The Awakening

~ Monday, May 27, 2013 ~

Doctor Eve Davis nervously dialed the number. It was answered promptly.

“She made it. She’s actually here and right on time,” Eve reported hesitantly, “I don’t know what it is about her, but you’ve got me really nervous. You’re sure she isn’t dangerous?”

“Not physically,” Doctor Don Johnson calmly replied, “her problems are definitely mental. And since dreams are her problem, I sent her to the foremost dream psychologist in the country. I wouldn’t have recommended you if I felt it would put you in danger. She is deeply troubled, but I did not sense any danger in her.”

As a fellow therapist they had known each other for years. Eve trusted his judgment. “Okay,” Eve said, feeling better, “she seems awfully young.”

“I don’t want to tell you too much,” he explained, “I don’t want you going into this session with any preconceived notions. She’s just a young teen needing help.”

“And a long way from home,” Eve noted, looking over her patient information, “she’s from a small town in California but made it all the way to Philadelphia to see you and now she’s in my small town in Texas.”

“She’s traveling far to get answers,” Don commented, “these dreams are consuming her life.”

“Well,” Eve concluded, “let me get her in for her first therapy session before she gets cold feet.”

Eve ended the call and went to the waiting room. She greeted her patient and they returned to Eve’s office to get comfortable. Eve had the traditional couch and a couple of cozy overstuffed chairs. Eve liked to be comfortable as well during sessions. After offering coffee, Eve reviewed her patient’s paperwork while the young woman casually paced around the office, taking in the books on the shelves and the overall layout of the office.

“It’s just as I remember it,” the girl commented, running her finger across the spine of a book.

“Remember it?” Eve replied, “This is our first session.”

“How I would have imaged it,” the girl corrected. Eve could sense her nervousness, “imagined a doctor’s office to look.”

“Oh, okay,” Eve accepted, motioning her young patient to the couch next to her chair, “I’m just going to sit back and listen. I’m going to take written notes, but I’m making an audio recording of our session. That way I don’t miss anything. Obviously, anything we discuss is protected by doctor-patient privilege and applicable HIPPA laws. I note in the consent form you do not give permission for anyone to have access to our sessions, including your parents, and I will honor that.”

The young girl nodded her understanding and sat down in the chair opposite Eve. Giving a reassuring smile, Eve looked over the patient survey. “So, your name is Bethany Anne Hollis: You are eighteen years old. You are a long way from home. You left your parents when you were … fourteen?”

The young girl sitting before her had an interesting look. She was roughly 5’ 5”, very thin, almost cartoonish as her chest was disproportionately large. Her arms and legs were long and slender, her torso lean and well-defined. Her skin was dark, showing distinct African traits but her facial features were European, Spanish perhaps, indicating a mulatto, mixed-race heritage. Her hair was shoulder-length and jet black, eyes a translucent brown. Her facial features were striking and she had an exceptional beauty without makeup. She had all the features of a runway supermodel. Yet, her soul that was troubled, hence the reason for her visit.

“I ran away,” Bethany explained, “my dreams wouldn’t leave me alone. I felt if I stayed home they would become dangerous.”

“How could dreams be dangerous?” Eve asked, “Tell me about them.”

She wanted Bethany to be as forthcoming as she felt comfortable.

“There’s so much,” the young girl admitted with a nervous chuckle, “where to start … my grandmother told me there’s a book. All I ever hear is that it’s The BOOK … of what I have no idea or why it’s so special. I’ve never seen it; it’s never been in my mother’s possession or my grandmother’s. But I’m told it is our family BOOK. It has some sort of secrets that someone else wants. I don’t know how big or how old it is. I’ve never been told who wants this BOOK, but people are willing to kill for it. Supposedly there is only one of these BOOKS. It’s handed down from mother to daughter.

“But there can only be one … so if you have three kids only one gets The BOOK. As families grow over generations you can imagine there are several thousand family members, but still only one book. All I know is, my particular family line never owned this BOOK and we’ve never even seen this BOOK. And yet, the dreams still haunt me. My entire family is connected to this … this one BOOK.

