The moon’s brilliant aura flooded my room; her delicate light casting a lunar path from my window to my door. For the past three weeks, I’d appreciated the nightly course across the room towards the hall. I had had the same vivid dream since that night at the play with Ben. It wasn’t so much frightening, analyzing the tid-bits that remained when the dream state disappeared, but it left an unpleasant impression. It wasn’t the first time dreams had disturbed my slumber, but they had been getting more vibrant every time. Heading to the bathroom, I planned on shaking off the lingering images. I had a chemistry test at eight which I felt confident I’d ace, if only I could get back to sleep.

A shiver rolled through my body as I crossed my hardwood floor barefoot towards the hall. With eyes half shut, I turned right and felt for the door to the bath. I hadn’t gone ten feet before I knew I’d gone too far. Rolling a kink out of my neck, I opened my eyes enough to inspect the portion of wall my hand had navigated. My heart kicked up a notch when the inspection yielded no doorway. Was I still asleep, I asked myself, finally shaking off all remnants of slumber from my body. Flipping the switch at the top of the stairs, I illuminated the narrow hall.

My eyes moved quickly from right to left, the assessment more puzzling than I first suspected. Instead of finding six doors radiating off the oblong landing, I could only count five. My hands shook as I recounted over and over again, before backing away towards to the open doorway of my room. It had only taken a few days to memorize the floor plan of my new home. I could have walked it blindfolded…until tonight.
Across from my room was my parents’, both overlooking the small pond and woods beyond. Between theirs and the front room was my father’s office, a narrow but pleasant alcove he used to catch up on bills and emails. Between my room and the front was to be the bathroom, painted in a happy yellow with gold speckled tiles reminiscent of the middle of the last century. I’d taken a shower in that room every morning for three weeks, but now it had vanished…just like before.

Not like before, I told myself, searching the long wall to my right again for the missing doorway. But it wasn’t there. Arms wrapped tight around my waist, I crossed to my parents’ open doorway. Nudging the door with my shoulder, I held my breath as I tucked my head through the narrow opening. The smell of fresh paint assaulted my senses. Dark walnut furniture had been carefully positioned to best show off the lines of the room. Light filtered through the sheer curtains that hung from brass rods, casting a pleasant glow over the queen size bed. There, cuddled under their thick Irish duvet, I found two brunette heads peacefully resting on goose feathered pillows.
Their room was as it had been yesterday morning, and all the mornings before that. My crisis, it appeared once again, was in my head. Easing out of the room, I avoided touching the door. I was spooked again, but refused to admit it. Last time, and every time before that, I was put through the same horrible nightmare of doctors and psycho-analysis. I was on medication now, my last therapist in Denver insisting on the course of anti-anxiety pills and bio-feedback therapy. We might have left the city, but we’d taken his medical advice with us.

For nearly two months I’d felt like a normal teenager. The dreams and the hallucinations, in particular, had disappeared until tonight. The pattern, I thought to myself, was coming back.

“Earth to Izzy.” Ben’s words finally broke through my hazy mind. Giving myself a mental shake, I tried to mask my growing anxiety with a smile. It’d been three days since I’d discovered the hallucinations had returned. Three nights that ended with something in my house out of sorts. I’d kept my fears to myself since that night, but it was getting harder to mask the evening’s tough tour de force from my face. I’d spent twice as long getting ready for school this morning, using three times the concealer to mask the shadows that I couldn’t erase from under my eyes. To the world I had to seem fine, even if I was dying inside.

“Sorry, Ben, daydreaming again,” I lied convincingly.

“As long as you weren’t daydreaming during Benson’s exam, then it’s all good,” he laughed, handing me his apple for Samson.

“Not a chance,” I agreed, putting the apple in my backpack. “But I can’t say I’m not grateful it’s Friday.”

“Tough week for me too,” He admitted, finishing off his sandwich with the same zeal I’d come to recognize in most of the members of the track team.

