§ § § -- January 12, 1992
The flames soared to unearthly heights all around her; she could see nothing but fire wherever she looked. Everything was golden with flame; voices screamed in the far distance, so removed from her that she wasn't sure she heard them. The rushing roar of a new explosion of fire drowned them out, and from nowhere a massive burning timber toppled toward her, crashing at her feet with starbursts of sparks. She screamed and leaped back. Someone was laughing…
"Leslie!" She came awake in the dark bedroom as someone grasped her arms and pulled her abruptly into a sitting position. Blinking to clear her head, she realized that it was Roarke, whose eyes gleamed with alarm in the light from the hallway outside her door. "Leslie, are you all right?"
She stared at him, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. "The nightmare," she said.
Roarke frowned. "Why would you have it now?"
"I don't know. This time I really don't know," she said, shaking her head. "I can't pin it on any particular problem the way I always used to. Tonight it just…happened." She paused long enough for a realization to hit her, and she gaped at Roarke with new shock. "But this time, I actually remember it—every detail."
Roarke's stare grew more intense. "Tell me," he ordered urgently.
She described the dream, and he mulled over what she had told him, trying to make sense out of what sounded like abstract imagery. After a long moment he slowly shook his head. "If you can, Leslie, think back to the previous times you had this dream, and try to call back a memory of any kind. Do you think this is the same dream you've always had?"
She closed her eyes, forehead creasing with close concentration, and finally drew her lower lip between her teeth in slow motion. "The one image I can ever remember after I woke up was fire," she said. "Nothing but fire all around me, just like this time. I think it is the same dream, Mr. Roarke. I'm so tired of this nightmare. I want it to stop, forever."
"Naturally," Roarke agreed. "Perhaps there is some reason for its appearance now, without readily apparent cause. For now, try to get some sleep, and we will examine it in the morning if there is time."
There wasn't; but the matter wouldn't be abandoned, for the next night Leslie dreamed again. This time, in addition to the same images of fire and the sight of the burning timber and sound of laughter, she saw the house in Susanville, being consumed by flames. The laughter grew into a scream of unimaginable pain, and she was jarred wide awake at that point, though she didn't cry out. But Roarke appeared in the doorway nevertheless.
"You had the nightmare again," he said.
Leslie nodded and told him what she had seen. Roarke frowned, shook his head, then sighed deeply. "Perhaps…" he murmured, mostly to himself, thought, then gave in. "It's late. Go back to sleep, and perhaps we will be able to look at it more closely later."
Not till Thursday morning did they at last find an opportunity to scrutinize the nightmare. By now it had reached the point where she was reliving the night she had been orphaned, in such precise detail that it differed very little from her actual memory of it. She was still shaken at breakfast that morning, not quite able to muster up any appetite, feeling a touch sick to her stomach.
Roarke looked up. "How did the dream change last night?" he asked.
She paled noticeably and had to clear her throat before she could speak. "I might as well have been thirteen again and reliving that last night in Susanville," she said.
Roarke's gaze sharpened and he gave her his full attention. "Tell me exactly what you saw that night," he said. "Not what you saw in the dream, but what you remember from the actual night of the fire."
Leslie considered this, wondering just where to start, then sighed softly and began, "I had just said goodbye to Mom, and I crossed the front yard to go up the street to Cindy Lou's house. But then I saw the headlights of Michael Hamilton's car turn into the street, and I hid in the neighbor's hedge across the street from us." Her gaze drifted, losing focus as she replayed the memory. "I watched him get out of the car, and I was waiting for him to go inside so I could come out of hiding and escape to Cindy Lou's…but he didn't go in. He was carrying something—now that I think about it, it looked like a gasoline can—and it must have been full because I could see he was exerting some effort to tote it around. In fact, he started at the corner of the house nearest to the driveway and started making tossing motions with the can, like this." She focused on Roarke long enough to demonstrate. "But he didn't throw the can itself, just what was in it. I could hear splashing sounds. He started working his way toward the back of the house, and I came out of the bushes when he disappeared around the corner…I thought maybe I should tell Mom that he was acting funny. But I was moving slowly, trying not to make any noise so he wouldn't hear me, and it took me too long to get back to the front door. So when he came out from behind the house, on the other side, I had to climb the tree to prevent him seeing me there.
