The adrenaline hits again.
I force myself to stand, emerging from the forest in a ragged run toward the barn. I turn as I leave the woods, pushing my feet and legs as I make my way to the road. The drive up here to the cabin revealed several other cabins along the way. If I can get to one before he finds me, I might make it.
I run into the ditch, splashing the frigid water up my legs as I make my way to the closest driveway. I’m out of breath and light-headed, but clear-minded enough to realize the closest cabin is a mistake. He’ll go there once he realizes I haven’t made it to the bottom of the hill.
I run past the second driveway, scrambling from the ditch and crossing it carefully. When I get to the third driveway I almost run up it, but my twin brother’s voice rings through my head. Three times lucky. I don’t know why; perhaps because I’m dehydrated and exhausted and my mental state is a mess.
The fourth driveway is a ways down the hill. The corners frighten me. I struggle to get past the ditches and rocks. My feet have stopped hurting, with the cold water making them numb.
Breathlessly and staggering with a limp from my muscles freezing up, I turn and back up the driveway, forcing myself to watch the road and woods, in case he’s there somehow. He’s smarter than I am. He’s a fucking professor, for God’s sake.
My legs buckle, dropping me like a sack of rocks to the gravel. I wince, feeling the jarring in my neck, but I grip the cold rocks and scramble back up.
A shrill noise rips through the air. I think it’s an animal dying, but I don’t know what kind it is. It sounds terrifying and close by. I hurry, limping brutally because the lower part of my left leg has gone totally numb.
The cabin is nicer than his, but has no barn for the ATVs and snowmobiles. I hurry to the back, trying every window and door until I run out. None are left open or unlocked. Defeated and exhausted, I slide down the back of the door, desperate to rest a minute and listen for him.
Every sound becomes louder as my breath softens in hesitation. I expect him to run from the woods any moment, leash and collar in hand. I expect him to make me beg and make me tell him I love him and he’s the man for me. I expect to die, crying and begging for it—not his love but death itself.
My eyes long to close, my body whispers Let’s give up as my heart aches from the memories that are filtering back in. Memories I will never be rid of or solve. I won’t ever know what it all meant to him, what I am to him. What I am representing or curing. What void I am filling.
A sound catches my cold ears. I glance up into the darkening sky as snowflakes begin to fall. A tear drips from my eye as I realize it’s the first snow of the season.
The sound gets louder as a vehicle makes its way up the hill.
For a moment, I ignore the sound of the tires skidding around the gravel corners, and stare up into the sky. The flakes swirl, taking my care and depth perception away. I tilt my head even more, letting the fat flakes fall in my mouth and land on my lashes.
I don’t close my eyes. I don’t try to block out the sound again as it gets closer. I stare up into the snow and force a memory, one of a time when I was happy. It was a moment, fleeting and precious. Her face makes me happy. She brings me joy as she becomes all I see in the swirling snow.
I close my eyes, waiting for the separation of Ashley’s mind from mine, or rather mine from hers. The forced abandonment of her leaves me feeling hollow and detached from the real world I live in. I feel even more so from the dream world inside of Ashley’s mind, as the forest becomes a room in a lovely house with floral and pastels and a French flair for decorating.
In the distance I can see Ashley still standing, waiting to tell me the rest of the story, shivering and cold. She looks confused and lost in the forest, as I become me, escaping the horrors that lie within her tale.
I blink three times as the wallpaper and pastels eat up the forest and all that exists around me is the country home in France. I lean forward in the armchair, taking a deep breath before lifting the lid of a jewelry box with four-leaf clovers on it, and peek inside, whispering, “Tell me about the swans, the way the swans circle the stars and shoot across the sky.” They are the words that send me all the way home. The key to escaping the dream world.
I sit back, letting the ceiling melt away and revealing the sky. Clouds move rapidly, fast-forwarding the time as I get lost in the stars and the blackness of the sky. Everything twirls in a circle, like a girl in a tutu spinning and dancing. My eyes lose focus, as a sickening wave of heat washes over me.
I am not her; she is not me. I am Jane. I am free of Ashley.
A slow and yet noisy breath leaves my parted lips as the coolness of the mountain vanishes and the warmth of the room I am in surrounds me. Still I shake and shiver because my body is in shock from detaching from the mind of the girl lying next to me. The girl who is sleeping as I roam about in her brain.