The bed is cold, but I don’t mind. It’s sweltering hot in the house. The air conditioning must’ve gone out again. Dammit. I’ll have to call the repairman again. He smells like an old leather couch that’s been sitting out in the rain for weeks. Last time he fixed the unit, I had to keep Vaseline in my nostril for hours. I think he noticed because he said, “Stuffy nose, huh? Better watch out the flu’s goin’ round.” If I do it again, he may never come back for fear of the plague. I don’t need to call him just yet. The bed feels nice—rather hard though. Harder than usual. I open my eyes expecting to see the old afghan Maggie Lynn knit for me last winter, but instead all I see is grass—grass, and dirt, and tiny yellow flowers that remind me of the time Daniel Haynes brought me flowers for our first date, but he swelled up so bad I had to drive him to the hospital. Danny was a sweet boy, but sweet boys don’t exactly set your heart a-racing.
I pull myself off the ground grateful that I don’t need to call the couch-man today. I’m in the middle of Sternwell National Park. I recognize the trail I’m on. Every time I come here I habitually choose this trail because of the waterfalls towards the end. The water there smells like freshly mown grass in summer. It reminds me of my mom. She smelled liked sunshine and old books. The kind you pick up just to hear the cracking of the old spine and smell the worn pages that bring you back to your childhood. Maybe it’s just me.
My half-asleep self was right about one thing. It. Is. Hot. The air itself is smothering me. The birds are chirping so much I’m convinced they’re doing it to spit me. I feel the telltale signs of a headache coming on. I’m miles from the cottage-inspired, storybook house that’s been in my family for generations. It and the fields surrounding it were once used to farm lavender. At night, when the heat from the sun radiates from the ground I can still smell the lavender, when I’m awake that is. I’ve been sleepwalking ever since I was a little girl, but I’ve never made it this far from home. I should start walking back before my brother, Ren, realizes I’m not upstairs in my bed sleeping away a perfectly good Saturday. He tends to overreact. One time while sleepwalking, I tripped down the backstairs cutting my hand on a loose piece of concrete deep enough to need stitches. He lectured me all the way to the hospital as if I’d meant to be walking down the back steps in the middle of the night.
I’d made it about a mile when I heard the crying. It sounded like a child. I couldn’t tell whether it was a boy or a girl. I considered ignoring simply because mysterious crying children in the middle of the woods give me the heebie-jeebies. I followed the sound to a clearing about half the size of a football field. The shade from the trees surrounding it provided sweet refuge from the sun’s heat. In the middle of the field, there was a young boy kneeling down with his head towards the ground. He looked to be about 7 or 8 years old. He was wearing an old, yellow baseball tee with khaki shorts. The shirt said Class of 2009 on the back. It probably belonged to an older sibling the way it hangs loosely around his slim form. There’s mud all over his clothes and I’m suddenly taken back to a dream I once had.
I was standing in the middle of a field. The air was still—still as the waiting room the second Dr. Ramos walked out to give us the news about Mom. Like time was frozen and I’m the only one moving. In the middle of the field was a pond. As I gazed into the water my reflection turned to one of a girl much younger than I am now. She raised a finger to her lips as if to shh me. Then suddenly my body pitched forward, and I was thrown into the frigid water. I kicked and flailed with all my might but the harder I fought toward the surface the further I sank—down, down, down into the depths of the water. My vision went black and—
I woke up in the bathtub soaking wet with Ren standing over me. He told me I’d been trying to break all the photographs in the house. The ones of me.
The boy’s head shot up in surprise at my approach. His face was pale but flushed from the heat. “Please,” he said between sobs, “help me. I’m lost.” His brown hair had been sheared short and patchy in some places like somebody had taken a dull set of scissors to it.
“What’s your name?” I tried to soften my voice to a comforting tone.
“Please,” He sobbed louder, “help me.”
“Well,” I tried, “Where do you live? Do you know what it’s near?” I stepped closer to him. He wasn’t wearing shoes. It strikes me as strange. If he’d taken a walk and gotten lost he’d have been wearing shoes. But he wasn’t wearing shoes. Not even socks. The closer I stepped the more details I saw. There was a small scratch on his cheek that looked to be about a day old. Another step. His shorts were worn from years of use. Another step. There was blood on his hands. My legs froze midstride. I could feel my heart racing in my chest telling me to run. There was blood coating his hands. His eyes met mine. “Please,” he whispered angling his body toward mine, “I’m so hungry.” In a second, he was on me and my screams were drowned out by the sound of birds singing.
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