How strange the dream was. I began having it when I was very young, around six; like an omen, it invaded my sleep several times a year. I sensed that I was the one curled in fetal position in that dark room of the dream. I felt I was going to die, and I would do so within my dream.
The first time I had it, I woke crying and my Mom came running. Between deep sobs, I told her I’d had a bad dream. "I knew I should not have allowed you to eat that extra scoop of ice cream," she said as she combed her fingers through my dark brown, shoulder length hair. "Go back to sleep; it was just a dream and not real."
I cried out for her each time I had the dream, and each time she explained it away as she combed my hair. After the third or fourth time I had the dream, she decided that it wasn’t my eating a sweet after dinner, but that Dad had turned the sound too loud on the television and I had overheard their programs. "I apologize for that, Honey," she told me.
I tried telling her I wasn’t having bad dreams but a bad dream, the same dream each time. But she did not listen, or maybe she didn’t want to listen. I quit talking about the dream.
Still, it came, three or four times a year.
I became paranoid about people standing to close to me, alert to those around me, and even as a six-year-old I began watching people and looked into their eyes when I could. When I learned to write, I began keeping a journal of the dream, and always kept a small notepad with me. When I had the dream, I’d record my views of it in my journal, giving descriptive details of the dark room, the man too. Each night before I went to sleep, I promised myself that I would remember more of the man, that I would remember a physical description. I never did.
Those eyes, dark and lifeless, seeing but uncaring, I well-remembered them each time I woke. That was the only physical feature that I could see, all I’d wanted to see. He repeatedly told me: you are my song, my ultimate success. I wanted to remember those words so I detailed his voice as best I could through that statement. Sometimes it was deep, like a bass singer, but when he gave me water or food it would become softer like a baritone. If I refused his gifts, as he called them, it resembled the voice of a tenor, pitched and excited. I felt he was masking his true voice and that it wasn’t consistent with his everyday life, the life he lived outside that little room where he held me. I do not know how to describe it other than the sound of it felt synthetic, even as the range would change. He was about 6 feet tall, maybe an inch off either way, and had a stocky build. A white man I think, since the skin I saw around his eyes was pale.
I also jotted down things I felt about other people as I watched them. Sometimes I’d note the darker side of them and sometimes the bright side, detailing physical features of the ones with the darker side.
Once, when I was around 12 and we were eating in a nice restaurant, our waiter stood beside Mom as he placed the after dinner deserts on the table; I watched his expressions change when she told him that he had given her the wrong desert. His eyes grew darker as he reached and took the desert plate and put it in front of my dad. I wanted to recoil, to run, and to stop him from doing what he did in the darkest hours of the night. When he left the table, I looked over at Mom and Dad. "He kills people," I said.
Mom looked over at Dad with ‘I told you so’ clearly defined in her blue eyes. "Oh, Trish. Honey, you have got to stop reading all those books you read, and quit watching so much television."
I had inherited Mom’s eye color but dad’s almond shape. I secretly wanted to roll my almond-shaped eyes heavenward because of my mom’s denials.
She just didn’t get it.
A few weeks after I announced that the waiter killed people, I was sitting on a park bench reading and a woman came and sat beside me. Her shoulder brushed mine and I closed my book, sighed and said, "Don’t go with him."
She looked at me strangely. "The redheaded man. Don’t go with him when he comes to your home, " I said.
"I do not know a redhead man. Who are you?"
"My name is Trisha. The redhead man will harm you, and he watches you a lot. Please do not go with him." Just then my Mom walked over to get me and the woman asked her if I was for real.
"Of course she is for real," Mom said, "she is my daughter, flesh and blood." "No. She told me not to go with the redhead and I do not date a redheaded man."
"Oh, that kind of for real." Mom sighed and gave me a look as she shook her head in a way that said, this is going to stop. "I apologize for my daughter. She has a tendency for the melodramatic." Mom took my hand and pulled me along with her, giving me a lecture as she did. Telling me that I had to stop all the nonsense or I’d end in a hospital for the disturbed.
After that incident, Mom decided to put my imagination to use in other time consuming forums. She bought paints, and when I tired of them she bought scrapbook supplies, and later she bought a camera. Over the next few years, she bought many other artistic hobby supplies. I worked with them, became artistic and made her happy, and quit telling her about my seeing.
I grew, became an exemplary student, graduated high school and entered college. My mom was proud.
