She sat up in bed. Goosebumps bristled over her skin, and she glanced about the room. It had been a dream, but so real.She began to remember—how her palm pressed against window glass, how the frost outlined her fingers, the tree with its heavy branches casting long shadows over patches of stiff brown grass, a silent sentinel on a winter’s night. Her swing glided back and forth on thick ropes encrusted with ice. Darkness and moonlight. A woman’s figure crossing the yard. Her cloak fanning out in the wind, flying forward around her legs. Gusts blew back her hood. Flaming red hair, illuminated like tongues of fire by the flame that flickered in a lantern near a hitching post.She remembered creeping to the door in a pair of scratchy woolen stockings. Voices were outside in the hallway. Footsteps clattered up the staircase. Shadows moved on the wall. Muddy footprints marred the polished floor. Two figures disappeared into a room at the end of a passage. A shaft of candlelight spread out across the Turkish runner.
