The Glass Ball

By Jean Hatfield

AWARDS AND HONORS
2015 San Francisco Book Festival, General Fiction (Runner-Up)
9th Annual National Indie Excellence Awards, Regional Fiction (Finalist)
2015 International Book Awards, Chick Lit/Women's Lit (Finalist)

As a survivor of childhood trauma, Dana knows she has to let go of the past if she's ever going to move on. The natural landscape o

• Language: English
• Publisher: Aleutika Press
• Release date: Nov 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9780990922315

Book preview

Part One

Chapter One

She awoke with a start, still smelling the sweat from his body as he loomed over her, still tasting the oil from the gun he had thrust into her mouth, still hearing the harsh ratcheting sound of the hammer being pulled back. Wild-eyed, heart pounding, her skin prickling with dread, she glanced frantically around the small, unfamiliar room. Was that movement she saw out of the corner of her eye? She felt the color drain from her face. Opening her mouth, she tried to call for help, but the words caught in her throat.

Then the framed print of Mount McKinley on the far wall came into focus, reminding Dana she was at a seaside inn in Alaska, far from her Oregon home, and she cried out with relief. Breathing deeply to dispel the enveloping, nearly paralyzing panic, she mouthed a silent prayer of thanks. He wasn’t really there. She’d only been having a nightmare.

Only? How many times had she been afraid she wouldn’t be able to climb out of the darkness when she awakened in its depths?

With great effort, Dana fought off the invisible pressure that seemed to weigh on her chest. She unfolded her tightly crossed arms and pulled herself upright. As she swung her feet off the bed, she realized her nightgown and hair were soaked with sweat. She shivered. Her nightmares were terrifying and real … and exhausting.

Willing herself to stand, Dana then donned the crumpled terry-cloth robe that a few hours earlier she had tossed onto the wicker chair next to the bed. Her journal was open on the nightstand, and the scribbled words, I’m dying inside!, screamed back at her. Quickly she closed the book, fresh tears spilling from her swollen eyes, and squeezed the paw of the small, well-worn stuffed animal she’d clung to while she slept.

Suddenly longing for fresh air, she walked toward the balcony of her second-story room. She opened the sliding door and stepped outside, grabbing the railing to steady herself. Moisture from the previous night’s rain dampened the small wooden deck and tingled her bare feet. She gulped in the crisp, salty air, only vaguely aware of the seagull that called in passing and the cool breeze that played with the wisps escaping her long auburn braids. She stared, unseeing, across the wide bay that separated glaciers and mountains from the rocky beach beneath her, lost in another, earlier world—a world she was trying to forget.

You can’t let him win! she chastised herself, speaking so softly she wasn’t sure if she had actually spoken the words aloud. Feeling chilled, she pulled her robe tightly around her slender body—almost as if by doing so she could pull herself together as well. Wiping away another flood of tears, she closed her eyes, hoping to capture the serenity of the dawn. Think of nothing. Breathe deeply. Relax. Dana whispered the words again and again like a mantra, struggling to shake off the images that flashed through her mind like stills from a movie. Let those feelings go … you don’t need them anymore. Unconsciously fingering the tight curl on the end of one of her braids, she concentrated on the words. The painful images slowly faded.

The muffled purr of a boat’s engine roused Dana from her reverie. A sailboat, sails furled, was making its way under power out of the harbor, just off the steep beach in front of the inn. Lifting her gaze, she looked back across the bay at the towering snow-capped mountains, the jagged peaks tinged pink with sunrise and framed boldly against the slowly deepening blue sky. This time she focused on them as though they were talismans. Surely surrounded by such spectacular scenery she could find a few moments of cherished peace.

Exhaling deeply, she looked at her watch. She’d never get back to sleep now—not that she slept much anyway. She might as well begin her day. "A new day," she said with resolve.

As she started to walk back into her room, a deep voice yelled, Be careful, boy! Dana turned in time to see a large dog standing on the sailboat’s bow, looking straight at her. The way this dog stared at her, with such intensity, reminded her of Lucky, her dog, who had died a few months before. And he reminded her just as much of Boots, her childhood dog. Dana had learned early in life to trust animals; unlike other bonds, that trust had never been compromised or destroyed. Her uncle had insisted Boots be an outside dog, but as often as she could, she had snuck Boots into the house late at night, sleeping with her arms wrapped around him, gathering strength from his warmth, love, and devotion. Those times when she awakened in the middle of the night, trembling with fear, he had licked her face, calming her. Never once had Boots let her down or hurt her. Now, this dog held her gaze until the sailboat disappeared from view.

On her way to the bathroom, Dana picked up her cell phone and called a number saved as Moors in her contacts.

The Moors Residence and Hospice, a voice answered. Dana’s response followed a script. She gave her uncle’s name and her own and asked to be connected to his room. There was a short pause as the person found the extension, and then the voice replied, Here you go.

As soon as the phone started ringing in her uncle’s room, Dana hung up. She didn’t regularly call the long-term care facility where her uncle had lived since her teenage years, when he developed early-onset Alzheimer’s, but she did when she needed to. So young when his abuse had stopped, she hadn’t thought until years later that she may not have been his only victim. By then he was under lock and key—though not the kind Dana wished for him—unable to hurt anyone else. Confirming that he was still there with a phone call to the front desk became a salve Dana applied whenever she was really anxious. She didn’t need those feelings of panic and fear anymore because he could not get her—he could not get anyone.

