I sank into sleep with the Green family tree branching through my mind, names and connections twisted like ancient roots seeking purchase in the dark soil of my thoughts. The familiar vertigo of crossing over seized me—that peculiar sensation of falling upward, of the world inverting itself around me—and I knew before the library materialized that this was no ordinary dream. The dead had come calling.
The transition happened without the customary blur of ordinary dreams. One moment I was drifting in darkness, and the next I stood firmly planted on polished hardwood, surrounded by walls of books that stretched upward until perspective swallowed them. The air smelled of leather bindings, pipe tobacco, and that peculiar mustiness that money can never quite eliminate from old collections. Rain tapped against tall windows with the precision of skeletal fingers, marking time in a rhythm just slightly too perfect to be natural.
A massive mahogany desk dominated the center of the room, its surface meticulously arranged with leather-bound journals, a crystal inkwell, and a silver letter opener shaped like a miniature sword. The lighting was impossibly even, casting no shadows where shadows should fall, illuminating every corner with equal clarity—one of those subtle wrongnesses that mark dreamscapes fashioned by intelligent will rather than the chaos of the subconscious.
Across from me, settled in a high-backed leather chair that might have doubled as a throne, sat a man I had never met yet instantly recognized.
Seamus Green didn’t look like the centenarian he’d been at death. Here, in this constructed reality, he appeared perhaps in his seventies—still elderly, but vital, possessed of the sharpness that age often dulls. Silver hair swept back from a high forehead, neatly combed but with a rebellious strand falling across his temple. Behind wire-rimmed glasses, his eyes were the pale, washed-out blue of winter sky, intelligent and assessing. His three-piece suit was charcoal gray, the fabric so fine it seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. A gold watch chain draped across his vest, connecting to something tucked away in his pocket.
I remained still, understanding the protocol. In my experience, spirits rarely initiated contact without purpose, and interrupting them before they established their intention only led to confusion. The dead operate according to their own sense of time.
“Ms. Vega,” he said finally, his voice resonant and clear in a way that voices rarely are in dreams. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
The words hung in the air between us, almost visible in their solidity. My name in his mouth felt like a contract being signed.
“Mr. Green,” I acknowledged with a slight nod. “You know who I am.”
A smile touched his lips, not quite reaching those pale eyes. “I keep track of people with your particular talents. Even from the other side.” His fingers tapped methodically on the armrest of his chair, each contact producing a sound slightly louder than it should have been. “My grandson found you. Good. He’s sharper than the family gives him credit for.”
The dream-library seemed to contract slightly around us, the ceiling lowering imperceptibly, the walls drawing inward—a subtle pressure that spoke of limited time.
“Why am I here?” I asked, direct and unafraid. Dream or not, I understood the rules of such encounters.
“Because there’s more to my death than meets the eye.” Seamus leaned forward, the movement accompanied by the creak of leather that sounded like a distant cry. “I need you to go to my lawyer, Edward Summer. His office is at 875 Third Avenue, 21st floor.”
I committed the address to memory, repeating it silently. In dreams like this, important information often dissolved upon waking unless deliberately preserved. 875 Third. 21st floor.
“What do I tell him?” I asked, watching as a book slid slightly on a shelf behind him without anyone touching it.
“Tell him my code was 11-65-87-19,” Seamus said, his expression grave beneath the silver hair. “He’ll understand its significance.”
The numbers seemed to pulse in the air: 11-65-87-19. I could feel them burning into my memory, branding themselves there. Four innocent numbers that clearly contained secrets worth reaching across the veil to protect.
“And who should I say I am?” I asked, practical concerns intruding even in this liminal space. “Your grandson’s tarot reader hardly seems—”
“Tell him you were my mistress.”
The words landed between us with the weight of an anchor dropped on polished wood. I blinked, unable to hide my surprise, a reaction that seemed to amuse the dead man.