“What time is the meet tomorrow?” I asked, attempting to change the subject.
“Coach wants us here at eight, but the other schools aren’t arriving until nine. Gives us the advantage in warming up and checking out the events.”

“You’ll do great,” I insisted, already coming to appreciate the speed and agility that earned Ben a co-captain position on the school’s star varsity lineup.

“Remember to wear blue tomorrow,” he reminded me for the third time in two days. “We’ll need all our team spirit to kick Lawrenceville Preps butt.”

“I’ve already got it out, along with the posters Anna and I made yesterday.” I couldn’t help but smile. Because of Ben I’d been admitted into an amazing circle of friends. Their acceptance of me, appreciation for my talents, and twisted humor had made the past few weeks bearable.

“Great! After school we should grab them. Coach won’t mind us putting them up early. I’ll give you a ride home from school and we can get back before the girls’ track team starts practice.”

I gave a nod in agreement moments before the bell announced the end of lunch. With something enjoyable to look forward to, I pushed all the bad dreams to the back of my mind and focus on my last three classes of the day. I nearly skipped down the cement steps that lead to the student parking lot at the last bell. With Samson’s apple perched on top of the books I’d need for the weekend, I hoisted my backpack over my shoulder and crossed to Ben’s Jeep. As always, he was waiting by the door, opening it for me just as he had that first evening when he took me to the play.

Every time since, I could feel the stir of butterflies in my belly. I’d come to trust Ben like no other. I had acquaintances for years, but it wasn’t until now that I had the feeling I’d finally made a real friend.

The house was eerily quiet for mid-afternoon. Mom should have been in the kitchen, her arms elbow deep in a bowl of fresh dough, but instead we were greeted by the piercing silence of an uninhabited home. The change in routine had my senses on edge. Ben followed me through the hall to the family room where I’d put the posters the night before when Anna had come over and stayed through dinner.

“I put them by the t.v.,” I instructed as we crossed the threshold to find the posters right where I’d left them. The television, however, was now positioned in the opposite corner. I bit the inside edge of my lip, holding my panic in check before crossing the room to pick up the posters that now leaned against a couch I didn’t recognize. Instead of the brown chenille couch I’d watched the movers position a month ago, a plaid cotton sectional now took up two quarters of the floor space against the windows. Tables and lamps I’d never laid eyes on made up the motif, each fitting in well with the greens and yellows of the couch but not sitting comfortably in my mind.

“They’re great! I can’t wait to see them up at the meet,” Ben’s appreciation for my artistic skills fell on dumb ears. I had already turned and headed upstairs to the sanctuary of my room. I kept my eyes averted from where I remembered a bathroom door once stood, ignoring the reality that the bathroom was now between my room and my parents. I needed my meds, I needed to think, I needed to breath. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears as I opened the top drawer of my night stand, the amber pharmacy bottle where I’d left it the day before. My hands trembled as I reached for the bottle, my tongue sensing the impending metallic taste that allows followed the pink pill down my throat.

The tablet was locked between my fingers when I heard Ben’s heavy feet enter the room. “Wow, when did your parents find the time to remodel the bathroom?”

I stared at oblong capsule as Ben’s observation hit home. Rolling it into my fist, I turned to find him standing in my open doorway, his eyes not looking into my room but towards where I’d once believed my bathroom to be. Coming up next to him, I made sure I wasn’t mistaken.

“What do you mean?” I asked carefully, feeling the beads of sweat form below my bangs.
“Last time I was on this floor, I thought the bathroom was over there.” Ben noted, pointing to the blank wall just beyond my room.

“What did it look like?” My question was almost a whisper as my whole being prayed his memory was as clear as mine.

“I don’t know,” he began, my heart sinking for a moment, “The walls were yellow. I remember that because I had to help Mrs. Kelly paint them just before the house went on the market. I kinda remember the vanity, it had a white top with a tile backspash.”

“Gold flecks in the tile?”
“Yeah,” he agreed, “and a tub with a surround. Must have been a bear to get that thing out.”

