My tears dry quickly in a cool breeze, and a tear tracks down my face as I lift my head back up. A book falls out from under it, dropping onto my pillow. I reach out to read the spine before me while I stare at the ceiling. The Diary of Anne Frank. I pick it up and open it, flipping through the yellowed and dog-eared pages filled with the account of a Jew through World War II. I swipe my hand under my nose and start to read aloud:
“I am doing my best in everything. I want to be useful, so that people love and respect me. I want to be good, so that they trust and confide in me. I want to be brave and courageous, so that they look up to me and make me their leader. I want to be wise, so that I may guide them wisely. I am only a little girl, but I have big work to do.”
I stare at some of the passages, wondering what I could possibly do for such a large cause, but I begin to doze off and fall asleep, letting the dream I have fill my being and pull me under.
I am there again—it is the barn filled with the boys. Their eyes are wide with terror; watery with sorrow. They are all boys I know; I recognize them. It is as if I am sitting in the barn watching myself in the mirror. Just like that night almost a year before, I am sitting there on the other side of the room watching my reflection. I reach up and put the book down, pressing my head against the cold bale. I feel something warm and sticky on the back of my neck. I spin, my heart pounding at the movement, and William is there behind me.
I fling myself up and fling the diary at his face, but as I do, he snatches it out of the air and tosses it back at me. But I catch it. I hurl it at his head again, and he catches it and throws it again, this time hard enough to break it against the wall. I take a step forward, my hands balled into tight fists, and meet him in the middle of the barn. We advance on one another, past the other three boys—I recognize their faces as well. I keep going—past the other three boys—and past the stage, and I don’t stop when I get to him.
“Keri, stop,” William calls, backing up, his hands held out.
“Why have you done this?” I ask, tears streaming down my face. I fold my arms across my chest and make my way closer to him. “Why?”
He holds his hands out in front of him, pleading. “I didn’t want to,” he says.
I raise my fists and start to make my way toward him and he holds his hands out, tries to ward me off. “I didn’t want to,” he says. “I didn’t.”
I look past him and see that the others have come up behind me, and two of them have other things in their hands that they are holding out in front of them. They start at me with steady and grim eyes as they stare at me.
“But I wanted to,” William’s voice says, shoved into my head as the others begin to move more toward me.
I open my mouth to scream, but it’s caught in my throat. The air is taken from me, and I am past William and heading to the stage. As I walk past him, he turns to look at me, and as he does, a knife is impaled in his back, jutting out from where it sticks to the board. His eyes go wide as he stares over his shoulder at the blade sticking out of him. He moves to take a step forward and collapses to the ground, and the others begin to move past me in front of him. The tears are frozen on my face, as they keep their eyes on the stage.
My eyes fall to the stage.
My breath is frozen in my throat, as my head floats up and down with the gentle sway of its motion: between the rows of bodies. I am looking at the bodies on the stage, lying in the puddles of water that are now forming on the stage. The bodies of the boys: they’re all boys I have known. I recognize them.
I am looking at myself.
I search my arms for the knife.
A hand clamps down on my shoulder and forces me back.
I turn and push it away, and the person who has reached out to grab me pulls back sharply.
“What?” I ask.
“It was a dream,” she says. I don’t know who she is, but I have not seen her face in the days since I have been back in the real world. She looks frightened and unsure of herself.
I reach out for her and grab her arms lightly, holding them tight with my elbows. The tears begin to flow again down my face. “I’m so tired,” I whisper. “I can’t stop crying.”
“What happened?” She pulls her arms away, but I slide them back, grabbing them again. “What happened?” I ask.
She pulls back from me, her eyes wide, and she lifts her hands up to cover her mouth. “Oh my God,” she says. “Are you really Keri Turner?”
I grab her hand, shaking it so her attention is brought to me. “What’s happening?” I ask. “What’s happening?”
She backs away from me. “I’m not sure,” she says. “We have to tell the police.”
She steps around me, and I grab onto her again. “They’re dead,” I say. “They’re all dead. It’s my fault.”
She shakes her head and pulls from my grasp. “My twin sister went to your college. She’s missing.” I grab onto her shirt and put my face up into hers. “What do you know?” I ask. “Who?”
“William,” she says. She backs away from me.
I run from her and to my room. After I close the door behind me, I turn for my cell phone and dial the numbers I remember into it, where I hide it, and then I flee the room and out of the house. I run, faster than I have ever run before, and I don’t stop until I am at the airport. I grab my bag and run onto the plane. I am so tired, and I’m so scared.
