CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Consciousness crept back to Sarah Thompson, slipping into her awareness only to reveal the bleak darkness that still surrounded her. Her eyelids fluttered open, yet there was nothing to see—no comforting light or familiar shape—just that oppressive blackness that had swallowed every hope she might have harbored. She shifted on the hard, cold ground, the concrete beneath her offering no solace to her aching body. Grogginess clung to her mind, and with it, a pang of hunger gnawed at her insides. But the worst thing was that overwhelming thirst; her tongue felt like sandpaper, her throat a barren ravine begging for the mercy of water.

As she lay there, trying to piece together the fragments of memory, the silence of her prison was abruptly shattered. Panic seized her at the nightmarish repetition—a door creaking open, then footsteps descending stairs, silence, then the sense of something moving toward her. Sarah wanted to scream, to demand answers, but the dryness of her mouth smothered the impulse. She lay still, the prey pretending death in the face of a predator.

Then again the stark beam of the penlight and the clink of ceramic on concrete. In the harsh circle of light, a new plate materialized, holding the same meager offering as before: a slice of bread and a piece of cheese. The new plate sat near the untouched one from earlier, that bread now hard, the cheese dried and curling at the edges. Then the penlight flicked off, abandoning Sarah to the consuming shadows once more.

Her body craved sustenance, but the desert in her mouth made swallowing merely a dream. Sarah’s hunger was a primitive ache that paled in comparison to the arid burn in her throat. A single bite would turn to ash without moisture to aid it down her constricting throat.

“Please,” she rasped, the word barely escaping her lips, “water.”

Her plea dissolved into the void, unanswered. She strained against her restraints, the clank of metal echoing in a cruel imitation of her fruitless efforts. In the silence that followed, Sarah realized the true nature of her plight—not just a struggle for freedom, but a primal fight for the most basic elements of life. This mockery of care, this semblance of feeding, was a psychological barb from someone who knew the body’s needs and relished in their denial.

The light snapped off as abruptly as it had come, plunging Sarah back into darkness. The absence of the penlight was almost a physical blow, the sudden return to blindness disorientating. She heard the figure’s footsteps, heavy and deliberate on the wooden stairs, each step creaking under their weight. The sound receded, growing fainter until it disappeared entirely with the soft thud of an unseen door closing upstairs.

Sarah inhaled slowly, trying to steady her racing heart. She closed her eyes, though it made no difference in the darkness, and pictured the clear, cool water of a stream she used to visit on hikes through Whispering Pines Forest.

Her mind wandered to the classroom where she taught, the eager faces of students. Sarah wondered if they asked about her, if they missed the lessons she brought to life with stories from her childhood on the farm. Those thoughts brought a fresh wave of fear—how long would it be before someone found her? Would they find her at all?

***

Jenna found herself in the entryway of a tiny rural home, where a middle-aged woman stood with three packed suitcases. The cases, a trio of battered veterans, sat starkly against the polished hardwood floor. Their once vibrant colors had faded into a uniform hue of weary brown, the fabric worn thin and frayed at the edges. The medium-sized suitcase was missing one corner entirely, replaced by an inelegant patchwork of duct tape that did little to conceal the underlying damage. Its handle was also wrapped, a makeshift solution to prevent further unraveling. The smallest suitcase had lost its original shape entirely; it bulged oddly on one side where the internal frame had given way under some unspoken strain.

The woman herself was a portrait of time and hardship. Her muted brown hair, now streaked with stubborn strands of silver, barely hinted at its original dark shade. The lines on her face were deep, each one telling a story of years spent working under an unforgiving sun and harsh winters. Her eyes, a dull green, held a tired resignation. They had seen too much yet expected so little, speaking volumes about the woman she had become.

She was lean and wiry from years of laborious work, her hands calloused. The dress she wore was plain and practical; its faded floral pattern barely visible beneath layers of wear and washings. Yet beneath this facade of rural resignation lay an undercurrent of determination. Her posture held an air of defiance despite the weight pressing down on her shoulders—an unyielding testament to her resilience.

“I’m going,” the woman said, looking Jenna straight in the eye.

Still unsure where she was or what was going on, Jenna asked, “You’re going where?”

“It doesn’t matter,” the woman said. “I’m getting out of here while the going is good.”

Suddenly Jenna was plunged into darkness—suffocating, absolute, as if she were buried deep with layers of earth and secrets above her. Her breath came out in shallow bursts, misting in the cold air she couldn’t see. Then, from somewhere in the blackness, a voice rasped like dry leaves skittering over gravestones.

“I’m so thirsty.”

The words lingered in the oppressive darkness, echoing in Jenna’s mind. She strained her ears for any hint of movement, any sign of presence other than her own. “Who’s there?” Jenna called out, her voice steely despite the prickle of fear.

There was a pause, the sort that suffused the humid Missouri summer nights when even the crickets held their breath. Then, a small circle of light pierced the void. A penlight flickered on, and within its narrow beam emerged the face of the same woman she had seen a moment before.

“Who are you?” the woman asked, her eyes searching Jenna’s face with confusion and desperation. Her lips were chapped, and her voice carried the weight of exhaustion and an unquenched thirst.

Jenna straightened her posture. “I’m Sheriff Jenna Graves,” she declared.

The woman’s eyes widened with disbelief. “No,” she retorted, “Frank Doyle is the sheriff. He’s the one who can help me.”

The woman’s misplaced certainty startled Jenna, a puzzle piece that didn’t fit. Her lucidity was growing, her mind sharpening with the realization that this encounter was a contact from someone who was gone from her waking world.