I couldn’t stop the tears if I’d wanted to. The next thing I knew, Ben had his arms tightly around my waist as a dissolved into a puddle of sobs. I felt the wretched pain that had been weighing down on my heart disappear just as Ben lifted me up and carried me to my bed. I tried to take control of my fit, but was overcome by the warmth that I felt with his arms to gently holding me against his chest.

It felt like an eternity before I could take a breath without being raked with a new onslaught of snivels. My heart had slowed, Ben’s hands tenderly rubbing up and down my arm, helping me regain some control. Wiping my eyes on the sleeve of my sweater, I tried to collect myself before looking up into his worried blue eyes.

“Feeling better?” He asked, the smile on his lips not reaching his eyes.
Nodding, I attempted a weak smile before speaking. “I don’t normally do that.”

“Which part, cry or fall into a guy’s arms?”
This time the smile was genuine as I reached my arms around Ben and gave him a hug. “Both,” I began, prepared for the inevitable that would come after I told him my truth. “I’ve made it a habit of avoiding both for as long as I can remember.”

“Lucky me,” Ben whispered into my hair, his arms running up and down my arms.
“You won’t feel so lucky when I tell you why.”

I could feel his arms immediate freeze. I took it as the sign I needed to add some distance before I began my story.

“There’s a reason my family has moved eight times in ten years.” I began, making sure I had his full attention. “And it has nothing to do with my parents…it’s because of me.”

Ben waited quietly, his eyes never leaving me as I stood and moved towards the bay window that overlooked my pond. “I was six, the first time I started to have the visions. We lived in Savannah then. I thought I was just dreaming, imagining things, but when my parents got wind of my hallucinations, I started to see a therapist. We moved to Raleigh two months later. It became the pattern for the next ten years. I’d be fine for a while, sometimes for as long as six months and then it would happen again.

“I got pretty good at hiding it for a while, but they always picked up on when the visions were getting too strong for me to control. I’d end up seeing some doctor, try some new therapy treatment that never worked, I’d have a melt down and then we’d move. I really thought this time it wasn’t going to happen. I must have just been fooling myself.”

Ben was silent for a moment, but I could hear the springs in my bed break the peace as he must have stood. I felt a new wave of tears rise in my chest as I imagined him walking out the door and down the stairs…and out of my life. I couldn’t even take solace in the beauty of my pond. Closing my eyes I could image the ducks dipping under its crystal surface hoping to come back with a snack just as the air would be broken with the closing of my front door.
But the sound never came. I didn’t hear his feet echoing on the bare treads of the stairs, or the door open and shut under his command. I felt, instead, his hands come to rest on my shoulders as he joined me at my window.
“How long have you had Samson?” His question was quiet but insistent.
“I got him just before that first move,” I replied, “my dad brought him home as a bribe so that I wouldn’t misbehave during the long drive to Raleigh.”
“And you’d never get rid of him, even if your parents insisted?”
I felt his hands tighten on my arms, refusing to let me turn around until I answered his question. “Never,” I insisted, “I rather die than give him up.”
“And he’s never lived anywhere else but in your room.”
“Oh my God,” I hissed, suddenly aware of why he asked. I fought his grip to turn. What I saw was enough to send me into a dead faint, if he hadn’t been there to hold me up.
“Would your mom move him?” he asked, as we both stared at the empty spot that once held his cage. Had it only been a few weeks ago that I’d introduced the two most important men in my life to each other.
“She hates Samson.” I insisted, “The only reason she’d anything with him is if Bathsheba was after him.”
“Then let’s find that damn cat.” His suggestion was more of a command as the two of us began an all-out search of the house for the feline felon.

It took longer than I had expected to search for that miserable cat. But for the next hour, Ben and I scoured the house from basement to bedroom for her. She was nowhere to be found in any of her usual places, so we began to consider the less likely havens. While we may not have found the cat, I did feel I’d found my balance again. I could talk to Ben about the past more clearly than I had done so with any of the dozen therapists my parents took me to over the decade.

“How did these visions begin,” he asked as we moved the heavy sideboard away from the dining room wall.