One night, as I sat in my dorm looking through all my old journal pages, I realized that all my seeing assumptions of other people during my childhood had come true. They had later convicted the waiter from the restaurant as a serial killer. The woman in a park had narrowly missed death after she remembered the warning. The redhead man was a stalker. He’d been stalking her for months without her knowledge, but the night he rang her doorbell she screamed and slammed the door. The man pulled a gun from his pocket and fired a continual spray of bullets through her door, narrowly missing her. The woman could not tell the police why she screamed and slammed the door, except that a little girl had made her aware. The police had searched for me, thinking that they could somehow connect me with the man and his demons; they wanted to talk to me because the woman had told them that she remembered my saying he watched her a lot. They had not found me. The woman could not give them enough information. I’d had my hair pulled up and bundled it under a baseball cap. The cap was a result of my tomboy stage, so she couldn’t give anything specific about its length or my eye color. If my mother had seen the articles asking of my identity, she had ignored them. But I had seen them, and had kept them and all the other news articles I read that were a part of something I’d seen in my head. The redhead man went to prison for stalking and attempted murder. Other details of my seeing were in my journal from then also. A swimming pool drowning and a fall from a construction site, were two more of them listed where the killers had been found and convicted. They had not solved all the crimes that I knew had happened, but I knew eventually they would solve them; it would just take time and perseverance.
I was proud of my journal, but afraid of its contents too. People were skeptical of sightings and wanted to think the worse of psychics. I had never given police any help with the cases I had detailed because of fear they’d believe I was a weirdo of massive degree; I focused on my college education.
Even as I centered my attention on my education, the dream occasionally haunted me. I still told strangers to be careful and knew who was bad and wasn’t bad. I felt that I was different from other kids my age. I’d felt that way since I was very young. Although I had a good popularity at college, I trusted no one except Linda, my best friend since our primary school years. I’d made many friends when I was a child and played with neighbors’ children, but I’d never really felt close to any of them except Linda. A few of the kids I'd met I had stayed away from completely because of the mistrust I’d felt when around them. I remember one kid that only lived in our neighborhood a few months and how I always froze when I was around him, even as I couldn’t understand why. Others I refused to go near because I just felt they were bad news. Not because of any vision I had of their futures but by instinct. One I refused to hang with because he was always staring at me and it made me too self-conscious. Some kids I met I'd viewed as acquaintances, but a few were considered real friends although I wasn’t secret telling close to them. Mom would shake her head and tell me I needed to trust my instincts but not show judgmental rudeness. This was because she always made a point of making friends with all the parents on our street, especially the new families who moved there. She insisted I have playtime with their children and learn proper social behavior, as she called it. But I only trusted Linda with the contents of my journals, with what I saw and when I saw it, I trusted her completely. I knew, but didn’t tell Linda that she would marry, have three children, and that her husband would be in politics. Linda would have a good life.
Now, Linda sat in the room with a well-respected psychic and my disbelieving mother, and she was not at all surprised with what the psychic was saying. Linda had contacted the psychic even as my mom scoffed at the notion that psychics really could see the past, present or future.
Linda always said that her mind was about as relaxed as an overflowing ashtray. I fully agreed with that introspective reasoning.
And here I am, tying to convey my message to the psychic because my best friend’s mind is a closed ESP channel.
The song man had taken me and told me I was his song, his ultimate success.
I wanted to convey my thoughts to the psychic, Marie Holmes, but my top priority was with the worry lines around my Mother’s eyes. I reached out, felt myself placing my hand on her shoulder. Mom rubbed her shoulder, she’d felt the touch but didn’t recognize it.
"That was your daughter," Marie said.
She impressed me with her unostentatious style, but my mom looked at Marie with a question lining her forehead.
"The touch, the reason you had an urge to rub your shoulder, it was Trisha. She wants you to know she is worried about you, loves you. I feel her here very strongly."
Mom sighed and leaned forward, clasping her hands together around her right knee. "Mrs. Holmes, but to appease Linda, you would not be here wasting my time. My daughter is missing but the cops will find her; they will find her, and alive, Mrs. Holmes." Tears welled in my mom’s eyes; she wanted so deeply to believe what she’d said.
Marie moved her head side to side slowly and sat with her eyes closed and not speaking for a few moments. "I need something that belongs to Trisha, something special to her, that she touches often."
Mom heaved a heavy sigh of displeasure. "Well, most of her more personal things are still in her apartment, but I will go and find something of hers."
"I have something here, Mrs. Weston," Linda said, and pulled my journal from her backpack.
Mom rolled her eyes and motioned for Linda to hand it to Marie. I think mom would have preferred to give her a hair clip or some other item.
