“Funny how I got here,” I pondered absently, glad to let the mental review of my conversation with Dr. O’Neal fade away. A few letters, a polished phone call from an attorney. It seemed like something I had read or dreamed about, but everything checked out. The contract was signed, and I now had a nice deposit in the bank. Best of all, the contents of an antebellum home waited to be scrutinized, categorized and stored. I would finally put that history degree to good use. No searching frantically for summer work. No more manning small-town Sno-Cone stands while wearing a goofy paper hat. Actually, that had been a fun job. Kids were my weakness and I had met plenty of them while I shoveled shaved ice and flavored syrups into cups.

With an even bigger smile, I remembered turning in my notice at the funeral home. Working in the records office wasn’t creepy, but I’d felt continually surrounded by sadness. I dozed off in my quiet office during one boring, rainy afternoon and surprisingly had not dreamed a thing. I guess the dead carry no memories. They leave them behind for people like me.

My cell phone jangled on the seat next to me, and I tapped the ignore button. I was ultra-cautious when it came to driving, at least with the phone. Without looking, I knew it was William, mad and hurt that I had left him without a word. My frustration rose. He knew I was leaving, and I knew he didn’t want me to go. What else was there to talk about?

I turned Natalie up louder and sang “Carnival” with all my heart.

Chapter 2

I had gotten on the road early, but there was no way I was driving eight hours straight. I couldn’t sit still that long. I planned to stop in Green’s Mill, Alabama, at a brand new bed and breakfast called the Delight of the South. The hotel’s newness did not guarantee I would have a dream-free night, but I had a backup plan. I dug around blindly in my purse for the sleeping pills Dr. O’Neal had prescribed me. I was glad I’d remembered them, but I hated taking them. I always woke up feeling stupid, and the pills did not completely stop the dreams from coming. If the dream was there, I would still remember flashes of it the next day. But with sleeping pills, the dreams, unremembered and unappreciated faded quickly and settled back into the darkness.

I remembered the first time I took something to sleep. I would wake up screaming; masses of slithering snakes struggled to choke and strangle me in my dream, all because my mother, in a daze of medication or occasionally alcohol, had climbed in the bed with me to sleep. I could feel her loneliness, her confusion, her anger as she snored. At times I felt sorry for her, but then the snakes came while she slept. And in the daylight hours, the softness was gone.