Three

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THE dream was changing. Even asleep I sensed it.

Before, it had been my mother and me, linked arm in arm, drawn down the center of our deserted street by the same violent destiny: home and soldiers and blood. Always blood. But now there was something different. Off. Needling at me like a riddle I couldn’t figure out.

The asphalt was still broken. Our neighborhood waited, silent and haunted, each condemned front door posting the Statutes like a warning of the plague. Above, a pale, flat sky spanned from shoulder to shoulder, and I was alone.

And then beside me, where my mother should have been, Chase appeared.

Not the Chase of now, but the boy I’d met long ago—messy black hair and the curious, daring eyes of an eight-year-old, white socks winking from beneath the jeans he’d already outgrown. He darted down the lane and I ran after him, giggling.

He was fast; every time I swiped at him, he escaped, my fingertips always just inches away from his billowing T-shirt. His laughter filled me with something warm and forgotten, and for a time, there was nothing but joy.

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