Chapter 3: Holly

I wish you would show up at our doorstep. I would greet you by name -already knowing who you are, for you would not have changed a bit since the day my grandmother first met you all those years ago...

My heart races, the familiar presence of the stranger lingers over me. I rush to my window, seeing nothing but a moonlit ocean. I should probably tell Nan by now, but the excitement the anticipation that someone, something interesting might be happening in my life, makes me smile and gets me thinking. I picture the man from my dreams, flames lick is body, sweat evaporating as it leaves his skin and steams into the flames. I never see his face always distracted by the contours of his body; suddenly Nan pulls me away a knowing smile on her face. I’m confused but follow her anyway only to reach a place that always seems to slip my memory. I sit at my desk in a tiff trying to remember the dream that waits my every night I close my eyes.
     “Hey Nan, do you know anyone who works at a circus?” she smiles, and it mirrors identically to the one in my dream, I try to look composed but am smiling inside "could he possibly be real?
     “Oh course I do I told you the story about him when you were little, remember?”
     “Yes, actually I do...thank you Nan” I say my mind elsewhere thinking back to when I was just little girl and I used to imagine how he would look like; he was my imaginary friend for a while too. He had short blonde hair that spiked out in all directions and he was a famous fire breather with the Russian Circus. He had a white Friesian the only one of its kind, it was so beautiful. Lacy was its name and it was so pretty that all the kids in town couldn’t take their eyes off her whenever we rode through town together; well that never actually happened since it was only in my head, though it feels so real like a true childhood memory -but that’s not possible, he wasn’t real. I sign, force myself off my seat and get changed into something more sleepwear like. As I work into my room, the whole cabin fell quiet -too quiet. I waited to hear Nan scrub a dish, or hum or something to let me know she’s ok. The cabin became eerie and dark, like the life had been sucked from the room. A purr hummed in my ear, it sounded like it came from some sort of giant cat, and I was too scared to see for myself and just bolted to the kitchen where Nan stood wiping down the bench top.