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1

Until the first day of classes, Virginia Davis hadn't been certain that this was where she was supposed to be, at the antique-looking campus of Martins College, a thousand miles from home. She felt so utterly alone on the airplane that flew her away from Las Cruces to Baton Rouge, on the short bus ride into the town of Soulles and as she unpacked her bags into a white-walled dorm room. Even as she arranged the limited furniture so that her bed sat on top of her desk and her bookshelf, she was acutely aware of her solitude. About the only thing in the whole room that was full was her bookshelf, with both shelves crammed with her favorite volumes. She even had the copy of Wuthering Heights that she stole from her high school, but that one was sitting on top of the shelf, where she could reach it while lying on her bed.

The room looked so barren, so different from the room she had lived in for the first sixteen years of her life, the one she'd left behind when her parents got divorced had her personality splattered all over the walls. That was how it was still, her father leaving it untouched for reasons beyond Virginia's comprehension. This place, however, was wholly new. It felt fresh despite the ghosts of former occupants in the scars they'd left on the badly-patched walls. As she fell asleep that night, staring at the barrenly white ceiling so close to her she could touch it with her fingertips, Virginia couldn't help her mind wandering. She thought about home. Not the city or even the people, but the physical building that she had called home for all but a little more than a year. Now, it would never be her home again.

Rolling over, Virginia did her best to sleep. Eventually, sleep did come, but it was restless and plagued with disturbing dreams. In one, she was back in Las Cruces, standing at the entrance to the cemetery a few blocks from her old home. She had gone there a lot as a child, to read, to sketch, to write, ever since she was nine and discovered a tombstone with the name Virginia Anne Davis 1898-1919 inscribed onto it. Virginia's middle name was actually Lynn, after her grandmother, but still, to coincidence of matching first and last names was uncanny. Anytime that she needed to disappear, to escape the screaming matches between the four walls she called home, she had gone there. Even when she had left home with her mother, she had always made it back to that cemetery when she needed it most.

In her dream, it was just how she remembered it the very last time she had been there, the day before she hopped a plane for Baton Rouge. The grass was a lush carpet of green beneath her bare feet as she had shed her sandals as soon as she stepped inside. The breeze kissed her cheeks, spun through her hair, and rustled the fabric of the flowing white shirt she wore, brushing against her bare thighs below her jean shorts.

Her feet knew the way to that tombstone better than her mind did, and as Virginia sat down in front of the grave, she felt her stomach drop. Now, it read Virginia Lynn Davis 1998-2016. She blinked, but the inscription was still there, etched in stone. Then, from behind her, a voice rang out. She whirled around to see a beautiful young woman with vibrant red hair and gray eyes. Virginia tried to speak, but no sounds came from her parched mouth.

"Don't be afraid of me," the woman whispered. "You've always known me. And I've always known you."

Virginia stood slowly and realized she was taller than the woman facing her.

"You know who I am," she smiled.

"You're Virginia Davis," responded the breathless girl, the words nearly catching.

Smiling back at the dreamer, she laughed. "Yes, that is one of my names, the one you know me by. That is the name I know you by. Do you know why I'm here?"