The remains

Chapter 33

I’m walking with Molly along a stream bank surrounded by trees. The water flows as wide and heavy as a river. In the dream I’m walking right beside her, but I am also seeing the entirety of the dream as though looking at a movie screen.

Although no one is speaking I know we are looking for a place to cross the wide stream in order to go deeper into the forest. This is a forbidden place, but I am too far gone now; too far into the woods to go back. My only choice is to follow Molly; keep my eyes peeled on her red Paul McCartney and Wings T-shirt.

Soon we come upon a place in the stream that is shallower than the rest. There’s a series of boulders that rise out of the moving water. The boulders form a natural land bridge.

Molly turns to me, that smile on her face wider than ever.

“ Here,” she exclaims, as though she’s been looking for the spot all along. It’s then of course that I know for certain Molly has been here before. She’s defied our father, explored the woods without his okay; without my knowledge.

“ Stay close,” she orders as we traverse the rock bridge to the other side of the stream. “There, I can almost see it.”

Molly knows something is out there. It’s why she made me go into the woods with her in the first place.

We walk maybe another one-hundred yards before that thing takes shape.

“ You see it, Bec?” Molly shouts. “Can you see it?”

I can see it by then. As amazing as it seems, as buried as it is in the trees, I see it as clearly as I see Molly before me.

A house set in the middle of the woods.

Then a noise.

My cell phone vibrating.

And a voice.

“Rebecca.”