Turn

37

Virginia knew she was sleeping. She could tell by the snow covering the headstones in the cemetery she so often saw in her dreams. It was right out of a memory of the few inches of snow that had come last winter to Las Cruces, the first genuine snowfall in more than a decade. Her feet were bare but she couldn't feel the cold as she stepped toward the path she always took. But there was something different about her cemetery. To her right was the Piers mausoleum.

Glancing down the path, she could see the tombstone that had always been her destination, but she walked instead toward the mausoleum. The doors were thrown wide open and bright light flooded the place through a circular, stained-glass window. In front of her were four coffins, just like in the real one, and she stopped to run her hands over their stone tops. Suddenly, there was a rumbling from the ground and the top begin to slip off the first one. Then the others rattled and shook, removing them from their place. She wanted to run away, but her feet stayed firmly planted on the ground as if she were a fixture of the mausoleum itself.

The first fell and cracked against the floor, a single line running diagonally through it. And from the interment, Greyson rose slowly. Hopping over the broken stone, Greyson stepped toward her, and she could not move. The other coffins' lids dropped to the ground, cracking and shattering, all except the last one.

"You know we just got turned around in those tunnels, Virginia," Greyson said, standing close to her. "Just like in the tunnels at the school. There's nothing special there."

"No," came a voice from the second coffin as Catherine jumped from it. She was barefoot as well, wearing bright red, her pale green eyes intensely looking at her best friend. "You didn't mess up, Virginia. You were led there for a reason and you know it; you could feel it. You've always felt it, right?"

Virginia opened her mouth to answer, but no words came out. Instead, she saw motion from the third coffin and her eyes moved there. Quinn stood up slowly, stepping up onto the edge and jumping down. His eyes held hers as he stepped beside Catherine.

"This is dangerous, Virginia," he said quietly. "I know you can, but the real question is if you should. Think about your mom. What would she do if something happened to you?"

Nodding slowly, Virginia knew he was right. Then she stopped. "No. You don't know anything about my mother, Quinn. Hell, you barely know anything about me. And Catherine, you can't understand what I'm going through, with any of this. I tried to make you, and look what came of that. As for you, Greyson, you don't get a say. You're a friend, but sometimes I'm not even sure you're a good one."

And suddenly, the three of them standing before her disappeared. She gasped a little, shocked by the suddenness of it. Then she saw her, the redhead that was a hallmark of these dreams, lounging on the top of the fourth stone coffin, her feet kicked up as she propped herself up on her hands.

"Well that didn't take long," smiled the young woman. "You are certainly coming into your own. I remember a time of your development you would have been too concerned with what the people you love thought that you would have lost your own beliefs in the process."

Virginia sucked in her breath. "Well I guess I'm not that person anymore. Can I go now?"

"It's your dream," she smiled. "But no, you can't, because you haven't learned what you needed to in our particular lesson today."

To her surprise, Virginia found she could move her feet. "What am I supposed to learn then?" she asked, taking a step toward the smirking woman.

"If I just told you, it would hardly be a lesson, would it?" her gray eyes shone in the colorful light. "No, you have to discover it for yourself."

Rolling her eyes, Virginia crossed her arms over her chest. "Fine, then teach."

The woman shifted sharply, nearly hitting Virginia with her long, pale legs as she kicked them over the edge. "Tell me what's on your mind."

"Oh, should I lie down for this?" Virginia snipped, but the other Virginia just stared back, and she caved. "Fine. I keep thinking about those tunnels. The exact same thing happened when we went to the ones under Eaton Hall. It was like we couldn't pass a point, about ten minutes walking, and we just end up turning around. But we didn't turn around. I kept the same wall on my right side the whole time, and it was straight."

Nodding, the redhead just kept watching her.

"And I was okay with the explanation that we got turned around, even if Quinn and Greyson were with me to keep us straight, but only once," Virginia thought to that evening, when they had walked in an impossible circle through the tunnels beneath the Piers plantation. "But again? I don't buy it. Something is going on below ground around here."

Smiling, the redhead nodded. "Good, Virginia. Just keep questioning, and you'll find the answers you seek."

"Thanks, I could've gotten that advice on a fortune cookie," Virginia sighed. "But then, you're just an extension of my mind, so what do I expect?"

She laughed. "Yes, Virginia, that's exactly what I am."