Again, something wriggled within her thoughts. She shrugged away the sensation and, opening her door, stepped over the clutter of mail into her apartment.
Close door. Remove jacket. Sarah stared at the strange, familiar living room. How long had she lived here? A week? A month? Precise memory fled at her approach.
Hanni trotted into the room, chirping for attention.
“Kitten.” Sarah picked her up awkwardly. She ran curious fingers over the kitten’s face, rubbed her cheek against the kitten’s fluffy sides. Hanni mewed in protest and twisted away, using pinprick claws to free herself.
Distracted, Sarah drifted to the front window. Outside, clouds blotted the sky, and rain had begun to fall in heavy drops. Cold. Gray. She touched the misted glass, tracing the crooked paths left by the rain. All strange. Too strange.
A sudden urgent longing for the familiar seized her. I’ll call Mom, she decided, and dialed the number in her memory.
The phone range twice. “Hello,” said a stranger’s voice. “Morrison Office Supply.”
“Hello, Mom?”
“I’m sorry. You must have the wrong number.”
“No, wait. I’m trying to reach Michelle Evans.”
“No one by that name works here.”
“But I’m calling her house—”
“You’ve reached a business. Sorry.”
The stranger hung up. Sarah closed her eyes. That’s not possible. I know this number. I’ve dialed it every week for— For how long?
She dialed again, but when the same stranger answered, panic seized her. She slammed the receiver down and ran blindly from her apartment and into the streets.
“Hey, what is this—?”
She’d run headlong into an old man, scattering his books over the wet pavement. Scowling, he stooped to retrieve his property. “Look at that,” he muttered. “Just look. You should watch before you run into the street like I don’t know what.” He brushed gravel from one book, shielding it from the rain, his lips pursed in irritation.
Sarah picked up the nearest book. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see you. I was looking for my mother.”
The old man jerked his head up, and his bright, narrow eyes fixed on hers. Slowly, he took the book from her. “I am sorry for you,” he said quietly.
She started to explain, but he lurched across the street and was gone. Now the rain was falling harder. She ought to go inside, she thought, as fragments of old memories came back to her. Ought to change her clothes before she called Joe.
Joe. I need to find Joe.
Oblivious to the storm, Sarah ran through the streets to Joe’s apartment. “Joe,” she called, knocking on his door. “Joe, it’s me.”
Joe opened the door abruptly. “Sarah? Hey, you’re wet. What did you do? Run here in the rain?”
With relief, she saw he was smiling. “Yes, I did.”
Joe brushed the wet hair from her face. “You really did, didn’t you? What’s the matter?”
Wordlessly, she put her arms around him. Already, in his presence, she’d recovered some of her self-possession. “Nothing happened. I—I just couldn’t wait to see you.”
* * * *
Weeks—months—passed.
Joe called Sarah every day. Sarah spent every evening in his company. She gave notice to her landlord. Half her belongings were already at Joe’s apartment, and she’d redirected her mail to his address. Hanni came soon afterward, settling easily into her new home.
Within Sarah, I witnessed the release of Joe’s long-guarded love. I saw how his gaze warmed; dimly I sensed his fingers brushing her cheek just before he kissed her. But Sarah stood between the world and me, an impenetrable barrier of flesh and thought and life. And she, not I, fed on Joe’s emotions—a careless feasting on passions beyond my reach. At first I tried to control her. I tried to speak, but the incessant flood of her thoughts blockaded my voice. I had just one chance left.
* * * *
Leaving the silent void between dreams, Sarah found herself walking along a narrow path that burrowed through a thick forest. The sharp scent of resin tickled her nose; pine needles caressed her skin. Nothing troubled her, not even the impenetrable dark, because she knew she was dreaming. She thought she might journey this way forever and not grow tired.
Then, a thin voice broke the hush. “Sarah. Help me.”
Startled, she turned toward the sound. “Who’s there?”
“I am Chameleon.”
Her breath caught on the edge of memory. “What do you mean—Chameleon?”