“Your mistress? But you were—”
“102, yes.” Seamus chuckled, the sound echoing strangely in the dream library, reverberating at a frequency that made my teeth ache. “Which will make your claim all the more intriguing to Edward. He’s a creature of habit, bored by routine. This will certainly get his attention.”
I frowned, my mind already calculating the absurdity of the scenario—me, claiming romantic involvement with a man born when the Titanic was still considered unsinkable.
“Is there nothing else I could—”
“There is no time for alternatives.” His voice sharpened, and the edges of the library began to blur, books fading into indistinct shapes as if someone had spilled water on a ink drawing. “Tell him you believe I was murdered. Tell him the will requires examination—the handwriting analyzed.”
The room darkened around us, the carefully constructed dreamscape beginning to dissolve. Seamus’s form became increasingly transparent, the details of his face smudging like a photograph left in the rain. The chair he sat in seemed to be absorbing him, pulling him back into whatever realm he had emerged from to reach me.
“Wait,” I called out, stepping forward only to find the distance between us stretching impossibly. “Who wanted you dead?”
His response came as a whisper, barely audible as the dream collapsed around us, the walls of books melting into darkness, the rain against the windows transforming into the white noise of nothingness:
“Follow the money, Ms. Vega. Always follow the money.”
I reached out, my hand passing through the space where he had been, feeling only the cold emptiness that separates the living from the dead. Seamus Green and his library had vanished completely, leaving me suspended in the void between waking and sleeping, clutching four numbers like a lifeline: 11-65-87-19.
As consciousness began to reclaim me, I felt the weight of Seamus Green’s visitation settling into my bones. Whatever had happened to the centenarian millionaire, he believed it was worth breaching the barrier between worlds to expose. And somehow, I had become his chosen messenger—a role I neither sought nor fully understood, but one I was apparently meant to play.
The dream faded completely, leaving only urgency in its wake, and the bitter certainty that the dead rarely exaggerate when they claim murder.
I jolted awake at 3:17 AM, the red digits of my bedside clock pulsing in the darkness like an accusation. My heart hammered against my ribs, the echo of Seamus Green’s final words—follow the money—still reverberating in my skull. The sheets twisted around my legs like serpents, evidence of my body’s restless response to the dream that hadn’t felt like a dream at all.
Most visions fade upon waking, the details dissolving like sugar in hot water. This one remained crystalline, etched in my memory with unnatural precision. The weight of the mahogany desk. The pattern of raindrops against tall windows. The gold chain across Seamus Green’s vest. And most importantly, those numbers.
“11-65-87-19,” I whispered into the darkness, reaching for the notepad I keep beside my bed for exactly this purpose. Dreams, visions, and messages have a tendency to slip away if not captured immediately.
I fumbled for my phone, activating the screen to provide enough light to write by. The sudden blue glow carved sharp shadows across my bedroom, transforming familiar objects into cryptic shapes. My handwriting looked foreign in the dim light as I scribbled: “11-65-87-19. Summer. 875 Third Ave. 21st floor.”
Setting down the pen, I pushed myself upright, my back against the headboard. My apartment felt different—charged somehow, as if the boundary between worlds had thinned. The air held a static quality, pressing against my skin with subtle weight. A common sensation after significant dreams, like the aftertaste of cosmic communication.
“Mister B.,” I called softly, knowing he was there before I saw him. “I know you’re there.”
He materialized near my window, his form slightly luminous against the darkness. During my waking hours, Mister B. typically appeared as more impression than image—a suggestion of tweed, the hint of a bowtie, the general sense of dignified observation. But in these liminal moments, caught between sleep and full consciousness, he manifested with greater clarity.
Tonight, I could see the precise pattern of his bowtie (diagonal burgundy stripes against navy), the silver at his temples, the slight furrow between his brows that spoke of perpetual concern for my wellbeing.
“You had a visitor,” he observed. Not a question.
“Seamus Green.” I switched on my bedside lamp, blinking against the sudden light. The shadow edges in the room softened, and with them, Mister B.’s clarity diminished slightly—still present, but less defined. “At least, someone claiming to be Seamus Green.”
