Chapter Five

“What’s this,” I asked-my voice laced with panic.

“Come up here,” he said smiling, though my instincts said to just run away I couldn’t say no to him and came up the ladder into the ash-filled tree house.

“Do you mind telling me what’s going on now?” It never occurred to me that my dreams actually meant something. Maybe you’re dreaming now, I said to myself with a sigh of relief.

“I don’t have to, Emily, you already know,” when he said my name my eyes grew wide, I hadn’t told him my name-and he hadn’t told me his.
“Who told you my name? Is this just a big joke or something?”
“No it’s not, think hard, you know why we’re here.” Before he finished I was already out the door and climbing down the ladder. Whatever he thought was funny about bringing me to some old burnt house in a tree I didn’t understand-and I didn’t want to.
It took about an hour until I found my way back to the lake house and I was starving. After eating some berries and a fish again I laid down in front of the wood stove. That night my nightmare was back-I woke up screaming at about 2 am and I was in a cold sweat.

I realized then what he was trying to tell me the day before, he wasn’t really a teenage boy my age. My dreams did mean something and I wasn’t going crazy-the guy I was starting to like wasn’t even alive. But how did that make any sense? A ghost? Ghosts aren’t really- are they? After thinking of every possibility I could I finally fell asleep again, when I woke up at the regular time, I peeked outside expecting to see the nameless boy outside waiting for me-but he wasn’t there. I looked everywhere I could for him for the next 3 days, freezing in the cold of winter, I tried to find the tree house but I ended up getting lost every time.

After the fourth day I finally gave up, that night I admitted to myself that I really was falling for a ghost, as crazy as it sounded it was true.