She clucked her tongue then gave her head a shake, looking at me with an expression that said she had reached a conclusion she was not yet ready to share. Not in direct terms, anyway.

“I do not believe that is entirely true,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean perhaps you do not know for certain who she is, but you have a definite suspicion. That suspicion is exactly why you are here talking to me now.”

I huffed out a heavy breath as my response. I was feeling only a small amount of relief at unloading the painful information to begin with, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to take things the direction Helen was now heading. Of course, her high-powered perception was the very reason I sought her out; it just wasn’t always comfortable being under the polished surface of her lens.

Pressing on, I tried to bypass the inference. “Yeah, well…anyway, to answer your earlier question, that’s when I wake up…and, my heart is pounding in my chest; thudding against my ribcage so hard I can literally hear it. Just exactly like in the nightmare.”

“And, is that always how it ends?”

“Pretty much. Most of the time, anyway.” I nodded. “There’ve been a few times when it went a bit further. I’ll hear a creak of an opening door, and then the footsteps will actually make it into the room with me. Then, the wailing and crying of the others gets louder, but that’s pretty much it. It’s never progressed beyond that point. Not yet, anyway.”

“And, you never see her? The woman?”

“See? No. Feel, yes.”

“Does she feel familiar?”

“Can’t say for sure. Maybe.”

“Are you certain of that?”

I lifted my shoulders then allowed them to drop. “Yeah. Okay. She feels familiar.”