Soon I’d come to know the space of this dream like I know the house I live in with my mom, the carriage house we rent from the Burkes who live on the other side of the hedge, that little house with its unnecessary closets and stacked cupboards, its creaky steps and crooked doors. But on this night, my first night visiting, I didn’t know what I’d find in this place. Or who.
When the smoke thickened, the oppressively hot air filling my lungs, I began to think I was in danger. That I could die. But no, actually. The dream wasn’t that.
Soon I’d know this dream wasn’t about anyone dying—it was about living on, forever. The house was a place where you could be remembered, even visited. A home for you when you lost your own. If you ran away. If you got taken. If you steered your bike down the wrong dark road.
All the girls ended up here.
When I’d visit on other nights, I’d come to notice the patterns decorating the wallpaper in all the rooms, the prickly vines of climbing, choking ivy.
I’d see the gaps in the patterns, the blackened gashes where the rot had licked the walls away.
I’d know the layout of the rooms, even the upstairs, once I got the courage to climb the staircase without fearing it would turn to dust under my weight.
There were many bedrooms, all down the hallways; enough rooms to make me wonder how many people had once lived here, how many people could fit here now.
I’d see the other girls there, each of them bound to this place. But that was later.
This was the first night. And the first night I ever had this dream—after I found the flyer with Abby’s face on it— it was Abby I was looking for.
I could sense her, a shrinking, quiet presence breathing from some pocket of darkness. The scent was the same from the van. But stronger, closer. She moved and the floorboards creaked; that’s how I knew she carried weight here. She was substantial here. Here, she was real.
I took a step toward the noise. “Abby?
Is that you?” My voice scratched, but sound still came out.
I could make out a figure near a window in the next room. When I’d been standing out on the sidewalk I hadn’t been able to see that there were curtains, but from inside I could see the long, dark sails of the closed drapes. The light was brighter in this room, somehow. The curtains had a sheen that seemed to fight the darkness, folds that could hide bodies, grimy tassels that trailed the floor.
She had her back to me.
Her hair wasn’t matted with leaves and sticks, as it had been in my van—at least, as far as I could tell. The curtains hid her enough so I couldn’t be sure. She felt familiar somehow, in a way I couldn’t pinpoint.
I was trying to reach her through the smoke, because I had questions.
Questions like: What is this place and what’s burning? Is she really Abby Sinclair from the Missing poster? Does seeing her here mean she’s dead, or is she still alive? Am I supposed to find her?
But it was a dream. And legs don’t work in dreams the way they’re meant to, and my tongue wouldn’t shape the words collecting in my mouth. All I could get out was “Abby?”
The figure didn’t turn around or make any kind of reply. This told me the answers weren’t there in that scorched house. They were outside, somewhere near Pinecliff, my hometown, waiting for me to go out and find them. And for that, no girl in the smoke could help me.
I’d have to wake up.
— 5 — THERE it was, down a road I’d driven before. To find it, I only had to hang right at the fork instead of left.