HE FELT THE cool cloth on his head.
“Good to have you back.” Sela’s voice was close. He tried to sit up but the effort exhausted him. He realized he was lying down and she was holding him in her arms.
“They’re gone,” he said, knowing it was true.
“Who, Nathan? Who is gone?”
He opened his eyes and sat up with Sela’s help.
It was dark. He saw moonlight through the windows.
“How do you feel?” she said.
“I’m not sure.”
“Your dreams are intense. You spoke through them. I wrote some of it down.”
Nathan got up from the sofa. He felt light-headed.
“I think a walk outside will help. Thank you, Sela. You’ve taken care of me here. How long?”
Sela got up as well and came toward him. She brushed his hair back from his forehead.
“Not long. A couple of hours. I didn’t mind,” she said.
He caught the scent of her skin, something like freesia, he thought.
“I’ll come back soon,” he said.
“Good.”
The night air was cold. He lifted the hood to his jacket and pulled on his gloves. There was no sound but his own footsteps in the snow.
What had changed? More to the point, why? For he knew with absolute certainty that the dreams would not return. A sharp feeling of loss cut through him and then disappeared. He could relive every moment of them. Nothing was forgotten. He had created whole worlds. Yet it was now as if none of it had ever existed.
He walked faster, feeling the cold more as a sudden wind blew across from the lake. This is real, he thought. This is where I am now.
YOU ARE READING
The Magic Hour
Mystery / Thriller"It was not exactly dark, but a kind of twilight or gloaming. There were neither windows nor candles, and he could not make out where the twilight came from, if not through the walls and roof." -Childe Rowland "T...
