At the end of the dream, I saw who had murdered us. It was a woman with no eyes or nose and long dark hair. The last thing I remembered before I woke up was her smile. Her mouth stretched up toward her ears, revealing rotting teeth.

She whispered, “I’m back.”

My body buzzing with the lingering fear and panic from the dream, I glanced outside and saw that it was mostly still dark out, sunrise only starting over the horizon. I tapped at my phone: five forty-five a.m.

“Mom?” I heard Jack call from his room.

I padded down the hallway, trying to shake off the unease of my nightmare. “What do you need, buddy?” I said as he popped out of bed.

“I’m hungry. I need breakfast,” he said. “The sun is awake, and I am, too.”

“Give me a second,” I said. I went back to the bedroom, grabbed my glasses from the nightstand, and wound my hair into a topknot. I looked over at Mark and Rocky. They were both snoring lightly, oblivious. If only I’d had a restful night of sleep like they had.

—

Jack settled in happily with some microwaved pancakes, and I held a hot cup of coffee as I sat at the kitchen island, watching the backyard slowly illuminate. In the far corner of the yard, I saw a movement of brown and white fur.

“Look! A bunny.” Jack’s head swiveled around as we watched the rabbit hop around the backyard.

“Good job. Keep going,” I whispered as I saw the rabbit begin to munch on the weed patches I needed to pull out. “Too bad you guys don’t eat red ants.”

The rabbit then hopped over to the center of the yard and stopped.

“What’s it doing, Mommy?” Jack said when it didn’t move after a few seconds.

I looked at him and smiled, watching the rabbit hop away out of the corner of my eye. “I think there’s a nest out there. The mama rabbit comes to feed the babies in the early morning and right before it gets dark out.”

I stopped as my throat began to close, thinking of the rabbits my younger sister, June, used to keep when we were growing up. She had two that lived in a hutch outside, and they were her prized pets. It was a time of innocence, of summers spent drinking from the hose and riding our bikes home only when the streetlights came on. The bunny reminded me of a time before the darkness overtook her.

I still couldn’t believe it had been five years since she died.

Jack pulled me out of my thoughts. “Bunnies? I want to see!” He leapt off his chair.