to the right of this boat, her legs dangling in the water, shoulders hunched forward. Her hands are folded over each other in her lap. She’s looking down at her hands as if she’s holding something precious there. Even though I can’t see myself in this dream, I sense that I’m walking on the deck towards this woman, every step taking me nearer to knowing her identity and discovering the secret she is guarding in her palms.
The dream intensifies. I can hear the click-clack sounds my shoes make as they strike the boards beneath my feet. For a second I think the woman hears me too. She looks to her left, but remains silent. It’s enough time for me to recognise her though. She’s Laura Roberts, Ethan’s mother.
‘Mrs Roberts?’ I ask in my dream.
She doesn’t respond, just appears to look through me.
‘Laura? What are you doing?’ I peer over her shoulder. ‘What have you got there?’
I see her hands clearly, and the sight of that much blood has me gasping and stepping backwards. My own hands come up to cover my mouth as I take a closer look. Trying not to retch at the sight, I study her carefully. She is bleeding from vertical slits to her arms that stretch from her wrists to half way towards her elbows. Blood has soaked through her skirt, through the timber decking, to the water below. A long-bladed knife slips through her weakening fingers to splash softly into the lake.
I try to scream, but find myself sitting up in my dark bedroom, the dream very much still with me. I shake my head to rid myself of the image, but it doesn’t disappear. It’s as if there is more to this dream that I must see. Gathering my thoughts, I try to reach out to Laura, but some invisible force holds me back, as if my role is to watch and not interfere. Shocked, and unable to get rid of the image of Laura Roberts attempting to kill herself, I scream out.
My scream brings Matt, with my mother behind him, bursting through my bedroom door.
‘What’s going on?’ Mum pushes past Matt in her hurry to get to me. ‘Did you have a nightmare?’
Matt comes over to the other side of my bed and switches on my bedside lamp. The room fills with light that hurts my eyes. I squint and try to cover them; that dream still causing my heart to pound like a horse at full pelt.
Mum pushes the hair off my forehead with tender stroking fingers. ‘Are you OK?’
‘She’s all right, Mum,’ Matt says. ‘I’ll look after her.’
Mum looks at me and I try to reassure her. ‘He’s right. There’s nothing to worry about. It was just a dream. You can go back to bed. Really.’
She hesitates. ‘Are you sure, darling? Can I make you a warm cocoa first?’
I force a smile to my face. ‘No, I’m fine, really. I don’t need anything.’
She finally relents. ‘All right, but if you want to talk you know I’m just across the hallway.’
‘I’ll call out if I need you, but Mum, I’m OK.’
‘Jimmy will be back soon. You can talk to him too, you know.’
Matt’s jaw drops open. ‘She doesn’t need Jimmy. I’m here!’
‘Of course you are,’ Mum says. ‘I didn’t mean—’
I grab her hand. ‘It’s all right, Mum. Don’t worry about Matt. I like Jimmy. I really do. I don’t mind at all that he lives here now.’
Mum smiles and looks more relaxed. And once she’s sure I’m all right, she goes back to bed.
Matt makes himself comfortable in my green inflatable lounge. ‘What was all that screaming about?’
‘I had a bad dream. And I thought I only screamed once.’
He shrugs. ‘You didn’t have another of those weird visions, did you?’
As soon as he says this, my heart, which is only just starting to slow down, leaps half-way up my throat. Could it have been a vision? Everyone knows how depressed Laura is. She never got over losing her daughter, Sera, thirteen years ago. And didn’t Ethan say something only the other day about how she isn’t getting any better, even though his father’s been so supportive? And that even the doctors think she should be making a recovery by now, but can’t understand why she isn’t?
‘Oh hell!’
‘What did you see?’ Matt asks.
Matt’s question has me shifting straight into denial. I mean, it was a dream, not a vision, like that other one when my head felt as if it was going to