I had labeled my journal My Personal Picture Album and used calligraphy to handwrite the title. Calligraphy was another of the hobbies for which I had my mom to thank. Marie did not open the journal; she gently placed her hand on its front cover.
"Trisha has her deepest emotions, her love, her life story in this album. This isn’t a picture album as its label suggests, but rather, it is a journal of her thoughts. This journal contains a lot of visuals; it contains her fears and happiness. She thinks you are a very beautiful girl, Linda, respects you and likes how you have let your hair grow so it falls off the shoulders, complementing your oval face. She believes your eyes, brown and telling, is your greatest feature."
Linda’s eyes misted over. She sat quietly, remembering the day I’d told her she should allow her hair to grow long, and a smile escaped her lips. Linda, like me, treasured our friendship.
Marie inhaled and let it out slowly, wanting to focus on what I was sending her. "All of her other thoughts written in this book are creating a haze around my perceptions." Marie said. "A man with red hair, a dark hair man, a blonde woman, they are irrelevant to the present situation though. I need to move away from those thoughts she had in the past and see now, hopefully this minute."
I was trying desperately to allow Marie to see only what I wanted and needed her to see. I focused on my hand and placed it atop hers.
Marie’s eyes opened; she stared straight ahead, not seeing the pictures on the wall of my home nor seeing the furniture beneath them, but seeing me at college. "She knew he was watching her as she went about her daily schedule, and she kept looking over her shoulder. Even as she knew she would not see him anywhere, she sensed his presence . . . constantly. He is the man of her dream, a dream she had often over the years."
Linda gasped. "Yes, she told me someone was watching her. I begged her to call the campus police but she refused."
Marie shook her head in agreement. "They would have been skeptical of her story because she had no description to give them, just a feeling that he was stalking her." Marie again stared ahead, and seeing nothing except what I was sending her. "She is in her car and knows he’s behind her, not the red Volvo riding to close to her bumper. He knows where she is going so he doesn’t have to follow too closely. She is reaching for her cell phone but doesn’t pick it up. Trisha knows that nothing she does can put a stop to his mission; this is the night he has chosen. If she calls campus police and asks them to meet her at her dorm parking lot, he will keep going and wait until another night. She is thinking about her dad. She feels that she is going to die this night and the idea of seeing him, talking to him makes it easier too bare. The man, her captor, knows; he knows what she is thinking!"
Marie became silent. Mom and Linda were silent also.
"Trisha went to the campus and the first thing she noticed was that the street lamp that lit her parking space was out," Marie said when she again spoke. "He had broken it earlier that day. She pulled into her parking space and reached over for her purse and cell, but didn’t carry them with her. They would do no good for her, and she knew that, knew he would take them from her." Marie’s forehead wrinkled with a frown. "Her thoughts become a little puzzling to me now, they go to her dad again. Come on Trisha, I need you to think about him, your kidnaper. I need to see him, to know what he looks like."
Maire's head moved, she looked away, toward the window of my living room. "Her kidnaper is there behind her, but I can’t see where he came from; a mask covers his face; the same mask she’d seen in her dreams. He grabbed her and she inhaled, holding her breath so the cloth he put over her mouth and nose was useless. Trisha pretended! She pretended to be out cold. Her body went limp and he removed the mask so he could catch her. Just as he grabbed her, she realized he had known of her thoughts about her dad, this confuses her."
Marie raised her hand to her eyes and rubbed them. I decided to give her a few minutes to consider all she has seen in her mind.
"The man drives a dark van, black I think. He put her in the van behind the driver’s seat and fastened the seat belt before getting in and driving away. I’ve perceived that, at this time, Trisha is still alive; he has not killed her," Marie said.
I sensed the collective sigh of relief passing from mom and Linda’s lips. I was proud of mom; she had been paying attention, hoping.
"I told you that!" Mom was tearing with her nervous worrying. I wanted to hug her but I knew she wouldn’t recognize the signs if I sent them.
Marie ignored my mother’s verbal lashing. "He’s had her for three days now, right? And the police have no lead on who has her, or where?"
"No," Linda said. "I told them what I know, and gave them a description from her dreams. They looked at me like I was an escapee from the local mental hospital. One officer wanted to give me a ride back, I am sure. He glared at me accusingly, like I was holding up the investigation. I may be a suspect now."
"Who is the detective handling the case?"
