Savor (43 page)

Soon, my eyelid turned heavy. I blinked to clear the fatigue, but I eventually lost the battle to stay awake.

The last part—the most familiar and most confusing part—of my dreams began like it

always did. Like a movie on the silver screen.

I’m lying on a stiff hospital bed, vision blurry. I can only see half the empty room.

Something black covers the other half. A machine to my right beeps rhythmically. My heart.

Each beep tells me I’m alive.

The needle stuck to my arm itches. I want to scratch it out.

My entire midsection is sore. Every muscle in my body feels like straw, ready to snap if I

shift wrong. So it is good that I can hardly move. Not that I want to, considering.

I’ve been awake for what seems like hours now, staring at a TV. I have no idea where the

remote is. No one, not even a nurse, came in to check on me. My gaze flits around the room.

A grocery bag sat on the chair at the corner. Nothing else. No flowers. Nothing that might

have my name on it.

I try my best to stay calm. Pretty soon someone will come in and I will get answers. I just

need to hang in there.

Like an answered prayer, the door to my room opens. A man in a white coat comes in. I

barely make out his features. No matter how many times I blink, the blurriness of my vision

doesn’t ease. He picks up a chart at the foot of my bed and reads it.

“Hello, Dakota,” he says.

Dakota. That must be my name. I latch on to it.

“Hi,” I answer back, my voice scratchy from lack of use.

“It’s good to finally have you awake. You scared us there for a while.” He comes to my side

and flashes a light in my eye. I grimace away. “Your mother just stepped out. I’m sure she’ll

be happy to see you awake.”

“Mother,” I say. “I have a mother.”

“Dakota?” Even through my blurry vision I see the doctor’s forehead crumple. “Do you

remember what happened to you, honey?”

I pause. I think back. A big mass of darkness ruin my efforts. The beeps on the machine

come faster. My eye wells. A tear escapes to roll down my temple. My face crumples as I

shake my head.

“No. I don’t remember anything.”

Chapter Forty-Three

Memories

After hours on a plane beside a colicky baby that wouldn’t stop crying and another two

hours on a bus beside a man with an improvised spit can made out of an empty beer bottle,

the discomfort of trudging through knee deep snow toward an ancient farmhouse was

nothing. Wet jeans and all, I carried my bags in my hands, eager to get inside and hug my

mother. Considering the month I’d had, waking up in the middle of almost nowhere every

morning until school started was just what the doctor ordered. I say “almost” because we

lived thirty minutes away from anything in all directions. To me, Mom’s place sat in an island of its own. Secluded enough to give a sense of peace to the weary traveler—i.e. me—yet close

enough to civilization that if I needed a vat of mint chocolate chip ice cream to wallow in I

could get in our truck and drive into town for it, no biggie.

I paused just below the porch steps and dropped my bags, arms aching more from fatigue

than their weight. Then I took the biggest deep breath my lungs allowed short of bursting,

letting the cold winter air in. I never got tired of the freshness of pine. Home. The two story farmhouse with its bright yellow paint seemed to have grown bigger. Goose bumps spread

through my body—a familiar occurrence when I got close to the house, like an invisible force

field surrounded the property. It was similar to what I felt upon arriving at Lunar Manor. I

shook my head and pushed thoughts of that place away because they led to other things.

More painful things. Mom said the goose bumps happened because of the house’s mojo, or

whatever the hell she meant by that. I just called it “giving me the creeps.”

For the entire trip, I ignored thoughts of Luka. Even thinking his name hurt like salt in a

wound. I wasn’t ready to fully commit to the breakdown waiting to happen. I had plans of

lying on the couch by the fire for the rest of winter break. My gaze shifted to the rickety barn that doubled as a garage when it snowed. I weighed the need to shower versus going into

town now for my pity party supplies. The shower won out on account of the icky airplane air

still clinging to my clothes. And I was pretty sure spit can guy missed once, depositing his

next load on my boot instead. I kept staring out the bus window as if I didn’t hear the splat

the spit made on my boot, horrified to check.

