WHERE DREAMS BEGIN

PROLOGUE

She watched the arrival of the storm from the jagged cliffs that rose above the rocky shores of the great house.

The dark clouds moved swiftly across the sky, covering the glistening stars and full, silver autumn moon with their gray billowing veil. The wind tore her black cloak away from her slender body, its icy fingers grasping and tugging at her as the cold rain stung her fair skin with small, sharp, cutting bites. Her long flaxen hair whipped about her face in a wild frenzy, striking her face with wet lashes and blocking her large, sapphire eyes from viewing the horizon beyond. She struggled to hold her hair back as she strained to see out across the black water for any sign of a ship or possibly a sail but once again, there was none. She was here upon the cliffs, this evening as she was every evening. Searching and hoping for something, anything. She whispered a prayer out across the darkness for his safe return, to God, or to anyone who might listen to her quiet plea and grant her wish. The tears began to flow gently down her pale cheeks but the rain washed them away into nothingness into the ground at her feet. Her breath left her and her heart shattered like a china doll breaking into a thousand pieces in her chest as it did every night when he did not return to her. She closed her eyes in unspoken agony and stepped towards the cliff's edge. She could hear the cries of the women who had been here before her, wives and lovers that searched and waited for loved ones who never returned, their wails rising up from the water below. She looked back at the stately house standing strong against the coming tempest, seemingly begging for her to return to the safety of its walls. It was a virtual fortress of stone, softened only by the faint glow of candlelight that gently flickered within its vast expanse of glassed windows. Once again, the sea called to her in a lover's voice, soft and sweet and she turned to listen. She could hear her name traveling across the miles of water. "Laura" the voice sang in soft, windy tones. She stared out across the dark, black water once again, attempting by sheer willpower to create the ship into existence, to bring it home by the mere force of her being alone. Out of the darkness nothing but the sound of the voice calling her, biding her to come. The girl whispered back to the voice, "Jayson" and stepped forward into the darkness of oblivion.

As the girl fell from the cliffs, the sound of laughter rang clear and cruel across the water.

Learn more about this author, Cynthia A. Hudson.
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