“But the connection is different mother to daughter. My mother barely had any problems with dreams: My grandmother and her mother, I understand, were greatly troubled by them. They had dreams as well.”

“How is The BOOK related to your dreams?” Eve asked, taking notes.

“The dreams are usually about someone trying to get The BOOK,” Bethany answered, “they always have death, and there is always fire … well, usually.”

“So you dream about people dying in a fire?” Eve questioned, “Describe them: Are there any similarities, do they share something in common other than The BOOK?

“Lots of things,” Bethany replied, “first of all, they are all real, the events. Except for a couple, I have been able to track down the exact date and location of each. I’ve found documentation on pretty much all of them. But the deaths reported don’t always match what I dreamed. It’s like people disappear from them, like they never existed.”

“Well, these are dreams, not historical documentaries,” Eve commented.

“My dreams are real,” Bethany countered, “everything that has happened in my dreams really happened.”

“Is there any reason you might be having these dreams other than the family connection?” Eve asked, “Do you watch certain television shows before going to bed? Maybe something on the Discovery or History Channels?”

Bethany chuckled, “You’re not getting it,” she rubbed her temples trying to find the right words, “these dreams are family – my family – dying in fires by whoever wants this BOOK. They are willing to kill for this BOOK.”

Eve paused with her pencil and looked at her patient. She was starting to see the deeper psychosis, “How do you know they are all related? When did you first start having these dreams?”

“I was born in Bishop, California in ’95,” Bethany explained, “it’s a small town up in the high Sierra’s with a population lower than its elevation. My parents took me to see the ghost town in Bodie State Park in 2006 when I was eleven. That night I had my first fire dream. It’s one of the few I cannot pin down for a date and place and I only had it that one time, but I remember every detail: A young girl, my age, walking through the woods at night with nothing but a lantern. She’s surrounded by a pack of wolves. She drops the lantern and starts a fire. It sets the whole forest ablaze. Her entire family dies and she alone survives. She befriends one of the surviving wolves.

“Then there was nothing – no dreams – for about a year and a half, until right around the time I entered puberty. I remember it because that day my first period started, and the cramps were really bad. I had another dream: A grown woman working in a fabric store, in Bodie, gets into a gunfight with men wanting The BOOK. She kills herself to keep them from having it, and to save her daughter – to save her daughter – from them. Five died in that one.”

“There’s no fire in that dream,” Eve remarked.

“The date was June 23, 1932,” Bethany answered, “Bodie had its largest fire on that date. It wiped out almost the entire downtown area. I remember them telling us about it on the tour. I’ve been back to Bodie dozens of times researching it. I’ve pestered Terri, the Bodie Historian, probably a hundred times. I can tell you the name of the store, which bar the daughter worked at, everything. The gunfight happened just as the fire broke out. Officially there were no deaths reported except the mother’s, but hers was determined unrelated to the fire. The other men just disappeared, like they never existed. There is no mention of them at all. Her death was reported as a suicide.”

“Don’t you think the dream was spurred by your visit to Bodie?” Eve asked.

“A year and a half after the fact?” Bethany challenged, “That was just one of dozens. The Bodie fire was easy to research. Some of the others, the older ones, I’m still working on. Some are really old.”

“How old?” Eve asked.

Bethany shoved her hand into her jeans pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “I brought these just in case you wanted to research them,” she said, surrendering the paper. Eve glanced over the notes.

