Sneak Peek – “Dream Child”
I’m thrilled to be participating in the Sneak Peek blog hop (just click HERE to follow a whole bunch of other great indie authors who are giving sneak previews of their work!).
I want to show off a little bit of the third book in the Dream Series, “Dream Child” this morning…
This is from the prologue, when our heroine, who’s gotten somewhat used to her ability to step into other people’s dreams, receives a very troubling surprise about her daughter…
Sara looks down, and she’s surprised to see her belly rather than her feet. She had no idea she would get this big this fast. It wasn’t like this the last time, with Lizzie, she thinks. But then, she reminds herself, Lizzie was just one – this time it’s two.
Sara walks into Lizzie’s room, where her daughter is sitting up in her bed, playing with a very old, very ratty stuffed rabbit.
“Lizzie, honey? Mommy needs to talk to you,” Sara says, and Lizzie sets Mister Pennington aside and looks up. Sara sees her own eyes staring at her, something that she wonders if she’ll ever get used to. She sits down on the bed, pats Lizzie on the head. “You know your friend Marnie?” Lizzie continues to look intently at Sara and nods her head up and down several times. “You know how she has a baby brother?” Lizzie continues to nod, not breaking eye contact with Sara. Sara wonders if this was how she was with her mother.
She’s about to continue when someone else walks into Lizzie’s room. Sara turns, but she knows before she does who she’ll see, and she knows – even though she’s never experienced this side of it before – exactly what’s going on.
Her daughter stands in the doorway, looking at Sara and another version of herself as well. Sara doesn’t say anything; she doesn’t want to scare Lizzie. Lizzie looks at herself briefly, but the image of herself seems to hold no interest. She focuses on Sara, concentrating all her three-year-old attention span on her mother.
“You’re so big, Mommy!”
***
Where’s Lizzie? She was standing in the doorway. She was – oh, my God.
She was seeing – she was inside – she saw me dreaming. She’s got it just like I do.
I jump out of bed and I have to hold myself back from running into her room in a panic. I don’t want to frighten her. She can’t possibly realize what just happened. She can’t know what it means. I take several deep breaths, collect myself as best I can, and then I walk slowly, calmly, into her room.
She’s sitting up on her bed. She fixes her gaze on me, just like she did in the dream, concentrating on me with all her might. “Mommy, I had a funny dream.”
“I know you did, honey. Can you tell me about it?” I sit next to her, also just like the dream.
“You were big. Really big. You sat like now, on the bed. You were really big.”
I hug her, kiss her forehead. “That is a funny dream. But I’m not big, not for real. It was just a dream.” I can’t even imagine how I’m going to explain what happened to her. I’m concentrating on keeping my voice calm and level and soothing, and that takes all my effort.
My mother is watching us from the doorway, and I turn to look up at her. “Everybody has funny dreams sometimes, honey,” she says soothingly. She has no idea about funny dreams – in all this time I’ve never told her about mine. I may have to now, if Lizzie has the same – talent, ability, whatever you want to call it – that I do. But for now Mom’s oblivious to that. She coos to Lizzie, “Do you want to try and go back to sleep?”
“No!” Lizzie answers. So much for that. “I’m hungry!”
Of course she is. When is she not? At least it’s something to think about besides her dream. I – God, I haven’t thought about it in so long. I haven’t had the dreams myself in more than four years, not since Dr. Morris and Maureen and all that madness. Not once. I never, ever imagined Lizzie having them – I don’t know what I’m going to do.
You can buy the book at Amazon, just by clicking HERE! And it’s available as a fantastic Audible audiobook, too! you can hear a ten minute sample, just click below…
by 