Faith handed her a glass of orange juice. “You want to tell us about it?”
In between sneezes and gulps of juice, Amy told them about the second dream. “When I woke up from it, it was the middle of the night, my nightgown was soaking wet, my hair sopping, and my jaw hurt like heck.”
“From where dear ol’ dad smacked you,” Zoë said in wonder.
“I was either in the eighteenth century or I was sleepwalking and jumped in the shower with my clothes on,” Amy said. “Take your pick.”
“Shower,” Faith said.
“I like the man on a horse. Please tell me it was a black horse,” Zoë said.
“Like midnight,” Amy answered.
“Were you reading that book again last night?” Faith asked. “Before you went to sleep?”
“Yes,” Amy said, blowing her nose. “But I nearly always read before I go to sleep and not once have I dreamed about the characters in a book.”
“Maybe you should go to Madame Zora and get your future told,” Zoë said, her tone teasing.
“It was Zoya, not Zora.”
“Whatever,” Zoë said. She turned her sketchbook around so Amy could see what she’d drawn. She’d made a full-length portrait of the Dark Stephen, as Amy thought of him.
Taking the pad, Amy looked at the drawing. There was the man wearing his black clothes, complete with long cape and silver sword. His hair was long and hung about his eyes—eyes that were intense but kind at the same time.
“He is perfect,” she whispered. She was looking at the drawing so she didn’t see the way Faith and Zoë glanced at each other, as though they were concerned about her but didn’t want to say so. “It’s hard to believe you drew him so well just from my description.”
“How could I not?” Zoë asked. “You described him in such detail I could see every inch of him. Maybe if I slept in your bed I’d have a dream about him. I could stand that.”
“She had a little help from this,” Faith said, handing Amy a copy of The Scarlet Letter. In the back was a photo of a portrait of Nathaniel Hawthorne, a truly beautiful man.
“It does look like him,” Amy said. “But there’s something different about the eyes of my man.”
“Your man?” Zoë said, raising her eyebrows.
“I’m beginning to think he’s part of me,” Amy said softly as she reluctantly handed the drawing back to Zoë.
Faith put a bowl and a spoon in front of Amy and she poured herself some cereal.
“Do you think that if I called Jeanne she’d know anything about this?”
“No!” Faith and Zoë said loudly in unison.
Faith recovered first. “I’m sure Jeanne would love to hear about a woman who has dreams so real that if it rains in the dream she wakes up wet, but…” She looked at Zoë for help.
“You’d end up spending the next several years of your life going to therapy and talking about what you could just as well tell your friends.”
Amy thought about her friends at home. Without exception, they were like her. It was true that some of them had been through divorces and they’d had their share of grief, but all in all, not much supernatural had ever happened to them. Most of them said they didn’t believe in ghosts. If Amy told them of her very realistic dreams, she doubted that they’d ever speak to her again.
“Do you know why your therapist sent us here?” Amy asked.
“She wouldn’t tell me a word,” Zoë said. “She just said I was to consider it a vacation and that if I did it, she’d give me a good report to the court.”
“Isn’t that blackmail?” Amy asked.
“As black as it gets,” Zoë said, “but she knows I’ll do most anything to quit having to check in to my parole officer, so to speak.”
“I don’t understand why a court ordered you to seek therapy if you didn’t want it,” Amy said. “Losing your memory isn’t a criminal offense.”