Mary
I dreamed last night, of a fine-set table, of exquisite lace and bone white china, of bloodred wine in thin crystal glasses, of handsome princes smiling through candlelight. The dream is not new. I have dreamed it before, the table with all its fine things, all its lost things, but not for a very long time. I did not want it to come, but it was insistent, like the storm outside, keening at my window to be let in.
While Penny raged outside the thick walls of my small safe world, another storm raged in my head, howling out of dark corners where I hide my most precious things—and my most terrible. I did my best to fight it, thrashing and tangled in my narrow bed, defying it, begging it to leave me in peace. But I knew it would not. The tide came in, as it always does in my dreams, swirling at the panes, pushing its way in, smashing its way in. I was not ready. I am never ready. Too late to save anything. Everything, everything, swept away.
The tremors have stopped now, the storms, real and imagined, at last gone by, leaving their small ruins before moving on. Beyond my window the world is fresh and clean, made new by the washing of water. And yet I find I haven’t the strength to face this new day. I fumble two pills from their little brown bottle and swallow them without water—I’m a practiced pill-taker, you see—then crawl back beneath the safety of my covers. I will not go to the dunes today. My wounds are suddenly too fresh, my heart too raw. Let the sea keep its secrets while I tend to my bruises.