Charon's Crossing

She plucked it up, then sank down on the settee and put her feet up. Where had she left off?

Here, a voice whispered, clear as a bell.

Kathryn looked up sharply, then stretched her lips in a humorless grin.

"No ad-libbing, please," she said in a giddy whisper.

She opened the journal, flicked the pages until she came to the next entry, and began to read.

October the twenty-first, 1811:

I have spent the last days preparing for our first foray in these waters. We have taken on every possible store, from ship's biscuit for the men to oil for the lamps...

Kathryn yawned. Boy, she was tired. It had been such a long day. She yawned again, blinked her eyes hard, and looked back at the page of the journal.

... oil for the lamps. Mr. Hauser, my first mate, has suggested we redistribute the shot for the Long Nines. I am not sure it is necessary, but have agreed to...

Kathryn stretched out on the chaise. Her eyes felt as if they were gritty with sand.

Maybe she'd just shut them for a couple of minutes. Not that she'd sleep. That was out of the question. Who could sleep in this crazy house?

But a minute's rest would be... would be...

The journal fell from her lap, and she was asleep.

* * *

The night grew darker.

The candles sputtered; burned down to stubs, then died.

The wind, moaning through the trees, snatched at the shutters.

And upstairs, high in the attic, something shifted and stirred in the darkness.

"Catherine," a voice whispers.

Kathryn's eyelids flutter. She doesn't recognize the voice. She doesn't want to hear it, or its summons.

But it is too late. She is already slipping into the dream.

She finds herself in a room. She can see little but she senses that the space is confining.

She is uneasy.

"Where am I?" she says.

A window flies open. Moonlight spills faintly across the floor. It paints an ivory swath across some old furniture, a rocking chair, and an open trunk.

Kathryn's breath hisses from her lungs. She knows where she is. She is in the attic at Charon's Crossing.

Her throat constricts. She doesn't like this place anymore. She wouldn't like it, even if she didn't remember what happened here earlier tonight. The air feels heavy and moist, almost like a weight against her skin. There is a smell in the air, too, one that is musty and unclean.

The faintest of whispers echoes from the puddle of darkness.

Kathryn's heartbeat quickens.

"Matthew? " she says.