1. Pertelote, May 16, 1084
2. Margareta, May 16, 1264
3. Willameena, May 16, 1474
4. Carla, Estella, Spain, July 12, 1635
5. Rebecca, Watertown, Massachusetts, June 20, 1637
6. Nannette, Verhulften, Pennsylvania, May 27, 1667
7. Lucia, Pennsylvania, May 27, 1834
8. Renata Simmons, Abington, Pennsylvania, May 27, 1864
9. Ancora Simmons, Abington, Pennsylvania, May 27, 1894
10. Karen Calderon, Bridgeport, California, May 27, 1928
11. Jennine Dumont, Bodie, California, June 23, 1932
12. Bethany Hollis, Dripping Springs, Texas, May 27, 2013
13. Josephine, Abington, Pennsylvania, May 27, 2014
14. Christine Morgan, San Francisco, California, July 2149

“You’ve had dreams going back to the year 1084?” Eve inquired, “that’s almost a thousand years, and you are sure of the dates?”

“Some dates I know when I’m there,” Bethany said, “they just come to me. Others required more research. The ones from the 1600s were almost impossible to track down. The one in 1264 – Margareta – she wrote The BOOK as best I can tell. The source of the text in The BOOK predate the Old Testament, somewhere around 250 BC. I think it was on scrolls.”

For the first time, Eve started doubting the sanity of her patient, “Old Testament?” she queried, “How do you know all this about a book that you’ve never seen and you really aren’t even sure exists?”

“I have seen it a dozen times in my dreams,” Bethany replied, “I can envision the size, shape, what the cover looks like. It’s in some ancient, foreign language. I can’t read it directly, but I know its importance.”

Eve raised an eyebrow. She wanted to try a different line of attack. She glanced back over the list and chuckled. “Do you know the story of Pertelote?” she asked. Bethany shook her head. “It’s from Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales, although your date is three hundred years earlier. Lady Pertelote is one of seven hens who belong to the most beautiful rooster in the land, Chanticleer. The story is written in the literary style known as a bestiary, in which animals behave like humans. One night Chanticleer dreams he is eaten by a fox, but Pertelote misinterprets the dream as indigestion. Later on, he is tricked by a fox and carried away.”

“For misinterpreting a dream?” Bethany asks. Eve nodded. “Wow, death for misinterpreting a dream … that’s comforting.”

“Well,” Eve conceded with a grin, “the rooster did get away and survive.” She frowned, looking at the bottom of the list, “You have two dates here from the future … one next year in 2014 and the other all the way in 2149. What about those?”

“Two dreams of events I know haven’t happened yet,” Bethany explained, “so they have to be from the future. I don’t know how, I just do. The dates just come to me when I’m in the dream. By 2149 we’ve been to Mars.”

“Why is your name on here?” Eve asked with concern, noticing it for the first time, “With today’s date and this town?”

Bethany had been nervously tapping her foot on the floor. It had distracted Eve so much she maneuvered her writing pad to cover the activity. But now, she stopped all movement and locked eyes on Eve.

“If you look at the dates, the majority of them are on May 27th … today,” Bethany answered, “don’t ask me why, but that date is somehow important, like it’s a pivotal date in each one of those women’s lives … and in case you haven’t noticed, they are all women.”

Eve looked back at the list and realized all the names were of women.

“The earlier dates, May 16th, they are significant too,” Bethany continued, “you know why?” Eve shook her head. “In September of 1752, the Gregorian calendar was adjusted by the British Kingdom to rectify the errors between the Julian and Gregorian calendars. The Gregorian calendar was first introduced in 1582, but it took more than 300 years for all the different countries to change from the Julian Calendar. To get the calendar back in sync with astronomical events like the vernal equinox or the winter solstice, a number of days were dropped. For Britain – and her colonies in North American – that happened in 1752. Eleven days were removed. You had the 1st and 2nd of September, followed by the 14th. If you take May 16th and cut out eleven days, next year it falls on May 27th.”

Eve raised her eyebrows. This girl was smart … very smart. Eve would never have connected the dots between the dates.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Eve asked, “WHY is your name on this list with today’s date and my city?”

