Bitterroot Lake by Alicia Beckman (i read a book .TXT) 📕

“My first thought,” Sarah said, “was that it was Abby. That she was in danger. But she’s fine. Well, fine-not fine. She’s an eighteen-year-old grieving her father. Then—then I thought maybe it was my mother, but that didn’t make sense, either.”

“So who?” Holly said. “I mean, you said the face resembles Anja, but if you’re right and the tragedy Caro was referring to was Anja’s death, that was a hundred years ago. Why is she coming back now?”

Nic wrote the number one and circled it. “The first dream, that we know of, was Ellen Lacey’s, shortly before Anja’s death. Exactly what she dreamed or when, we don’t know. Tell us again what Caro said.”

Sarah read the journal entry out loud.

“Sounds like H,” Holly said, “whoever he was, attacked Anja. Caro called him ‘a powerful man.’ Whether he was local or a guest, we don’t know. Clearly, the Laceys believed the girl’s account of whatever happened, but that wasn’t enough to save her.”

“Caro and Con wanted nothing to do with him, either,” Sarah said. “I’m assuming that’s the same H she mentions later, when they were discussing how to complete the deal. Though what deal, we don’t know.”

“We can assume that the incident involving Anja occurred sometime between December 1921, the date on that photograph”—Nic pointed her pen at the house party photo—“and May of 1922, when your great-grandparents bought the lodge. Right? Ellen’s dream occurred before the incident with H. Caro’s dream came four years later. The journal’s short on details, but we know she believed the woman in her dream was Anja. And that her dream was the same as Ellen’s.”

“Oh, God,” Sarah said, bolting upright. “That was the last entry in the journal. She mentioned the dream, and that she was worried about her daughter. Do you remember when Sarah Beth died? Or of what?” she asked Holly. To the others, she explained. “Our grandfather’s little sister. I’m named for her. She was only six when she died, so 1926 is about right. But of what?”

“I remember seeing her gravestone in the family plot,” Holly said. “but what happened, I don’t know. The dollhouse was built for her.”

Sarah opened the journal and read the symptoms.

“That could be anything,” Nic said as Holly picked up her phone and started punching buttons.

“Which would make it worse,” Sarah said. “You know how, with kids, you can’t always tell if the symptoms are serious or no big deal.”

Holly set her phone back on the table. “I thought I could look up those symptoms, but my friend Google is playing dead.”

“Then there was the third dream,” Nic said, bringing them back to the topic at hand with a glance at Sarah. “Yours, twenty-five years ago.”

“Right. There was a woman screaming, then running. Through the trees, across the lawn. But I knew the dream was referring to you.” She laid her hand over Janine’s. After a long moment, when the air in the room did not move, Janine turned her hand over, her palm touching Sarah’s, and gave a gentle squeeze.

“There’s a partial pattern.” Nic tapped her notes. “If we assume that Ellen Lacey’s dream foretold the attack on the housemaid, and maybe her death, and that Sarah’s first dream foretold the attack on Janine. But how does Caro’s dream fit, even if it was foretelling her daughter’s death? Unless there was some attack we don’t know about—that’s when she stopped writing in the journal.”

“Powerful men,” Holly said, “taking what they want. Although Lucas wasn’t powerful then.”

“Powerful enough,” Sarah said. “But Nic’s right. Ellen’s dream meshes with my first one. If Caro’s dream was a warning, too, then of what? And what about my dream Wednesday night?”

Her coffee had cooled and when she took a sip, it had that bitter edge that puckers the mouth.

“This may sound crazy,” she continued. “Though lately, my life’s kinda redefined crazy. Is the girl, Anja, warning us? Or is it the lodge?” They’d gone beyond pennies from her dead husband, sweet reminders of the past, and electronics that didn’t work to cut wires and photographs stashed in locked trunks that echoed dreams that made no sense. Dreams that foretold danger. Dreams meant to spur the dreamer into action.

She stared into her cold coffee, hoping for a sign. But all she could see in its darkness were her own terrified eyes.

Sarah stood on the deck overlooking the lake and arched her back. Closed her eyes, worked the knot in her spine. There must be a yoga studio in town. Though a friend had dragged her to a class last week, her muscles contradicted the memory, telling her it had been years since she’d unrolled a mat.

Twenty-one days since Jeremy died. When would she stop counting?

Truth was, she feared that day. Counting kept her connected to him and to who she used to be. As long as it hurt, she was alive.

She exhaled and swept her arms overhead to salute the sun, opening her eyes as her hands met. Then hands down. She had to bend her knees to touch the deck, carefully extending one leg behind her, then the other. She managed two rounds before sinking to a seated position, the muscles in her legs pulling and twitching, even the soles of her feet sore.

Her mother had urged her to come home and rest. The woman could not have known the visit would be anything but restful. Where was she, anyway?

This afternoon. When Peggy came out this afternoon with the real estate agent, she’d ask her mother. Ask what was so freaking important in town, in her studio, that she’d all but abandoned Sarah to the place.

Even stranger, now that Holly was here.

Christ. Humans. What could you do? Those had better be Peggy’s best paintings ever.

Sarah snared one tennis shoe, then the other. Slipped a foot in and tightened the laces. Did anything feel so good as the morning sun on the skin? She tied the other