Sometime during the night, the rain began, and with the temperature dropping, signaling that autumn was here to stay, Toni’s plans to clean and rake would have to wait. Having always lived in flats, she had never had the need to garden, or even to learn, but books were starting to lose their effect, and if the printed page could no longer lull her to sleep, then exhaustion would. It had to. Last night was the first night in years when a nightmare filled with the fractured images of men, belts and pain had found its way to her, and she awoke covered in sweat and gasping for air. In Thornbridge, and even in Sutton Hall, Toni had listened as others awoke from their sleep, screaming at the images their minds created, but literature had always protected Toni. Remembering the lines from a sonnet, the dialogue from a play or the passages in a novel, she would fill her mind and sleep peacefully, but that was before she met Laura. Last night, lying in the darkness, Toni tried to concentrate on words written by authors long since gone, but memories of a kiss had invaded her thoughts and her body.
