Chapter Two
Gasping, I sit up in bed and draw a thin blanket up to my shaking body. The dream had come again. For the past two nights I have dreamed of the strange girl. Each night the dream begins again, adding a little more each time. Every night reveals more of the helpless child’s story. Child, I think with a shake of my head, she looks like she’s the same age as me. At fifteen, I have never experienced anything as horrible as what the poor girl faces in my dreams.
The night the first dream came, I woke with my heart racing. I had seen the girl drug from her house, bound, and carried away from her family. Her screams echoed in my mind as I sat in bed, willing my speeding pulse to calm down. I passed the first dream off as a nightmare, just another reaction to stress. When the dream continued the next night, the real fear started to seep in.
The only thing that remains constant in the dreams is the immense terror I wake with every night. I am gripped with the girl’s awful fear. The haunting look of desperate horror in the young girl’s face pulls at my soul, begging me for rescue. I watch with pity and anger, frustrated that I can do nothing to ease her fear.
As I wake tonight, I am so fearful that I can’t force myself to close my eyes again. I fear slipping back into the dream and having to feel such desperate pain once again. Lying in my bed, I watch the curtains sway in the breeze, seeking something familiar and innocent. Slowly, my mind and body come back to my own time. The haunting faces disappear, letting me escape into a welcome and dreamless sleep. Resting in the stillness of my own mind, I swim in the blackness until awakened by the familiar warmth of the sun.
As dawn’s orange shadows fall across the unfamiliar floor, I slowly open my eyes and blink away the last traces of the dream. The beige carpet and neutral toned walls immediately make me grimace. I am not yet used to waking up in a room I don’t recognize as my own. Nearly a week ago, I moved from my former life of popularity in Manhattan, to a painfully, mind-numbingly boring little town in rural Maine, hours away from anything.
I love city life. The constant noise and activity of living on an island filled with one and a half million people is invigorating. Every day holds the promise of something new for me, but for my parents, every day holds new dangers. My parents made the decision to move from our stylish Manhattan apartment to escape the violence and crime, as well as to be closer to my aging grandfather.
Hours from Manhattan, Grainer is the absolute opposite of what a town should be. With a population of less than fifteen hundred people, Grainer has fewer stores in the entire town than Manhattan holds in a single block. I hate everything about this place. The first few days have been miserable, but ever since the dreams started I have become increasingly convinced that the move was even more of a terrible choice than I first realized and I long to go back.
Holding my misery close to my heart, I crawl out of bed and pick my way between unopened boxes on my way to the bathroom. I tug a pair of denim shorts and an off white linen peasant top from my still-packed suitcase as I stumble along. The rest of the house is slowly being put away, but my room looks the same as it did when the boxes and bags had been first unloaded a week ago. It’s a worthless attempt at protest.
The bathroom floor is surprisingly neat. I didn’t leave it like that last night. I sigh, knowing my mom must have snuck in after I fell asleep and cleaned up the piles of dirty clothes. My mom is desperately trying to make the transition to my new home town as painless as possible. I feel a small measure of guilt at my obstinate behavior, but not enough to give in.
I made my opinion of the move very clear to my parents from the start. In the end, their fears outweighed my objections. The apartment was packed up within a month of the decision, and one by one the boxes and furniture were carried down to the waiting moving van. I sat in the room that would no longer be my own and cried. The worst part of moving is being alone. I left all of my friends in Manhattan. My only ally, my brother David, stayed behind, ready to start college in the fall. Now, I am alone, alone in my own home.
The night of the first dream was the first night I had not woken up crying because of the move. I had suddenly found a new source of fear. Hoping to scorch away thought, I turn on the shower until the streams of water are hot enough to make me wince. I step in and let the dull pain clear my mind. As I shower, I rinse away the unsettling feelings the dream left behind. Everything else remains.
I ache for someone to know as I finish my shower and stand brushing my hair in front of the foggy bathroom mirror. My silver-green eyes sparkle in contrast to my thick black hair. As I stare at my own face in the mirror, my breath catches as it morphs into the face of the raven-haired girl from my dream, blurred by sacrificial paint. The stranger’s eyes hold fear and blink away burning tears.
Reaching up to brush the tears away, I find my face completely dry. I blink, my eyes opening to find only my own face, clean and almond colored, staring back at me. I draw back from the mirror, fearful that the face will return. Shivering despite the warm misty air that surrounds me, I quickly leave the room.
