Gina Ranalli - House of Fallen Trees

Dear God…only Saul. Crossing the room. Putting a strong brown hand on her shoulder, brown eyes blinking fast as he sat down on the edge of the bed. He was speaking — she could see that — but she couldn’t hear him, though she’d stopped screaming by now. Instead, she burst into tears, wrapping her trembling arms around his neck, burying her face in his chest, dampening his shirt with her tears, already feeling like a foolish, weak woman, jumping at shadows.

But, she had seen it. She knew she had. She just didn’t know who or what or how and that was the terrifying part.

In the kitchen, Rory poured them all mugs of tea, which Karen accepted gratefully, wrapping her hands around the ceramic as if it were some sort of talisman that would keep her safe. Now dressed in sweatpants over his boxers, Saul watched her closely, worry creasing his brow. “It was just a dream, Karen. Nothing more.”

“It wasn’t a dream,” she said firmly, looking away from his face and into the depths of her steaming mug. “I wasn’t even asleep.”

“You must have been asleep,” Rory said, sitting down across from her. “You just don’t know it.”

“No.” She shook her head. “I wasn’t. ”

She could sense them exchanging glances but she was sure she’d seen what she’d seen. She was positive it had not been a dream.

“So…what?” Rory asked. “There’s a man hiding in the house?”

“Obviously,” she snapped, harsher than she’d intended to.

Rory had put on a robe and given her one as well. Sean’s old robe. It was soft and warm and comfortable, if a little too large for her frame. Unfortunately it was also flannel, which she found unnerving and pushed the sleeves up to her elbows despite the chill in the air.

“That’s impossible,” Rory said.

“Why?” she countered. “Why is it impossible?”

He let out an exasperated moan. “It just is! All the doors are locked! Don’t you think we would have noticed a strange man in the house? Or heard him?”

“Evidently not.” Then, as the thought occurred to her, she spoke it hopefully. “Maybe it’s a homeless person. Maybe he lives in the basement and only comes out at night! You said yourselves that you don’t go down there.”

“We don’t go down there often ,” Rory corrected. “I didn’t say we never go down there.”

“Well, it’s possible! Why are you so quick to dismiss it as a possibility?”

Rory looked at Saul with a pleading expression. “Jump in here anytime, Saul.”

Saul sipped his tea and said nothing.

“See?” Karen said, taking his silence for agreement with her. “ He’s not saying it’s impossible!”

“I’m sure you were dreaming,” Saul said quietly, barely speaking above a whisper.

Karen gaped at him as though betrayed by a confidante. “What? I told you, I wasn’t dreaming. I was awake !”

“Okay, fine, you were awake!” Rory was practically shouting. “But, I’m telling you there is no one in this house but the three of us!”

Karen opened her mouth again, intending to argue further, but she saw it was useless. There would be no convincing them. It was best to just drop it, drink her tea and try to stop freaking out. Otherwise, they would think she was either insane or prone to fits of hysteria and since she was neither, she knew to make her case, she would have to remain calm and rational and just drop it for now.

It had occurred to her that she should insist on conducting a search of the entire house, from top to bottom, but now she knew the suggestion would only frustrate them further. If she wanted to do that, she’d be doing it on her own.

She’d have to risk coming against the intruder alone and the mere thought filled her with dread.

“Okay,” she said at last. “You’re probably right. It was just remnants of a dream. I’m sorry I got so hysterical about it. I guess I’m just a little jumpy.”

Both men nodded, Saul looking relieved, but Rory’s eyes narrowed just a fraction, just enough to let Karen know he wasn’t buying her sudden about-face. He knew she was full of shit, that she didn’t believe for a single second it had been a dream. From that point on Saul tried to make small talk but neither Karen nor Rory were very receptive to his attempts.

Eventually, Rory excused himself. “I’m going back to bed, if you two don’t mind. I’ll be a total bitch tomorrow if I don’t get my eight hours.”

Karen managed to muster up a smile and wished him a good night. It wasn’t long after that she finished her tea and bid Saul goodnight as well.

She was far from anxious to return to her bedroom, but what choice did she have? Besides, what if they were right? What if it had been a dream? It’s not like it was completely outside the realm of possibility. She’d had lucid dreams before and though what she’d experienced didn’t feel anything like those past dreams, who was she to say it couldn’t have been one nonetheless? It wasn’t like she was an expert on them, for Christ’s sake.

Back in her room, she went around turning on every light, though they still did little to keep back the oppressive darkness. It was too thick and loomed heavily in places where the light should have easily banished it.

Not brave enough to try sleeping again just yet, she opened her laptop and wrote down this latest incident. She suspected she would feel like a complete fool when she reread it at some later date, but for now, she wanted to keep the journal as honest as possible.

When she was done, she played several rounds of spider solitaire before her eyelids grew too heavy to keep open.

Karen blinked awake early the next morning for one of two reasons, either she’d been having an odd dream involving a dark room where she huddled in fear, listening to predatory voices on the other side of the walls as the beams of flashlights played back and forth outside a solitary window.

She’d been hunted, but by who or why, she had no idea.

The other reason she may have woken up was an unusually urgent need to pee.

Glancing at the bedside clock, she was startled to discover it was just past 5:00 a.m. and still quite dark outside.

She groaned, flipped the bedding back and made her way to the bathroom, stumbling and weaving a bit, as though she were not only drunk but also in a sea-tossed ship. The thought almost made her giggle — she was after all on a ship of sorts.

When she finished in the bathroom, she returned to the bed where she lay restlessly for over an hour before she finally gave up and accepted that she was awake for good.

Without bothering to shower, she dressed and padded quietly down to the kitchen, making her way through the gloom as carefully as possible, unwilling to turn on any lights just yet.

Helping herself to a glass of orange juice, she sat at the table sipping and thinking about the dream that was most probably the reason she was up at this ridiculous hour.

What did it mean, if anything, and who had been hunting her? And, why?

So strange.

She pondered the dream, trying to puzzle it out, until she finished the juice and finally concluded that it was pointless to try to decipher the workings of her slumbering mind. It was just one of those things. There was no reason or meaning.

Once her glass was rinsed, she briefly debated putting on a pot of coffee, then rejected the idea. Maybe she’d want to return to bed soon. In fact, she already did want to go back to bed, but she still felt too awake at the moment.

Gazing out the window at the shrouded morning, she drummed her fingers against the countertop, thinking. Several minutes passed before she resigned herself to the fact that if she was awake anyway, she may as well be getting some work done.