Dana headed to the bathroom, where she threw off her robe and peeled her damp nightgown off her shivering body. After unbraiding her hair, she adjusted the water as hot as she could stand it and stepped into the shower. Would she ever warm up? She supposed she could have chosen differently with her travel plans. But Alice, the inn’s proprietor, had assured Dana it was the perfect place to thaw.

In fact, she said as Dana greeted her later that morning, I’ve signed you up for some time in the sun—a kayak trip leaving from the lobby in about an hour.

You what? Dana laughed. Under any circumstances, she would have had a difficult time being angry at Alice, a woman with soft eyes and a quick smile who looked about the age Dana’s mother would have been, had she not died a couple of years before from a heart attack. But Alice and Dana also shared a profession, and Dana had performed the same sort of activity matchmaking for the guests of the bed-and-breakfast she co-owned with her friend Andrea. It was one of the reasons Dana had gotten into the hospitality business: she loved helping people escape into their dreams, but many times people were too close to see what those dreams were and needed a wise outsider’s nudge.

And thank goodness for nudges. If her therapist hadn’t applauded Dana’s idea to take a sabbatical north, Dana may never have fulfilled her dream, though it was a dream born of a nightmare. Growing up in Seattle, she was well aware of Alaska, watching the many ships—passenger and freight—leave her port city for the state magnified in her imagination. She never knew which boats were headed north, but she liked to think they all were. Her grandparents had taken a ferry to Alaska once, so she had known it was possible. Her seven-year-old mind had had it all figured out, even the part where she smuggled herself on board. On a ferry it would be easy to blend in with the passengers, she had reasoned at the time. She had taken enough local ferries to know she could simply hang out on the upper decks, pretending to be some adult passenger’s child. Maybe she could even come aboard with a family with a bunch of kids—people probably wouldn’t notice one more.

Looking through National Geographic magazine photos, pinning maps to her bedroom wall, and tracing her finger along Alaska’s craggy coastline, she had idealized its pristine beauty, quiet expanse, and seemingly endless distance from her home. All of these things made it the sanctuary of her dreams. There was no way her uncle could find her in Alaska. No one could. And just once, if only for a little while, she wanted to go somewhere so remote that no one could find her—an actual place, and not one of the faraway havens of her imagination.

Every June when she was young she’d had an all too brief escape to her grandparents’ house on the Oregon coast, though she dreaded the arrival of August when her mother came to take her home. She always asked her grandparents if she could just stay, assuring them she wouldn’t mind leaving all her friends at school and that she was sure she’d make new friends in Oregon, but Grandma just smiled and slid another grilled cheese sandwich onto her plate, and Grandpa just smiled and ruffled her hair and said what a lucky girl she was to be growing up with a mom who loved her in a city as magical as Seattle.

Mark’s family lived next door, and Dana spent almost as much time there as she did at her grandparents’ house. Mark was a couple of years older than she was, and they’d liked each other from the start. For Dana, the bonus that came along with being Mark’s best summer friend was that she got to hang out as a part of his big family. Coming from her house, where she was an only child and felt she had nowhere to hide, being one of six rambunctious kids (all boys, except for her) felt so good. Even before Dana confessed to Mark how scared she was at home, he knew she didn’t like how alone she was in Seattle. He was the one who suggested she make her own family of stuffed animals, surrounding herself with them in bed, at the dinner table, wherever and whenever she wanted. She could even hide a couple in her school backpack. That was how Brownie, the well-loved teddy bear she’d brought with her to Alaska, had come to be such a good friend. Dana still took comfort in what he symbolized.

Mark as a boy had been full of good ideas, like when he suggested the stuffed-animal family. Now as an adult and Dana’s boyfriend, he encouraged Dana to seek therapy, all the while remaining supportive.

You need more help than I can give you, he told her once after she confessed in a quiet voice to experiencing suicidal thoughts, but I will never leave you. When she had panic attacks, when she retreated into her room with depression, when she couldn’t stand his touch—let alone sex—he stayed by her side. We’re about more than sex, he said. We’re best friends and partners. And I would never want you to do anything that makes you feel uncomfortable. You went through hell, but you’re not there anymore. You’re here, with me.

Mark had been the one to remind Dana about Alaska. Dana had been making slow but steady progress with her therapist and Mark’s tenderness, but after the emotional stress of her mom’s sudden death, Dana’s nightmares started recurring more regularly and more vividly than ever before. She’d had setbacks before—just when she’d start to think her trauma was finally behind her, it would burst into her life again without warning, an erupting volcano of sensations, feelings, and memories. This last time, though, it had virtually overtaken her, like molten lava. Lucky had done her best, just as Boots had before her, but they could only do so much. Everyone could only do so much. Watching her become increasingly unable to focus on anything else, Mark suggested a change of scenery. Dana warmed to the idea when both her therapist and Andrea (even though it was summer and the busiest time of year for their B and B) agreed wholeheartedly.

"I don’t know about