by Amanda Paris
After we moved the large table out to the porch and slid the chairs into the foyer, we began tackling the walls, converting the stately beige to a bright, electric blue. The entire downstairs had begun to look like a brochure for a Key West hotel. Aunt Jo was nothing if not adventurous. It was one of the features I loved best about her.
Three hours and two paint fights later, Ben had covered half of my face, and I knew I probably looked like one of those ancient Picts in one of my history textbooks, ready for battle with my blue war paint. I’d managed to get in a few swipes on the back of his neck, but the effect wasn’t nearly as savage or as thorough.
We eventually put our paint brushes down, lying together on the plastic covers we’d spread over the hardwood floors. Staring at our handiwork, our paint-smudged hands behind our heads, we both laughed at the same time.
“It’s really awful, isn’t it,” I said in a whisper so Aunt Jo couldn’t hear in the adjoining room.
“Yeah,” he whispered loudly, “I didn’t want to say anything. I thought you’d probably picked it out,” he finished, a huge smile on his face.
I sat up and shoved him. He held up his hands in defense.
“Hey, don’t blame me! I see the crazy stuff you wear to school!” he protested, laughing more loudly.
I hit him a little harder, but he was right. I did like bright colors—just not on the walls. Aunt Jo was probably trying to follow what she thought was my taste.
“I started to get worried when we painted the kitchen mango,” he said through the tears of laughter.
By that time, we were rolling on the floor, forgetting we had to stay quiet.
“What’s so funny in here?” Aunt Jo asked, poking her head in and wanting to share the joke.
“Oh, nothing,” we said together, trying to keep from laughing again. Neither of us wanted to hurt her feelings.
“I’m getting hungry,” I said to save us both.
A little later, Aunt Jo ordered pizza, and we sat around the kitchen table stuffing ourselves until Ben looked at his watch. He gave me a quick kiss, thanked Aunt Jo for the pizza, and drove home to shower and get ready for tonight.
I climbed the stairs, glad that Aunt Jo didn’t follow me. I was still upset about my meeting with Mrs. Anderson, and I wanted to take a nap before going out tonight.
I changed out of the overalls, now splattered with blue paint to match the equally exotic shades of the kitchen and living room.
I lay on the bed, thinking of my grandmother, who’d grown up in this house. It was a lucky thing that I didn’t have too many clothes, as I was still using her antique armoire standing opposite to the bed. Houses built at the turn of the last century didn’t include closets, and most of my friends still couldn’t believe I could live without one.
I liked to feel in touch with the past, and though my grandmother had passed away before I was born, it felt right somehow that I was still connected to her, sleeping on the same bed that she did as a girl and looking in the same mirror she used above the dresser. Aunt Jo had even left me the antique wash stand, with its porcelain wash bowl, beside the bed.
The house had been in the St. Clair family since it was built by my great-great-grandfather in 1908. He’d been killed in World War I, but his son had grown up here and raised my grandmother, her younger brother, and her sisters. It was natural, Aunt Jo said, for my mother and me to come home to live. Though my mother, a native of Iowa, had no roots in Florida, she agreed with Aunt Jo, knowing that I needed a place to belong. Aunt Jo always treated Mom like a daughter, not ever having any of her own, and me as a granddaughter. I think she was glad we’d come to Florida for the company, and I knew she missed Mom terribly. Aunt Jo had some close friends and a very active Bridge club, but it wasn’t the same as family, she always said.
I didn’t know what I would do without Aunt Jo now that Mom was gone. I looked at the wedding picture of my parents on the dresser beside the one of Ben and me taken two summers ago. My mother’s smile, the only physical trait I’d inherited from her, made her still seem alive. The picture quickly became blurry with the familiar sting of tears. Mom and Dad looked so happy holding hands together on their wedding day. Dad had dark waving hair neatly brushed back, a carefree smile on his face, and Mom looked very young in a white lace dress that had belonged to her mother, her dark brown curls pinned up with the ivory roses she’d probably grown herself.