"Detective Fuller is the one who came to the college," Linda said. "He seemed a nice man actually; he did listen attentively and thanked me for my cooperation before he dismissed me. Honestly, I figured Fuller dismissed what I told them just like the other cop with him did."
"No, I don’t think either one did. I know Detective Fuller. He takes all information seriously no matter how trivial in content; Or how inconsequential it may seem at first thought. I wish Trisha had seen the man’s face."
"Oh, so do I, Marie, so do I," Linda said. "I’m just worried because they have homicide detectives working a missing person case.""They have a reason for that, Linda," Marie said. "The police are concerned because the MO is similar with Trisha’s disappearance as it was with the others who have gone missing the past couple years. She is not one to have left without telling someone where she was going; her car was found locked with her purse and cell phone inside and the police could find no signs of a struggle."
"They can’t think the same man who took those women is the one who has Trisha! She never intimated that the man of her dreams was a serial killer." Linda wrung her hands nervously. "A couple of the women who have gone missing were found . . . dead. Oh God!"
Tears fell down Linda’s cheeks, changing course as they overflowed her dimples. My mom gasped, as if someone had stabbed her.
And, I heard familiar footsteps. As I listened to the sound, I realized they weren’t completely familiar after all. The footsteps were heavier, more deliberate than I remembered having heard Song Man having. Was he angry, and in anger added more pressure, more body weight in his footsteps? I became nervous, pushed myself back in the corner of the room and waited. I’d lost the connection to home, my place of sanity; fear gripped me as a feeling of hopelessness for my situation rushed over me. I stared at the door, waiting, waiting for my death.
I heard doors open and shut and a voice yell, "Son!" What was happening?
"What are you doing here?"
"You know why I’m here. Didn’t you think I would realize what happened, that I would know what you’ve done? Take her back."
"No. She is my song, my ultimate success. I will not take her back."
"Why? What is the purpose of all this anger in you? Why do you want harm to come to her?"
"I have not harmed her. Maybe I just want her to know the truth, like I know the truth. You do remember my mother, don’t you? She always called me her ultimate success, her song. I have to make mom proud." "Son, you can’t seriously believe this would make your mother proud! She’d be heartbroken to know you did such a horrible thing. Think of this girl’s mother, consider what she must be going through!"
"That’s it, isn’t it! You care more about her mother’s feelings than you do about making my mom proud of me, of you! You deceived my mom, argued with her and made her cry. You yelled at her, and you hit her."
"I never hit your mother!"
I became more scared as the two men’s anger with each other increased. I wanted to scream out; I am here! Help me! But my vocal chords froze, failing me. My brain function was slowing; I did not know how long I had been in the darkened room, but I thought it had been days. I felt frustrated, unable to help myself; I wanted to focus on my mom, with what was happening with her.
At my home, my mother was resting on the sofa. Linda covered her with a blanket then went into the kitchen with Marie and made them coffee. My mom’s dreams became restless, a repeat dream she’d had the past few months was disturbing her rem sleep.
Mom always went to the old square for a reason. She liked going there, patronizing the shops and showing support for the business owners who take a chance that the town would continue thriving. The larger chain stores off the interstate were great, but when at the stores in the old square she felt more appreciated as a customer.
In her dream, Mom was on First Street and the light changed to red before she could cross the intersection at Main. Since they allowed no parallel parking on Main Street, mom had a clear view. A man was driving slowly, a cell phone in his hand, and he was glancing at the buildings on his right. A sun glare beamed off the glass of his back window, but it didn’t hinder her being able to see what he was doing. He looked up and the red light turned yellow, but he didn’t start breaking. Mom saw the pedestrian, cell to his ear also, step off the curb and head across the street. She didn’t notice anything remarkable about the pedestrian or the driver of the car, but his actions were embedded in her mind. She saw a quick flash of the driver’s brake lights and no blinker to show he was turning on 3rd Street. Mom didn’t remember looking away, but thought she might have glanced up at the light or over at me, because suddenly the car was gone.
The light changed to green and Mom crossed Main, turning back west one block up and parked in front of the shop she wanted to visit. She was thinking that surely someone saw the car hit the man. He couldn’t have stopped in time to avoid hitting him.
After picking up the chair cushions she wanted for the chairs we use when our reading group meets at my home, we left the store and headed across the street to a sandwich shop for lunch. The small sandwich shop was mom’s favorite and she frequented it often. Betty, the owner and about 12 years older than my mom, had become a good friend over the years. She was one of the reading group, and I’d called her Aunt Betty all my life.
"Hi Betty, take a break and have lunch with us," Mom said when we went inside.