As if in reply, a light blazed into life further ahead. Sarah walked toward it, knowing she would find the answer there.
She had almost reached the light when, without warning, a clearing opened abruptly in the woods. She stopped.
A figure sat beneath the light; the creature was dark, and the light seemed to shine through it. Sarah held her breath, afraid the creature would turn around, but some task absorbed its attention completely. Sarah stole to the clearing’s edge, moving soundlessly over the pine needles. The creature bent over a large canvas, its hands moving with quick, expert strokes. Two steps more, and Sarah saw what it was drawing. A portrait of her.
* * * *
“Sarah, what’s the matter?”
“Nothing. Why?”
Joe set the coffeepot and two cups on their kitchen table. “You had another nightmare—I heard you get up.”
Sarah poured her coffee listlessly. “Sorry. I must be nervous about that job review next week.”
Joe frowned. “You haven’t slept well these past two weeks. Why don’t you call in sick today?”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. You look like—”
“Yes, I am,” she snapped. “Now leave me alone.”
Joe flinched and spun away from her.
Looking at his rounding shoulders, his grizzled hair, Sarah felt a squirming inside her, and her eyesight blurred with exhaustion. She wanted to shout angry words at Joe and provoke him into fighting back.
Instead, she kept her voice to a strained monotone. “You’re late for work already. Why don’t you go?”
“I will.” He yanked his coat from the closet and left.
Five minutes passed before Sarah moved. Slowly, she uncurled her stiff fingers; she took a shaking breath, and felt the ache of tension spread throughout her chest. We’ve never done that before. His voice had sounded so cold, so flat. Hers so harsh.
Too late to recall her words, too late to chase after him through the streets. But not too late to mend the damage, she thought. I’ll leave a message for him at work.
She stood. Another bout of dizziness swept over her. She shook her head, willing herself to remain upright. Her nightmares had lasted far longer than two weeks, and each one had left her more exhausted than the last, until the line between waking and sleeping felt hazy and unreal.
A loud clatter made her jump, and the room came back into focus. Mail time, she thought with a weak laugh. A second later, she heard a familiar rustle as Hanni attacked the paper intruder. Oh, no. Last time, she’d clawed the electric bill to pieces. Automatically, Sarah hurried to rescue the mail.
Against Hanni’s objections, Sarah separated the kitten from her prey and carried the pile to the coffee table for sorting. Bills and more bills, catalogs, … What’s this?
She pulled an envelope from the stack. It was the letter she’d mailed to her mother the week before. A red stamp over the address read: “Return to Sender. Addressee Unknown.”
Sarah sank back, staring at the envelope, but still the words made no sense. With shaking hands, she set the letter aside and glanced at the next item—a postcard. Again, her vision swam; the picture blurred and resolved into a new image—Escher’s famous lithograph of two hands drawing each other. Underneath the picture Sarah read the words, Help me, Sarah.
She dropped the card. “That’s not possible.” Quickly, she glanced down at the pile of mail in her lap. The electric bill lay on top, its columns of numbers transforming into a new message as she watched: Stop pretending, Sarah. You remember the dream. I am Chameleon.
Sarah shut her eyes, but red letters scrawled a new message across her lids: Release me.
She took a deep breath, started to moan, forced herself to stop. “I’m having another nightmare,” she said out loud. “I’m dreaming, even though I’m awake. I’ve read about this, it’s called—”
What about the letters? said a voice inside her. The postcards?
They lay on the ground where she’d dropped them. Sarah reached for one, then yanked her hand back. She tried to breathe, but a weight crowded her chest, and she started to shake. I can’t stay here. Still trembling, she stood and lurched to the front hallway.
You tried to run away once before. Remember? That day you ran here from your old apartment—
Sarah pulled her coat from the closet, struggling to separate it from the hanger.
—the day you came to life—
She fled the apartment and slammed the door. For more than an hour, she walked as quickly as possible, turning corners and crossing streets at random. Over and over, her thoughts replayed her nightmares. What could they mean? How could she escape them?