I remembered then her last days, the slow, long drips of the morphine, the meaningful looks between the doctors. No one wanted to tell me that the end had come, but I knew when it was time. I’d watched my mother battle too long not to recognize when I had to let her go. As much as I loved her, I didn’t want to see her live in pain. People think that letting go is the hardest part of death, but it isn’t. It’s seeing the person you love the most suffer.
That didn’t mean that I didn’t miss hearing Mom’s voice throughout the house. No one had prepared me for the emptiness her passing would create. The worst part was the silence, as though she just didn’t exist anymore.
I choked back the tears and concentrated instead on the more immediate problem at hand. How was I going to overcome my fear of drowning? There was no other high school in town, and it looked like they weren’t going to budge on the rules. That must have been some sizeable donation, I thought sleepily, curling up on the bed.
I drifted off to sleep, still not having come up with a plan and knowing that I couldn’t keep putting it off forever.
I awoke on the floor sometime later, covered in a cold sweat. I had dreamed that I was frantically running through the woods, trying to escape someone or something. Someone strong, tall, and dark—a figure I knew better, even, than myself—pulled me along, but we could not move quickly, hampered by my long skirts and the low tree branches that continuously pelted my face. Danger followed, gaining on us every minute. My long hair caught on one of the low hanging branches, halting our progress. He turned to face me, a perfect study of strength and beauty, and I was struck by the deep, penetrating force of his gaze and the urgency written on his face. Despite my fear, I felt mesmerized by his dark eyes, which locked with mine, sending an unspoken message of love mingled with courage and despair. He untangled my hair, loosening it from the clutching branches, and we ducked into the abandoned ruins of a small church just beyond a clearing, a place we knew by heart.
We heard the loud clang of their approach, their chanting growing louder as they closed in. Knowing we could not escape, he bestowed a burning kiss, fired by the intensity of his love. It could not last. We broke off, and he drew forth his sword, sweeping me behind him.
“This is it,” I whispered to him, waiting for them to descend upon us.
They drew closer, their swords drawn against us. Though strong, he could not defeat so many, and I knew he would die trying. They made a ring around us, their faces like snarling wolves.
“Burn the witch!” they demanded, over and over again.
It took me a moment to understand they meant me. I screamed furiously, fearing for our lives.
Then I saw her, her hideously beautiful face twisted into a wicked smile, and my fear trebled, becoming almost a palpable thing.
My breathing became more ragged as she approached. I frantically looked for a way to escape, but they had us trapped from all sides.
I felt myself fall hard on the ground below and abruptly woke up, a silent scream on my lips. I must have rolled off the bed, I thought, disoriented. I shakily stood up and sat on the edge of the bed, now soaked with the effects of my feverish dreaming.
The Duchess, who’d been licking her paws in the corner, looked at me curiously. She jumped on the bed, rubbing herself beneath my hand—a rare event that signaled her alarm. I stroked her for awhile, taking comfort in her soothing purrs.
Several minutes later, Aunt Jo knocked on the door and poked her head around.
“Everything okay in here?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I whispered, still unsure if
I could find my voice. “I just had a bad dream,” I croaked.
“Well, you have about fifteen minutes before Ben comes to pick you up,” she reminded me.
It was initially difficult to move off the bed. I felt paralyzed by fear, even knowing that my dream had only been a nightmare.
I slowly got up, took a sip of the water I kept by the bed, and headed for the shower, though I could feel the old fear assault me. I shuddered as I approached the tub. I didn’t want to go near it.
We only had one old-fashioned bathroom, which I shared it with Aunt Jo. I had to let the water run for awhile and then latch the shower head to a hook above the tub. Normally, it was no problem—inconvenient, but also quaint. Today, however, I just couldn’t bring myself to turn on the tap, let alone get in.
