We dream about things unfinished, trying to tie ends in our minds, ends that always fray

A couple nights ago, I dreamed of an old friend. We were with her family: mom, dad, one sister, one brother (although her family is much larger, not all of them could fit in my mind). We were at her childhood home, an old farm-style house with photos puzzling the hallway, an old TV set in the corner, white walls with brown trim. This is not where she grew up. She grew up in a darker place, where the only photo on the wall would be of one man, a worshipped man, a hurtful, violent man, a man who would amass hundreds of followers and brainwash them enough that they would subject their own children to abuse. No, she didn’t grow up in this home, but we were there together, sat down on a bar overlooking the kitchen and she said “I’m glad another woman knows my history, knows the depth. I’m glad someone knows.”
We were there to uncover something. There was a secret in that house she had never dispelled. No one was allowed in the attic or at least no one went in the attic and so we started there, snuck in and because I wasn’t part of the family, it was very risky for me to be up there. Risky, until the entire floor turned into an antique shop full of people. Each hallways turned into another hallway, each room another room. The maze grew. Shoppers picked up LIFE magazines from 1951, green-handled egg beaters and old quilts – all with a price tag, all cloaking the reason we were there. The wooden ceiling beams started to shake and fall, the room turned into an Indiana Jones-like ride as we fell fell fell into darkness, the beams, light-hearted danger, were falling on top of us. I laughed the whole way down and only once thought “maybe these will really kill us at the bottom.” But they didn’t. My friend turned into a small, thin snake saying “In this form, my senses are heightened. I feel more. I see more. I will find it this way.” So I put her in my pocket, this golden, tiny snake and she drank from the fabric of my shirt, she was so thirsty. She sipped and sipped and slithered. She never found what she was looking for.