"I could still see him through the leaves…splashing the contents of that can on the outside walls of the house, working his way around to the front. He was muttering to himself, but I couldn't quite make out his words." Leslie fell silent, closing her eyes and giving careful scrutiny to that aspect of the memory, in the hope of deciphering what he had said. But it wouldn't come into focus, and she finally gave up and shook her head. "No, I can't make it come out. Well…I do remember him starting to laugh at one point. Then I heard the air conditioner switch on. Just like that, the house blew up.
"It was the most unreal thing I'd ever seen. All I could think was, I have to get Mom and the twins. But the house was just covered in gasoline and it had been dry all summer on top of that…and it just went up like so much paper. I must have lost my grip on the branch, because all of a sudden I felt myself falling out of the tree. I can't really remember landing on the ground—I was just there, it seems like. And I started screaming for Mom…but she didn't answer. No one did…I think my brain just stopped working for awhile after that, because all I remember now is waiting for Mom to come out. Even after the fire department got there and started hosing the place down…it took them almost two hours to put out the fire, and by then there was just about nothing left. Just the timbers, all black and smoking, like the skeleton of the house. And I was still waiting…" Leslie's voice trailed off at last and she closed her eyes again; her eyelashes grew damp, and a tear leaked out.
Roarke reached out and covered her hand with his, squeezing gently. She had spoken mostly in a monotone, all but racing through her narrative as if in a hurry to get it over with and stop concentrating on it. He couldn't blame her; the memory almost perfectly matched the vision he still clearly remembered showing her mother many years before. She had failed to mention the sight of Michael Hamilton, drenched in gasoline, being killed in his own fiery trap right there in the open, practically in front of her; perhaps she actually hadn't seen it. It was possible; it sounded as though she had been too intent on willing her mother out of the house to pay attention to anything else.
After a moment he gently brushed away the tear, smiling briefly when she opened her eyes. "I believe the time has finally come for you to confront your anger with Michael Hamilton," he told her. "And as I have said on various occasions in the past, I will help you deal with it."
"Can you give me something to sleep through the night tonight?" Leslie asked. "You did that once before, when you and I last battled Mephistopheles."
Roarke considered this. "I suspect these dreams are sending you a message," he said. "Though I realize they are painful for you, I think it's better this time that we let them happen." His features took on a thoughtful cast before he asked, "Exactly how old were you when the fire occurred, Leslie?"
"That was out of left field," she said in surprise. "How exact do you mean?"
"To the day," he said.
Leslie's gaze drifted away for a moment while she calculated. "Thirteen years, four months…from May to September…and the fire was on the ninth, so that makes three days."
Roarke calculated in his turn. "You are now twenty-six years, eight months and ten days old. The first dream occurred four days ago, when you were exactly twice the age you were the night of the fire. There must be some significance in that." He frowned, falling silent and ruminating. "I'll have to look into the matter more closely. Meantime, try to calm down and continue on as you normally do. Don't worry, Leslie—I promise you, we will get to the heart of the matter." He smiled and patted her hand. "Have some breakfast; we have a full day ahead of us."
Leslie regarded him curiously. "Just one question, Mr. Roarke," she said. "What made you come up with the question about my age?"
"The simple fact that it has taken so many years since the fire for the day to finally arrive when you were obligated to confront the issue. If your age made no difference, this would have happened long ago. Perhaps it's as well; now that you are an adult, you have more strength and more experience."
"That may be, but I'll still need your help," she reminded him.
Roarke chuckled softly. "Yes, I suspect so," he said. "I have other suspicions about this problem as well; but they must wait to be addressed."