Snap out of it, I muttered to myself, knowing I was already running behind. I forced myself to approach the tub. At this rate, I wouldn’t have time to wash and dry my hair, a task that often took at least thirty minutes. I’d have to pin it up. Ben liked my hair curly anyway, so perhaps it was for the best. I smiled, trying to concentrate on Ben instead of the dark-eyed protector in my dream, unquestionably a powerful knight who had shielded me from danger.
I knew him, I thought, frustrated that I couldn’t place him. Surely I’d met him before? Or was he some celebrity I’d just re-imagined? He certainly had the looks, but I couldn’t think of any Hollywood star he resembled. He looked like no one else I knew and yet his face seemed so familiar to me, as though I had known him my entire life. As I contemplated him, my heart melted in a way it never had before, a feeling immediately replaced with overwhelming guilt that I was somehow betraying Ben.
I turned my thoughts instead to the others pursuing us in my dream. Who were they, and why did they come for me? And why was I so terrified of water that I couldn’t even take a shower? Though I’d long feared drowning, water hadn’t figured into my dream.
I finally steeled my nerves and turned on the sink faucet, letting the hot steam clear my head, but I still didn’t touch the water.
I hadn’t let myself contemplate the dangerous woman in my dream. She too seemed familiar somehow. Her face glowed with an unholy, iridescent light, her hair spread out in a vivid array of sparkling golden hues. I could see her clearly, almost as though she appeared before me. I realized suddenly that I was not imagining it. She stared at me in the mirror, her mouth a bloody shade of red. Her black eyes bored into mine, forcing me to look at her. I tried to break the intensity of her stare, but she would not let me. I felt the scream erupting but could make no sound emerge. She controlled me entirely, as though she had taken over my body.
The light emitted from the mirror blazed out, hurting my eyes. It seemed to glow almost towards me, as though she were reaching out to pull me to her. I felt an intense heat burning my face, now inflamed almost from within. The mirror fogged, and the figure disappeared from view. I realized the burning came from the steam rising from the hot faucet water. I quickly shut it off and mentally shook my head. My imagination must run in overdrive, I thought, wiping away the moisture on the mirror to reveal my own face—no threat there. And yet, the small tap shouldn’t have produced that much steam, not enough to burn me. My cheeks still stung.
What was wrong with me? My hands had started to shake, and my footing was a little unsure, as though I’d had a few too many drinks—not that I’d had much experience with alcohol. Aunt Jo kept an unopened bottle of wine tucked away for special occasions that never came, and she’d once let me taste champagne at a wedding we attended at the end of last summer.
I finally summoned enough courage to get into the tub, but I had to practice breathing deeply to make it through even a quick shower. It was the shortest one I’d ever taken.
I turned the water off, grateful to be done, and realized that I’d lingered too long getting ready. Time had run out, and I could hear Ben laughing with Aunt Jo in the kitchen. I must have missed the doorbell because I could hear him at the bottom of the stairs.
“I better see what’s keeping her,” I heard him say as he climbed the steps.
I rushed to my room, wrapped only in a towel, and quickly put on underwear and clothes, towel-drying my hair and fastening my sandals as I hopped on one foot.
Ben stood at the door, amused.
“Don’t hurry on my account,” he said, looking stunning as ever as he leaned against the doorframe.
I looked down at my wrinkled blue t-shirt and faded jeans. I wished I’d set an alarm for more reasons than one.
As if to answer my thoughts, Ben told me I looked great. He stepped into the room and took the comb out of my hand.
“Let me,” he said, smoothing down the curls with one hand while he worked the comb with the other.
Ben loved my hair, which I’d let grow to my waist mainly out of laziness. No hairdresser had been able to tame it yet.
He carefully unknotted the tangles and brushed them aside, nuzzling my neck as he went along and finally abandoning my hair altogether.
“You know, we’ll never be on time if you keep up with this,” I told him. But I wasn’t really annoyed. Ben’s hands on my hair had a calming effect that was just what I needed, though his next question brought me back to reality.
“What’s up?” he asked, sensing my tension.
