The Secrets You Keep
Chapter 1
I wake to the smell of smoke.
It’s faint but enough to rouse me, and I jerk up in bed, eyes wide open. For a few seconds I freeze there, propped on an elbow and trying to make sense of it. What’s burning?
I start to shove my legs out of bed, but the top sheet fights me. I have to wrench it loose from the mattress so I can force my feet to the ground.
As my eyes adjust to the dark, I realize that I’m not at home. I’m in a hotel room. I’ve been traveling on business . . . yet I can’t remember where. The burning smell intensifies, boring into my nostrils and propelling my head back. Panic surges through me. Fire, I think. Fire.
Using my hands for help, I edge around the second double bed in the room, fast as I can. Warning phrases I’ve read bombard my brain: Fill the bathtub with water. Wet a towel and cover your mouth with it. But I don’t have time for that. I need to get out.
Then there’s a noise, a tapping sound, and I realize someone’s knocking at the door. Maybe hotel staff, warning people.
“I’m in here,” I yell. “Don’t go, I’m coming.”
Now I can actually see the smoke wafting toward me. I stub my toe hard on the outside wall of the bathroom, but I keep going, practically hurling myself forward.
Suddenly I hear a man’s voice—from behind me in the hotel room.
“Bryn, are you okay?” he calls out.
“Yes,” I respond. “But we’ve gotta go.”
“Wait,” he says. “There’s something—”
“I can’t. We have to run. Hurry.”
Reaching the end of the hallway, I frantically pat the wall until I locate the light switch, but nothing happens when I tap it. The power’s off. Even without any lights, I see smoke boiling from the crack at the bottom of the door. I moan in anguish.
More fumbling until my fingers find the security latch on the door and flip it over. To my relief it’s not hot to the touch, just warm. I take a second, trying to picture the exit sign in the corridor. Was it to the left or the right? I have no freaking clue. I still can’t recall the hotel, or the city, or even checking in at the front desk. I grasp the handle and press down, my fingers trembling.
Horrified, I feel the handle begin to dissolve. It sears the skin of my palm, and I snatch my hand away in pain. My lungs start to scald, and I cough again and again, unable to stop.
Somehow, though, the door swings open. Yes, yes, I think. Then I see it. A mass of smoke and pulsing red light fill the hallway. I stare at flames devouring the carpet, licking up the walls.
There’s no way to get out.
Chapter 2
A moment later I’m surfacing, struggling through webs of sleep. It’s only a dream, I realize. Another one of those nightmares. Though I’m fully awake now, my heart’s still thrumming. My skin is hot, like I’ve sat too long in the sun, and the T-shirt I’m wearing is damp with sweat.
I glance around, not sure at first where I am. It’s daylight, maybe late afternoon, and then I know. I’m on the screened porch in the house we’ve rented in Saratoga Springs, New York. From outside I hear the distant, buzzy drone of a lawn mower and one short bark from a dog.
I hoist myself up and take long deep breaths, in through my nostrils and out through my mouth, a technique Dr. G taught me when I started having sessions with her.
Finally my pulse slows. I reach for a pencil and pad lying on the coffee table, and jot down fragments from the dream: hotel room, smoke, dissolving doorknob, the wall of flames. It’s the fourth dream like this I’ve had in the past few weeks. Dr. G suggested I keep track of them because they seem to be about the car accident, the one I was in three months ago. She thinks writing them down will help calm me—and if I’m lucky, ultimately fill in some blanks.
I close my eyes again, trying to recall more details, but the dream begins to unravel in my memory, like a pile of dried leaves lifting apart in the wind. If it was trying to tell me something, I have no clue what it is.
I force myself off the daybed and traipse into the main part of the house. It’s Victorian in style, built a hundred-plus years ago. Though there aren’t a ton of rooms, they’re spacious and elegant, with high ceilings and dark, intricate moldings and paneling. Not the kind of house I would have picked for myself—it’s so prim and proper—but I’m okay with being here for the summer.
I wander back to the kitchen, with its white subway tiles gleaming in the June sun, and pour a glass of iced tea. I drain it in four gulps. Though the tea quenches my thirst, it does nothing to quell my unease. I glance at my watch. Four thirty. Guy will be home by six, and I’m already looking forward to seeing him. Maybe we should eat on the patio, since it’s bound to be a beautiful night.
