Redemption

To
my demons- thank you for the pain: Without it, I would never have known the
true depth of my heart and soul.

T
he crash of the
waves was unending, a constant cresting and falling that combined with the warm
sun to lull Rebecca into a dreamy stupor.  She floated there in her sleepy
contentment, until a voice broke through.  She had to focus hard for a moment
to bring herself back to the here and now.  A brown, freckled face loomed over
hers, its features indistinct in the blinding sun.

“Hello…earth to
Rebecca.” 

Her mind took a
moment to dredge up a name to go with the voice.  Sonja.  Of course.  She and
Sonja had come to the beach every summer before… for some reason she couldn’t
quite remember why they had stopped, and she soon convinced herself that they
never had.

Rebecca pushed
herself up, shielding her eyes against the blinding sun.  How long had they
been at the beach?  For some reason her mind felt sluggish and she couldn’t
quite remember.

“Come on,” urged
Sonja’s cheery voice.  “I’ll race you.”  The short, brown-haired girl gestured
toward a gnarled piece of driftwood some distance down the shore. 

Rebecca pushed
herself to her feet, swept up in her friend’s carefree exuberance.  Her bare
feet pounded along on the packed and slanting sand, her young body powerful and
fast.  They sped along, dodging faceless children playing in the edge of the
surf.  Seagulls cried harshly overhead, squabbling over some morsel of dropped
food left behind by fellow beachgoers. 

Rebecca pulled
ahead as she outdistanced her shorter friend.  A flash of color caught her eye
and she leapt over a pair of tiny pink beach shoes.  Her pace slowed as she
glanced back.  Something tugged on her awareness, like a thought almost
realized then lost.  The breeze had grown sharper, and the sun didn’t seem so
warm.  How long had it been since she was a teenager?  Five years?  Ten?

A blanket lay
spread out on the sand, not too far away.  On it, a little baby kicked and
cooed, delighted by the sounds and sights around her. 
Those must be her
shoes
, Rebecca thought as she stooped to pick them up.  But the little
shoes were nowhere to be seen, washed away by the surf.  She drew her hand
through the cool, frothy water, puzzled.  Sonja panted as she whizzed by. 
Rebecca still couldn’t get a good look at her face.

“Ha!  What are
you standing around for?”  She pulled ahead, nearer the goal.

Rebecca turned
her back on her friend.  Her footsteps carried her out of the surf and across
the sun-warmed sand toward blanket.  Where were the baby’s parents?  She
glanced up and down the beach, but no one seemed to be paying attention to the
little darling.

She knelt on the
blanket and scooped up the rosy-cheeked baby.  “Oh!  It’s you,” she said
softly, wondering how she could have wandered away and forgotten her own daughter. 
“Don’t worry sweetheart, Mommy’s got you.”

She shook her
head, trying to clear it.  Sonja was nowhere to be seen- of course she wasn’t;
she hadn’t seen Sonja for years, not since before…before… something.  The golden-haired
angel in her arms cooed and patted her on the cheek with a chubby hand, and
Rebecca was distracted her from her thoughts.

“You must be too
hot out here in the sun,” she said softly.  “Let’s go find us some shade.”  She
glanced up at the tree line skirting the white dunes.  “How about over there?”

She stood and
made her way across the beach and into the cool shade of the trees.  Then she
remembered.  “Daddy came this way, didn’t he?” 

She hefted the
baby to her shoulder and patted her little back.  Then Rebecca began to walk
deeper into the woods.

The cool breath
of the forest was sweet against her sun-warmed skin, raising a delicious
shiver.  “I’m sure he’s here somewhere,” she muttered to herself, but even as
she said the words, she wondered why in the world she thought so.  Doubt tried
to break through her complacency, and failed.

Completely
unconcerned, she continued to climb the gently sloping hillside into the
woods.  The terrain grew steeper and steeper and soon she was puffing, the baby
clutched to her chest, her legs burning as she climbed.  She had nearly reached
the top of the slope when a man stepped from within the shadows. 

For a moment,
she was relieved.  “See, there’s Daddy…”  Her voice trailed off.  The man was
ghastly.  He was naked, and his body was blotched with filth.  His complexion-
usually a rich brown- now had a nasty bluish undertone that bespoke of death. 
Rebecca backed away, coming up short when her back connected with the trunk of
a large tree. 

“Rebecca,” the
man said, his voice familiar, but distorted.  It had a mumbling quality.  He
looked around dully.  “Beautiful here.  Good place to hide them.”

Rebecca swallowed
and clutched the blanket-wrapped bundle to her chest.  “What?”

The man glanced
around, continuing his insane ramble.  “The dead things.  I’ll hide them
here.”  His mad hazel eyes rolled as he looked around the woods, his gaze
finally coming to rest on Rebecca- and the baby. 

The nagging
doubt in the back of her mind finally broke through and she realized that she
was dreaming.  The world wanted to blur out of focus before her eyes and she
couldn’t seem to right herself.  She hadn’t seen Sonja since high school.  And
Cloe…she suddenly realized that her arms were empty.  She’d lost her. 

Her wide eyes
darted about the woods.  She pushed herself away from the tree and the world
tilted dizzily.  The dead man was stumbling toward her, searching for
something.  She struggled to run away, but the forest was all wrong, the trees
growing out from the sides of the hill in horizontal lines.  She struggled
through the prickly branches.  Cloe.  She didn’t care if she was dreaming. 
Where was her baby?

Something dark
darted across her path.  She paused for a second, watching the black cat streak
on ahead of her.  It stopped beside a tiny red door, embedded half in dirt,
half in sky- right where the horizon would have been, if the world wasn’t
turned on its side.

