CHRIST. THAT WAS COLD.

I drop the invoice and it floats to the floor, moved by an invisible wind. I cradle my arm against my chest. I don’t know what that was, but it felt like icy fingers wrapping around my arm. There wasn’t anything there though. Nothing.

I rub the back of my neck. This PTSD stuff is getting worse. I need that like I need a hole in my head. It’s been bad enough. I check my watch.

That explains it. I jumbled my med schedule. I missed a dose. Things get messed up when I skip. I massage my temples. All the prescriptions are back in the Jeep in the passenger seat. Drinking water’s there too, along with the jerky I bought for the road trip.  If I’ve got to go out to the vehicle, I might as well pull the camper around back.

The historical association won’t be by until later in the week, so I can find my documents tomorrow. I’ll unhitch the trailer after positioning it and head into downtown. Maybe I can get some ideas for this place and it might be fun to wander Bourbon street. Fun, I think derisively, the last time I tried to have ‘fun’ ended in a bar fight. Me with a busted lip and the other guy with a busted everything. I’d try though, to have fun. Maybe I’d improve with practice.

I glance around. I need lots of ideas. Cheap ideas. I head out; the realtor’s box rattles on the handle as the heavy door slams behind me. I don’t bother to turn the locks. The stuff in my moving boxes isn’t worth much. It’s all replaceable. If somebody decides they want my junk, they can have it. I’ve got enough baggage without the accumulation of things inside the cardboard.

I slip behind my steering wheel, careful to tuck my bum leg in last. I’m lucky I lost my left leg and not my right. I can still drive without vehicle modifications. It makes my life loads cheaper. So they tell me.

I pop a couple pills and chase them with water. I’m supposed to take them with food, so I tear into some jerky as I tow the wheeled home around behind the manor.

When the realtor showed me this place, I noticed a faucet near an empty slab of crumbling concrete. It used to be an out-building, more servants’ quarters or something long gone, but it made the perfect leveled place for my temporary living situation.

I chock the wheels and drop the bumper-pull centered over the pad. I’ll level everything the next day or whenever the axel wobble annoys me. Knowing me, it might be never, so it doesn’t make sense to fool with it until it did. The sun is hot, and the air is sticky back here, a sharp contrast to the chill inside. I welcome and prefer the warmth, although the sweat trickling down my face threatens to bring back the brutal ending to my final tour.

About the time I finish setting up, my stomach growls. The jerky wasn’t enough to sustain me long. I guess an early supper is the right plan. I didn’t get hungry often. I mostly ate out of habit rather than appetite, so the gnawing in my middle felt good. Maybe life’s ready to move on. Maybe I am ready to move on with it.

And then I’m headed down the drive. I glance in my rearview mirror and slam on the brakes.

I’ll be damned.

A raven-haired woman is standing in the second-floor window, staring out with the saddest expression. She’s wearing a fancy dress, but the sleeves are ripped, exposing bare shoulders. Her hair is almost to her waist, loose and flowing, but disheveled somehow, like it’s all fallen down from an old hair style. I feel the stirring of something I haven’t felt in a long time.

Not desire. No, I’ve had my share of desire and lust satisfied. Longing. A connection I can’t explain, like a cord pulled taut. The realization is a lightning strike, tensing every muscle with an electric jolt. I know her. I’ve met her. I... I need her.

And then I’m breathing hard. I have to know who she is, know why she feels so familiar, so much a part of me in a strange, impossible way. I turn to look out the back of the vehicle, but she’s disappeared. I throw the transmission into reverse, gravel and dirt spinning up into the air.

Shit, I mean, sometimes I even see Jace. God, I’ve even talked to Jace. It keeps me sane, though it shouldn’t, because talking to damn ghosts isn’t what sane people do. But I couldn’t go around making up other illusions, other specters. If I did, I might find myself past the point of a pill’s relief. I run back inside.

I search the house, careful as I stroll from room to room. I’m not sure about the flooring upstairs, so I keep to perimeters and avoid the sag in the middle. I can’t get into the attic, so it’s an inadequate search, but I can’t find any evidence of a woman by the window. My pulse is thundering. It flexes the skin of my wrists.

Good God. That’s the strangest episode of PTSD I’ve had to date. No military fatigues, no guns. No explosions.

Just her. Just staring at me as I drove away.

I curse with every impolite word I know. I wouldn’t admit it out loud, but something about her echoes in my insides, matching bookends separated by time.

The thought halts my progress. That’s crazy. On so many levels. I wish my pill would kick in already.

I climb back inside the four-wheel drive and put space between me and my new project. Sweet tea and chicken fried steak are just what the doctor ordered. Maybe the next meal, I’ll try something more exotic—like that fish gumbo at the little dive the realtor was telling me about, but my stomach and emotions were craving something familiar and comforting right now.

This time, as I leave my property behind me, I keep my gaze from straying to the rearview.

Whoever she is, she’s not my concern. She’s another symptom of my splintered psyche.  

She’s not real.