“What about you?”
“I don’t have a favorite book, but if hard-pressed, I would have to say that Jorge Luis Borges is my favorite author.”
“Ah yes,” she said with a giggle that spoke of familiarity. “He was Isabelle’s as well.”
“Really?”
“She made me read some of his stories. I didn’t mind them because they’re basically philosophy, aren’t they?”
I shrugged, not wanting to enter into a literary debate. “Is philosophy more your cup of tea than fiction?”
“It certainly is.” She met my eyes. “I don’t like being lied to.”
Conversation turned to other topics as we finished our tea, but I felt a discernible shift in Aspen’s demeanor. It was ridiculous to think, but for a moment, I sensed something ominous from her—something like fear.
That night I went to bed early, drifting off with a sense that I needed to remember something very important. I tossed and turned, aware of my head against the pillow, a breeze on my cheek, but never fully awake.
I’m dreaming of Charles. We’re in Washington Square Park again, standing by a sundial. Whirls of snow glisten in the light cast by the streetlamps.
“Why did you leave me?” I ask.
I’m angry, yet I’m the one filled with guilt. I feel that I’ve done something horrible, something irreparable. I push him and he stumbles back. He falls against the sundial but catches himself, stands upright. I stare up at the now-blazing orange sun.
“I didn’t leave,” he says. “You left me. Don’t you remember?”
He’s himself again, all warmth and charm and little-boy innocence. There isn’t even a shadow of the monster he would become.
“There is so much I need to tell you,” I say.
He takes my hands. “There’s no time. You need to find the bluebird.”
“My bluebird?” I whisper, and a rush of longing sweeps over me. He’s right. I need to find my bluebird. I need to find it more than anything I’ve ever needed. Even more than I need Charles back.
There’s a noise like a screech owl, and he jolts, turns, holds out his arms as if to shield me from something.
“It’s coming,” he says, and then he turns and holds my face in his hands. “You have to wake up.”
And then I’m in the cabana, sleeping, but also staring at a very tall person standing at the foot of my bed. No, not a person. The dimensions are all wrong. It’s more of an animal, isn’t it? An enormous doglike creature, but bipedal, with antlers. No, horns, twisted horns. I can’t see its eyes, but I know it’s staring at me. It lets out a terrible, earth-shattering howl.
I close my eyes and it’s gone.
I surged out of sleep, the fear stretching so tightly across my chest that I felt like my ribs might break. Sweating and shaking, I was reaching over to turn on the light when I realized the sound—that howl—had followed me into the waking world.
That’s when I noticed my patio doors were standing wide open. Somewhere in the distance, a siren was going off. I could hear voices, movement, and people outside. Bounding out of bed, I grabbed my robe from the back of a chair and rushed to the door, but before I could open it, Aspen and Lexi burst inside. Pushing past me, Lexi rushed to the French doors and closed them. Aspen grabbed me by the shoulders.
“Listen to me,” she said, staring me squarely in the eyes. “We’ve had a problem and we need you to stay inside. Do you understand?”
Outside, the siren seemed to move through time and space as if spreading out into a canyon of echoes and then retracting into a shadowy whisper. I’d never heard anything quite like it. It was like a tornado siren or a tsunami warning, but somehow different, carrying with it an ominous sense of ever-increasing danger.
The sound of hurried footsteps pounding down the brick path drew my attention, and I saw a shock of gray hair flash by. Jim, the handyman?
“What’s happening?” I asked, trying to see around Aspen, but she was blocking my view.
“It’s fine,” she said quickly, “but we need you to stay in here.”
I looked over to where Lexi now sat. She’d pulled a chair over to the French doors and was watching the garden intently. I tried to focus. Whatever was happening, I didn’t have any cultural reference for it.
“Are we… in danger?”