Bethany looked down, avoiding eye contact, “I ran away when I was 14 because I felt if these dreams continued, and I didn’t get answers, they would kill me, and possibly those around me. I left Bishop, went up to Bodie and stayed there until they threatened to have me arrested. I made my way to Hermann, Missouri. That’s another place I had dreams. From there it was on to Abington, Pennsylvania. I was going to go up to Massachusetts, to Watertown, but after seeing Doctor Johnson in Philadelphia, I went through New Orleans on the way here. Each one of these locations I had family – at one time or another – and something bad happened to them.

“I’m trying to find resolution. I’m trying to find answers. I need to know what this BOOK is all about, and why it haunts me. If it’s still in my extended family – SOMEWHERE – then it’s probably haunting them as well. I need to find this BOOK so I can find closure. So I can find out what the meaning of all this is.”

Eve tried again to get an answer to her question, “Why is your name, today’s date, and my city on this list?” she repeated.

“Those are death dates,” Bethany finally admitted, “those are the dates and places of WHO died.”

Eve again stared at the paper and, for the first time, felt fear. Who was this girl? She looked at her recorder. Thankfully it was recording everything. Her phone was on her desk. There was no way she could get to it and discreetly call 911 without arousing suspicion: Having her patient’s trust was utmost of her priorities.

“Why did you come here?” Eve asked, afraid to continue their conversation, “Why me?”

“I’ve dreamed about you, and this place, for the last two years,” Bethany quietly explained, “I’ve been searching for you. It wasn’t until I met with Doctor Johnson that I found your name and where you live. You fit into this more than you know. That’s how I knew what your office would look like, down to each book.”

“This is not making me feel comfortable at all,” Eve admitted, “I think its best we end this session.”

“We can’t,” Bethany said, staring sullenly, “it’s already started: We’re in the dream.”

“No,” Eve challenged, “this is not a dream!” She stood up and reached for her phone.

“PLEASE … DON’T!” Bethany begged, “I don’t want to die!”

“You’re not going to die,” Eve said, with a half-hearted chuckle trying to comfort the girl, “but I would feel better with you in a medical facility under supervised care.”

“NO!” Bethany yelled, “YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND! Twenty-two times I’ve had this dream and it always ends the same way … I come in for my therapy session, but I never leave … NEVER! I need you to take me by the hand and walk me out of this building. If we walk out together, we can both live.”

“STOP IT!” Eve yelled back, “You’re scaring me.”

“I’m scared too,” Bethany admitted, her voice now quiet and calm. Eve could see the fear in her eyes, darting like a trapped animal looking for an escape. Both their hearts pounded, as if waiting for some mythical disaster to befall them. “I’m not crazy. I have dreams, and they are real. Let me prove it to you.”

“How can you prove it?” Eve asked, stalling for time as she tried to continue moving to her desk to call 911.

“Let me show you my dreams,” Bethany said, “just one … pick any name from the list. I’ll show you how they really are.”

Eve was afraid to even move, yet her eyes shot to the paper still firmly in her hand and fell on one of the names. Before she could move Bethany had her by the wrist, holding tight. Eve felt a jolt, and everything turned bright white, paralyzing her in place. She was blinded by its intensity.

When her vision returned, she stood in the corner of a small bedroom … and it was on fire. The flames were hot and the room growing thick with smoke. A bed was against one wall with a middle-aged woman in it. Her dark skin and black hair showed she was related to Bethany. Eve knew this woman’s name; it was the same name she had seen on the list. A man in a military uniform lay over her. His clothing looked to be old, from another time.

Into the room ran a younger woman in a dress from the same era. She was screaming for her mother. Before she could cross the distance, a burning beam from the ceiling came crashing down on the bed. It caught the man across his back, snapping it and setting his clothes on fire. He died instantly. The weight of the beam smashed the bed to the floor, bending it into a grotesque ‘V’. The daughter could hear her mother trying to scream. Burning debris rained down from the ceiling.

Racing forward, the young woman jumped over the burning beam to get to her mother.

“DON’T LET ME BURN!” the mother screamed, “DO NOT LET ME BURN!”