Aunt Betty smiled and nodded. We walked over to my favorite table near the window overlooking the street. Aunt Betty gave the server our food order and came and sat across from me. "I saw you go into Free’s Furnishings. Did you find the cushions I told you about?"
"Yes, I did. These cushions will make those card table chairs much more comfortable to sit in while we read."
The server, a young high school boy, brought our food and drinks over to the table. As I sipped on the tea, and watched people out the window, my mom and Betty talked. "Betty, have you heard any police or ambulance sirens since you opened up today?"
Aunt Betty shook her head no and Mom explained what she’d seen at the corner of Main and 3rd Street. "I know that man didn’t have time to cross before the car could come to a full stop," Mom said.
"You must be mistaken Lauren; we’d have heard the sirens. The man obviously made it across the street, or you just thought you saw him. Did you see him too, Trisha?"
"No," I said. The oddity about Mom’s dream was that she had it all wrong. I was the one who’d seen the man cross the street, but he nor the driver had been holding a cell phone. We hadn’t mentioned it to Aunt Betty during lunch either.
About two years before my seeing him, the man she’d seen in her dream had died at that street corner. He was 32 and had an eight-year-old son. That announcement was another newspaper article my mom had not shown me, but it was one that I’d discovered and kept.
Later, I had met the deceased man’s son. He was one of those new neighbors’ introductions my mom had insisted on, but thankfully his family had not stayed there long, just a few months. I wasn’t impressed with him at all; he had given off bad vibes and his constant singing a made-up song bothered me.
My mom woke with a start and sat up on the sofa. She was sweating profusely and threw off the blanket that Linda had spread over her then joined Linda and Marie in the kitchen.
Meanwhile, I was jerked into wakefulness, and became angry with myself for falling asleep. I was hearing more of the violent argument between father and son. I tried to block it all out as the negatives of fear clung to my soul.
"She sang a lot, do you know that?" The son was saying. "Mom would sing as she cleaned, even as she cooked she’d sing lines from songs she heard on the radio. Some songs she made up as she went along." His voice changed pitch, with a higher tone to it, near operatic.
He glared at his father, wanting to stress emotions from a living person’s point to him, to make his dad ‘see’ his mother’s pain. "Her favorite lines to sing were,
If you said you loved me,
my belief would soar high as the sky.
But if you said you were in love with me,
my heart would drop drop drop
drop into the caverns of doubt. My song, my ultimate success,
is all that keeps me going,
while you live inside your demons.
You never heard her sing those lines, did you, Dad? You never listened to her broken heart. You were too busy writing your own song, the song of a demon spreading fear by committing rape."
I cringed as I cowered in my corner with my arms wrapped around my knees. Confusion was heavy in my mind, but I knew this was in part from exhaustion, hunger, and thirst. It had been days since I’d had food or ample drinking water. I dug around in my pockets for the last peppermint; it was sticky from my previous sucking on it, but I popped it into my mouth knowing when it was gone then I’d have nothing left to sustain me. I’d about finished it off when I heard the voices come closer to my dark room. I swallowed, causing the tiny piece of peppermint to slide down my throat and me to cough uncontrollably.
"Son, you have to let her go! Listen to that; she is becoming ill."
"Who cares?! Let her! I was ill when you . . . "
"When I what, Son? Left you? Do you think that was on purpose? My God! That is ridiculous. I didn’t deliberately leave you! She doesn’t deserve this son; she isn’t responsible for my actions!"
I was terrified. Shadows of darkness ranged overhead, coiling themselves without shame as the two men argued. All I could do was hope, hope that the man’s father could force him to see reason and let me go. But, I doubted that after hearing what they said next.
"Have you fed her, given her water?" "What on earth for? I don’t need food when I am floating around in my nothingness! Why should I give her human comforts? The only gift I will give her is truth. I want her to know the truth! The truth about you, before she joins me in the negativeness of the afterlife." My kidnapper’s voice changed from tenor to bass; his voice defined anger, confusion enveloped him with what his dad was saying verses his need to prove himself.
"Son, you can’t be serious! You can’t let her dehydrate and die of starvation.""Why can’t I do exactly that? I’d stop the gene pool, your gene pool. I’ve known ever since the first time I saw her. I knew she was a part of you, of your blood. Just like me!"
"And how did you know this?"
"Instinct, Dear Ole Dad! You raped her mom, Dad. You raped several women, but her mother became pregnant with your child. She is your daughter, my sister! And that, Dad, will make her my song, my success!"
