When Maggie and Andrew went to bed. Ivy went up to her room to read. She wished that Gregory were home. In the last few weeks they had watched a lot of late-night TV together, sitting quietly side by side, sharing cookies, laughing at the dumb jokes. She wondered where he was now. Maybe he had helped Eric clean up after the party, then the two of them had gone out. Or maybe he had gone to Suzanne's.
She could call Suzanne and say — Ivy caught herself before that thought went any further. What was she thinking? Call up Suzanne in the middle of a date?
I depend on Gregory way too much. Ivy thought.
She crept downstairs and took a flashlight from the kitchen drawer. Maybe a walk would make her sleepy; maybe it would get rid of that prickling feeling in the back of her mind. When Ivy opened the back door, she saw Gregory's BMW parked outside the garage. He must have brought back the car at some point and taken off again. She wished he were there to walk with her, The driveway, a continuous curve down the side of the ridge, was three quarters of a mile long. Ivy walked it to the bottom. After the steep climb back, her body finally felt tired, but her mind was still awake and as restless as the tossing trees. It was as if there was something she had to remember, and she couldn't sleep until she remembered it — but she had no idea what it was.
When she arrived back at the house, the wind had changed and a sharp, wet smell swept over the ridge.
In the west, lightning flashed, casting up images of clouds like towering mountains. Ivy longed for a storm with bright lightning and wind to release whatever it was that was pent up inside her.
At one-thirty she climbed into bed. The storm had skirted their side of the river, but there were more flashes in the west. Maybe they would get the next big gust of rain and wind.
At two o'clock she was still awake. She heard the long whistle of the late-night train as it crossed the bridge and rushed on through the little station far below the house. "Take me with you," she whispered.
"Take me with you."
Her mind drifted after the lonely sound of the whistle, and Ivy felt herself slipping away, rocked by the low rumbling of thunder in the distant hills.
Then the rumbling became louder, louder and closer. Lightning quivered. The wind gusted up, and the trees that had been slowly swaying from side to side now lashed themselves with soaked branches. Ivy peered out through the storm. She could hardly see, but she knew something was wrong. She opened a door.
"Who is it?" she cried out. "Who's there?"
She was outside now, struggling against the wind and moving toward a window, with lightning streaking all around her. The window was alive with reflections and shadows. She could barely make out the figure on the other side, but she knew something or someone was there, and the figure seemed familiar to her.
"Who is it?" she called out again, moving closer and closer to the window.
She had done this before, she knew she had, sometime, somewhere, perhaps in a dream, she thought. A feeling of dread washed over her.
She was in a dream, caught in it, the old nightmare. She wanted out! Out!
She knew it had a terrible end. She couldn't remember it, only that it was terrible.
Then Ivy heard a high whining sound. She spun around. The sound increased till it drowned out the storm. A red Harley roared up to her.
"Stop! Please stop!" Ivy cried. "I need help! I need to get out of this dream!" The motorcyclist hesitated, then gunned his engine and sped off.
Ivy turned back to the window. The figure was still there. Was it beckoning to her? Who or what could it be? Ivy put her face close to the window. Suddenly the glass exploded. She shrieked and shrieked as the bloody deer came crashing through.
"Ivy! Ivy, wake up!"
Gregory was shaking her. "Ivy, it's just a dream. Wake up!" he commanded. He was still fully dressed.
Philip stood behind him, a little ghost in pale pajamas.
Ivy looked from one to the other, then sagged against Gregory. He put his arms around her.
"Was it the deer again?" Philip asked. "The deer coming through the window?"
Ivy nodded and swallowed hard several times.
It was good to feel Gregory's arms Strong and steady around her. "I'm sorry I woke you up, Philip."
"It's okay," he said.
She tried to still her trembling hands. Gregory's home now, she told herself, everything's okay.
"I'm sorry this keeps happening, Philip. I didn't mean to scare you."
"I'm not scared," he replied.
Ivy glanced up sharply at her brother's face and saw that, in fact, he wasn't.
"The angels are in my room," he explained.
"Then why don't you go back to them?" Gregory told him. Ivy felt die tightening muscles in his arms.
"Why don't you—" "It's all right, Gregory. Let Philip alone," she said with soft resignation. "He's dealing with this the best way he can."
"But he's making it harder on you," Gregory argued. "Can't you understand, Philip? I've tried a million times to—" He stopped, and Ivy knew that Gregory saw it, too: the brightness in Philip's eyes, the certainty in his face. For a moment the little boy's will seemed stronger than both of theirs put together. It was impossible to argue him out of what he believed. Ivy found herself wishing that she could be so innocent again.
Gregory sighed and said to Philip, "I can cake care of Ivy. Why don't you get some shut-eye? We've got a big day tomorrow — the Yankees game, remember?"
Philip glanced at Ivy and she nodded in agreement.
Then he gazed past her and Gregory in such a way that she instinctively turned around to look. Nothing.
"You'll be okay," he said confidently, and trotted off to bed.
Ivy sank back against Gregory. He wrapped his arms around her again. His hands were gentle and comforting. He brushed back her hair, then lifted her face up to his.
"How are you doing?" he asked.
"All right, I guess."
"You can't shake that dream, can you?"
She saw his concern. She saw how he searched her face for clues about what she was feeling.
"It was the same dream but different," Ivy told him. "I mean, there were things added to it."
His frown of worry deepened. "What was added?"
"A storm. There were all those mixed-up images on the window again, but this time I realized it was a storm I was seeing. The trees were blowing and lightning was flashing and reflecting off the glass. And there was a motorcycle," she said.
It was hard for her to explain the nightmarish feeling the motorcycle gave her, for that part of the dream was simple and ordinary. The motorcyclist had not harmed her. All he had done was refuse to stop to help her.
"A red motorcycle came rushing by," she continued. "I called out to the rider, hoping he would help me.
He slowed down for a moment, then kept on going."
Gregory held her face against his chest and stroked her cheek. "I think I can explain that. Eric just dropped me off. He has a red Harley— you've seen it before. You must have heard the sound of it while you were sleeping and woven it into your dream."
Ivy shook her head. "I think there's more to it than that, Gregory," she said quietly.
He stopped stroking her cheek. He held very still, waiting for her to go on.
"Remember how it was storming the evening your mother ki — died?"
"Killed herself," he said clearly.
She nodded. "And I was in the neighborhood then, making a delivery for the store."
"Yes."
"I think that's part of the dream. I had completely forgotten about it. I had thought my nightmare was just about Tristan and the accident, with the deer crashing through the glass, crashing through our windshield. But it's not."
She paused and tried to sort things out in her mind.