The Haunting of Brynn Wilder

by Wendy Webb

Everyone is haunted by something. A road not taken. A hurt, carried deep inside. Harsh words that echo long after the sting of them is carried away on the wind. Some of us are haunted more literally.

“Be at peace, wonderful lady,” he said. “You will leave this earth better than you found it. That is all any of us can ask.”

joke, yes, but sometimes you have to descend into the ridiculous during extremely stressful situations to prevent insanity from setting in. We

“But more than that, the scarab was a symbol of transformation, resurrection, protection, and immortality. Reincarnation. Eternal life. People who wore scarab jewelry felt protected, knowing they were going to rise again.” I didn’t know quite how to respond to that. “They were also used in funerary art in ancient Egypt, so that the dead would be protected and transformed.” A shiver of cold ran through me, even though we were

“Well, a whole lot of good that dream was, then.” He gave me a mischievous look. I tossed a throw pillow at him. “Next time you dream about the dead, ask them questions! Who was behind JFK’s assassination? What’s in Area 51? Does God hear NFL players praying before games? If so, does he have a favorite, because it seems to me the Patriots have some sort of upper hand.” I dissolved into laughter. “That’s what you’d ask the dead?”

Many people gravitate toward the negative, wrap themselves around it and define themselves by it, even when circumstances don’t warrant it. They’ve always got something to complain about, even when the sun is shining. But you mined the positive out of a day that contained a whole lot of strangeness. That’s difficult to do, and it shows what kind of person you are. It shows what your spirit is.”

Beautifully put.

“But something occurred to me as I was waking up. You know that time when you’re not quite sleeping but not quite awake?” Dominic smiled. “The in-between time, my grandmother called it,” he said, gazing off into his past. “She used to tell me it was the place where everything seen and unseen met up and danced. Present, past, and future, all at once. We who are living, and spirits of the dead. It’s all right there swirling around together in that mystical in-between time.” His face softened, and his eyes began to glisten. “She told me that a few of us, a lucky few, can travel there by choice.

Get out of the river of time, so to speak, and rise above it to what really is. Those are the seers, the psychics, the visionaries of this world. Or so she said.”