The Stolen Child I started to get, but my mother I haven dealt with yet

Chapter 7: 06:00

Jamie's awoke in a state that could only be described as panic stricken, scared to the point of paralyzing weakness. With her heart racing she bolted into an upright position. While sitting in this upright position she took stock of her surroundings. She was in a room.....she recognized the outline of the room she was in. It was the room in the B&B that she had checked into hours prior to her dream. She looked to her left where a night table stood beside her bed. On it was an alarm clock that indicated that it was 06:00 in the morning. The dreamshe had been dreaming but could not remember felt vivid and she felt muscle spasms swell up in her feet. They hurt, as though she had been running and was feeling the discomfort of her muscles that had not been properly warmed up before an exercise. Then she suddenly remembered the events of the past 24 hours as these rapidly flooded her mind's eye. She closed her eyes and felt a wave of fear, nausea and sorrow come over her. These emotions filled her with a deep sense of doubt and insecurity. She forced herself out of the bed and walked over to the bathroom. Without turning on the light she headed for the sink, turned on the tap and proceeded to bend over and take a few sips from the tap of running water. After she sufficiently had quenched her thirst she turned, walked out of the bathroom and moved towards the window. As she walked through the dark room she thought to herself, ' don't turn on the lights, keep everything dark ...I can hide in the shadows.' She had reached the window and pulled the curtains open just enough to create a space large enough for her to peer out of and look down onto the world below her. She saw an empty street with houses on both sides, all built in Victorian style. Here and there were trees planted along the side of the road. She glanced to her right and looked as far as she could up the road, nothing. Her gaze came back to the houses opposite her. On the other side of the road slightly opposite of the house she was overnighting in stood a bus stop. A small windowed halter, a bench to sit on inside with a sigh post that indicated that it was a bus stop. Jamie looked farther to her left to check for anything up the road. As she turned her gaze back she suddenly noticed the two people inside the glassed shelter bus halter. ' They weren't there a few seconds ago', Jamie heard herself say out loud. She looked more carefully at the two figures. One was a woman who was sitting on the bench. She was dressed in what looked like a burlap dress of grey/ beige and a vest like coat of brown. She had a sturdy build and had brown hair. Jamie felt her heart begin to quicken. The man stood leaning against the side wall of the glass encasement. He too wore a burlap costume of pants and a tunic of grey/beige colours and a brown vest. His footwear resembled boots but these were fastened with pieces of rope or cloth woven around his lower legs and up to his knees. He wore....what could only be described as a 'helmet.' He stood leaning on a large stick...something that looked like a spear. Jamie froze and quickly let the curtains go and took a small step backwards. ' It can't be' she thought to herself, impossible.' She mustered up whatever courage she had and took a small step forward, took the curtains in her hands and pulled them to the side, wide enough to get a good look. And again, she saw the two figures inside the bus stop below her window. It was as if they felt her gaze and simultaneously looked up to her window. The woman's face broke into a wide smile and she lifted both of her arms straight above her head and waved to Jamie. The man looked at Jamie with a facial expression that could only be interrupted as boredom and nodded at her. The seated woman noticed his cavalier reaction and turned to frown and say something to him with a disapproving frown on her face. She then proceeded to swing a very big brown handbag at his lower body. He yelped as he felt the impact of the bag on his hip and then lifted the hand that was not clutching the spear up to Jamie and managed a weak attempt at what she thought was to pass for a friendly smile or greeting. It was a crooked smile on a rugged face...he looked quite silly. The woman was clearly satisfied with his new attempt and turned her attention back to Jamie. She looked at Jamie with a smile and enquiring look as she nodded to her. Jamie jumped back from the window out of reflex. Her thoughts went blank and she found herself stepping forward again and pulling both curtains away to look at the road below. Nothing, there was nothing and nobody to be seen. It was a dark street in the middle of the night. Jamie let the curtains go, swiftly turned away from the window and hopped back into the bed that stood a yard away from the window. She pulled the covers over the top of her head as she worked her way deeper down as if she was trying to hide.

She woke up with a jerk.....looked over to her left and focused her eyes on the night table beside her bed. She look at the alarm clock that indicated that the time was 06:00 in the morning.