<< Go Back

Till the Storm Passes By: Alaskan Waters Series, Book One

By AnnaLee Conti

Order Now!

From TILL THE STORM PASSES BY by AnnaLee Conti

Chapter 1
I awoke with a start, my heart skipping like my fourth graders playing double dutch with their jump ropes. Even my fingers and toes were pulsing to the pounding rhythm. My body was clammy with sweat. My parched throat ached.
A sense of profound loss sucked the breath from my lungs. I sat up in the predawn darkness and shivered as the chilly air turned my damp nightgown icy. I pressed my trembling hands to my cheeks and found them wet with tears.
“Why now?” I moaned. I hadn’t had this nightmare in years—the one that had tormented my childhood. I thought I’d outgrown it along with my fear of the dark and the bogeyman.
My bedroom door opened. “Evie, are you all right?” Mother asked. “I heard you cry out.”
“Oh, Mother! Remember that nightmare I had every night as a child? I had it again. Why now?”
She turned on the table lamp and sat on the bed beside me. Blinded by the soft light, I squinted at her as she pushed the damp hair from my forehead as though I were a little child, not her almost twenty-three-year-old daughter. She looked a little pale, but I assumed it was the lighting.
“You want to tell it to me again?”
Closing my eyes, I tried to gather the fragmented scenes of my kaleidoscopic dream. Drawing a deep breath, I licked my lips and attempted to clear the cotton from my throat. “It’s never a connected scenario—only flashes and impressions. I’m a little girl again, but I’m in a place I’ve never been except in my nightmare.” I paused and opened my eyes, looking beyond Mother, trying to see something I couldn’t quite grasp.
“Is it always the same place?”
“Yeah, I’m standing on a sandy beach surrounded by mountains. Water ripples at my feet. A beautiful woman appears. Her long blond hair is pulled back into a ponytail, and her scarf flutters in the breeze. Excited to see her, I wave. As she turns toward me, a monster looms over her head, and she suddenly disappears.”
Fear and sorrow constricted my throat, and I broke off. Swallowing hard, I rubbed my forehead to ease the tension behind my eyes, but it didn’t help.
“I’m sorry, dear.” Mother stroked my hand. “Is that all?” Her tone sounded strangely flat.
“No.” I hesitated, trying to put into words what had only been pictures—like a rapid slide show. “After that, I see men running, people shouting, water splashing. Then the woman lies stretched out on the beach, cold and wet and still.” I shuddered. “So still.”
“Do you know who she is?” Mother seemed to be holding her breath until I answered.
“No, I’ve only seen her in my nightmare, but I throw myself on her, crying, ‘Mommy! Wake up, Mommy!’ She doesn’t respond. That’s when I wake up sobbing, feeling all alone and afraid.”
As waves of sorrow washed over me, I shivered and lay back against my now-chilled pillow. Mother tucked the blanket around my shoulders.
“Thank you. I guess I’m not too old to need a little mothering now and then.” I sighed, studying her concerned brown eyes framed in tousled dark hair sprinkled with gray. “You know, the strange thing about my dream is the woman I call ‘Mommy’ doesn’t look like you at all. She’s tall and blond and doesn’t resemble anyone I know.”
Mother’s fleeting look of pain—or was it fear?—caused me to break off my recital and sit up. “Oh, Mother, I’m sorry I woke you when you haven’t been feeling well. You’d better go back to bed. I’m all right now.” I faked a bravado I didn’t really feel.
“Well, if you’re sure you’re okay.” She seemed anxious to leave. I assumed she wanted to get back to her warm bed. She turned off the light and slipped softly from the room.
I was wide awake, though. With the adrenaline pumping, my thoughts raced. I lay still a few minutes but couldn’t stop shivering. Hoping to warm up and be able to go back to sleep if I changed into a dry nightgown, I slipped from beneath my covers and tiptoed barefoot to my dresser. Brr! Hopping from one foot to the other on the cold plank floor, I changed quickly and rushed back to my snug bed.
Even then, my thoughts wouldn’t turn off. Why did I have that dream so often as a child? Why did it recur now that I’m a grown woman? It must mean something, but what?
That place. I’ve never been there, have I? There are no snow-capped mountains in Rhode Island.
And I don’t know anyone who looks like that woman. Why do I call her “Mommy”? I frowned into the darkness. Haven’t I always lived with my parents, Jack and Louise Parker, in this tidy white Cape Cod house on High Street in Jamestown, Rhode Island? And hasn’t Father owned his hotel on Conanicut Island overlooking Narragansett Bay toward Newport since before I was born?
As the questions swirled through my head, an impression slipped into my mind. I was a tiny child being put to bed in what seemed like the top drawer of a very large dresser. I could almost hear the wind scream all around outside and feel the tiny room rock violently. Then a black curtain fell on my memory—if it really were a memory and not just my imagination.
The questions pounded on relentlessly. Still, no answers came. Finally, I gave up trying to sleep and got up. Since I was awake anyway, I might as well calculate the grade averages for report cards due the end of the week. Maybe that would break the endless cycle.
Quietly, so as not to awaken my parents, I turned on the lamp. Pulling on my slipper socks and blue chenille robe, which I belted snugly at the waist to keep out the chill, I padded over to my desk and slid my grade book out of my briefcase. I sat down and began to add the numbers, a chore I usually enjoyed since I like math, but my mind refused to focus. I would add a few figures and catch myself staring off into space, and I would have to begin adding the same column again.
Enough of this! I stuffed my grade book back into my briefcase. Hoping a brisk walk to school in the fresh air would clear my head, I decided to get dressed and leave early.
I smoothed the covers and pulled up the quilt coverlet on my bed. Mother had made the star-patterned quilt in my favorite colors—the colors of the sea—when I outgrew the frilly pink bedspread of my childhood. Otherwise, my room looked much as it always had with its painted white steel bed frame and furniture and a round braided rug on painted gray floorboards. The walls I had painted a soft sea green, the color of the waves as they foamed and hissed against the rocks at Beavertail Lighthouse, my favorite refuge.
Quickly surveying my room to see that everything was in its proper place, I wished I could so easily set my thoughts in order too. If only I had time to go to Beavertail. Oddly, those restless waves, always constant and rhythmic, seemed to soothe and reassure me.
Slipping down the hall to our family bathroom, I brushed my teeth and splashed cold water on my face. As I ran my brush through my blond, shoulder-length hair and pinned it up into a French twist, a few wisps escaped and fell softly around my face and nape. I decided I liked the look, less severe. I usually didn’t wear makeup, but seeing how pale I was, I pinched my cheeks and bit my lips to bring some color into them. I didn’t want my bad night to show on my face.
Before going back to my room to dress, I checked my appearance one more time. My image in the mirror suddenly caught my attention. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I peered more closely.
I looked like the woman in my nightmare.
Who is she?

Order Now!

<< Go Back