The Girl With the Bad Dreams

Chapter 5

The elevated train platform at Belmont station is clean concrete sidewalks under a Plexiglas roof. The tracks themselves are old and rusting; thirty yards wide with a bizarre series of switches serving this junction of three different lines. And beyond the glass partitions and stainless steel barricades rise the scarred brick buildings aged by a hundred howling winters.

It's a bright fall day and most of the commuters wait fot their trains with their heads raised, anxious to feel the kiss of sunlight, instinctively knowing that dark winter is coming. But for Carlin winter is already here. She steps off her train and strides toward the escalator, her head bowed as if winter's wind was already tearing at her face.

Carlin doesn't pause on the escalator; she doesn't allow it to carry her leisurely toward the street. Instead she jogs down it, dodging her way past more patient passengers, allowing the automated stairs to double her speed.

Then she pushes through the turnstiles onto to Belmont street itself. Storefronts house army surplus stores, used clothing boutiques, head shops, tattoo parlors and bondage stores. The psychedelic competes with the grotesque for attention. But Carlin ignores everything, keeping her head down, until she arrives at a plain windowless façade marked with nothing but a red door.

Carlin pauses, pulls her phone out of her pocket, and checks it for the address. The door has no address to help her. Instead she is forced to look at the stores on either side, and deduce that this must be the right place.

Carlin finally decides it must be correct and pushes the door open. She's greeted by a flight of straight wooden stairs.

At the top of the stairs is another door, also painted red. Carlin opens it, too, and a bell jingles, signaling her arrival.

Carlin steps into a room dominated by a round table surrounded by bookshelves. Tall windows let in the autumn light. The air is thick with incense and curling smoke dances in the sun's rays.

A handsome woman in her fifties reads a book on a side chair next to one of the windows. A gray streak runs through her dark hair, and she wears a dark serape that enhances black and white contrast of her figure. She smiles at Carlin, her white teeth flashing beneath ruby red lips. "Good evening, you must be Carlin."

Carlin nods, uncomfortable. "That's right, I called earlier.

"Have a seat and we can get started." The woman stands up gracefully while she signals to the table.

Carlin sits across from her and the woman puts her hands, palms up, on the table. Carlin wrings her own hands. "To be honest, I've never really believed in this stuff."

"Oh really? And what changed your mind?"

"There's been some...weird stuff happening lately."

"You want to talk about it?"
"I think first I just want to hear what you have to say."

The woman smiles knowingly. "You are trying to test me?"

Carlin shakes her head, embarrassed. "Of course not, I'm just –"

But the woman silences her with her eyes. "It's okay, I don't mind. Give me your hands."

Carlin reaches across the table and places her hands in the woman's palms. The woman closes her eyes and turns her face toward a window. Carlin watches as a beam of sunlight moves across the woman's visage like dawn on some alien planet. "You're right, there are strange things happening," says the woman, without opening her eyes or looking in Carlin's direction. "But they're not weird, they're normal. What I'm seeing is a change in your life, and change always seems frightening and weird. You don't have to be afraid, though, you should embrace it. It's a new beginning."