I poured myself another glass of wine as I sat in the balcony. I was still recovering from the stress of the dream and the news about my father. It was funny because I wasn't particularly heartbroken, but I was still shocked nonetheless. Dad and I weren't close, not since mum died, her death drove a wedge between us and we've been distant from each other since then.
I know I was supposed to be mourning his death but I wasn't sad, I felt indifferent, and I didn't know if that was a cruel thing to say. The dream I woke up from though, that left me feeling all sorts of way.
The first being that, it felt real, too real. When I woke up, my legs were sore, like I had just run a marathon and in a way, in my dream, I did run a marathon. I was all sweaty too when I woke up, I was drenched in my own sweat, and if that wasn't enough evidence to show that the dream I woke up from was real, the spear I had grabbed in the dream, I didn't notice it then but as I sat here and replayed the whole scene in my head, I remembered the spear had burned me when I grabbed it.
I set down my wine glass and removed my hand from inside the blanket I had covered myself with sure enough, right there on my palm were burn marks, this frightened me and I knocked over the glass I set down beside me. It shattered loudly when it hit the ground, I sighed, removed the blanket I covered myself with and went back into the apartment to grab a dustpan.
As I grabbed the pan and turned to go back outside, the door to Maxine's room opened, I was out of eyesight, so she couldn't see me, I watched as she carefully tiptoed out of her room with a baseball bat in her hand, looking around the apartment.
"What are you doing?" I asked after seeing enough of her dramatics, she let out a loud shriek and dropped the bat to the ground, it clattered noisily on the floor.
"Abby?" She called out when she turned to me, I came out from my hiding spot and she let out a huge sigh of relief. "Jesus Abs, you scared me." She declared as she put her hand across her chest, no doubt to calm down her racing heart.
"Why were you sneaking around the apartment?" I questioned her earlier behaviour and went back to the balcony to clear the mess I made earlier.
"I thought there were theives in the house." She explained herself but she went further in her explanation when her comment was met with my blank expression, "I heard noises, but I dismissed them initially, I thought you probably came outside to grab something. Then after some minutes, I heard something smash which I now realize what it was," she gestured to the broken pieces of glass I was now packing from the floor, "so I thought, we were being robbed and I decided to come out and check."
"Let me get this straight, you thought we were being robbed, so you came out to check while you were defenceless?" I stood up from floor and went back into the house to empty the dust pan.
"I wasn't defenceless, I brought a weapon." She bent down and took her bat, sporting a proud grin on her face.
"So you basically brought a knife to a gun fight?" I laughed at the ridiculousness of what she said.
"Hey, at least I heard something and got out of bed. We both know, you would have slept through the noise if it was you."
"Well, you're not wrong. I'm proud of you." I have her a sarcastic smile and moved back outside.
"So what's up with you, why are you up, drinking wine at 2am?" Max took a seat beside me and covered the both of us with the blanket.
"You know what." I answered her and sighed.
"Another dream?" She asked and I nodded. "What was it about this time?" I recounted the dream for her and Max sat there, listening to everything I was saying. This is what we always did, whenever I had a dream, we would talk about it and analyze it, then we'd give it our own interpretation when we were done analyzing, I knew she always did this to make me feel better and I appreciated her for it.
"What do you think the man meant when he told you to come home?"
"I don't know but I think it has something to do with the news I received when I woke up?"
"What news is that?"
"My father is dead Max."
She gasped in shock and pulled me in for a hug, "Oh my gosh Abs, I'm so sorry. Are you okay?"
"Yes, I'm fine but you know how things were with him."
"He was still your father nonetheless."
"You're right, but I'm not devastated or anything, I have to go back home though, make funeral arrangements and since I'm the only child, I have to start getting ready to take over the family's business."
"Woah Abby, that sounds like a lot."
"It is."
"You're going to see Kris in the morning?"
"Already booked a session with her." Doctor Kristen was my therapist. I started seeing her back when I started having these dreams that felt like real, she has been really helpful for most part, although, all I wanted was to stop having crazy dreams but since we didn't know what was causing the dreams in the first place, we couldn't figure out how to stop them. She had been helpful in helping me deal with the aftermath of these dreams though, whenever they occured.
"You know what? I say we jump into bed and get some good night's sleep, do you second that thought?" Max asked me.
"I second the thought." I answered and she pulled me up and into the house and we went to our separate rooms, although, I couldn't get any sleep again. My mind was preoccupied.
I laid awake in bed till the sun started peeking into my room, I rolled over in bed and glanced at the clock, eight am, my session with Kris didn't start till nine, I decided to get out of bed and get ready for the day.
I came out of my room, freshly showered and dressed where I met Max in the kitchen, preparing what I was assuming could only be breakfast. I greeted her and went to the fridge, grabbing a bottle of water.
"Did you sleep?" She asked and I raised my head and turned to her, she took one look at me and sighed, dropping the pan she was holding on the island, "You didn't sleep, did you?"
"I couldn't." I took a seat on one of the chairs on the other side of the island
"What time did Kris tell you to come in?"
"I'm scheduled for 9am."
"Then you better eat some food and be on your way and don't even think about telling me you'll find something to eat." She shut me down before I could even protest.
Max served me a full plate and watched me like a hawk, making sure I swallowed everything on my plate. I did the dishes when we were done and headed out.