This morning, I woke up so early that neither of my parents are awake by the time I leave the bathroom. The stillness of the house makes it seem safe enough to leave my room. I will have at least a few hours of peace before my mother continues her relentless battle to force me into loving my new life. I wander into the box strewn living room and pull a book off the top of a stack of boxes.
I am more into blogging and video chatting than reading, but that is something left behind in Manhattan for the time being. The book I held was opened out of pure boredom my second day in Grainer. Surprisingly, I have blown through the first half of the novel in just a few days. I have no idea where the novel came from, most likely another thoughtful gesture by my mom, but I am glad to have found it. Plunking down onto the couch, I sit down to read. Hours later, my mother wanders out of her room, fully dressed and ready for the day.
“You’re up early,” my mom comments.
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“One of these days you’re going to have to get used to this place.” My mom sighs at my melancholy. “Arrabella, run down to the grocery store and pick up these things,” she says, “and I’ll make us some breakfast.” The list she hands me is written on one of the brand name medication notepads my dad often brings home from work. Her perfect handwriting is nothing like my dad’s hurried script.
“I’m fine with cereal,” I say.
“Well, you don’t have to eat, but your father and I would like some breakfast. He starts his new job today, in case you’ve forgotten. I won’t send him to work on an empty stomach, so go,” she says. Her voice has taken on the firm tone I know not to disobey.
Picking up the list as I dramatically roll my eyes, I head out into the morning sun. I don’t want to do small town things like shopping in the neighborhood grocery store. I had always been more than happy to shop for groceries in Manhattan. I love the street-side stands and the hundreds of tiny specialty markets in Manhattan. There, I was free to wander about deciding what I wanted, moving from store to store until I had everything on my list. I love the endless variety of the markets.
If the small store in this town doesn’t have the items I’m looking for, too bad, it’s the only grocery store there is. How primitive, I think. I am not a small town girl.
The sign hanging above the grocery store entrance has been hand painted, and not in the trendy art deco style popular in retro art galleries. The store is small and quaint and disgusting. I plaster a disapproving grimace on my face as I walk in. Scowling at the rows of products, I quickly gather the items on my mother’s list. After checking off the last item, I walk the short twenty steps to the checkout counter.
The cashier is a girl who looks to be about my age. She greets me with a smile and begins scanning my items. At least they’re not completely backwards here, I think when I see the electronic scanner. In my fog of self-pity and dislike, I half expected the cashier to pull out a p
encil and calculator. The happy chirp of the flashing red scanner deepens my scowl.
“You’re new in town, right?” the cashier asks.
I wonder if her lopsided smile has anything to do with my sour expression.
“Yeah,” I say. Aren’t small towns great? I think in my most sarcastic inner voice.
“It’s not so bad here,” she says. “Most of us go down to the beach on the weekends to hang out during the summers. If the weather’s alright this Saturday, we’ll all be there for a bonfire.”
“Who’s most of us?”
“The high school kids, mostly just juniors and seniors.”
“Are there more than just you and me?” I ask. From the size of the town, I would have been surprised to find out that our graduating class consisted of more than five students.
“Of course,” the girl says. Her laugh says she isn’t surprised by my reaction. “It’s not that small of a town. My name’s Dani, by the way.”
“I’m Arra.” I watch Dani put the last of my groceries in a plastic bag. Her friendly smile makes me feel a little less alone. I am suddenly looking for a reason to stay at the counter a little longer. “So there’s a bonfire at the beach this weekend?”
Dani nods. “You’re more than welcome to come if you want.”
Back in Manhattan, I spent most weekends out with friends, but I am strangely nervous to accept her invitation. I don’t want to care what anyone in Grainer thinks of me, but it seems unnatural not to care at least a little. “I don’t think I even remember how to get to the beach,” I say. “It’s been a few years.”
“Just head east out of town. You’ll eventually run into it. There’s pretty much nothing between here and the coast,” Dani says. “If you think you’ll get lost, you can always just stop back by the store and I can show you how to get there.”
The frown I have been trying so hard to hold onto softens into a smile. At least that is one good thing about Grainer. The beach is close and usually pretty empty. “Thanks, Dani. I’ll definitely think about it.” I walk out of the store, my steps less sluggish than before.