Hope he’s having sweet dreams, Hal thought to himself, as he got up and decided to turn in himself. First, he allowed the piss mister to extinguish the fire.

Hal walked past Ozzie into the cabin with a peace he hadn’t felt in a long, long time. Somehow Ozzie was healing him as much as he was healing Ozzie. Getting him back in touch with life and forcing him to process feelings he had never fully explored.

God, I love that little guy, Hal thought and drifted asleep as rain began to fall.

On the front porch, Ozzie began to dream. He dreamt that he was floating over the porch and spinning like a feather over the dying campfire. The heat pushed Ozzie above the forest canopy where he could look down to see a trail of smoke from Hal’s smoldering fire climb through the treetops like Jack’s beanstalk. Not far downstream, Ozzie saw a lush garden with an enchanting, black-haired angel standing in the middle with her arms spread wide. Overhead, he saw the swirling eye of an approaching storm, the sullen sky turning almost as dark as the mountain soil itself. Turning his gaze west, Ozzie drifted above another clearing where a winding road snaked up the mountainside. Below, he saw his mother lying on the ground alone, shivering and frightened. A lighting bolt singed Ozzie’s nose, tracing a path from the storm above and striking the ground near Isabella. From the ashes of the lightning strike, a man rose and brandished a steely knife in her face. Ozzie screamed at the man, but no sound came. He flung his arms to fly and save his mother, but the skies opened and—

“Every man for himself!” Hal shouted in the midst of a moonshine-fueled dream of his own that jolted Ozzie awake from his nightmare.

Ozzie jumped up on the porch and looked around, not knowing for a moment where he was. He ran inside the cabin next to Hal, trembling, and crawled under Hal’s bed. Before coming to Hal’s, he had never had nightmares. Now, horrific nightmares came nightly.

Shaking uncontrollably under Hal’s bed, Ozzie peered out the door hoping, praying to not see the men, the coyotes, and the swirling storm that he saw in his nightmares. He thought of his mother, alone, and his father murdered. The feelings tortured him, his love for his mother pulling him back to her, his fear of his enemies keeping him close to Hal. And he thought of Hal, who lived the life that Ozzie wanted. If only Isabella could be with him. But she wasn’t, and Ozzie was scared for her. He closed his eyes tightly and cried himself to sleep.

Chapter 14

As the flowers in her secret garden glistened in the morning dew, Angelica regretted giving into her body’s midnight craving and feeding it pork ribs. She knew that eating pork late at night was associated with bad dreams and poor sleep, but she devoured the ribs anyway, feeling sinfully gluttonous in the moment but unable or unwilling to refrain. Baby’s hungry, she had said.

She slept miserably, tossing and turning and unable to stay asleep. It was hard enough sleeping with her belly bulging more each day, and she needed some rest. Morning couldn’t come soon enough for Angelica, as she had hardly been able to wait to come to her secret garden, the one place that always gave her peace and comfort. Now, she gingerly fingered the branches of Nancy’s Tree as she walked to a hammock that joined twin crabapple trees. She sat on the hammock and threw her legs up with more difficulty than the month before. Angelica pushed off, using one of the overhanging branches, causing the hammock to sway.

The garden was hauntingly quiet, the air not breathing, the birds not singing. Her eyes were too heavy to stay awake and contemplate the quiet. She needed rest and the hammock quickly soothed her into a deep sleep and she began to dream.

A drop of rain fell from the heavens and kissed Angelica’s arm. Then another. She smiled at God’s gift of rain and studied the drop curiously. The raindrop was as black as a cave’s deepest secret. She touched the black drop and felt her skin rise, mushrooming into a searing black blister that spread along her arm before bursting and covering her in pus. In the dream, she searched the sky for answers, but instead of seeing God she saw a dark, swirling storm approach from the south. She peered closely at the menacing cloud and saw its shape contort into the shape of Blake’s face. He frowned at Angelica and spewed his black rain over her secret garden. The toxic rain stripped everything it touched as fur, feather, leaves, and flesh melted from trees and drained into the soil.

Suddenly, Angelica found herself floating on a branch high in Nancy’s Tree. As she reached to pick a ripe fig, its sweet scent faded, replaced by a putrid smell of rotten meat that gagged her. The figs began to rot and turn black as they fell from the dying tree with a splattering thud. Angelica tasted blood and wiped her lip to see blood coming out of her mouth. She looked to the ground and watched the blood wash down her legs, over her feet, drip from her toes, and plunge into the soil, as if the soil was pulling the blood from her. Her eyes grew wide with fear as she hugged her abdomen, realizing she was bleeding from between her legs.

“No!” Angelica screamed herself awake in her hammock.

***

Ozzie could hardly wait for sunrise. He crawled out from under Hal’s bed and greeted the cool October air, the early morning sun casting long shadows over Hal’s camp. The light was Ozzie’s friend, a blanket of protection, he felt, from the horror of his dreams. Walking downstream, Ozzie wandered aimlessly in the safety of the light. After walking for an hour he stopped by the stream to think.

A thin fog had risen from the night’s rain to cover the forest floor. Through the fog Ozzie saw a lush clearing at the point where the stream curved. He walked to it through the fog with trepidation and prayed there were no coyotes in the fog! Remembering the coyotes quickened Ozzie’s pace. He ran into the clearing and stopped, able to see well around him.

Ozzie stared at all the trees, the flowers, and the plants. He had lived his whole life where there was little to eat. Now, he stood in the most beautiful place he had ever imagined, and the fog made him feel as if he were dreaming again. He found himself surrounded by food. Plants came from the ground, mushrooms grew on logs and food had fallen from the trees. He looked up at the first fig tree he had ever seen and was entranced. He dropped his head to see a ground littered deep with figs. They were overripe but it didn’t matter. As Ozzie ate, he grinned and squeezed as many sweet figs as he could into his mouth. He lost himself in a trance as he filled his belly with the most delicious fruit he had ever tasted. A fruit that he figured must surely be forbidden.

“No!”

Ozzie snapped out of his trance as he heard a violent scream from a woman. He squinted through the fog to the other side of the garden. A woman shot straight up from a hammock and scared Ozzie back up the stream toward Hal’s camp.

***

Angelica looked over her body and touched her arms to make sure there were no blisters. She felt her abdomen carefully. Realizing it felt precisely how it should, she breathed a sigh of relief and wiped sweat from her forehead. She threw her feet off the hammock, put her head in her hands, and cried. The tears ran like a summer downpour, there was no stopping them. She was horrified. What did I dream? What does it mean? Is something wrong with my baby?

The thoughts raced through Angelica’s mind as the tears streamed down her cheeks. Why was Blake there? Why was he creating the suffering? Angelia closed her eyes and calmed herself as she allowed rational thoughts to overtake irrational tears. She felt her abdomen again and held her breath. She waited. The baby moved, ever so slightly, but she was sure. She exhaled. He’s fine, she thought, as she rose to inspect her garden.