The daughter could feel the heat from the beam and the soldier’s clothes. There was no way she could get her out. She turned to her mother’s dresser and grabbed a knife. She felt the heat of her petticoats as they caught fire. Slipping the knife into her waistband, she cut the drawstring, wiggled them down her legs and kicked them across the room. The bottom of the bed was now on fire. The daughter stabbed wildly at the mattress … she would cut it to shreds if she had to.

A young man ran into the room. He surveyed the damage and rapidly growing flames. If they did not leave immediately, no one was getting out alive. The mother’s feet were already burning, and the fact she could not feel them told both her mother’s back was broken. They looked into each other’s eyes. Tears ran down her mother’s cheek as she shifted her eyes to the knife.

“DO … NOT … LET … ME … BURN!” the mother implored.

Her daughter could see there was only one course of action. She moved forward over her mother and put the knife to her chest, just below the sternum. She leaned forward so they were cheek to cheek and whispered in her ear. The angle allowed for a quick thrust.

“I love you, Momma, I love you!” she cried uncontrollably. She tried to move the knife forward but could not bring herself to do it. Her hands shook to the point she could barely hold it.

“I love you too, my dearest dear,” the mother replied. The heat grew around them. The daughter felt her mother’s hands wrap around hers on the knife. “I love you … until next time!” The mother pulled the knife hard, plunging it deep into her heart. Both their hands grew wet with blood as it gushed into her nightgown. “I love you, I lo– lo– l–”

“NOOO!” the daughter screamed, thrashing as the man pulled her back. The mother’s eyes stared at the ceiling and glazed over, her hands still on the knife, flowing with blood. The daughter struggled to break free and be with her mother, but he held her fast and pulled her from the room. The fire was spreading too fast. No sooner than they got out, the ceiling collapsed, crushing everything.

Eve jerked awake, screaming aloud at the images still in her head, panting furiously. It had happened … Bethany had actually pulled her into a dream. It was the most horrific thing she had ever experienced: The screams, the smoke, the heat of the flames, a daughter having to help put her own mother to death … and the blood. She did not think anything like that were possible. She could still feel the heat of the flames on her face.

And then it dawned on her as she grew aware of her surroundings … she was back in her office, Bethany on the couch, asleep, and the office was on FIRE! Eve hesitated for a few seconds as she tried to comprehend what she was seeing and get her bearings. This was no dream … her office was on fire! How? It did not matter, she needed to get out. She jumped up and ran to the door, yelling for Bethany to follow. She stopped and turned to see the girl still unconscious on the couch.

“She never left the office,” Eve muttered, remembering what Bethany said about her ‘dream’. A look of determination crossed her face, “twenty-two times? Not this time! You are leaving … with me!”

Through thickening smoke, Eve ran back and tried to rouse the young girl. She would not wake up. Giving up, she grabbed the girl’s wrist and yanked. For being so small and thin she had some mass to her. With adrenaline surging, Eve kicked off her shoes and quickly dragged Bethany to the door and out through the waiting room. As she was going through the lobby, she heard the ceiling start to crack. How long had they been in there in the dream with a fire growing around them?

Eve reached the double glass door and shoved it open. The rush of escaping air sent a wave of unbearable heat pushing her out. Just then the roof collapsed. Eve lost her grip and was thrown forward as fire and burning debris came shooting out the door. When Eve got up and turned around, there was no Bethany. The young girl was still in the mass of flaming debris.

* * *

Eve sat in the back of the ambulance as firefighters put out the last of the smoldering embers. An emergency technician tended to the burns on Eve’s arms and legs and the cuts on her bare feet. Police swarmed all over. She was numb. Fortunately, her receptionist and record’s clerk had managed to get out safely, along with another patient awaiting his turn for the next session. Eve clasped the list from Bethany tightly in her hand and would not let anyone touch or look at it. She slowly rocked back and forth with a childlike stare on her face.

For all Bethany’s mental faults, Eve could not help but believe everything she said. What kind of power would it take to pull someone into a waking dream, have them experience all of it – feel it, smell it, touch it – and bring that destruction back with you into the real world?

