Cousin Jeremy

“Nancy, come meet your cousin Jeremy!”

My Great-Aunt Helen’s voice cut the chitter-chatter white noise of the funeral reception. I turned to face her and the young man whose arm she rested her hand on and my breath left my body.

“He’s come all the way from Arizona!”

My heart has stopped, too. 

Not because Jeremy was handsome - this isn’t some Regency romance about lusting after your cousin (gross). Jeremy was an entirely regular-looking 27-year-old man. A tad skinny, tidy haircut, may not be entirely sure what his pants size is but probably always erring on the side of ‘a bit too large.’ Had a plain face and large eyes. Large, sad eyes. 

Or maybe I’m projecting.

“Nice to finally meet you, Nancy!” 

He stuck out his hand. I took it. A flash of memory, of gripping his hand as we sprinted through the woods.

“... you, too.”

I know you, I wanted to scream. I’ve seen you scared. I’ve seen you crying. I’ve seen you sure you’re about to die. 

Instead I said, “I’m going to get myself a tea. Do you want anything?”

I didn’t wait for an answer.

* * * 

Starting from when I was 6 years old, I couldn’t sleep. “Nancy’s Insomnia Problem,” my parents labelled it.

I was taken to sleep doctors, to clinics; I took part in experimental trials; I was given drugs and hormones and smelly herbs. None of it helped. No matter what, I would bolt awake at 2:00AM every night in a cold panic. From dead asleep to wide awake in less than a second.

No doctor ever provided a satisfactory explanation to my parents, but I grew out of it. It was happening two out of every three nights, then one out of three, then once a week, once a month, and finally never. I was able to attend sleepovers by middle school. I could wake up at 7:00AM with only one alarm and not five by high school. My mother was thrilled. 

I never told anyone about the nightmares. The doctors would ask if I had dreams, and I’d always reply that if I did, I couldn’t remember them when I woke up. Not technically a lie; I did not believe then that what I was having was “dreams.” It felt so real. Less a hallucination and more a temporary transportation into a different reality. 

Every night when I fell asleep, I would wake up to my feet hitting the same dirt path. Arriving at the same grand but ill-kept house in the woods. Probably house isn’t the right word to describe it - it was a manor. Maybe a mansion? I’m not sure about rich house categories. 

I would stand on the front step and then the front door would creak open. I would be invited in by the lady out of the house, an ancient and opulent crone. She was polite, but she scared me. 

Inside, I would meet Jeremy. 

He was already sitting at the dining table in the grand dining hall when I arrived. His eyes wide with fear. He didn’t know why we were there either. He was also a child at the time - maybe a year or two older than me. But it was definitely Jeremy. I would know those big, sad eyes anywhere. I spent enough time staring at them, my own eyes wide with fear. 

The lady would sit us both down and explain to us that if we survived the next 24 hours, we could leave. We could go back to our families. It was our fault for venturing here, but she was kind enough to offer us this way out. 

She was lying, of course. Because no matter how many times I survived the 24 hours, no matter how many times I left, I was always back the next night. I was never gone for long. 

Soon Jeremy and I were running, running, running through the dark forest, my hand grasping his, chased by Him. He was definitely a man, or probably a man - I could hear his breathing, his grunting. He ran after us at full-tilt. He never took a break, and so we couldn’t either. 

Sometimes he got so close I could smell him. He smelled like BO and what I didn’t know at the time was whiskey.

A few times a night we’d lose him for a couple minutes. We’d take a turn he didn’t anticipate, or hide up a tree, or find a cave or a ditch to duck into. But he’d always come back for us and it was back to running.

Branches whipping us in the face, scratching our arms, our legs, our eyes. 

We would always last for a few hours.

Then, Jeremy would trip on a root. He never saw that root. I never warned him about the root, I never remembered it until it was already behind us. He would break his ankle - I remember hearing the sound of his bone snapping and I would feel the visceral guilt of not warning him about that goddamn root. I would reassure him that I could carry him. He wouldn’t let me. 

I look into his eyes. 

He’s accepting he is going to die. Every night, he accepts he is going to die.

“You have to keep running. You have to get out. Promise me.”

I would start running again. I would hear Him catch Jeremy. Rip him apart. I could hear the flesh tearing, the bones snapping.

This was not the moment I woke up screaming.

I would always survive the 24 hours. Arrive back at the old run-down manor, bloody and bruised but alive. 

The lady of the house would tell me, “Well done.” She would tell me, “You may go.” She would add, “Don’t worry, you won’t remember any of this.”

Only as I was walking down the front steps of the manor, watching my feet carry me down the dirty path away from the great house, would I understand what she meant. I started to feel Jeremy slipping out of my memory, like a slip of silk falling from my open hand. I couldn’t grab him fast enough to keep him. His name would leave me, then his voice, and finally his eyes.

That is when I would bolt awake each night.

I met and loved and grieved and forgot Jeremy thousands of times.

I was about 11 when the dreams stopped happening every night. Right around the time I attended my first funeral, actually.

It was for my Uncle Aaron. My Dad’s brother. We spent a lot of time with him, but I never liked him much. He was always asking for big bear hugs. He smelled bad. Like he hadn’t showered recently. Like he’d been drinking.

He died when I was 11 and I was scared to go to his funeral, but I’m glad I did. It was open casket. After I looked in and saw him dead, really dead, definitely dead, definitely never getting up - after that, my nightmares started to go away.

* * *

I sat on the back steps of the church, nursing my tea, letting the chitter-chatter white noise of the reception wash over my back.

I felt before I saw someone sit down next to me.

Jeremy.

“So, what do you do?” he asked me.

“Forever student,” I joked. He looked confused. “You know, grad student.”

“Ah.”

“You?”

“I work in logging.”

“I hear that’s dangerous.”

“It is, if you don’t know what you’re doing. Even if you do. I’ve definitely almost died about thousands of times.”

I laughed at his joke, though when our eyes met I couldn’t tell he wasn’t kidding. Still, he gave me a reassuring smile.

We sat in silence for a moment.

“Did you know her well?”

I stared at him blankly. He nodded back into the church. 

“Oh, Grandma Shirley - of course. Um, a little bit? She lived a couple hours from us, so we’d visit at Christmas. She always scared me a bit - she was kinda severe.” I laughed.

Jeremy nodded, understanding but not laughing.

“Did you?”

“When I was a really little kid, we used to visit her a lot. But then we stopped after I - Mom didn’t live to travel far outside of Arizona when I started - I was having lots of health issues. I was a bad sleeper.”

“Weird, same. Must run in the family.” I laughed again.

Jeremy nodded again.

“She scared me too,” he said quietly.

He wouldn’t meet my eye for a moment. 

“You know, I’d forgotten what she looked like. Until I saw the picture of her when her obituary came out. I wasn’t planning on coming to the funeral until I saw her.”

I tried not to sound nervous. “Pretty glam photo, wasn’t it? Very… money.”

“Yes,” he said. “Very.”

We both stared straight ahead. I could hear his breathing, though. Getting more irregular. Nervous, like I felt. 

“I… needed to make sure she was dead.” He kept looking straight ahead. “Now I think maybe I’ll finally be able to sleep.”

Ragged breath. Ragged breath. 

Still without meeting my eye, Jeremy rose.

“I’m glad we met, Nancy. I’m glad you’re okay.”

He stuck out his hand again. I took it, for the thousandth time. For the last time.

“I’m glad you’re okay, too.”