Chapter 3
The freezing cold water was creeping up her leg, soaking her jeans and pulling her down. Abigail looked around, confused. Where was she? Everything felt hazy, like she was looking through someone else’s glasses. Her hands found her face, but she couldn’t feel glasses. She focused her eyes with effort, though her vision was jumping in time with her heartbeat—she recognized the windows of the plane. Her bag was on the seat next to her, but wait—why was she wet? She looked down at her feet—ankle deep water. Her limbs felt like lead, but she managed to reach out and lift the window shade. At first, she wondered, was it nighttime? Did her flight even go overnight? Why couldn’t she remember? Something moved outside the window, a face—but there couldn’t be a face. She narrowed her eyes as she leaned forward as the pale thing came into focus. It was the flight attendant who’d given her the chocolate bar, her hair floating around her in the water.
Water.
Abigail’s stomach lurched—the writhing around her ankles changed. She looked down and saw that it wasn’t water anymore; it was snakes. She tried to scream, but nothing came out. Her throat was so painfully tight she thought something was strangling her. Why was everyone so calm! She looked around at her fellow passengers; they were reading and watching their screens silently.
She had to tell someone. Standing, she thought she was going to be sick. A sudden downward motion pushed her into a man standing in the aisle.
“Please take your seat, ma’am; we’ll be drowning soon.”
“What did you just say?” she asked. As she stared up at him, she realized he was wearing a captain’s hat.
“Please take your seat. It’s time to land.”
He stared back at her, his eyes blank.
“But there’s water—” she started to say, but the window next to her seat made a loud cracking noise.
Spinning around to look, she saw black water rushing in, and as everyone around her began to scream, she realized—this was a dream.
As the awareness sunk in, Abigail found herself coming back to consciousness.
“Are you all right, Ma’am?” the Texan attendant asked. “You look a little airsick. Do you need a bag?”
“Uh, no,” she said, “sorry, thank you, uh—what time are we landing?”
“Five minutes, Ma’am. Let me get you that bag just in case,” she said before scurrying off.
Abigail didn’t dare close her eyes, but instead, she pressed her fingers against her temples hard and took some deep breaths. She had been having variations of that dream for twenty years, and she had learned a bunch of really useful ways to help her unconscious mind recognize nightmares and emerge from them—but no matter how good she got at them, it never made the waking up on the other side more pleasant. The weirdest part was that even though the standard version of her sinking to the bottom of a river in a car was objectively more terrifying while she was asleep, the time when her mind added aspects of her reality to the nightmare fuel were the worst—she was left feeling like she was half awake for hours after she woke.
Despite the sick bag and the small cup of water brought to her by the concerned attendant, the landing and disembarkation processes still felt like a dream to Abigail. She had to keep checking the time and rubbing her hands together to remind herself that she was definitely awake.
The tactical feeling of running the pad of her finger over the metal zip of her carry-on bag quickly became her go-to as she stood in line and waited for her luggage to arrive on the belt.
She hadn’t had that dream in over six months... it was hardly surprising that it happened now as she headed back to Newport, but if just thinking about it and being on the plane on her way there was enough to trigger a dream like that then how would she sleep in her old house?
Watching for her bag on the constantly turning conveyer belt was making her feel nauseous again. With a groan she turned on her heel to try and spot a bathroom—just in case.
She had expected a stomach-turning effect from the motion of turning, but the hard stop that she came to sent a shockwave through her. The freezing sensation of water running down her skin made her yelp and step back. Before she knew it, she was on the floor, and bright lights were burning her eyes. She squeezed her hand tightly closed, pressing her nails into the palm of her hand painfully.
Please don’t let this be a dream,she prayed as she squeezed. If she had dreamed so vividly or fallen asleep again—what if her reality checks weren’t working!? Maybe she should go home... A voice carried down to her, and as if someone had pressed play on a movie, she felt all the pain she was feeling rush in at once—her hand hurt, her butt hurt, and she felt ill. It definitely wasn’t a dream. A dark shape blocked out the fluorescent lights, and she blinked hard, trying to focus.
“Are you all right!?” a man asked.
That was the dark shape, she realized—he was leaning over her.
Leaning over her because she was lying on the floor.
Oh God.
“I’m fine,” she said automatically, “I’m fine.”
