Wake to Dream(4)

Caught in his hypnotic gaze, she fought to find her voice within the thick blanket of attraction that wrapped her. Barely a whisper, she finally responded, "Yes. Thank you."

Bending down, she inched forward beneath the slope of the ceiling, her head moving inside to look at the closet, when she felt the soft touch of Max' hand to her back, the contact startling in its familiarity.

Her phone vibrated again.





12:30 p.m.



Gray walls.

Black table.

Plastic, fake red roses.

Still the same.

"Are you ready, Alice? As usual, you're right on time."

"Yes, doctor."

White door.

Dark wood desk.

White and beige striped couch.

Still safe.

"Take a seat," the doctor requested, "I'd like to begin the session discussing what you told me last time we met."

Although her body felt more under control than it had the last time she'd met with Dr. Chance, time still moved sluggishly, every small movement, or the slightest sound, stretched out far too long. Alice felt like she was working against some invisible force, a tension pushing against her uncomfortably as she lowered herself onto the couch.

"You look better," the doctor observed. "Your movements aren't as fitful as the last time we met." He waited for her to look up at him before commenting, "The medications must be working."

Shaking her head slightly, she tried to remember the last time she took the medications, but the past day was hidden beneath an opaque blanket, her pain and stress too much for her to remember events with any clarity. If he said the medications were working, she'd believe him, even though she couldn't recall anything before sitting in his waiting room.

"What did we talk about the last time I was here?" Even to her own ears, her voice sounded far off and broken.

A soothing balm against the chaos in her head, his words broke through the fog. "We discussed the beginning as I'd requested. Although, I'm somewhat confused by what you told me."

Alice forced her eyes to his, opening her mouth to answer, but then deciding against speaking at all.

Realizing she wouldn't respond, Doctor Chance added, "You told me about a house you were trying to sell. Do you remember?"

Blinking her eyes, she brought herself back to the present, shaking away dreams that still held her in their grasp. The visions would stop when she woke, but the terror and pain always followed, no matter what she did to escape.

…drip...

"I remember the house," she admitted.

"Why did you take me there? That house had nothing to do with your sister. Did it?"

Her head fell forward into her hands. "I don't know, exactly. It was the phone calls, I think."

"What about the phone calls, Alice?"

...drip...

Shaking her head, she attempted to dispel the thick clouds that lingered after she dreamed. The present was never so elusive as that moment, her struggle a losing fight to remain on track with the conversation.

"I think...I can't be sure because I don't specifically remember checking the phone, but I must have. They were telling me something, most likely that she was gone. I don't believe I needed the calls to tell me that. I already knew something was terribly wrong."

He was quiet for a moment, contemplative. "Explain it to me."

The last thing Alice wanted was to go back there...to that day. But if it would help her heal, if it would leave them with nothing but the dreams left to discuss, she'd indulge him.

"I felt scared the second I stepped foot into that house. It was a slithering thing at first, a tendril wrapping my spine."

She shivered, forcing herself to walk back into the run down house on the corner of First and Woods. "There was no reason to fear the house. It was only a neglected structure."

"But yet it terrified you?"

"It did," she recalled. "Looking back, it wasn't the house that frightened me, it was a feeling that something was amiss. Maybe it was a link I shared with my sister, the blood in her veins calling to mine. Maybe that's why the dreams began when they did."

A resigned sigh filtered into her thoughts, the doctor's voice finally pulling her attention back to him. "Your sister wasn't in the house."

"No. But she was taken when I was there. She had to be. Those calls..."

...drip...

The sound was beginning to irritate her. With cold, dead eyes she scanned the room, her head slowly twisting over her neck. A door was set off to the right that she'd not noticed before, closed so that she could only guess what lay beyond it. "Is that a bathroom?"

The doctor nodded. "Do you need to use it?"

...drip...

"No," she answered, “but you should fix the faucet."

Narrowed eyes studied her, questions obvious in his unspoken thoughts. "I'll take a look once your session is over."

Silence passed again, the reprieve from conversation a comforting thing. She knew it wouldn't last long.

"Before we discuss the dreams, I'd like to understand why you find them important. When did they start?"

"After." She waved her hand out in front of her, the movement jumpy and uncoordinated. It was as if she were trying to abbreviate everything that occurred between the phone calls and the dreams with the one vague answer.