I was dreaming of a dark beach, late night, winter. Billowing sheets of rain, gray-green water folded into sludgy, pounding waves. I shivered on the wet sand; icy spray broke over me.
In the shelter of a dune was a house with golden windows. Music came softly from it. Schubert, I thought, but I wasn't sure. It would be warm inside; someone kind would be there. I tried to head toward it, but my feet wouldn't move.
I turned my back on the house, walked slowly down the beach into the cold, thick water, looking for something I knew I wouldn't find.
There was water everywhere, cold water, rushing past me, sweeping over me. I opened my eyes, saw nothing. I was lying face down in water, tasting it in the mud in my open mouth. But this wasn't the ocean, and the dream was over.
I tried to look around. A pounding in my head made it harder. There was darkness, there were trees. There was rain, lashing through the trees and darkness, racing over the ground where I was.
I was soaked through. The skin on my thighs was numb where I lay in the cold water. My scalp was tight with the cold and I felt my back trying to pull away from the heavy weight of my sodden jacket. I started to shiver.
I pushed my shoulders off the ground, to get up, but hot nausea rose in me and I collapsed back onto the leaves and twigs and icy water. I lay there, listening to my breath rasping in and out, as the dizzying pain in the back of my head faded.
I tried, very slowly, to get up again. I became aware of noise: wind shrieking through the trees, branches creaking and cracking against each other, the percussion of rain pounding the ground around me. The duller, desolate sound of the drops as they hit my jacket. My own voice, wordless and hoarse.
I made myself stand.
Water ran down my neck, oozed inside my sleeves. I shook uncontrollably. My body tried to fold in on itself, to escape the icy, burning bitterness. The wind changed directions, blasted me from the front; my eyes began to tear, but they hadn't been clear anyway.
I didn't know where I was. I didn't know where to go. I didn't know anything at all, except the agony of the cold and the dazedness I couldn't clear. Finally I took a clumsy step, then another, because movement was better than standing still and anywhere was better than here.
After a time that was not long, or maybe a thousand years, I had to rest. I leaned against a tree, tried to catch my breath. All the world was in motion. The wind screamed and the rain drummed and I was shaking and unsure. I looked up, around.
Above me, up a slope through the trees: light. Yellow light. I blinked, passed a hand over my eyes. The light was still there. Lights, maybe; or maybe that was me. But something was there and I headed for it, crashing through what I could, going around what I had to, always my eyes fixed on the light.
It was uphill and I climbed. I pushed my feet into the mud, strained against tree roots and branches. My legs were sluggish, slow to respond, as though they were only half listening.
There was a searing flash and a bone-splitting thunder crack. Negative became positive and then black again and what I'd reached for wasn't there. I slipped and fell. The pain in my head wouldn't quit, and needles of rain swept across my face as I lay listening to rushing water and the pounding of my heart.
I wanted to stop trying then, to stay where I was, to wait for the cold and the pain and the noise to end.
But there was light; I could see it. Where the light was maybe it was warm and maybe it was quiet.
Better than quiet: maybe there was music.
With a groan I rolled to my feet. Slowly, as though with glue in my veins, some steps forward; then some more.
The trees ended.
I held onto the last one, looking. The space before me was dark and full of rain, but nothing else. Nothing to hold onto; but nothing, anymore, between me and the light.
It was harder, without the trees and brush. Each step had to be sure. The ground still sloped uphill and the wind was hard. But the light was closer now, I could tell that. It was golden and square and must come from windows, from someplace warm, a house, someone's home. It had to.
And then it was gone. I blinked, stared, tried to bore through the darkness with my eyes. Maybe I was wrong about the trees. Maybe something was standing between me and the light, something I could go around.
I took some more steps; my knees became rubbery. There were no trees. There was nothing there, nothing hiding the light. It was gone.
Like a puppet whose string had been cut, I sank slowly to the ground. The water rushed past me, splattered over me, pushed by a screaming wind. As I was swallowed by darkness and cold, I was sorry that I hadn't reached the glowing house, because I'd wanted to hear the music.
Chapter 13
Silence. Warmth. A pale, gray light. Softness against my skin when I moved; but pain then, too.
Later, the gray light again, and less pain, pain that had shrunk, settled behind my left ear and in my left shoulder. There was softness everywhere, around me and under me, and warmth, and quiet.
In the gray light things came slowly into focus, soft- edged and gentle. A table; a cedar chest; a woodstove set into a fireplace between two uncurtained windows. Through the windows, rolling clouds and the blowing tops of trees.
I was lying on my right side. Heavy wool blankets wrapped me closely. A pillow was under my head, with a smooth, cool cover. I tried to stretch my stiff legs and found I couldn't: there was something in the way.
In a minute, I thought, I'd look and see what.
