Free A Rose Revealed by Gayle Roper Page A

critics as less than stellar.
    “But Ben, this wasn’t what I wanted to see,” Allie cried as the door swung shut behind them.
    We found our movie to be vastly entertaining. In fact we laughed so readily that the people around us began looking at us askance. I didn’t care. I kept imagining Allie looking at the wrong movie, getting more agitated with Ben by the moment, and Ben, sitting there worried about seeing Jake and me again. After all, what if I told Allie what I knew about her ring? I was willing to bet anything that she had no idea of its previous history.
    I started to giggle again, only to feel Jake’s elbow in my side. I looked at the screen and saw I was giggling at a death scene. That made me laugh harder. Soon he joined me, and the people in front of us actually moved.
    The upshot was that I went to bed feeling much better than I had the night before. That’s why the nightmare took me so by surprise.
    I sat bolt upright in bed, my heart pounding. My dream wrapped dark tentacles of terror about me, gripping me as tightly as imprisoning chains. I was sweating, trembling, almost hyperventilating. It seemed impossible that I was staring into ordinary darkness in an ordinary bedroom, so vivid had been the flashing red lights and the crackling static. And the bodies! They lay in the road, floated in the water, and sat in burning cars.
    They all looked at me and chorused, “You! You! You!”
    I slashed at the tears on my cheeks and reached for my bedside lamp. Immediately, in the glare of the light, the phantoms retreated. I stared with relief at my coat hanging on a peg in the wall and reveled in the sheer normality of the sight.
    But the feelings of horror clung, sticky cobwebs of emotion that refused to release me.
    I pushed back the covers and climbed shivering from bed. I padded into the bathroom. I’d discovered long ago that movement or a different location banished the emotions that clung long after the visions had ceased.
    I drank two glasses of water. I wet the cloth and wiped it across my face. I brushed my teeth.
    Still the clammy terror remained.
    A cup of tea, I thought. That’s what I need. Chamomile to help me relax and sleep again.
    I started out of the bathroom only to realize I wasn’t in my place. I was at Zooks’.
    If I lived here, I thought, one of the first things I’d do would be to get me a microwave to keep up here for just such emergencies.
    I padded into my darkened living room and stared out the window at the quiet countryside silvered by a three-quarter moon. Everything looked so peaceful, so tranquil, so at odds with what I felt.
    Oh, dear Lord, calm me down. I feel like I’m coming apart here .
    I took my shivering body back to the bedroom and tugged a set of sweats from my duffel bag. I pulled them on over my nightshirt. I grabbed my sweater and pulled it on over the sweatshirt. Then I stuck my arms into my bathrobe and tied it about me. I felt like the little brother in The Christmas Story , the one who couldn’t move because of so many layers of winter clothes. I could barely bend enough to tie my sneakers. It was sheer habit that caused me to attach my beeper to my bathrobe belt.
    When I no longer shook with cold but merely shivered, I grabbed my emergency flashlight and made my way downstairs. Maybe there was enough heat left in the wood stove for me to heat a cup of water. I didn’t think Mary would mind if I rummaged until I found her wonderful spearmint tea. To be honest, though, I didn’t care whether she minded or not. My nerves were jangled enough to make me less than the ideal houseguest.
    Moving quietly I put some water in the teakettle and set it on the still warm stove. It might not boil anymore, but it would at least get warm. I began opening and closing cupboards as quietly as I could, shining my flashlight into all the nooks and crannies. I found the tea in the third place I looked. Not too bad, I thought with misplaced pride.
    I was getting a mug from