A CRY FROM THE DEEP by Unknown

Oh, no! She’s gone. He’s gone.” Her body trembled.
    “What happened? Catherine …Catherine, can you hear me?”
    “A wave. A wave as big as the ship washed over everything. I can’t see them anymore. I can’t see them.” She was cold and shivering.
    “Catherine, you can wake up now.”
    Catherine awoke slowly. Her hand went to her throat. She felt something choking her. Gasping for air, she wondered why she wasn’t wet. She tried to hold back her tears, but it was no use. “I don’t even know why I’m crying.”
    “Could be a lot of things,” said Barbara, as she handed her a box of tissue. “Take your time.” After Catherine had wiped away her tears, Barbara said, “You mentioned some people while you were under. Do you know any of them?”
    “No.”
    Barbara tented her fingers and said nothing. She looked as if she was weighing what to say next. After what seemed like a long minute, she said, “Our minds work in mysterious ways. Maybe you don’t know them yet.”
     
    ~~~
     
    On the subway ride back to the apartment, Catherine mulled over what Barbara had said. Maybe you don’t know them yet. She’d thrown that out as if the people in the nightmare were real. Real! How could that be? They looked like they belonged in some history book. And if they were real, why had they chosen to bother her?
    She was still stewing when she entered the apartment. She tidied up the breakfast dishes and wiped the kitchen counter, but while doing so, she accidentally knocked a glass onto the tile floor. Then, when she got down on her knees, she nicked her index finger on a glass fragment. “Fuck!” she yelled. The cut on her finger wasn’t deep, but it hurt and it was bloody.
    She crumpled on the floor crying. She was glad Richard and Alex weren’t there. She’d made a mess and she was one, too. Why had she come to New York? All the trip had done was stir up old feelings, leaving her more confused than ever.
    Wiping away her tears, she got up and went to the bathroom where she removed her Claddagh ring before bandaging her wound. She put her ring into a pouch she kept in the bureau drawer and then called Lindsey to complain. “I thought you were supposed to feel good when you left a therapist’s office. I’d have to be fucking insane to go down that road! I may as well have gone to some witch doctor, for all the good it did me.”
    “What are you so mad about? It’s not like she said you were psychotic or anything. She’s only trying to help you.”
    It wasn’t the kind of help Catherine had been expecting. If Barbara had linked the bad dreams to her fear of diving, then maybe it would’ve made sense. “I should’ve gone to a real shrink.”
    “Yeah?” said Lindsey. “Listen, I’ve known you a long time. You’ve always been level headed, but you have to admit it’s weird. These nightmares came out of the blue. If they’re connected to your fears, then why in the hell didn’t they start when you were still in Provence?”
    “Maybe because I was only exploring the idea back then?” Trust Lindsey to get on the same wavelength as Barbara. She believed in all that hocus-pocus.
    “Okay, but what if Barbara is on to something. You owe it to yourself to keep going. The main thing is, did you like her?”
    Catherine hesitated. She stared out the window at Central Park, where a few teens were jogging on a trail. Life was simpler for the young. “Okay, say you’re right, but I think those characters in the night are trying to tell me to go back to the farm before I drown with the fishes.”
    Lindsey laughed. “You’re funny. Look, Barbara’s no wacko. Like I said, she’s intuitive, but you have to work with her.”
    After they hung up, Catherine fixated on the sky. Masses of white clouds edged in grey moved in on the city. What was beyond them? Planets, comets, meteorites, all the stuff she’d seen on the Discovery Channel. But what else? What if there were spirits? What if some spirit was