Page 19 of The Girl from Widow Hills
This time the phone started ringing, and I moved closer, hands held in front of me to block the jagged branches, tripping over a log before I reached the sound. Knees in the hard dirt, my palms stinging. I placed my hand on the log to right myself, but it was too soft.
A snake, my first instinct. I scrambled away before my mind even had time to process.
But the shadow hadn’t moved. The phone kept ringing. I pushed myself to standing, stepping closer. I nudged the shadow with my bare foot, feeling the familiar roughness of denim this time.
And then silence.
My head swam in a sudden rush of understanding. I moved the branches of the bushes aside to be sure: the shape of a torso; arms; the back of a head.
A man.
A sound escaped my throat. I stepped back. Closed my eyes. Took a breath.
Sometimes, when I wake, the two worlds combine—the dream and reality. An echo of one in the other. And so it’s possible the body is a figment, and I can walk it back, retrace my steps, climb backward into bed, and in the morning there will be nothing here, just a lingering sense of doom. A shudder as I walk to my car; the ghost of a memory.
But it’s the wind that made me sure. Moving the blades of grass in a symphony over my toes, something greater than my imagination. A chaos beyond the reach of my mind.
My eyes shot open, burning in the night wind.
How long had I been standing here? How long ago had this happened?
I looked down at my hands again, understanding without seeing—they were red.
Behind me, the front door gaped open across my yard, a darkness inside.
But when I started running, I instinctively headed the other way. Passing the body in the yard. Through the tree line. Tripping over the hedges as I ran. For Rick’s.
Because when I’d gone to him about the snake last year, before he’d declared it harmless, he’d come over with a shotgun. Tried to give it to me after, with his shaking hand. Said he was too slow to get to it should he need it now, inside the locked case, and anyway, he had another. I couldn’t take it; didn’t know how to use it.
But Rick’s house was safety. He would know what to do.
And when he opened the door, he did, right away. He took one look at me, and I peered over my shoulder to try to get him to understand. “There’s a man—outside—”
I held up my palms; the red was so bright in the open doorway. His eyes scanned over me quickly, and he looked at my hands again, at my mouth—“Rick, help”—and he seemed to understand then that it wasn’t me who was hurt. He took me by the sleeve and pulled me across the threshold, and he closed and locked the door, and it was too warm inside, but I was safe.
I was shaken and dirty, and Rick looked out the front window. Looked hard into the darkness, his fingers trembling against the window frame, his breath fogging up the glass. He stared for a long time, not going for the gun, not going for the phone, and I waited, because he would know what to do.
Rick turned around, eyes glazed. But he seemed to be looking beyond me, somewhere.
And he said, in a voice I’d never heard before, “Wash your hands.”
TRANSCRIPT FROM INTERVIEW WITH DR. PAUL PARSONS, DIRECTOR OF LONGBRANCH SLEEP CLINIC
OCTOBER 19, 2000
It’s a common occurrence in children. Most will outgrow it. For parents, if you witness or suspect that your child is sleepwalking, there are some things you can do to protect them.
Put a bell on their door, something to wake you. Try to limit the amount of furniture or fragile items in the room with them, so they won’t accidentally get hurt.
What happened to the Maynor girl was an accident. A tragic accident. And sometimes, despite our best intentions, accidents happen anyway.
Most times an episode passes with no incident. There are, of course, other disorders to be aware of. Episodes that veer more actively and dangerously than merely walking in your sleep. True sleepwalking mostly tends to mimic basic things you have already done.
But if your child seems to be acting out their dreams, running, fighting . . . that’s not sleepwalking. That’s evidence of another type of disorder.
That’s when you should be concerned. That’s when they could be a danger to themselves or others.
