She sipped the coffee, which warmed away her chill, but her creativity remained frozen. Her fingers could find no words in the keyboard. The current novel had gone well even when the strange dreams became a nightly occurrence, but she’d made no progress whatsoever after the animals became a part of them.
Never before had Joanna suffered from writer’s block. Her frustrating inability to create suggested that the exceptionally vivid dreams might be either a symptom of some physical malady—perhaps related to the brain—or evidence of a psychological knot that needed to be untied. Slowly, day by day, she had ever more seriously considered seeking help.
She had no fear of doctors or therapists. Yet each time she’d picked up the telephone to make an appointment with John Wong, her physician, misgiving had quickly swelled into a peculiar, urgent dread. She was convinced that if she sought help with this matter, her life as she knew it would change drastically for the worse. She wasn’t a superstitious woman nor one given to irrational fears. Her attitude at first surprised her, then annoyed her, and recently began to worry her as much as the dreams themselves.
Now, as she stared at the computer screen, at the last sentence she’d written almost two weeks earlier, her desk phone rang. Only a few friends knew her cell number; she shared her home number more widely. She had landlines as backup because . . . well, things fell apart. One day your mother was at your side, the next day dead. As reliable as it seemed, the entire cell-phone system was vulnerable to hackers, solar flares, and other disruptions. She had two lines, the second a rollover that ensured she wouldn’t miss a call from an editor or agent while talking on the first. The line-one indicator blinked insistently, but the phone display reported CALLER UNKNOWN.
Robocalls were a problem, though not usually at three o’clock in the morning. She let it go to voice mail, but the caller hung up before leaving a message. Half a minute later, the second line rang. Again, no ID was provided. No message.
Lying to the right of the computer, her cell rang. Although the caller was again unknown, Joanna was intrigued enough to accept. “Hello?”
The woman’s voice sounded vaguely familiar, but it wasn’t that of a close friend. “Jimmy Two Eyes. You remember him?”
“No. Who is this?”
“You were six, and Jimmy Two Eyes was nine.”
“I don’t know him. What do you want?”
“Now that you’ve heard his name, you’ll soon remember.”
“Who is this?”
“I need your help.” Those four words were spoken less as an emotional plea than as a simple statement. The caller sounded as calm as someone taking a survey regarding preferences in laundry detergents, even as she said, “I don’t know who else to turn to. Just you, Jojo.”
When she was a child, Jojo had been the nickname her mother gave her. Whoever the caller might be, this wasn’t Emelia, her mother. The dead did not phone from the Other Side.
This was a century of frauds, fools, hucksters, and hackers. Joanna had dealt with her share of them. She had no patience for deceivers. Yet the weirdness of the call seemed somehow related to the dreams that had recently tormented her. So instead of hanging up, she asked again, “Who is this?”
Still employing a matter-of-fact tone, the caller said, “I am in a dark place, Jojo.”
“And where is that?”
“It’s a mental darkness.”
“Yeah? All right. But where are you calling from?”
“You know.”
“How could I know?”
“You know.”
“I’m not playing this weird game. Tell me who you are or call nine one one.”
“Only you can help me, Jojo.”
Joanna terminated the call. Her hand trembled. The chill with which she’d awakened had returned.
She crossed the room to the corner table and poured more coffee. She stood there, the mug in both hands, sipping the hot brew.
She knew no one named—or nicknamed—Jimmy Two Eyes. But when she whispered the name into the steam rising from her coffee, the chill that disturbed her intensified and rilled down her spine from the base of her skull to her tailbone.
Where are you calling from?
You know.
How could I know?
You know.
With a sudden new insight, she found herself considering the contents of the room, with which she had lived for twelve years. The colorful Navajo rug seemed to float on the pale-gold maple floor, its pattern suggestive of mystical meaning. A decoratively painted colonial trastero stood against one wall, doors open, its shelves laden with folk-art objects: Pueblo pottery; fancy tinwork frames holding black-and-white photos of old Santa Fe; a bulto of the Christ Child carved from cottonwood, covered in fine gesso and painted by Luis Tapia. Fringed Pendleton blankets—with soft beige, red, and blue designs—draped two comfortable leather armchairs.