wind
gusting through the open window, sweat beaded across her forehead and
her stomach clenched. Was she imagining things, or had there been a
malevolent presence in the room?
Pressing
her forehead against the windowsill, she mumbled what was becoming more
of a battle cry than a personal mantra. “I love this old Colonial—to
hell with what Mom and Dad think. Sean and I are great together, and I
love teaching cello and playing in the quartet—to
hell with what Mom and Dad think. Sean and I are great together…”
A lump
formed in her throat and she dug her close-clipped nails into her
palms. Okay, so all couples have rough spots. Relationships are about
compromise, right? Before she could take that any further, a small
sound triggered a fresh rush of adrenalin. As she struggled to her feet
and whirled around, she overbalanced and stumbled toward the faceless,
gray fox perched on a pile of boxes. The creature’s hide was leathery
and damp where there should have been fur, and though it lacked eyes,
nose, or mouth, it tilted its head to follow her movements with uncanny
accuracy.
As the
force of her momentum carried her closer, it hunkered down, and on some
level she registered that it perceived her as a threat. But when she
covered her mouth to suppress a scream and darted back, it followed,
menacing despite its small size.
“Anna?”
As the
door clicked open, the intruder vanished in a cloud of mist. Shaken,
she struggled to control her ragged breathing. In the seconds it took
Sean to enter the room, the last wisp of foul vapor disappeared.
Whatever that was, with every fiber of her being she wanted it to stay
the hell out of her life. | 