Time Masters Book One; The Call (An Urban Fantasy, Time Travel Romance) by Geralyn Beauchamp

She sat on the bed and rocked back and forth to still her trembling body. “Please hold together. Let us not fall to pieces. So you see someone else’s face in the mirror. So what? Th ey are only dreams. Shona, you are sleep- walking that is all.” Her shaky voice was not very convincing even to herself. She bit her lower lip in confusion and frustration. “What am I saying? I have never walked in my sleep in my life! Oh blast it all there is an explanation! A person cannot experience things like this for three months and there not be a logical explanation!”
    Shona crawled beneath her blankets and curled into a tight ball. “So why can I not think of one?”
    She rolled onto her back only to grimace with pain and grab her shoulder, tears in her eyes. Never had anything hurt so badly. “And what on earth did I do to this?” She carefully turned to her other sid e and curled up again. “I can't believe this shoulder hurts this bad and ... blast these stupid dreams! ” She thought a moment, and groaned aloud. “I do not believe this. I am talking to myself!”
    Shona groaned and let her mind wander over the past several months an d the start of the dreams haunting her. But now it wasn’t only the dreams that got her thinking. Nothing was familiar anymore.
    Simple things, a piece of furniture in her room, her clothes, favorite objects about the house in which she grew up and sti ll lived, all seemed alien now, like some sort of weird disassociation.  The most puzzling thing, however, was the unexplainable loneliness that began to plague her a few weeks ago. It was an odd sort of loneliness, almost like being homesick. She had had the fee ling once before when at age fi ve she spent part of the summer with her aunt and uncle in California while her parents went to Europe. She could remember trying to talk her aunt into sending her home, but her pleas had been ignored, and she suff ered through the long weeks with no hope of going sooner than expected. It was the only time she had ever been separated from her parents. It was also the fi rst time she had experienced one of the dreams now haunting her four teen years later.
    Shona again tried to get comfortable and fall back to sleep, her best defense against the unwanted emotions rallying within her for recognition. To give in to them would mean pain, and she didn’t want to deal with any more pain tonight. Her shoulder was enough, let alone any emotional pain on top of it.
    No luck. The darkened room closed in around her as she lay there, her mind automatically turning to her second-best defense. Logic. Th ere must be some suppressed fear from childhood causing this. But what on earth could have happened to her? And why would she be dreaming of a little boy she’d never met before? At least she didn’t think she had. Why in her dreams did she always sing? What was the little boy doing or about to do when she sang? She could never recall much after seeing her face change, probably because she was too t errifi ed to notice.
    “This is ridiculous. I have got to get a grip. For crying out loud! I might end up talking to myself all night! Maybe I should call Kitty.” Shona bit her bottom lip and glanced at the phone layi ng dormant on her nightstand, then looked at the clock. Two a.m., not a good time. “And not a good subject to be talking to Kitty about I suppose .”
    No not a good subject at all. Kitty Morgan may be her best friend and as much a misfi t as Shona herself what with her dozen or so cats, her frenzied shopping habits, and her constant search for the perfect man. No, even Kitty had her limits, and Shona wasn’t about to push them. She’d just have to battle on her own.
    The clock ticked endlessly as sleep continued to elude her. Reluctantly, Shona once again let her mind drift to the inevitable.
    The boy.
    As if against her will, she began to answer him, the boy who seemed to cry out to her from so far away. Or was it she who called to him? At this