"You think her dying will make your mother proud of you? It will shame her, and make her unable to show her face in public again."
"She won’t know it was me, not until she joins me in the afterlife, then I will tell her. That won’t be anytime soon. Mom lives, and is a healthy woman, but sadly, alone. Because of you, Dad!"
I didn’t understand all they said. One thing I did understand though was that my captor was lying, he’d left me a small amount of water in this dark room, but it was about gone, only a few sips were left. What did he mean about my mother being raped? I was my father’s daughter, the father who died before I graduated high school. And my father was not this man who was yelling at his son; my father had no son.
I wanted to focus on what was happening at home, to send Marie a hint of where I was but it was useless, I didn’t know where I was. I feared that I’d never see my mom and friends again.
As the two men continued arguing, I fought for an inner hope, for a light to show me the way to escape. But the darkness of the room refused to give me a clue. My psychic abilities failed to show me the road, the house, the address of where they were holding me. My mind was weakening as my body became emotionally exhausted and I again dozed.
I dreamed of my mother having a private conversation with a man wearing a dark suit. He was a detective. Mom was upset; tears rolled down her cheeks, and in my dream I wondered if the detective had told her that they had discovered my body.
In this world of mist I was seeing through, I wondered if instead of dreaming, I was in reality seeing all that took place after I had died.
I remember hearing a sound, a loud thump, and then the door to my captivity room slammed open. I saw a face and everything I’d known and not known flashed before my eyes, it was a fast playing movie reel.
The brightness of light invaded my soul. I knew nothing more.
Linda and Marie came downstairs together, neither had slept well and it showed in the way they held their shoulders. Linda’s eyes were swollen; she had been crying. Marie wore a worried expression on her face; she’d had some strong visions and wanted to talk to my mom about them. She’d begun staying over after the day 3 of my captivity had come and gone without a word of my whereabouts known to anyone. She connected with me better that way, and felt she would know when or if I died.
Mom was sitting in a chair, crying uncontrollably as Detective Fuller tried to comfort her. She glanced up as Marie and Linda came into the room, her eyes full of sorrow and pain.
Linda’s hand went to her mouth, stopping the scream that was building inside her. Detective Fuller was about to speak when Marie ran to the door, slammed it open, and saw what the others didn’t see. Marie saw a car, an older model, dark in color, speeding away from the house. Then, she saw me.
I was lying out on the lawn, a mere shell of myself.
Mom fainted in Detective Fuller’s arms. Linda beat Marie to my body as she screamed, ‘Oh My God!’ Detective Fuller gently put my mom on the ground and called for Marie to come to her. He wanted to call for an ambulance and notify his partner and captain of my sudden appearance on the lawn.
The doctors said I was exhausted, and near dehydration. Although I had evidently not been completely without fluid intakes, it hadn’t been enough to sustain me for much longer. My condition was critical but he believed I would live. Had it been another few hours, I would’ve been dead.
My weight was under a hundred pounds and the doctors had IV’s flowing continuously in my veins. While I slept and dreamed, I wasn’t aware of where I was, who was with me or what they said. I lived in my own world, a world of learning, of truths.
I stayed in this semi-comatose state for a full two weeks, occasionally moaning, sometimes calling for mom, for dad, but mostly staying silent. My visitors came and went, Aunt Betty, Linda, Marie, the police, and the doctors and nurses all were giving my mom encouragement to have faith. They said that I would be okay once I woke; I’d be myself again. What they didn’t know was that nothing would or could ever truly be the same again.
I woke on a Sunday afternoon and looked over at my mom. She was dozing but her face looked strained, compressed with worry. Sitting in a chair nearby was Aunt Betty, her face was strained too, but it was a knowledgeable face. Aunt Betty looked up and our eyes met. She knew that I knew; I knew it all now. The lessons I’d learned before my abductor’s father had found a way to physically pick me up and carry me home had delivered themselves over into my dream state the past couple weeks.
My mind was still a mass of details and situations of my abductor, the biological son of Aunt Betty’s rapist and the same boy I had met when I was a child. One I had felt was not someone I wanted to know. He had died a few years later, the same tragic way his Dad had died. He had crashed his car while running away from an accident he’d caused.
Somehow he had learned as a spirit; he had learned how to physically touch the living and had used that ability to kidnap me. That is why he was so sure no one would discover his identity. He’d first practiced his ability on a few others before taking me, but none of his victims had died, someone else committed those crimes. My abductor just followed in that murderer’s shoes, used his MO. The few women who my abductor took hadn’t known anything definite about their kidnapper. He was a stranger in a mask to them. He had babbled to them about gaining in his knowledge about his song, his achievement, his success. Then he’d have left the van, knowing they’d escape, allowing it.
