The scream that sounded in her head caused her to stagger. Her
legs refused to hold her erect. She slid to the ground. With a terror that
matched her sister’s, through the link between them, she witnessed the
destruction of the Long House. The faces of the enemy burned into her head.
"Not the children!" The scream caused the earth beneath
her body to shudder.
*****
July 2000
"Not the children!"
Willow Carey jerked into a sitting position. Her heart thudded in
her chest. Waves of terror flooded her thoughts. She gulped deep breaths of
air.
She stared at the familiar surroundings and wondered why the
bedroom seemed alien. Like a shroud, the sheet had twisted around her legs. She
tugged it free. Her sleep shirt, soaked with perspiration, clung to her skin.
She shook her head to dislodge the fragments of the nightmare that had awakened
her. Terror, grief and rage had followed her into consciousness. What? Why?
Once her heart rate slowed, she reached for the alarm clock. Too
late to go back to sleep and too early to get ready for work. As the effects of
the adrenaline rush faded, her sense of uneasiness grew.
She hugged her knees. Once again, she had failed but she couldn’t
remember who or how.
Moments later, she stood in the shower. Warm water washed away the
sour smell of fear. The nightmare wasn’t new. Six years had passed since the
last time the cry had jolted her awake. Always the same urgency and the same surge
of emotions. No matter how hard she tried, she never remembered more than the
cry.
She stepped from the shower. After pulling on a blue terry cloth
robe, she stripped the bed and stuffed the damp sheets in the hamper.
What had triggered the dream? With the thoroughness of a
pathologist seeking the cause of death, she examined the past few days and
found no incident that could be called a trigger.
As she made the bed, she recalled the first time she’d dreamed.
She’d been sixteen. She and her twin had been at Indian’s Sorrow visiting their
aunt.
"
"I’m fine." Brooke leaned forward. "The rocks look
like a giant’s teeth. Come see."
"I can’t."
Brooke laughed. "Chicken."
"Something dreadful happened here."
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