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“Is anybody here?”Her voice barely rose above a whisper, yet it sounded foreign and intrusive in the silence.She waited, each second stretching taut like a string about to snap.There was no reply, only the eerie sense of being watched by unseen eyes.The mystery of the carillon’s earlier response lingered, unanswered, unsettling.
Then, with a suddenness that sent a jolt of alarm through her, the carillon came alive.Keys moved with purpose and precision, untouched by human hands.The Angelus melody filled the air, its notes clear and resonant against the stone walls.Caroline’s eyes widened in disbelief as she witnessed the impossible concert – the cobwebbed keys pressing down in a ghostly performance.
She could not fathom how this relic, which seemed abandoned for years, now pulsed with life.The tune, normally a call to prayer, rang out as an ominous herald in the dead of night.Frozen by the spectacle, Caroline’s skin prickled with dread.The music played on, indifferent to her shock, the melody echoing in the hollow space as if mocking her fear.
Instinct screamed at her to flee, to escape the madness of the moment.She spun on her heels, intent on racing back down the staircase.But as she turned, a presence loomed in the darkness behind her—a stifling closeness that made her skin crawl.
Before she could discern more than a slight motion, a cord whipped around her throat.Panic erupted as the rough texture bit into her skin, stealing her breath.Desperation clawed at her mind while her hands grappled futilely against the tightening grip.Caroline gasped for air, her vision blotching as she fought against the strength of her unseen assailant.In those frantic moments, the vibrant dreams of Chicago—the city that promised a new beginning—seemed to slip from her grasp like grains of sand.
Her struggle grew weaker, the world dimming at the edges as the Angelus played its haunting notes.The world began to tilt and blur as Caroline’s desperate fight for air turned into feeble twitches of her fingers against the cord.
Her thoughts, once a torrent of dreams and ambitions, now trickled down to a single stream—a lament for the future that would never come to be.She envisioned the stages she would never step foot on, the applause she would never hear, the songs she would never sing.Chicago was a city of lights that promised to shine on her talents, but now, those lights were dimming.
Caroline’s body slumped, the strength to resist ebbing away.The carillon played on, each note a piercing reminder of the life slipping through her grasp.
CHAPTER ONE
Jenna’s kept her gaze fixed on the flying sandpiper, which seemed to pull her along an invisible tether as she pursued it, airborne herself.The bird seemed to transmit a sense of urgency, an unspoken command urging her to keep pace.Beneath them, Whitmore Lake State Forest unfurled like a living tapestry, the winding road a charcoal ribbon against the rich green backdrop.
The sensation was intoxicating, but this time was different from some of her lucid dreams, where lucidity brought some degree of control.As it sometimes happened, although Jenna knew she was dreaming, she found that her consciousness could only observe.She was carried upon the whims of her avian guide.
The sandpiper darted ahead, cutting through the thickening air with purpose.Each flap of its wings seemed to punctuate the forest’s whispering secrets.Jenna followed, breathless and silent, a passenger in her own mind.
She knew she had been here before, both in the thrall of a dream and in the waking world in her patrol car.The ground below mirrored the gravel road she had driven.The lake loomed ahead, its still waters a mirror reflecting an endless night sky.The sandpiper’s wings beat with increased urgency, a frenetic tempo that echoed Jenna’s pounding heart.
Her perception narrowed as the dream hurtled her down through the forest, the trees melding into a blur.As they neared the dock, the bird descended again, its form cutting through the dense air with grace and purpose.Jenna followed, and soon her dream self walked on the dock toward the weathered post at the far end.A familiar dread knotted in her stomach as the carved initials came into view: “P.G.7/29/2010.”
Her dream self stood there, at the edge of the dock, staring at the inscription as though it might yield secrets that Jenna had sought for two decades.Her fingers twitched, an instinctual desire to trace the carved initials “P.G.”, but she refrained, knowing the futility of trying to make physical contact in this dreamscape.Instead, she absorbed every detail—the rugged indentations, the weathering around the edges, the date that seemed to taunt her with its significance.
Jenna’s intuition, which straddled the bounds of the natural and supernatural, assured her that the carving was a signpost, a guidepost.It was a message from the past or a precursor of what was to come …
Or perhaps it’s both,she thought.
Whatever it was, it wasn’t merely a figment of her dreaming imagination.It was undeniably real when Jenna had found it in waking life just yesterday.Could Piper have come here to leave this mark so long after her disappearance?
“Could you be out there, Piper?”Jenna whispered to herself, her voice a mere breath in the stillness.Eyes locked on the inscription, she took a step forward on the old dock, her spectral form casting no shadow.She called into the void, her voice stronger now.“Piper, are you here?”The words sliced through the silence, skimming over the lake’s surface, seeking her missing twin sister, the other half of her soul.
The inquiry went unanswered.No response came from the darkened tree line or the reflective abyss of the water.Jenna listened intently, straining to hear even the slightest whisper, a rustle of leaves perhaps, that might signal a presence.But there was only the sound of her own breathing, ragged and heavy with anticipation.
She turned away from the haunting inscription, letting the image burn into her memory alongside so many others collected over years of searching.Each piece, each dream, each whisper brought her closer to the sister whose absence shaped her life.Although it seemed clear that the answer wouldn’t be found tonight, the quest was far from over.
Then a whisper sliced through the silence.“Look,” it said.
Jenna pivoted, her movements ethereal as if she were composed of nothing more substantial than the mist rising from the lake’s surface at dawn.Her pulse thrummed in her ears, a dissonant echo to the calm that enveloped the dreamscape.She had expected—or perhaps hoped—for the comforting presence of Piper, but instead, she was met with an anomaly: an image suspended in front of her—the photograph of a teenaged girl.
The picture was comprised of dots impressed upon what appeared to be yellowed paper, like a black-and-white newspaper photo.Moving closer now, Jenna scrutinized the girl’s face, seeking clues within the grainy texture, the girl in the image seemed unfamiliar, yet the eyes held her—a silent plea or perhaps an accusation radiating from their depths.
Jenna struggled to find something familiar in the girl’s face, but the dotted visage was hard to make out in sufficient detail.Then, as she watched, the figure began to stir.A flicker, a subtle shift, and the stillness shattered.The lips of the image parted, a crease formed in the paper reality, hinting at words unspoken.
For a moment, Jenna forgot to breathe.The line between her spectral existence and the waking world blurred.Here in this liminal space, she was more than Genesius County’s sheriff; she was a conduit for voices that whispered from beyond the veil.Her eyes remained locked on the figure, willing the apparition to divulge its secrets.
Then wakefulness seized her like in its unwelcome, vise-like grip.
Reluctant to surrender the thread of her dream, Jenna tossed beneath the sheets, her movements fueled by a desperate need to reconnect with the enigma that had visited her slumber.She replayed the scene over and over, dissecting every detail of the girl’s face, the way her lips had begun to part …
She sealed her eyelids, trying to go to sleep again.But dreams are elusive creatures; the more Jenna pursued this one, the more it receded, slipping through her mental grasp like sand.Her bed became an arena of futile struggle, each position less comfortable than the last, each thought spiraling into the next without conclusion or solace.
With a sigh heavy with resignation, Jenna admitted defeat to the morning.The digital clock on her nightstand glared at her with the early hour, its red numbers a testament to the time stolen by her restless chase.Her eyes, once immersed in the spectral realm, were forced open by the intrusion of morning light that spilled carelessly through her bedroom curtains.