"Do you have your keys?" I questioned Max when we sat inside the car, we had a routine already, I drove the both of us to work everyday and whenever our schedules alligned, I drove us back home too, it didn't look like our schedules will allign today though.
"Yeah, I've got them." She rummaged through her bag, cross-checking to see if she really had them. She pulled them out of her bag after a minute or two, "Let's go."
I pulled out of the garage and into the main road. A comfortable silence settled on us and I didn't bother fill it. I drove Max to her workplace and dropped her off, "Remember, just tell her exactly what you're feeling." She told me, just before getting out of the car. I waved goodbye to her and started driving in the direction of Doctor Kristen's office.
It was ten minutes to nine when I got there. My session didn't start till nine, so I sat in the lobby, and scrolled through my phone to kill time. The doors to Kristen's office opened at exactly nine am.
"Penny, is my 9 o'clock here?" She asked when she stepped outside, she hadn't seen me yet.
"Yes Kris, your 9 o'clock is here, right on time at that." I interjected before Penny could respond.
"Well, c'mon in." She welcomed me into her office. She had a relatively large office, her office was actually really nice, it walls were painted a maroon red colour, with white trims. Her desk was a simple brown colour with pencils, pens and paperwork on it. There were a few plants besides the windows to help with the aesthetics I believe. That was her work area, the counselling area was like a small living room, there was a small sofa, that allowed for comfort and opposite it, was the single chair, Kris usually sat in, there was a small coffee table in the middle of both chairs.
I took my seat in my usual position, "Okay, what brings you by today?" She asked, kick starting our session.
"I had another dream." I started, the easy part about having to talk to Kris was that she never juged, even if I was making no sense and kept going on about things that didn't exist.
"And how did you handle the aftermath of this dream?"
"I did my breathing exercise as you told me."
"And did that help?" She questioned and I nodded.
"Okay, let's talk about your dreams now. You said they started when you left your hometown, Riverwoods right?" I nodded, "And do you think your dreams have some sort of connection to your hometown?"
"Connection how?"
"Well, we're yet to discover the cause of these dreams. So we'll consider anything that could be the cause. So tell me, what was growing up in Riverwoods like?"
"To be honest, it was a nightmare. I didn't have any friends and whenever I did try to make friends, they would judge and cut me off without getting to know me first. I always felt like an outsider, I didn't fit in anywhere."
"And how did that make you feel?"
"Loathsome, livid, angry, sad, frustrated and every other feeling an hormonal teenager could have."
"If you hated it that much, why did you stay?"
"That's a good question, why did I stay? I stayed because of mum. When I was younger, I always begged her to let us move whenever those incidents happened, but she would tell me I was strong enough to withstand whatever curve they threw at me. So I just got used to it and stopped trying to make friends or be social, as long as I had mum, everything would be fine or so I thought." I choked on my sentence, Kris already knew where this conversation was heading.
"Things changed after she was murdered right?"
"Yes, things changed drastically. It was like the wall that had been protecting me all those years came tumbling down."
"So the hate became worse?"
"A lot worse. I could never figure out why though. What had I done? Why was I hated and treated like an outcast? Why did I have to suffer through all that? I couldn't figure out why and I was tired, so I left."
"How did your father take the news about you leaving?" She asked jotted something down in her journal.
"He was aloof about it. He stopped treating me like his daughter when mum died. To him, I was just another human living under his roof."
"Did he ever try to reach out after you left?"
"He didn't and I didn't bother to either."
"Did you ever notice any strange thing about your town, Riverwoods?"
"Hmmm, none that I can think of. Other than their strange behaviour towards me and the fact that it wasn't only the kids alone, the adults too, other than that, I didn't notice any strange thing about Riverwoods. It was just a quiet, small town in the outskirts of the country."
"Did you have any traumatic incidents with a wild animal when you were little?"
"Now that you mention that, there was something strange about Riverwoods. They called Riverwoods, the town of howls, I don't know why though."
"And you never encountered any werewolf or vicious creatures while you were there."
"None."
She nodded, and wrote some things down in her journal, then she closed it and set it down on the coffee table, "Okay, we're getting somewhere. Our time is almost over, is there anything you want to tell me or we just pick up from here in our next session?"
"Yes, there is something actually. I was wondering if you did online sessions?"
"I do."
"I'll be going away for a while and I was hoping if we could fix another time for our sessions?"
"I hope everything is alright?" She stood up from the chair and went to her desk and scrolled through her laptop, checking her schedule I guess.
"Yes, everything is fine. My father passed away actually and I have to go home to handle the funeral arrangements."
She stood up from her desk and came to sit back in the chair again, "Are you sure you'd be able to handle it?"
"Of course, it's been six years and our sessions have been helpful. I can handle it, I promise."
"I'm sorry for your loss. My sincerest condolences."
"Thank you."
"My secretary will get in touch with you, so we can fix a new time for the sessions. Have a safe trip home and don't hesitate to reach out whenever you need help." I thanked her and bade her goodbye.
I was leaving in three days and I was feeling very anxious. I had set foot in Riverwoods in the last six years. I wondered if anything had changed? I wondered if the people there had changed. I hoped I wasn't wrong when I told Kris I could handle it, because I didn't have good feelings about any of this.