My throat felt dry, and scratched, like I’d swallowed sand. When I opened my mouth, Aunt Betty rushed over and put a small cup of water to my lips. I drank slowly before speaking. "I know now, all of it." My voice was but a whisper but it woke my mom.
"Trisha! Thank God you are awake!"
I smiled over at mom. "I want food; I’m starving."
Mom laughed softly but I detected underlying nervousness. "Good,"she said, and rang for the nurse.
For the next hour I was checked over by nurses and the doctor. My doctor told me I was a very lucky young lady. I’d been near death when they brought me to the hospital. He wasn’t telling me something I didn’t already know, but I smiled and thanked him for doing what they needed to save me.
A little while after the doctor left, they brought a tray to my room. I looked at its contents of broth, fruit juice and tea and stared over at my mom. "I want food, real food!"
"Drink the broth honey; you need it right now."
I did as she said. The broth was hot and burned a little but it was good. I cooled my throat with the tea then pushed the tray aside. Just as I pushed the tray aside, Detective Fuller and another detective entered the room. I looked up at them. Fuller had a gentle, caring face and I instantly liked him. "I’m not up to this right now," I said. "I’m tired and want to rest and talk to Mom."
"Trisha, the sooner we talk, that you give me a description of your abductor then the quicker we can apprehend him and put him behind bars for good. We need some information."
"He was masked," I said, and closed my eyes.
"Please, Detective Fuller, let her rest before you go into all this with her," Mom pleaded. "She needs to rest and gain her strength." Detective Fuller complied with my mom’s wish.
I woke very early the next morning to discover Linda was there and she’d sent Mom downstairs for food; a nurse was taking my vitals. "Coffee, please, could I have some coffee?"
The nurse smiled and went off to find it.
"You can never know how great it is to see you smiling, Trisha! God! I was so terrified when that man had you. The whole school has talked of nothing else for the last few weeks! They’ve all been praying they will catch your kidnapper.""Linda, they will never catch my kidnapper. He wasn’t the same one who killed those other women. Although, he was the one who took a few and let them go, unharmed, before he took me. Mine was different, and the police have no way of catching him."
"You mean we have two kidnappers! The same man who those women keep saying disappeared on them was who had you? My God! The way they describe him, he’s a ghost! I figured it was fear that they were scared he’d come back for them."
"He won’t be back. I can’t explain it now, okay, but I will tell you everything after I go home. Be patient with me, Linda."
Mom came in the room and Linda left for school. "I’m so glad you are awake. You weren’t restless last night. You slept peacefully didn’t you?"
"Yes, I did. We need to talk, Mom. I need to know why you never told me I was Aunt Betty’s daughter."
The nurse came in with two cups of coffee and a smiling face. "It’s freshly made this morning, Mrs. Weston," she said as she handed mom a cup. "Trisha’s vitals are stronger this morning. Detective Fuller has called and wants to talk to her."
"Tell him to give me a couple hours. I need time to shower, and then we can talk," I said. The nurse smiled an acknowledgment and left the room.
After helping me with my shower, and I’d curled up under fresh bed linens, Mom sat in the chair facing my bed. "Your dad and I had been married barely a year when Betty came into our lives," she said. "The Furniture Store was doing a good business and we were financially okay and happy. Although he would have never stood in the way of a career if I decided to have one, he wanted me to stay home, and I did too. So, after Betty came to his office asking for a job application, we both decided I would quit and she could have the job. However," mom said and averted her eyes. "Betty was closing the store one night when a man grabbed her, forced her into the store and assaulted her. Betty was emotionally devastated; we’d had a few rapes in town and the police believed the same individual was perpetrating them. Your dad made sure after the rape that he was the one to close the store and she was safely in her car before he left. He refused to allow her to work after hours."
Mom sipped her cold coffee and I patiently waited for her to continue. "About three months later Betty discovered she was pregnant. She wrestled with her emotions, the rape was still very strong in her mind and fear was a daily issue for her. She was scared to be alone in the store, or with any man except your father. Mostly, she was scared of having the baby. However, Betty could not force herself to abort, it wasn’t something she felt that she was capable of doing. As she began to feel you move inside her, she started having nightmares about the rape and knew that if she tried to keep you, it’d be a daily reminder. She didn’t know how she could do it. But, couldn’t decide for sure if she could give up a child to strangers either. Don’t judge her, Trisha, understand her feelings, please."
