She bid this world adieu.
Saying 'Goodbye to Jack Highlanzer'
And 'Goodbye to Jack Monroe.'"
Have you ever awakened in a strange place—a hotel room perhaps—tried to locate a familiar lamp, the dim outlines of your own bed-chamber, the tick of a friendly clock? Or have you, perhaps, sought frantically for a door with your hands sliding vainly along black and forbidding walls?
This was the same room in which I had gone to sleep. The fire was almost out. By my side Annette breathed deep and slow. I could hear Aunt Ellen snoring not far away. Through the open door a full moon stretched its carpet almost to my bed. Yet, despite these comforting sights and sounds, everything about me seemed topsy turvy and utterly horribly wrong.
My bare toes curled with terror as I realized what it was. Our front door was in the south wall of the cabin. The moonshine was pouring in through a wide opening in the north wall—through the place where the mirror stood! And a cold wind was pouring in with it.
"Maw," I whispered, sitting up and rubbing my eyes.
Only the chorus of katydids answered.
But this was spring! Katydids sang only in the fall!
At the same moment I saw a bare foot and ankle etched in moonlight as it hooked around the age-darkened frame of the opening.