Page 17 of So Thirsty

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When my eyes open, the haze of sleep is slow to fade. There’s music. The trees dance to it.

Tap-tap-tap-tap.

It’s almost like jazz. Like the faint, nostalgic jazz of Main Street. Only it isn’t.

Tap-tap-tap-tap.

No, it isn’t like that at all. Because it isn’t pleasant, this music, this sound. It’s insistent.

Tap-tap.

There are windows on either side of me. Pure glass. The woods. Nature. There are no curtains to pull. There’s nowhere to hide.

Why would I think that?

I need to go back to sleep; the longer I stay awake, the harder it will be. But it’s loud. I turn over, stare at the ceiling. It’s so tall, pitched so high above me.

Tap-tap.

Is it getting louder?

It’s the wind. That’s all. All it is.

Tap-tap-tap-tap.

Wind at my window, shrieking with urgency.

But it’s not only the wind. There’s a whisper hiding underneath. A voice. And a…

A clinking. A chattering.

My teeth.

I reach for my trembling jaw, hold it still. My hands are freezing. I’m freezing. There’s no blanket. Where are the covers? Why am I still wearing my shoes?

A sourness bubbles up my throat. I swallow it down, run my tongue over unbrushed teeth. I shudder.

Sitting up to remove my shoes, I catch a glimpse of the moon, a slim crescent shining like the blade of a sharp knife. The sky is black and starless. There are no more flurries, and without them, the scene is ominous. The threat of a storm looms; I feel it in my gut.

I pull off one of my shoes. The other. I let them fall to the floor with a clunk-clunk.

What follows is stark silence, and I understand immediately that it’s a listening silence. That the wind and the whispering have ceased to press their ears to the windows. That they want to know if I’m awake. That they don’t want me to hear what they’re saying.

I hold perfectly still. Hold my breath. Make no noise.

Why this paranoia? Why am I so afraid, so fearful of the wind? Of these big, big windows. Of a view of the sky.

The whispering resumes, and my eyes slide right, toward the front of the cottage, and somehow slowly but all at once, a dark silhouette appears at the glass. A figure.

There’s someone at my window. There’s someone out there.

Only there can’t be. I’m on the second floor.

It’s a tree. A shadow. It’s not what it looks like. Or it is, but I’m dreaming, and this isn’t real; it’s a nightmare.

It must be a nightmare, because that isn’t a shadow. It isn’t a tree. The shape of it, there, at the glass, at the corner of my eye—it’s—