Quivering from disgust, I directed my thoughts elsewhere. Like the dreams. I had another

one on the plane when I’d finally dozed off. I jolted awake so badly that the baby started

crying again, much to the dismay of the disheveled mother who wore her stress on her face.

She stared daggers at me as if I’d been responsible for bringing a sick child on board. Even

then I gave her my best apologetic expression, blushing from head to toe from shame, and

then didn’t make eye contact afterwards.

It seemed like the dreams came so much more frequently now. I only had to close my eyes

and I could already feel the man’s rancid breath tickling the back of my neck. Yet the girl in the dreams couldn’t be me. They must be some weird recurring nightmare concocted by my

mind to repress what really happened to me. I touched my patch as a shudder ran through

me. If someone could help me make sense of the dreams, it would be Mom. She always had a

sense for these things. New age-y, believed in magic, dream interpretation and all that shit—

that was my mom.

Maybe I needed a shrink after all. I moved my hand from my patch to my hair, smoothing

out the ratty knot cause by the back of my head rubbing against the seat headrest. Yup, I

needed to shower first. Ice cream could wait.

I picked up my bags and slogged up the porch steps. The wood creaked beneath my weight,

making me rethink binge eating. Then I remembered the house. The sounds it made, like it

breathed and shifted on its foundation, never failed to give me the willies.

When I reached the front door, I didn’t bother with a key. For as long as I could remember,

Mom always kept doors unlocked. Something about allowing the spirits access into the

house. Like I said, my mom believed in weird shit. I’d learned to live with it. I jokingly

referred to her as the white witch who loved celebrating Christian holidays. The holly wreath

with red ribbon hanging on the door made me smile and roll my eye. It was good to be home.

Balancing all my bags in one hand, I reached for the knob but before my palm made

contact with the aged metal the door swung in slowly. The door creaked like it hadn’t been

oiled in years. Knowing my mother, that was probably a hundred percent true. Mental note:

buy oil can along with ice cream. A fire roared merrily in the living room. The fully decorated tree stood by the bay window filled with presents. Overflowing Christmas socks hung from

the mantel. And like the wreath outside, holly lined the stair railing. No mom.

“Mom?” I called from where I stood.

No one answered.

I tried again, calling louder this time. A gust of winter wind pushed me into the warm

entryway. I dropped my bags with a clatter on the wood floor covered by a ratty rug and bent

over the goodie bag I’d swiped from the party.

“Mom? You home?” I called again, rummaging for the orange box I knew contained a

ridiculously expensive scarf. I silently thanked Silvia for this knowledge since she’d bugged

Larry for months to write a fashion column for the Daily Gossip. I chuckled at the memory.

The goodie bag held presents for them too.

“Happy New Year!” my mom said in her singsong voice followed by a clap and jingling.

I straightened with the box in one hand and smiled at her like she’d appeared out of thin

air. She stood by the kitchen entrance, wild auburn hair to her waist and arms opened wide.

Without needing a gust of wind this time, I flew away from the door straight into her

embrace. Despite it being the middle of winter, my mother wore a billowy blouse in sheer

fabric tucked into a floor-length burgundy ruffled skirt. Her stack of bangles jangled again the second her arms circled me. The older I got the more convinced I was that my mother wasn’t

old enough to have a fully grown daughter. Barely a wrinkle or a gray hair.

“You’re home,” she said with relish and an extra tight squeeze.

“I’m home,” I whispered around the sudden lump in my throat. I may enjoy my

independence, but at the end of the day I still needed my mommy.

“Let me look at you.”

Even if I wanted to stay in the hug forever, I took a small step back and looked into her

sparkling green eyes—greener than the evergreens growing at the edge of our property. She

cupped my face with warm and soft hands. I completely forgot my soaking jeans and the

winter cold. Another draft must have gone through the house because the front door shut

with a quiet click behind us. The worry in her eyes pitched at the daughter-heart in me. She

must have seen the bags under my eyes and the strain at the sides of my mouth. No amount

of makeup could hide them, and I didn’t wear any after I left Lunar Manor.

