CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

Jenna’s boots sank into damp earth with each step, a thick fog enveloping her like a suffocating blanket. It muffled the sounds of the night, leaving only the rhythmic thud of her heart in her ears. A sense of déjà vu crept over her. She knew this path, though she couldn’t see it.

As if hearing her silent complaint, the fog began to retreat, revealing the gnarled oak tree that stood for memories best forgotten. Her eyes softened as she approached the tree, drawn to the carving on its trunk. The initials etched into the wood morphed before her, dancing through an alphabet of love and loss. DT + SD flowed into MB + CC, then RB + JC, never settling, never still.

A cold touch on her shoulder snapped Jenna out of her trance. She turned to find Lisa Donovan, her ghostly face now wearing a rare smile. Relief washed over Jenna, her chestnut hair swaying slightly as she exhaled a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding.

“Thank you,” Lisa said, her voice a whisper of leaves rustling. “You saved another life from Bill Hartley’s twisted path.”

Jenna nodded, but her eyes were hard with questions. “But what of you, Lisa? Was your death truly an accident? Or did Bill...”

She trailed off as Lisa gestured toward a large stone stained dark with old blood.

“I fell,” Lisa said with a calm resignation that belied the violence of her end. “He pushed me, and I tumbled and fell, and I hit my head. Poor Bill. He didn’t mean to kill me.”

Jenna turned back to the tree, where the initials continued their ghostly dance across the bark. “Why do they keep changing, Lisa?” she asked, her voice steady despite the eerie scene.

“Because I can’t remember … can’t keep the right initials in my head,” Lisa replied, the corners of her mouth turning down in a spectral frown. Jenna offered a small, understanding smile. It was one of the peculiar struggles of the afterlife, it seemed—the spirit’s mind clouded and drifting just like the mist that enveloped them. That’s why some of the clues they gave her were so difficult to understand.

Jenna knew all too well that it often took the living to piece together the riddles left behind by wandering souls. She realized now that her own waking intuition was a bridge between the material world and the dreams.

“It doesn’t matter now,” Jenna whispered gently, touching the tree with a tenderness meant more for Lisa than the aged oak. “You don’t need to think about it anymore.” The letters faded as if washed away by the very air, the wood smooth and unmarred, a history erased.

“Thank you, Jenna,” Lisa said again, her voice a fading echo, gratitude lingering in the space she once occupied. Then she was gone, leaving Jenna alone once more. The fog thickened around her, swallowing the last vestiges of Lisa’s presence, and Jenna felt an acute sense of solitude. The weight of resolving the unsolvable bore heavily upon her, yet there was a bittersweet closure in releasing Lisa from the anchors of her past.

Jenna stood motionless, allowing the silence of the forest to settle over her. Her green eyes searched the fog, half-expecting more ethereal visitors, but none came. She could only guess at the meanings woven into her dreams, the threads of the living and the dead forever intertwining in ways she might never fully understand.

She would wake soon, she knew, to the stillness of her room and the quiet dark of night. But Jenna would carry the echoes of Lisa Donovan’s thanks with her, a testament to mysteries solved, and others still hovering just beyond reach.

Then Jenna felt a chill prickling her skin as she heard a whisper. “You need to see this,” a soft voice said. A form materialized within the mist and approached with a deliberate grace that seemed out of place in the dim forest clearing. It was a woman, her features obscured by the thick fog and the darkness of the moonless night. As she drew closer, Jenna could discern nothing more than the vague outline of her presence.

The woman extended her hands towards Jenna, cradling something small and delicate. In her open palms rested a bird, its slender body poised as if ready for flight, yet oddly still. Its plumage blended with the hues of twilight, grays and whites painting a picture of serene beauty. Long legs hinted at wading through shallow waters, while the fine, elongated beak seemed perfect for probing the wet sand.

“What kind of bird is this?” Jenna asked, her voice barely above a whisper, echoing the woman’s own tone.

“It’s a sandpiper,” came the answer, shrouded in the same quiet mystery as the woman herself.

Before Jenna could inquire further, the woman turned away, melting again into the dense fog. Jenna reached out, her hand slicing through the cool air in a futile attempt to grasp the retreating figure.

“Wait! What does it mean? Tell me!”

But there was no response—only the heavy silence of the enveloping mist. Jenna’s heart pounded, her call unanswered, the meaning of the bird elusive and tantalizingly out of reach.

She woke abruptly, gasping for breath, her chestnut hair clinging to her forehead damp with sweat. The familiar darkness of her bedroom pressed in around her, a stark contrast to the ethereal realm of her dream.

The night was silent, save for the distant hoot of an owl, a sound that should have been comforting but wasn’t. Jenna’s mind raced, her thoughts snagging on the image of the sandpiper. Could it be a sign?

Her twin sister, Piper, had vanished without a trace twenty years ago, leaving a void in Jenna’s life that had never been filled. And now, this dream, so vivid and haunting—was it somehow connected? Was Piper reaching out to her after all these years? And if so, did it mean that Piper was truly dead?

Jenna lay back, her pulse gradually slowing, the lingering weight of the dream pressing down upon her. She had always clung to the belief that Piper was alive, somewhere in the vast unknown. But now, hope and despair blended together into a bitter brew.

As the night deepened around her, Jenna remained awake, staring into the darkness, pondering the veiled message of the sandpiper and what it might reveal about the fate of her lost twin.