The Light That Guides You Home

Chapter 9

Home alone later that evening, with only her thoughts to keep her company, Laura began to have doubts about the upcoming trip to Colorado. She hadn't intended for it to become a group outing. She supposed she was going to have to call Dr. Evans tomorrow and let him know that there would be two more coming along. What would he think of that? Would he be glad that she was bringing her own personal support group, or would he tell her that it wasn't a good idea to have distractions while they were working on recovering her memories? It probably didn't matter. She had the most stubborn group of friends, and there'd be no dissuading them now that they had decided to come along. It wouldn't do any good to worry about it tonight, she thought. Might as well just relax for a change.

She cut the remains of her burrito from lunch in half, placed one portion on a plate which she put in the microwave to reheat, and the rest back in the fridge. The chicken and black bean burrito had been large enough to cover most of a plate and there was no way she could have finished it in one sitting. She had been amazed to see Ben do just that. How was it possible to stay so trim if you ate like that, she wondered. Probably not a good idea to think about how trim he is, she told herself, and took the warm burrito into the living room. She sat on the couch and turned on the television, intending to indulge in some mindless comedic entertainment before bed tonight. The book was on hold, as far as she was concerned, and there would probably be enough nightmares next week to fuel her imagination for the next several years, so tonight she was having a break.

She flipped past the news, much too intense to be considered relaxing, and turned to Lifetime which was playing a movie about a woman and her struggles to reconnect with her estranged daughter. She'd missed the first half of the movie, but figured it would have a happy ending, so she'd just watch and try to catch up. The events of the past few days must have been wearing on her more heavily than she realized, because shortly after she set aside her plate, sleep overtook her and she slumped onto the overstuffed arm of the couch.

She fell into a deep and peaceful sleep, and felt as though she were adrift on the waves. In her dream, the couch became a small rowboat that was gently rocking her back and forth. She felt the craft rise and fall, riding each wave to it's crest, then slipping gracefully down the other side. After drifting calmly for what felt like hours, the wind began to blow more forcefully. The waves which had rocked her in their gentle embrace now began to shake her little boat as if trying to tip it over. In the dream, she sat up in the boat and looked about for oars to row back to shore, but there were none. She was at the mercy of the sea. She gripped the sides and looked around for any sign of land, or another boat, but she was alone. The wind was howling around her now, and the cold salty air stung her eyes. Somehow the boat managed to stay upright as it topped each wave in turn and then hurtled down into the ravine between the waves. Over and over the boat rose and fell, until she began to feel sick, and her hands had gotten so cold she barely keep hold on the boat. Then she heard it, a voice, so faint that at first she mistook it for the wind, calling her name. She prayed that it was someone coming to rescue her and cried out, "Here I am!", but then there was nothing. She called again, "Help me please! I'm here!", and this time, she heard the reply, the faint voice again calling her name, growing louder, and nearer. "Laura, Laura!" It kept calling her name, soft and languid, as though it had all the time in the world to find her. She was starting to take on water in her little boat, and she begged for it to hurry, to come and save her, but the voice just kept calling her name, getting ever so slowly closer, and louder, until it was finally close enough for her to recognize. As the disembodied voice of her twin sister spoke her name once more, only inches from her left ear, Laura awoke.

She sat there, stunned, for several seconds trying to understand where she was and what she was hearing. She was awake now, but could still hear the waves. She looked around the room, coming back to her senses and finally focusing on the TV. The Abyss was on. She must have leaned on the remote because she was sure she'd dozed off during the Lifetime movie, and this didn't look like something that belonged on Lifetime. It did have enough water, however, to explain the ocean dream that she'd been having. The voice, though. She could understand dreaming about her sister again now that she had made the decision to go back home, but that voice in her ear had seemed so close, and so real. It was unnerving. Still, she tried to look at it in the light of Dr. Evans' observations. The waves in her dream had seemed threatening, but her sister's voice had not been. It was just a voice, and nothing to be afraid of. Looking at it that way made her feel a little better.

She was about to get up to put her plate in the sink and head to bed when she heard it again. The same voice using the same sing-songy intonation, and calling her name. As in the dream, it seemed far away. I'm imagining things, she thought. I'm just overly tired and I need to get to bed. Her mind went to the sleeping pills that were in her medicine cabinet, and their wonderful ability to make the dreams go away. She just needed to take two of them and get into bed, and she'd be fine until morning. She stood up and walked into the kitchen. Before she could make it to the sink, she heard the voice again. Plain as day, she heard a voice call her name. A girl's voice. Lisa's voice. It was close enough now to be in the room with her. She spun around, searching for the source of her auditory hallucination. The kitchen light was off, and the living room light didn't reach all the way back into the dark corners. She was wide awake now, as alert as she had ever been but her imagination was running wild, and she pictured all of the horrors from her nightmares lurking in the shadows. She thought she saw movement in one corner of the room and it frightened her enough to cause her to drop the plate, which shattered on the hard tile floor. A noise in the same corner startled her into action, and she bolted from the kitchen, stepping on a broken shard of stoneware in her haste. She raced down the hall to the bedroom, barely noticing the pain from the broken piece of plate burying itself deeper into her foot with each step, and pulled the door closed behind her.

She locked the bedroom door and leaned hard against it, waiting for whatever was out there to rattle the handle, and to try to get in. She braced herself against the door keeping her weight mostly on her good foot, and waited. She waited for close to five full minutes before she let was able to calm down enough to believe that she had been imagining things again, and that there hadn't actual been anything in the kitchen. The voice she could explain away as a remnant of the dream, and she hadn't seen anything specific, just the idea of movement. Hadn't she been expecting to see movement? Well, no wonder then. She'd imagined it. Once she decided that she was alone and safe, she turned her attention to her foot. There was blood smeared all over the carpet right inside the door. Great, she though, it's probably all down the hallway too. At least she still had the steamer. She hopped on her uninjured foot into the bathroom, turned on the light, and sat on the toilet lid to examine her foot more closely. It appeared to be just one large piece of pottery stuck into her foot, and she gave it a hesitant tug. It hurt more than she expected, so she stopped pulling almost immediately. It had to come out though, so she got a good grip on the edge of the piece and gave it a yank. It came free, and fresh blood began to seep from the wound. She dropped the little triangular piece of broken plate into the trash. It was almost an inch wide, but the point that had been sticking into her foot was only about half that length. It hurt, but could have been much worse if it had gone in at a different angle. Most of the first aid supplies were in a kitchen cupboard, and she was not going to be returning to the kitchen anytime tonight. She washed her foot with warm water, found some antibiotic ointment in the medicine cabinet, and covered it in a plastic bandage. That would do until morning. She took her two sleeping pills and changed her clothes, then got into bed.

As she lay there awake, waiting for the medication to make her drowsy, she wondered if it was normal to have hallucinations when you were under a great deal of stress. She'd been too embarrassed to mention them to Dr. Evans today, but she'd tell him tomorrow when she called to let him know they would be having company. Still worrying about what she would say when she called, she drifted back to sleep. This time though, she didn't dream.