As if sensing the shift in Jenna’s perception, the woman turned the light downward, illuminating an open book resting haphazardly on the floor. With feverish urgency, she flipped through the pages, each turn sending a flutter of paper and a waft of musty air through the darkness. There was desperation in her actions, the rapid turning of pages like a search for answers within a timeline slipping away.

Jenna watched, understanding that the book—an ordinary object out of place in this extraordinary context—was somehow symbolic. More than paper and ink, this book was an image of something unfulfilled, a quest not yet completed that anchored the woman to this place. Its secrets demanded to be understood, even as the woman’s frantic searching underscored the fleeting nature of their encounter.

The penlight’s beam quivered as the woman’s voice broke the silence, a statement punctuated by urgency. “This book is overdue,” she said, her tone laced with an anxiety that Jenna felt in her own chest. “I’ve got to return it.”

The pages continued to turn silently until a sudden noise shattered the illusion of isolation—a voice, not from the woman in front of Jenna, but a disembodied male voice, shouting and saturated with malice. “Birdie.” It sounded like a threat. “Birdie … Birdie … Birdie …”

Jenna’s pulse quickened. She could almost taste the fear that suddenly rattled through the dream. “He hates me,” the woman confided, her eyes wide with terror even as they remained fixed on the text before her. “One of these days he’s going to kill me.”

Jenna knew that this encounter was no mere figment of her imagination. This was a cry for help, a plea carried across boundaries by a soul that had perhaps already succumbed to its fate.

“Who are you?” Jenna’s voice was firm despite the eerie chill of the dark room. “And who is this man you’re speaking of?”

The woman remained silent, her fingers fluttering over the pages like a moth trapped and desperate for escape. The silence between them stretched on, laden with unspoken dread.

“Please,” Jenna implored, struggling for clues to this puzzle whose pieces were scattered across the canvas of dreams and reality. But the woman was lost within her own world, or perhaps even consciously choosing to withhold information. Her lack of response puzzled Jenna, the absence of words as telling as any confession.

Then the woman said again, “I’m thirsty.” And at that very split second, there was a bright flash of light, like a camera flashbulb. Jenna thought she could almost make out a shape, like a subliminal image in a movie—something spinning, like a child’s toy pinwheel. Then darkness crashed down again.

“I’m thirsty,” the woman repeated yet again. Then came that flash again, and Jenna could see that it wasn’t a toy at all. It was a windmill water pump, like the kind that dotted the countryside in this part of Missouri. Then darkness crashed down one final time, illuminated only by the light held in the woman’s hand.

Jenna watched as the woman flipped through the book again. The beam of the penlight appeared to tremble slightly, casting erratic shadows across the woman’s drawn features. She repeated her earlier statement: “This book is overdue.”

She paused, a flicker of urgency crossing her face as if punctuating the gravity of her next words. “It’s been five years,” she added, with both desperation and resignation in her voice.

Five years—the words struck Jenna with an icy grip. Before she could ask anything more, the woman spoke again.

“She’s a reader too.”

“Who’s a reader?” Jenna asked.

“The other. The one who’s in danger. She’s a reader too. And it’s been five years.”

“Five years,” Jenna repeated. This was a message that she had to remember, every word upon waking. But right now, she wanted to ask …

The piercing trill of the alarm clock cut through the silence, a harsh siren that dragged Jenna from the depths of her dream. She gasped, her body jolting upright in bed as if she had been submerged underwater and was fighting her way to the surface. As the remnants of sleep fell away, a phrase looped in her mind like a broken record: “It’s been five years.” The same words Mark Reeves had uttered in another dream, now resonating with ominous familiarity.

Her fingers fumbled for the alarm clock, silencing its clamor. Eyes wide in the dim light of dawn, she scanned the familiar confines of her bedroom as if searching for something out of place, something that would explain the unnerving echo between dreams. What did the five-year mark signify? There were patterns here, clues that begged to be pieced together.

She reached for her phone on the nightstand and dialed Jake’s number. She heard it starting to ring before she remembered the awkwardness that had settled between them after their last conversation, when she’d told him about dreams just like the one she’d just experienced. She suddenly felt unsure about what to expect from him.

When his familiar voice answered, it sounded tentative.

“Jake, it’s Jenna,” she said unnecessarily, since he had surely seen her ID.

“Morning, Jenna,” he replied, a hint of hesitation, the memory of last night’s conversation lingering unspoken.

“Listen, I need your help,” Jenna cut through the tension. “Something important… It’s a lead, I’m sure of it.”

“From …?” He left the question unfinished.

“Yes, it came from a dream. A lucid dream, like I explained …”

After what seemed to her like a long silence, Jake responded. “Alright, what do you need?”

“We need to visit Frank Doyle,” she stated firmly, leaving no room for doubt. Her instincts were flaring, and every second felt like an eternity slipping away.

“Frank?” Surprise colored Jake’s tone. “What’s this about?”

“It’s complicated. Too much to explain over the phone. I’ll drive by and pick you up in ten minutes.” She heard the sound of hope in her own voice.

“Sure thing, Jenna,” Jake consented, rustling sounds indicating he was already in motion. “Ten minutes.”

With a sense of gratitude, Jenna ended the call and started to get dressed. Yet, she still struggled with an undercurrent of unease. Things were going to be different with Jake now that he knew the truth about her lucid dreams. Starting today, they would be plunged into a whole new chapter in both of their lives.

But was Jake ready to deal with it? Was she?