Dreams and Whispers I was home again, a soft pillow under my head, warm and secure with the covers pulled up around my ears. I could hear my mother calling me from the foot of the stairs, telling me it was time for school…

But I didn’t go to school. I was suddenly walking along Spring River in my hometown of Spring Hill. I was holding Beth’s hand. The leaves on the birch trees around us were orange and yellow against the white bark and the wind was stirring in them. Beth’s blue eyes were turned up to me. Her curling honey-brown hair moved at the edges of her smooth features as the wind blew. I looked at her and hurt with yearning. We had fallen in love during my trial for Alex’s murder. We had fallen in love… but I couldn’t remember it. I wanted desperately to remember. But it was part of that missing year.

I felt a jolt and suddenly Beth was gone. The river was gone and so were the birch trees. Suddenly I was moving quickly and another guy’s face was moving quickly in front of me. Mike-Sensei Mike-my karate teacher. He was throwing blows at me, quick chops and punches, too fast to block. They hit me in the chest and the shoulder, jolting me again and again. Mike’s face was as it always was, long and lean with chiseled features under that neatly combed black hair he was so proud of and the big black mustache.