Read Falling for Free Online Page B

all sat down to lunch. Never one to pray, my dad didn’t disappoint, just started shoving food in his mouth. I hesitated, feeling thanks were owed to someone, just not sure who.
    “Eat,” my dad grunted.
    “When are we going back up to see Linc?” I asked.
    “I told him we’d be back before dinner.”
    “Good,” I sighed. “That’ll give me some time to get a few things ready while Grandma naps.”
    “You nap too, Bixby,” Dad snapped.
    “Oh, I’m okay—”
    “I mean it, Bixby, you look like crap. You rest too or you’re not going tonight,” he thundered. If my mom had been alive, she would have explained that as, “Oh honey, see, he cares about you!” I just took a deep breath and reminded myself in a few days time he would be out of my hair.
    I dragged my feet putting lunch and dishes away. I prayed Grandma would put up a fight, lying down in bed in the middle of the afternoon. But she didn’t and finally I was in bed myself, staring at the ceiling and mentally chanting, “Don’t fall asleep, don’t fall asleep.”
    But with no sleep the night before, I couldn’t help but close my eyes. I had a few peaceful moments of mindless drifting black before the crackle of the fireplace brought me around. I lay still, eyes squeezed shut. I didn’t have a fireplace and neither did Abe’s general store.
    “Are you awake yet or not?”
    I sighed, opened my eyes and sat up. The bed, with its ornate quilt and wrought iron frame, wasn’t the bed I usually saw as mine in Nightmare Town and neither was the huge room. With the flagstone floor, enormous river rock fireplace and thick carved beams, the room was rustic but imposing. A glance out the beveled glass windows showed trees changing color, gentle waving green and a glint that may have been the big lake. It was beautiful, foreign and not my house. In the corner sat the woman who asked if I was awake. She tucked her knitting down into a basket, still waiting for my answer.
    “No, I’m dreaming. Where’s the General Store from here?” I asked.
    She frowned and got up from her rocking chair. “You mean the stores?”
    “No, I mean The Store, Abe’s store.”
    She shook her head slowly. “You’ll have to ask Jordan.”
    That was precisely the answer I didn’t want. “This is Nightmare Town, right?”
    She shrugged and reached into a large wooden wardrobe. “Let’s just get you dressed and you can ask him yourself.”
    I felt little pin pricks of sweat on my upper lip. “Right,” I said. “But I don’t really want to do that. And since this must be part of Nightmare Town, I’m the boss and I say this is just a dream and I want to go to my house.”
    The woman didn’t say anything, just pulled out and held up two dresses in jewel tones, one blue and one green.
    I backed away, shaking my head. “No way.”
    She advanced, holding the dresses higher. “They’re both very pretty, although I think the green would be better on you. Besides, you can’t wear that!”
    I glanced down and saw I had on a thin linen nightgown. I squeezed my eyes shut. “This is a dream, this is my dream and I want to go to my house.”
    Her hand was cold on my wrist. “You may be dreaming,” she said quietly,”but this is his dream. And those bracelets tell me you have a promise to uphold. So which is it, the blue or the green?”
    Hot tears squeezed out between my eyelids. “This is all real?”
    “It is.”
    “This must happen ... often then?”
    She shrugged and slipped the dress off its hanger. “Not with him. And I wasn’t here when his uncle was younger. Maybe with the others.”
    “Others?”
    She finally started to look annoyed.”If you would just get dressed, you could ask him all these questions yourself.”
    I squirmed out of the nightgown and into the green dress. Happily, it was not as low cut as it looked on the hanger. I ran my fingers through my hair and wiped my cheeks and turned towards the door.
    “You’ll be fine,” she said.
    I nodded,