They’re dazzling. Drenched in light, lurid, sticky with it. It shocks me every time. It issues from them like liquid, pearly in one wave, golden in the next, not so hot as the sun, just dim enough that I want to keep looking, even as the horse canters past, so close that its bristly tail grazes my cheek.

They raise their hands to greet me, and the light grows and I can’t catch my breath. I feel my heart swelling, beating too quickly. It will burst. They never grow familiar to me. Every time, I think this is the last time. I’m not meant to see them. No one could survive this.

It’s brighter than day now, vivid as the inside of a flame, and when the next ripple of light extinguishes the figures and buffets me where I stand, it fills me up.

I feel such joy that I can’t even let out the scream in my throat.

I take in what feels like an hour’s worth of oxygen in one sharp gasp and sit up, pressing my fingers to my cheeks. It’s dark again, but I’m home, Alder House, Lute Island, my room upstairs. Hugh’s side of the bed is empty, covers pressed neatly flat, pillow undented. I clutch at the dream, halfway to waking, where even reality feels slippery, but my mind can’t get a grip on anything. It’s never been this bad before.

The bedside clock reads 12:04 a.m.

The dream is going. I grasp at memories like dandelion seeds. I remember light. Something running, maybe.

And then it’s gone.

A shriek down the hall jolts me alert. Emma.

Fear slicks over me before I realize she must be having a nightmare too. Jesus. This week is getting to me.

I’m halfway down the dark hall before I think of Hugh. The lights are off in his study. I have no idea where he is.

Emma’s standing up in her toddler bed, the way she used to when it was a crib, waiting for me to rescue her. Her small shoulders are shaking, fists balled.

“Oh, baby.” I gather her up and let her slump against my chest, watching the light from her aquarium night-light dance blue over her curls. “Bad dream?”

She nods. Her breath stutters on the way in.

I hesitate before asking. Some part of me is afraid of the answer. “Do you remember what it was?”

She nods again but presses her lips into my shoulder.

I kiss the top of her head. “Can you use your words, Emma, and tell me what you saw? Sometimes it helps to—”

Her body turns to cement.

I rub her back. “Okay, baby girl. No worries, Mummy’s here.”