Alice grinned, the expression mocking an odd truth she'd lived with her entire life.
"I've always remembered my dreams...my nightmares. It was a large part of my problem as a child. I'd wake up screaming, and even though I didn't remember them immediately upon waking, I'd always return to them when I next went to sleep. It was as if waking up did nothing to dispel them, they always returned, the details never lost to me while I was sleeping." She paused, her eyes studying her hands as they worried the frayed hem of her shirt. "Being awake meant nothing. Real life was simply an intermission."
"You remembered an occurrence with your father and sister in your last dream, a conversation you had when you were a child about a murdered woman. Can you recall that conversation now?"
"Clearly," she answered. "It's like I told you, Doc. Those memories are still with me. It's everything after that's fuzzy." She barked out a humorless laugh. "But trauma will do that to a person, won't it?"
Conceding to her point, he answered, "Yes. Trauma can do that to a person." He tapped his pen once. "You mentioned the word after. What does it mean to you?"
"My life has been bisected by an event. There was my life with Delilah in it, and my life when she was gone. Before and after."
He studied her behind shadow, the low light in the room concealing his expression - his thoughts.
…drip...
"You ever going to fix that faucet, Doc?"
Ignoring the off topic question, he commented, "You know, the information you're giving me now makes sense, at least as it relates to some theories I have regarding your sleep disorders. I think they may tie into the dreams you're telling me."
She barked out another laugh. "The nightmares I had as a child were the disorder rearing its ugly head."
"What makes them different from the dreams you're having now? Stress can trigger sleep disorders, especially in people who have had them before."
Determined to make him understand, she struggled to remain on topic, to keep up with the flow of logical conversation. "Because if the dreams in my youth were the same as they are now, then I don't need to be seeking the help of a psychologist."
"Who's help would you need?"
"I don't know. A priest? Whoever deals with prophecy? The dreams now are a connection to my sister. The dreams back then? Well, if they were connected to someone, I didn't know it."
Silence passed between them, the doctor's mind sifting through the same muck that kept Alice constantly clouded in confusion. Giving it a voice didn't help Alice, and she wasn't positive the doctor would be much help either.
His words spoken slowly, he answered, "I'm not sure I believe in prophecy, Alice. Psychic connections and all that. I'm not even sure a church could help you."
"Well, you know what they say: Where science ends, God begins. Anything is worth a shot if it saves my sister."
He didn't acknowledge the remark, his focus persistent. "I think you might be on to something. You hadn't mentioned before that the sleep disorders came back after your sister's disappearance. That falls in line with what I know about them. Most people have them as children, but grow out of them. Is that what happened in your case?"
"They never stopped. Not fully. But they weren't as bad when I was a teen, or when I was in college. They were following the pattern that most doctors assumed they would. That's what made me believe that studying neurology could help. There had to be an explanation. I thought that, because I experienced them myself, I would have more insight while studying them. There's a difference. People who haven't gone through it can't understand, and all the theories out there about the whys and hows of them don't make sense. It's all speculation and conjecture. Of course, when I explained my theories, I was laughed out of the profession. Which is why I turned to other types of work. Everybody thought I was insane."
"What disorders, specifically, did you experience?"
"Night terrors, sleep walking, sleep paralysis. Name it, Doc, and I probably had it at one point or another."
Frustration made her body tense. The conversation wasn't helping her with the problem she was here to solve. "We're wasting time talking about this. The key to all of this is in the dreams. My sister is telling me where she is and what's happening to her and we're wasting time going over the same tired bullshit."
Her eyes shot to the doctor's face. "I want to talk about the next dream."
She expected him to argue, to continue on the path he'd chosen to discuss. Surprising her, he relented.
"Fine, Alice. We'll pick this back up in another session. Tell me about the next dream.”
"I'm not a monster, Alice. Not entirely."