I never could hide anything from anyone very well, especially Ben. My face usually gave me away, as I blushed constantly, but I knew I also still shook slightly from the dream.
“Nothing really,” I said, unwilling to confess how affected I was by what I’d seen and felt in my nightmare. It felt so real, as though it had really happened to me.
He raised an eyebrow.
“I had a bad dream, that’s all,” I continued, trying to sound casual.
“Wanna talk about it?” he asked, turning to face me on the bed.
Curiously, I didn’t. I shared everything with Ben, but this was too horrifying and somehow too personal even for him. It was the most frightening dream I’d ever had, waking or sleeping, and I couldn’t discuss it with him. Understandably, he’d be upset that I’d dreamed about another guy, even if it was a knight from long ago.
For the second time that day, I felt overwhelming guilt. Ben and I had no secrets.
I tried laughing it off to ease the tension.
“I’ve just been watching too many horror flicks,” I said, forcing a note of lightness in my voice.
Ben looked at me strangely. He knew I hated horror movies.
“Okay…Are you ready?” he asked, sensing my unwillingness to say more and not wanting to push me.
I was grateful he’d let it go.
We met Zack and Annie a short time later at the movie theater near the mall. Three movies were playing, and two of them were horror films.
“It looks like it will have to be Bride’s Night Out,” Ben said, a teasing tone in his voice.
“Why’s that?” Zack asked, disappointed.
“Emily can’t watch anything scary—she’s begun having dreams of zombies and werewolves,” he said, trying out his best vampire impression by going for my neck.
“Cut it out, Ben,” I said, pushing him away. I didn’t want to be reminded of the dream I’d had this afternoon, and I couldn’t even joke about it.
“But that’s a chick flick,” Zack complained, “and besides, I wanted to see The Undead Night, Part Three. In the first two movies…” Zack began.
Annie interrupted, rolling her eyes.
“Save it, Zack,” she said, “Nobody wants to hear about the sequel to Night of the Whatever.”
I shot her a grateful look. I knew she wanted to see the movie about weddings anyway. Ben didn’t care either way. Lately, he liked for us to sit in the back and make out. Tonight, though, it felt wrong somehow, and when he tried kissing me five minutes into the first preview, I shook my head, nodding in the direction of Zack and Annie.
Ben looked strangely at me, as if to ask what was wrong. But I avoided his gaze.
>
I couldn’t pay all that much attention to the rest of the movie, the dream still uppermost in my mind.
Afterwards, we decided to get some ice-cream and ordered a large banana split with four spoons. But I was still distracted, picking apart the napkin in my lap.
“Hell-o,” Annie said, waving her hands in front of me.
“Don’t mind her, Annie,” Ben answered. “She’s been out of it since I picked her up.”
Ben shook his head in mock reproof but squeezed my leg nonetheless.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, still staring at my lap. I tried to focus on the conversation…something about Will Adams getting caught cheating in history class. But I couldn’t concentrate. I was too absorbed in another world, another time.
“What do you think, Em?” Annie asked.
“What?” I said, startled. I realized I needed to pay more attention to the conversation, but I couldn’t seem to focus.
I tried to listen without really knowing what we were talking about anymore.
Someone was asking me a question again.
“Nope, sorry, didn’t hear that one,” I answered lamely.
Zack and Annie looked from me to Ben.
“Aren’t you going to eat any of this?” Zack asked me through a mouthful of bananas.
“No, I’m not really hungry,” I replied, finally putting down my spoon.
“Okay, what’s going on?” Annie asked, breaking through my malaise.
I knew I’d have to tell them something. But what?
I paused for a moment before answering. They were my friends, right? They’d understand, wouldn’t they? Maybe we could all laugh about it.
“I had this dream…” I began, staring at the ruined bits of napkin in my lap.
“Yeah, what about?” Zack asked, attacking the ice cream with a vengeance.
I looked at Ben and then looked down again.
“Nothing, really,” I said, not wanting to continue. It was just a stupid dream, right?
I needed to change the subject.