For Kate Saunders it had been another restless night of endlessly drifting through dreams, so many places and then she was falling, the dream accelerating and Kate in free-fall as she lurched uncontrollably into seemingly unconnected scenes. The dreams were populated by so many people, though amidst the backdrop of changing faces there was always two constant, Kate felt like she should know them but try as she might she could never remember who they were, whether they were from her memories or even real. Though the two men were both breath taking and handsome in their own way but no matter how hard Kate tried to focus, she could never remember exactly what they looked like, except for their eyes both the same dark olive green, full of intent and their expressions young but at the same time impossibly old. Those eyes were so alike that she thought they might have been brothers…Kate could have sworn she had looked into their eyes, whether it was from her memories or dreams and that was when she discovered that they couldn’t be more different. The one that Kate imagined was the younger brother, his eyes were full of forbidden pleasures which just thinking about it left Kate, excited and confused, however just below the surface a coldness lurked and something in her instincts told Kate to flee. The other brother’s eyes in comparison showed a gentler nature; though they were still just as passionate as they glinted with kindness and whenever Kate tried to recall him, she would find herself smiling but then then she would suddenly feel so sad.

 “This is insane!” Kate, who was very prone to talking out loud to herself sat up in her tangled mass of bed; she lived alone in a tiny flat, though sometimes it felt as though Kate Saunders had been on her own for a long time. “It’s like I know those boys, like we’ve all met in another life…I’m going slightly mad…Mum always said it would happen, that I took after dad’s side of the family…” Kate’s voice trailed away, a vague troubled look, momentary quivered across her excessively pretty face, “Pre-Raphaelite stunner reincarnated” her slightly lecherous though undeniably sexy sixth form art tutor had once said to Kate.

 She swept her wispy auburn fringe away from her tired grey eyes and grimaced at the pale, sun starved face staring back at her; sometimes Kate didn’t recognise the girl in the mirror, it felt like someone else or more to the point that Kate had been living someone else’s life and sometimes more than one, maybe she was reincarnated after all. Kate stretched her incredibly long legs to the ends of the bed and arched her back, absolutely exhausted and freezing as the Georgian style house, along with the original windows dripped with condensation, how Kate missed warmth. Though a broke art student couldn’t possibly afford to feed the tyrannical meter twenty four seven. Though Kate was certain she wouldn’t be half as miserable if she wasn’t so tired all the time, it was those damn dreams but what did they mean? Or were they dreams? They felt so vivid most of the time and there were so many places echoing through her mind, the taste and smells of other times quivered around her and always those mysterious boys that lingered like ghosts. Kate shivered violently, she’d felt cold like this before, so cold that she could never imagine feeling sunlight again.

 A loud shriek awakened Kate from her dark musings. The couple in the flat above were making love again, banging each other’s brains out, they had been at it most of the night, that was one of the reasons why Kate hadn’t slept very well and now they were at it again. The sounds of rapture and frenzy that came from above arrested Kate’s attention and even though it was unintentional these last few days Kate had become a voyeur in all her neighbours lives, a guilty thrill of pleasure pulsed through her body as she listened to the incessant, wild beating lovers above, her hand slid beneath the bed’s silky sheet and stroked the soft flesh in-between her legs but today it didn’t feel right. It felt dirty but also a bit sad and besides she was too miserable with the cold to have a good play around.

 “Jesus, give it a rest!”

 Kate had seen the drop dead gorgeous guy, more a gentleman from a bygone era who called round yesterday evening at the anorexic, neurotic looking woman’s flat above, she wished she knew someone like that. At sixteen Kate had lost her virginity to her childhood sweetheart, once she had lived for their time together but then something had died the day their love was consummated and ever since then she had been searching for the one and at nineteen Kate was longing to be intimate again with another. And just lately she felt like there had been someone on the horizon, the beginning of something new but when Kate tried to remember this person, it felt like an impossible dream as though it was one of the boys from her dreams… Kate buried her head in her pillow and even though she was secretly saving herself, she ached for such intimacy and despite her best efforts to block out the throes of passion emanating from above Kate was a little jealous of the lovers upstairs and when the light fitting on her black patchy ceiling started to twitch in time to the lover’s juddering bed, well enough was enough…

 “I’m not staying till the end!”

 Kate finally dived out of bed. She tugged open the heavy, mildew curtains and stared out, without really seeing the grey day. Though when her hands rested on the window sill for some inexplicable reason Kate wasn’t surprised to feel part of the rotting window come away in her hands and underneath there were letters which spelt the name Catherine Parry, carved upon the window sill and as her fingers traced around the letters, there was a pull, a flashback of recognition. Kate had lived in this house before, this was her home once, in another life, once upon-a-time when it was a great house and not some wreck of a building converted into dingy flats owned by a slum landlord. Though like Kate’s dreams the quicksilver feeling soon passed and then Kate Saunders forgot again… Though there was one feeling which always remained with Kate, this feeling that she had been running forever and for the first time in a long time this place felt the closest to home. When Kate stopped to think about it, she settled on this feeling of being anchored, with her feet firmly on the ground.

 Sunday was always the most difficult of dragging days, nothing ever happened on a Sunday. In the icebox room she dressed quickly, impatiently yanking on her leggings and wincing as she pulled over her shoulders a crumpled woollen teal jersey dress from the day before as she wiggled her tingly feet into her comfy suede boots. With a quick touch of barely there make-up and her molten hair bundled up into a careless bun, Kate was ready to face the world, even though she had a perceptible sense that nothing good could ever happen again and each passing day was filled with diminishing returns. However Kate still smiled to herself as she picked up her trusty sketch book, she never left home without it. Glad in the knowledge, there was at least one place left in the world where Kate could seek refuge, the library.