Of all the doctors and therapists in the country, Bethany reached out specifically to Eve for help; she had been pulled into her dream … her reality. Eve felt she had let Bethany down. All she wanted – longed for – was to walk out of that building alive. She only wanted to live and know her life had meaning.

Eve tried to give that meaning to Bethany’s life: She tracked down her parents, Dawn and Bill Hollis. It was not hard in the small town. They mourned their daughter’s loss, of course, but felt they had lost her long ago. Her running away was not unexpected, she had been troubled for several years. This was merely closure. Dawn relayed similar dreams her own mother experienced, but to a lesser degree. Bethany’s grandmother called it a gift; her mother considered it more of a curse. Dawn could not understand the dreams, she had never had any like that.

The cause of the fire was never determined, other than it started on the couch. That was in direct conflict with Eve’s statements as she remembered the couch being the only part not on fire. Then there was Bethany’s body: No remains were found in the vicinity of the door, or anywhere else in the building. Granted, the fire burned exceptionally hot and the glass door melted, but no DNA residue was ever found. She remembered Bethany’s comment about bodies that were supposed to be there that were missing after all was said and done. Oddly, when the receptionist smelled smoke and went into Eve’s office, she reported it empty … no Eve or Bethany, despite neither of them leaving the office during the entire therapy session.

Eve’s notebook burned and nothing was recovered. The digital recorder had melted but Eve was able to reclaim the audio files through a data recovery company. Although she refused to share the recording with the police due to doctor-patient privilege, it contained 40 minutes of data: 30 minutes of their discussion, and five minutes of ‘white noise’ after Bethany had grabbed her wrist. There was nothing until the sound of flames erupted and Eve came out of the dream. Eve could never understand the white noise, but it was identical to the time she was in the dream. Things never added up.

She often wondered if Bethany had honestly visited her, that it had all been a wild dream of her own. But that list and the recording … it served as a constant reminder. More times than Eve’s husband could count, she would lock herself in her study and listen to the girl’s voice, taking comfort that she had, in fact, existed.

Eve had great difficulty reconciling all that happened. She seriously considered getting therapy of her own. As she relocated to a new building to resume her practice, she found increased devotion to helping each of her patients, and had a newfound respect for the purpose and power of dreams. They unknowingly helped her as much as she helped them. She went to sleep every night for years, hoping Bethany would visit her, and give her absolution. That dream never came.

There were things Eve would admit to no one. When she was in the dream, just like Bethany said, there were things she knew, things she should not have known: She knew the fire she witnessed was one of those on the list, and knew exactly which one. She knew the names of the man and woman who came into the room. Eve knew the fire had been set on purpose and was an attempt to kill everyone in the house. It was successful in that several others died as well.

Even more, Eve knew this was a family feud: One that had not been fought for decades or centuries, but eons. She had been pulled into a blood war that predated the Old Testament. Bethany was right on that point too. Eve tried, without much success, to track down the events dated on the paper. Bethany was obviously much better at research, as Eve was only able to track down the 1932 fire and, even then, information was sparse.

And The BOOK? It was real. Although she had never seen it, never touched it, never knew of its existence, just like Bethany she knew it was real, and someone had it. She knew how big it was, what it looked like, what was on its cover. She also knew The BOOK was alive, if that were possible. It was currently unowned, sleeping … safely tucked away in hiding, waiting to be uncovered once again. That scared her, for those who wanted The BOOK also slept. Once The BOOK was Awakened, so would those who wanted it.

Eve looked at the next name on the list … Josephine, Abington, Pennsylvania, exactly one year from the date of her disaster. There was no last name, and she was sure any town would have several Josephine’s. Given what had happened to Bethany, Eve wondered if trying to locate her would make a difference. This was a blood feud far more powerful than Eve could comprehend.

And yet, the words of Bethany’s mother haunted her:

Was this a gift, or a curse?