A Visit from a Friend

We moved to Tennessee when I was 12. One of the first girls I met was named Wanda. We had most of our classes together, and we talked on the phone fairly regularly. She was sort of shy, and I guess we came together because I was sort of shy, too. She was also an absolute brain.

One summer night in 1976 I went to bed a little later than usual. I hadn't talked to Wanda in about a week, but for some reason she was on my mind, and I found it difficult to get to sleep. I finally drifted off thinking I would call her the next day.

I awakened during the night feeling panicked. I turned over, and what I saw frightened me to the point that I pulled the covers over my head. I saw Wanda, dressed in an oversized football jersey, and she was looking at me with the strangest expression on her face. She seemed more confused than scared. What frightened me though were her eyes. Instead of pupils, I saw flames.

While I was under the covers, I kept telling myself that it was only a dream. I just knew that I had awakened before the dream was over. Convinced that I was then fully awake, I slowly lowered the covers. Wanda was still standing there, and she still had that strange look on her face. Then she quickly turned to look behind her, looked back at me as if to say she was sorry, and then she turned and disappeared. I was unnerved, and it was hours before I could go back to sleep.

The next morning, my mom woke me up for a phone call from Angela. I stumbled sleepily to the kitchen, but the news from the call soon had me wide awake. Wanda had been killed during the night. Her home had caught fire, while she and her brother slept upstairs. The volunteer firefighters were on the scene quickly, and they put a ladder up to her window. She came to the window, looked at her parents on the ground, and then turned to look behind her. She looked back at her parents one last time, and then turned to go back into her room. They found her later wrapped in the arms of her brother. They think that she had heard him and went back to get him. I was afraid to ask what Wanda had been wearing when she died. I had already heard too much.

I don't know why Wanda came to me that night. I don't know if she was saying goodbye or what. Maybe she had been thinking of me that day just as I had been of her, and so we had a psychic connection? I can’t imagine she was thinking of me in her final moments. I just don’t know, but whatever it was caused me many sleepless nights that summer.