I wake to the smell of smoke.
It’s faint but enough to rouse me, and I jerk up in bed, eyes wide open. For a few seconds I freeze there, propped on an elbow and trying to make sense of it. What’s burning?
I start to shove my legs out of bed, but the top sheet fights me. I have to wrench it loose from the mattress so I can force my feet to the ground.
As my eyes adjust to the dark, I realize that I’m not at home. I’m in a hotel room. I’ve been traveling on business . . . yet I can’t remember where. The burning smell intensifies, boring into my nostrils and propelling my head back. Panic surges through me. Fire, I think. Fire.
Using my hands for help, I edge around the second double bed in the room, fast as I can. Warning phrases I’ve read bombard my brain: Fill the bathtub with water. Wet a towel and cover your mouth with it. But I don’t have time for that. I need to get out.
Then there’s a noise, a tapping sound, and I realize someone’s knocking at the door. Maybe hotel staff, warning people.
“I’m in here,” I yell. “Don’t go, I’m coming.”
Now I can actually see the smoke wafting toward me. I stub my toe hard on the outside wall of the bathroom, but I keep going, practically hurling myself forward.
Suddenly I hear a man’s voice—from behind me in the hotel room.
“Bryn, are you okay?” he calls out.
“Yes,” I respond. “But we’ve gotta go.”
“Wait,” he says. “There’s something—”
“I can’t. We have to run. Hurry.”
Reaching the end of the hallway, I frantically pat the wall until I locate the light switch, but nothing happens when I tap it. The power’s off. Even without any lights, I see smoke boiling from the crack at the bottom of the door. I moan in anguish.
More fumbling until my fingers find the security latch on the door and flip it over. To my relief it’s not hot to the touch, just warm. I take a second, trying to picture the exit sign in the corridor. Was it to the left or the right? I have no freaking clue. I still can’t recall the hotel, or the city, or even checking in at the front desk. I grasp the handle and press down, my fingers trembling.
Horrified, I feel the handle begin to dissolve. It sears the skin of my palm, and I snatch my hand away in pain. My lungs start to scald, and I cough again and again, unable to stop.
Somehow, though, the door swings open. Yes, yes, I think. Then I see it. A mass of smoke and pulsing red light fill the hallway. I stare at flames devouring the carpet, licking up the walls.
There’s no way to get out.
Chapter 2
A moment later I’m surfacing, struggling through webs of sleep. It’s only a dream, I realize. Another one of those nightmares. Though I’m fully awake now, my heart’s still thrumming. My skin is hot, like I’ve sat too long in the sun, and the T-shirt I’m wearing is damp with sweat.
I glance around, not sure at first where I am. It’s daylight, maybe late afternoon, and then I know. I’m on the screened porch in the house we’ve rented in Saratoga Springs, New York. From outside I hear the distant, buzzy drone of a lawn mower and one short bark from a dog.
I hoist myself up and take long deep breaths, in through my nostrils and out through my mouth, a technique Dr. G taught me when I started having sessions with her.
Finally my pulse slows. I reach for a pencil and pad lying on the coffee table, and jot down fragments from the dream: hotel room, smoke, dissolving doorknob, the wall of flames. It’s the fourth dream like this I’ve had in the past few weeks. Dr. G suggested I keep track of them because they seem to be about the car accident, the one I was in three months ago. She thinks writing them down will help calm me—and if I’m lucky, ultimately fill in some blanks.
I close my eyes again, trying to recall more details, but the dream begins to unravel in my memory, like a pile of dried leaves lifting apart in the wind. If it was trying to tell me something, I have no clue what it is.
I force myself off the daybed and traipse into the main part of the house. It’s Victorian in style, built a hundred-plus years ago. Though there aren’t a ton of rooms, they’re spacious and elegant, with high ceilings and dark, intricate moldings and paneling. Not the kind of house I would have picked for myself—it’s so prim and proper—but I’m okay with being here for the summer.
I wander back to the kitchen, with its white subway tiles gleaming in the June sun, and pour a glass of iced tea. I drain it in four gulps. Though the tea quenches my thirst, it does nothing to quell my unease. I glance at my watch. Four thirty. Guy will be home by six, and I’m already looking forward to seeing him. Maybe we should eat on the patio, since it’s bound to be a beautiful night.