“Little things, usually. I’d find things misplaced, moved or missing. Then I’d notice how rooms weren’t where they use to be. I’d walk into walls thinking there should have been a doorway, or once I fell down a flight of stairs because I didn’t realize they were there.”

“Must’ve hurt like hell.” He imagined, frustration surging when no black cat bolted from behind the cabinet. “What about your parents, they never saw any of these things?”

Dragging the piece back in place, I rubbed my tired hands on my jeans. “Never. They’d humor me by saying they did, but I could tell in their eyes that they didn’t see what I saw.”

“You’re sure? I mean maybe they saw it too and were freaked out. Take it from me, I’m dealing with my own level of anxiety at the moment and this is my first time.”

“Take it from me, it doesn’t get any easier.” My words of advice were probably not appreciated as we headed back upstairs for a second round through the bedrooms.

“So how do you handle it?”
“I keep it to myself, try to act normal and avoid making friends.”

I felt his hand in mine as we stopped in front of my dad’s office. “Until I pushed myself into your life.” His eyes were clear, but his smile had disappeared. A remorseful shadow now masked his handsome face, making his scar seem all that more pronounce. I couldn’t stop myself from running my finger down its jagged path, my hand resting against his warm cheek.

“Thank God you pushed…Lord knows I’d never have.” I smiled back, content to see it mirrored in his eyes. “So where else should we check?”

“Let’s give the office another look,” he suggested, “We didn’t really check out the closets or behind the printer table.”

His logic was as sound as any as I went through the door to my father’s lair. Any normal day I’d have been reprimanded for crossing its threshold, but the circumstances called for dire measures. Ben opened the door and headed in first, already heading towards the state of the art computer station my dad had designed while we still lived in Charlotte. I’d never liked it. Its clean lines, light wood finish, and frosted glass door fronts had seemed cold and calculating to me, nothing like the dark woods and heavy brass that I was drawn to. I watched as Ben wedged himself between the wall and window, the look of frustration confirming no cat had crawled into the narrow space.

Turning, I decided the closet was just as equally unlikely but still opened the door. Inside my dad had stowed two large filing cabinets along with the shelves of office supplies. I stepped in as far as I could to confirm Sheba had not curled up for a nap in one of its corners. I was just accepting she’d not been that insightful when a box on the upper shelf above the cabinet caught my attention. It wasn’t particularly pretty or distinctive, but it’s near black finish and intricate brass lock seemed oddly familiar.

“Did you find her?” I could hear Ben clearly, but was too wrapped up in my own head to respond. It wouldn’t be until he poked his head through the doorway that I was able to break my concentration.

“No,” I replied, making a split second decision to break another house rule. “Ben, can you grab that box up there. The one with the brass lock on it.”

He didn’t even have to rise onto his toes to pull the box down, but he did have to prepare for the unexpected weight of the container as it slid off the shelf. “Where do you want it?” he asked, cradling it in his arms.

“My room.” I insisted, leading the way.
“Do you know what’s in it?”

“Not really,” I admitted, watching him place it on the bed, “but I’ve seen it before.”
“When?”

“Austin…no…Mobile, I think.” I tried to remember, but it was so long ago. “I thought it was part of my dreams…visions…I remember it but then it disappeared. I kept asking Mom about it but she’d tell me we never owned it.”

“Justifiable cause,” Ben murmured as he headed for my desk.
“Justifiable cause for what?” I asked, watching him rummage through my things.

“To break the frickin’ lock.” He explained, coming back to the box with my computer repair kit. Fishing out the narrow screwdriver from the bag, he got straight to work picking the lock. It probably wouldn’t have been much of a challenge for a thief, but for two teenagers it took some time to release the mechanism. The satisfaction that came with the release of the bolt was electric, sending a renewed level of excitement through us both. Ben turned the box towards me, giving me the honor of opening the lid. My fingertips trembled slightly as I carefully pulled back the lid, my eyes taking in the contents as my mind tried to catch up…my excitement quenched by the terror that now overwhelmed my senses.