The cat tilted
its head curiously and stared at her with intelligent and arresting eyes- one
green, one blue.  Sticks snapped behind her and she knew the man was following
her.  She couldn’t face him.  If he caught her, something terrible would
happen.  Panic clawed at her chest.

Taking a deep
breath, she followed the cat.  She grasped the shiny gold doorknob and pulled
up, prizing it open by sheer dint of will.  The cat slipped through the door
and disappeared.  Taking one last look around, she squeezed her eyes shut and
jumped into the darkness beyond.

~~~~~

When Rebecca
opened her eyes again, the world had righted itself.  She was sprawled on what
appeared to be cement, the rough surface pressing into her cheek.  Rebecca
pushed herself up into a sitting position against the side of a brick building
and pulled her knees to her chest.  She was wearing clothes now, jeans and a
t-shirt instead of the bathing suit that she had worn on the beach.  A breeze
ruffled her untidy hair.  The wind was no longer laced with the fresh scent of
the outdoors, of sand and water and trees.  It smelled of smoke and dust, and a
million other mingled things.  A city.

She looked
around, feeling a little dazed.  Her surroundings were completely unfamiliar. 
Big old buildings stretched up into the sky.  She was sitting on a deserted
sidewalk, staring out across a wide street with no cars.  The red door was
nowhere to be seen.  A brightly colored food wrapper bounced and rolled in the
gutter, pushed along by the breeze. 

Where was she? 
And where was Cloe?  A sharp pang of terror rose up in her at the thought.  She
had lost Cloe somewhere, left her in the woods with that
madman
.  “This
can’t be real,” she moaned, wiling herself to wake up. 

Nothing changed. 
The wind howled along the deserted street.  Grains of grit stung her cheeks. 
If it wasn’t real, how could it feel so vivid?  There was a scuffing sound to
her right, and Rebecca whipped her head around, expecting to see the dead man
again. 

“Uh…hello?”  The
approaching figure looked alive enough.  He was a young man with dark hair and
piercing blue eyes, which were squinting at her in a suspicious sort of way. 
She stared up at him, wondering what new terror was in store. 

He stuffed his
hands in his pockets and rocked on the balls of his feet, looking uncertain. 
He was tall, lean, and ridiculously pretty.  Apparently, he had decided she
wasn’t going to answer him.  He carefully stepped into the street and skirted
her, as if she might be dangerous.

Rebecca stood
up, still leaning against the building for support, not trusting that the world
would stay oriented the right way.  “Are you…real?”

The man paused
and turned toward her, his bright eyes sharp.  “
I’m
real.  But are
you?
”

Rebecca closed
her eyes.  “How do I get out of here?” she muttered to herself.  Unshed tears
burned behind her closed eyelids.  She pressed her palms flat against the rough
brick of the building at her back.  Oh God, she’d left the baby.

The man cleared
his throat nervously.  “Are you okay?”

She opened her
eyes and started at him.  “I… lost someone.  I was on a beach, and there was
this horrible man…I think he took my baby.”  She was shaking now.

The stranger
gave her a lopsided grin, shaking his head in a sympathetic sort of way.  She
pushed herself away from the wall with a surge of anger.  It wasn’t funny, damn
him!  What was he laughing about?

The man saw her
reaction and held up his hands in a placating gesture.  “Chill.  Look,” he
sighed tiredly.  “It’s just a dream.  None of it is real, you know?  I’m sure
your kid’s fine.  She wasn’t really there.”

Rebecca felt
like her heart was encased in ice.  “Of course,” she breathed, deflating.  Her
knees bent and she slid back down to sit on the concrete with a thump.  “It’s
just a dream.  It wasn’t real.  She couldn’t be real.”

The man watched
her as if he expected her to do something crazy.  “I don’t know what’s going
on,” he admitted.  He stuffed his hands in his pockets again and scuffed the
sole of one shoe against the gritty cement.  “I’m dreaming.  I know I am.  But
I can’t seem to wake up.  It just goes on and on forever.  You’re the first
real person I’ve met here…I mean, if you’re really real.”

 He shrugged
dismissively, and then nodded down the road.  “I’m headed there,” he said
dully.  “Wherever I go, I keep seeing that sign.  I figure it must mean
something.”

Rebecca didn’t
answer.  She was staring at her sneakers.  “It’s just a dream,” she whispered
over, and over.  It wasn’t real.  “Just a dream…”

The man sighed
and turned his back on her.  “Well, whatever.  If you
are
real, I hope
you figure it all out.”  He walked away, his head down and his wide shoulders
hunched against the wind.  Rebecca watched with perfect clarity as a tiny,
azure blue butterfly landed on his back, unnoticed by the man and completely
inappropriate for the urban setting. 

Rebecca sat
there for some time.  Finally, her mind felt less numb and she was able to take
in her surroundings.  She was surprised to find that the man was gone.  She
glanced down the street.  It dead-ended at an old, run-down warehouse with red
letters painted over the door.  Some of the letters were missing or worn away,
but when Rebecca studied it, she realized that what was left made up the words
“Spirit Co.”

The man had
spoken to her as if he was dreaming too.  But that was impossible.  This was
her dream, wasn’t it?  She dimly remembered him saying that he was headed
there, to the warehouse. 

A dark figure
moved in the shadows, and she froze.  The smaller shadow detached itself from
the rest and resolved into the cat she had seen before.  There was no mistaking
those eyes.  It looked at her disdainfully, then turned and slowly trotted
toward the warehouse, its hooked tail up in the air like a swaying question
mark.  Rebecca heaved a tired sight.  Then she stood and started walking that
way.