“You haven’t been sleeping well,” she said like she intuitively knew what I wanted to talk

to her about.

“I’ve been having these dreams,” I admitted.

The second the words came out, she ushered me into the kitchen. “You must have some

tea. It will help you relax.”

Not questioning her, I went with the flow dictated by my sometimes off kilter mother and

handed her the box. “I brought you this.”

All of her face smiled when she lifted the cerulean silk scarf with its bed of tiny pink

flowers from inside the box. She twirled around with it, watching the fabric catch the light.

“Merry Christmas,” I said, scratching my cheek.

“I love it.” She tied the scarf around her neck before she puttered about to make the tea.

At the Collins household, we made tea in a saucepan. I pulled out a chair as ancient as the

house and fell onto its seat. For a second I thought I heard it groan. My mother filled the pan with water, placed it on the already lit stove, and proceeded to open cupboards. Her jangling

bangles reminded me of wind chimes coaxed into song by a summer breeze. Watching her

move like a ballet dancer on light feet calmed me. I thought it best to stay out of the way and concentrated on what exactly I wanted to tell her. How much detail should I go into? I mean,

the dreams got really intense and I didn’t want to worry her more than necessary. But she

was a mother. Her worry gene activated the day I came out of her.

“These dreams.” I traced patterns on the table. The wood seemed to sigh beneath my

finger. “I’ve been having them for a while now. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you until now. It’s just I thought I could ignore them, but it’s like they’re getting worse now for some reason.”

“Yes. Yes.” Mom added a sprig of something into the water and a dash of powder then she

mumbled a phrase I didn’t quite catch. On and on the choreography went, like my mother

had multiple arms instead of two. She didn’t face me the entire time the tea brewed. “Yes.

Yes.”

I continued speaking, my gaze following her movements as best I could. “They seem so

real. Like they’re memories instead of dreams, you know? Like they’re really happening to

me.”

“Mmmhmm. Fascinating. Go on.”

Soon a pungent scent filled the kitchen. A mix of boiled cornhusk and patchouli climbed

up my nostrils. If I hadn’t been so preoccupied, I would have run away from the smell.

“Yeah.” I nodded absentmindedly. “There’s this man in my dreams and he’s chasing me.

And every time, I’m really scared. All I could think of is I have to get away from him.” A frown tugged at my lips. “But I know it’s not me. At least, a part of me thinks it’s not me. Am I going crazy? I know it sounds insane but—”

“Maybe it’s just post-holiday stress. Weren’t you working on your project all month?

That’s why you couldn’t come home for Christmas?”

“I guess.” But the reason rang hollow to my ears. It couldn’t be just stress. Sure, a month

with Vicious could drive anyone mad, especially with he-who-I-refused-to-think-about. No.

Stress wasn’t everything. My boot heel played a staccato beat on the kitchen floor. The more I thought about the dreams, the more uneasy I got. Like I should be pacing. But before I could

stand, a steaming cup slid into the spot I stared at on the table. For a long second, I watched the ugly brown liquid slosh inside the ceramic. I hadn’t even noticed Mom pour the tea, all

my attention on the patterns my fingers drew on the table. I took the mug from her,

wrinkling my nose.

“I know boiled smelly socks would taste more appetizing than this, but I promise it will

help you relax.” She smiled like she hadn’t heard a word I’d said so far about the dreams. But like the obedient daughter she knew me to be, I lifted the tea to my lips and drank through

the burn, swallowing as fast as I could to keep from really tasting the liquid entering my

body.

“Good,” she said when I took a couple more gulps.

I moved to set the mug down when the table seemed to shrink away from me. My vision

doubled. My head lolled to the side. Everything in the kitchen melted and spiraled like I’d

stepped into a Salvador Dali painting. My mother took the cup away when my fingers went