She felt a strong hand clamp around her own, a thumb working its way into her clenched fist. Panic coursed through her—what if she’d broken the skin?
“I said I’m fine!” she snapped, but he was already halfway to pulling her to her feet, and an image of him spitefully dropping her popped into her mind.
He stepped back from her, and she got her first good look at him. He was taller than her, and a neatly trimmed beard framed a strong face that was set in stone.
“I’m sorry,” he said, gesturing to her with his free hand.
Then, as if the action reminded him that he was still holding the hand he had helped her up with, he abruptly let it go.
Abigail looked down at herself; it hadn’t been freezing lake water, of course—but it had been freezing cold iced coffee, complete with at least one ice cube still lodged in her bra.
She felt her face growing warm and even as she felt her anger rising she was trying to calm herself down. Then she realized that her phone had been in the front pocket of her jeans—jeans which were now soaking and sticky.
“You need to watch where you’re going,” she said, scrambling for her phone with one hand and trying to dislodge the ice cube with the other. “What, were you running?”
“I was running late to pick someone up! I—”
“I don’t care! Be more careful! I swear if my phone’s fried, my kids need to call me on this phone!” she said, panicking. But as the screen responded to her touch, she just started to feel ridiculous. ”Who even drinks iced coffee in this weather? It’s barely fifty degrees out there!”
He opened his mouth to speak, but she didn’t give him a chance—she’d spied her suitcase on the conveyer belt. With one last glare, she gathered all the dignity she could as she stalked over to the belt and yanked it off before making a beeline to the bathroom sign.
She was still reeling with embarrassment and left over anger as she pulled her shirt up over her head and started to rinse it off in the sink.
“Don’t know why I’m bothering,” she muttered, “not like it’ll dry and then I’ll freeze the second I step out the doors.”
The coffee tinted water swirled down the drain as she squeezed, eventually running clear. Her phone buzzed and she grabbed for it.
“Oh, thank you,” she whispered as the loading screen cleared and a few notifications popped up.
The girls” flight had been going well, but their in-flight Wi-Fi was slow, and apparently, the movies were not to either of their liking. The hand dryer barely ran for ten seconds before turning off. If she wasn’t strategic, this would take forever.
Abigail took a deep breath and scrolled happily through the messages as she counted to sixty. There was something reassuringly normal about her twins arguing in a group chat while they were sitting no more than one seat away from each other at thirty thousand feet. When her minute was up, she locked the screen and turned her full attention to the shirt. It didn’t seem to be stained and was drying well.
Just have to hope the utilities got turned on and the washing machine still works,she thought as she felt along the garment for wet spots. When she was satisfied that it was good enough, she pulled the crumpled and damp shirt over her head and sighed.
As she made her way out of baggage claim and towards the exit, she began to feel guilty. She’d taken far longer than she had intended to and had probably left the poor contractor waiting for her. She really should have texted.
Passing through the entry hall, she scanned the line of people waiting for passengers, taxi drivers, and even one or two chauffeur-looking guys who held signs bearing names. Then, one caught her eye—Clement was scrawled across a lined sheet of notebook paper that had been ripped roughly out of its binding. Me? she thought as she read the hastily constructed sign.
The person holding the sign came into focus and she stopped in her tracks.
“Are you serious?” she said flatly, causing the guy holding it to grin widely.
“Yes, yes I am,” the iced coffee spiller said, “I figured you’d be a while so I went and got replacement coffees—hot this time. One is just black and the other is a latte—didn’t know what you might like.”
She saw that the sign was concealing a carry tray with two tall takeaway cups steaming slightly in the cool air in the pick-up hall.
“Fine, thank you,” she said, stepping forward and taking the latte, “you’re seriously Byron? I didn’t recognize you at all.”
“I am still me, yes,” he said with an easy smile, “but I have changed a smidge in a decade.”
Something like guilt twitched in her stomach, but why should she feel guilty? She didn’t owe him anything...
“Sure, I know I look different too,” she said, sipping her coffee, “where’s your car?”
“Not so different,” he replied, “one car park over, it’s a bit of a walk, and you were right before—it’s cold; I can bring it around and stop in the pick-up zone if you like?”
“No, a walk would be good,” she said.
What better reality check than a walk in the freezing cold air?