"I do," I said.
"Well, one day when she was about seven months into the pregnancy a woman came into the store carrying a small child, about a year or so old. Her husband followed her in and Betty saw him. She left and went into the office before he could see her. Something inside her told her that he was the man who raped her. The rapes had stopped. No more rapes were reported after he raped her, and she was scared if she said anything to the police, she’d be accusing the wrong man. She felt it could be her dream, and so she kept quiet about him to everyone except your dad and me. She also became more scared. She was afraid he’d see her one day and know the child was his.
As Betty’s delivery date neared, Bill discovered he was unable to father a child. We went to Betty and suggested that she allow us to adopt her baby. She could, if she wanted, see you, and be active in your life. But you would legally be ours and she could never reclaim you. She agreed and the rest is history. We got an attorney and we were there when you were born. My name went on the birth certificate and we listed your dad, William Dean Weston, as the father."
Mom stood and walked over to the bed and sat beside me. She took my hand in hers, and then kissed my forehead.
"When you were about six or so, the driver of a car that neglected to stop at a red-light killed the rapist. He was a pedestrian. He never knew that Betty had become pregnant by him that night. But when he was alive, Betty was really afraid he’d want to be part of your life, would insist on it, even if it meant he’d go to jail. She was afraid he’d claim he wasn’t the rapist and they'd had intercourse with her consent. After his death, she stopped having nightmares."
"He was the man in the dreams you've been having the past few months wasn’t he?" I asked. "And he was the man I saw when I was a child, he was crossing the street, only I’d seen him after he’d died, he was a spirit."
"How did you know I’d dreamed of that man’s accident lately? Betty had mentioned dreaming of him a few times and I guess it worried me, so he was in my nightmares too."
"I knew, Mom. I knew a lot, but didn’t know enough to sort it all out before he kidnaped me. What about Aunt Betty, Mom? How do I deal with her knowing that I know she is my biological mother?"
"It will be fine, Trisha. Just get better and tell the police what they need to know about the man who took you." Her forehead creased with a frown. "How did he know about all this history, why did he tell you about it?"
I let out a deep frustrated sigh. "Mom, I’m trying to make you see, it was Aunt Betty’s rapist, my biological father, who brought me home. And it is his son who is one of the serial kidnappers. I know you don’t believe in all this psychic stuff, and won’t really believe it was possible he could kidnap me, but it’s the truth. My biological brother kidnaped me and held me in his parent’s old house. I didn’t know Thomas, Junior had died, I’d not heard about his hit and run accident before my kidnapping." My voice quivered with a sudden sadness that overwhelmed me.
"Both of them are dead, Mom. The police won’t ever catch them. How can I tell them the truth?"
"It’s the truth, Lauren," Marie said when she walked into the room. "I am sorry; I wasn’t eavesdropping but overheard Trisha’s last statement. I’m amazed that these two men could physically allow you to feel them. That they were able to touch you."
"I don’t know if they actually did, Marie, but I do know I felt his hands on me when he kidnaped me. Maybe he was just sending thought waves my way to make me think it was happening, and I got into his van willingly. I could have sent you more if I’d known Thomas was dead. I could have fought spirits, they don’t hurt us, just make us hurt ourselves. But one thing that bothers me is, in my dreams, he always brought me food and water, but during my captivity, he didn’t feed me, he’d only left me a little water."
"I do believe it happened; I believe all of it," Marie said. "Dreams are sometimes a safe haven, you couldn’t imagine being without ample food or water when you were a child and the dreams began. So, you allowed him to give you nourishment."
"Well, I can’t tell the detective all that; he’ll think I’m ready for the mental ward!"
"Just describe the abductor as best you can to him. Leave out anything we all know about their spirit worlds."
And that is just what I did. I described my brother to Detective Fuller, in every way except his face; his face stayed covered when I saw him. Although I knew his name, knew what his face looked like, I’d never reveal it to the police. What was the point? My brother was long dead and it was likely they’d end up finding someone resembling him, and that would possibly cause an innocent man to go to jail.
I didn’t tell Fuller about the second man either, or that he was my biological father, or that the abductor was my brother. I really didn’t feel my brother would kidnap another person. I sensed he was finally at peace within his afterworld.
He had reached out to me the only way he knew how, and he could rest knowing he had nothing left to prove. I had become my brother’s song, his ultimate success. I knew the truth.
Home 
