She tried to recapture the word and listen to it again, because she was absolutely certain it had not been spoken in her own voice, even though it had come from her own mouth.
The night grew quiet. The flashing lights faded, taking with them the shapes and sounds and strangeness, leaving only her room. She swung her feet out of bed and studied the darkness, trying to feel it, but it was like trying to coax a spark from a dead battery.
As the dream faded, so did her belief that it had ever happened.
Dana sat on the edge of her bed for a long time, wondering if it was a dream or a nightmare. Wondering if it was a vision.
Wondering if maybe she was just a little bit crazy.
CHAPTER 6
Scully Residence
6:29 A.M.
“Jeez,” said Melissa as she shrugged into her denim book bag, “what’s with you this bright and sunny Monday morning?”
Dana stuffed her math and science textbooks into her backpack, which was pink with blue piping, and avoided her sister’s eyes. “Nothing. Why?”
“Um … have you looked in a mirror lately? You don’t just have bags under your eyes; you have matching luggage. Didn’t you get any sleep at all?”
Dana zipped the bag shut and pulled it on. The backpack was heavy, filled with schoolbooks, the white gi she used in jujutsu class, and some stuff she knew she probably did not need. She adjusted the straps, but it still weighed a ton. Melissa’s looked like it was nearly empty, because she almost never brought her textbooks home unless she had to cram for a test the next day. Dana liked to read ahead and get ready for whatever the teachers were going to throw at her. One of her greatest fears was being unprepared for a pop quiz. The thought of it gave her actual cold sweats. Not that the teachers here in Craiger bothered much with them, not like the nuns back in San Diego.
That hadn’t been what kept her tossing and turning all night, but she didn’t want to talk about her dreams.
“The thunder kept waking me up,” Dana lied. She flicked a glance at her sister out of the corner of her eye, saw the skepticism.
“Uh-huh. Thunder.”
“It was loud.”
“Uh-huh.”
There was a sound like a motorboat revving in high gear, and a blur came shooting past them. Dana had a quick glimpse of the reddest hair in the family, freckled cheeks, a striped shirt, and well-worn sneakers as the youngest Scully blew past her, burst through the door, jumped off the porch, and vanished. Ten-year-old Charlie was like that. He was almost a ghost in the family, rarely interacting with anyone, constantly in his own head and lost in whatever solo fantasy he was playing out. He added sound effects and even occasionally hummed a music score to his internal adventures. Dad disapproved of Charlie’s daydreaming and deep devotion to comics and science fiction movies. Mom tolerated him with loving exasperation but no real understanding. Melissa and Dana loved him, but almost never actually had conversations with him. And their older brother, Bill Jr., treated Charlie like a frisky pet puppy.
Life was complicated at the Scully house.
Dana went out on the porch and saw Charlie leap into the school bus. He never walked anywhere. He ran, leaped, jumped, hopped, dived, and tumbled. As the bus passed, she caught a brief glimpse of his pale face grinning at her from one of the windows. He held two fingers up in a peace sign, which she dutifully returned.
She stood on the top step and looked at the big church across the street. It was an awkward blend of red brick, gray stone, and faded black tar-paper shingles. Tall, weathered, Gothic, and empty. It creeped her out and made the post-storm morning chill feel colder.
And not what she wanted to see after dreaming of fallen angels.
It was unnerving to see a place of worship standing purposeless, filled only with shadows. The neighbor, Mrs. Cowley, had said that it used to be St. Joan’s, a Catholic church, but there had been a bad fire two years ago. Several people had died there, including two nuns, the priest, and five people from the congregation. The building had been partly restored, but Mrs. Cowley said that it wasn’t going to be St. Joan’s anymore. Another group was moving in. That was how she put it. Another “group.” No one in the neighborhood seemed to know whether they were Catholic or Protestant, though Mrs. Carmody down the street said she heard it was some kind of nondenominational group.