“And you doubt this claim?” Mister B. raised an eyebrow, the gesture carrying a hint of gentle challenge.
I pushed myself out of bed, suddenly restless, the cold floor under my bare feet grounding me in physical reality. My cotton pajama pants had twisted around my waist; I straightened them as I walked.
“I’ve never met the man. I have no way to verify if that was actually his spirit or just…” I gestured vaguely at my temples. “My subconscious processing the case.”
“Your subconscious conjured a specific address and a four-number code?” Mister B.’s tone was gently skeptical as he drifted further into the room. His movement lacked the ordinary constraints of walking; he simply existed in one space and then another. “And instructed you to pose as a centenarian’s mistress?”
Put that way, it did seem unlikely. I moved to the kitchenette, the wooden floorboards creaking beneath my weight in a way they never did beneath his. I filled a glass with water from the tap, watching the liquid catch the dim light from the bedroom.
“That’s the part that concerns me most,” I admitted, turning to face my guide. “Claiming to be his mistress seems…”
“Distasteful?” Mister B. suggested, adjusting his bowtie—a habitual gesture that persisted beyond death.
“Ridiculous,” I corrected, taking a sip of water. “I’m thirty-six. He was one hundred and two. No one would believe it.”
“Perhaps that’s precisely the point.” Mister B. followed me, his form drifting without touching the floor. “The claim is outlandish enough to command attention.”
I leaned against the counter, considering this perspective. The cool surface pressed against my lower back, another anchor to the physical world when discussing matters beyond it.
“If it really was Seamus Green…” I shook my head, doubt creeping back in. “But why would his spirit reach out to me? We have no connection.”
“You have Jason,” Mister B. reminded me. “And five thousand dollars of Green family money in your account.”
That was true enough. My gaze drifted to my laptop, still open on my desk where I’d left it before sleep claimed me. The screen had gone dark, but I could picture the browser tabs I’d spent hours filling with information about the Green family empire.
I’d learned that Seamus had built his fortune in real estate during New York’s post-war boom, amassing properties when Manhattan was transforming itself. The subsequent generations had expanded into finance, art investment, and technology. The family’s current holdings were estimated at over half a billion dollars.
Seamus himself had left the majority of his personal estate—approximately $200 million—to his daughter Aurelia, with smaller portions distributed to various charities and distant relatives. Jason had been specifically excluded, the will allegedly citing his “ongoing substance abuse issues” as the reason.
“If the dream was genuine,” I said slowly, turning back to Mister B., “it suggests Jason is right. Something happened to Seamus Green. Something unnatural.”
“One way to find out.” Mister B. gestured toward the notepad with the address. “Visit Mr. Summer in the morning.”
I exhaled heavily, already imagining the awkwardness of claiming to be an elderly millionaire’s mistress. The absurdity of it. The potential for humiliation.
“This is going to be uncomfortable,” I murmured, draining the rest of my water.
“Most worthwhile endeavors are,” Mister B. replied, his form beginning to fade as I became fully awake, the liminality of early waking dissolving with each passing minute. “Get some rest. Tomorrow may prove illuminating.”
But sleep proved elusive for the remainder of the night. I lay in bed, watching shadows migrate across my ceiling as the occasional car passed by, casting momentary patterns through the blinds. My mind churned with possibilities, rehearsing what I would say to a stranger about a man I had never met.
The numbers—11-65-87-19—repeated in my thoughts like a mantra. What could they unlock? A safe? A security system? A bank account? Whatever they accessed, Seamus Green believed it important enough to bridge the gap between life and death to ensure they reached the right hands.
Unless, of course, the dream had been nothing more than my own imagination—my subconscious weaving a narrative from the fragments Jason had shared, from the research I’d conducted, from my own need to believe my services were worthwhile.
I turned onto my side, pulling the blanket tighter around my shoulders against a chill that seemed to emanate from within rather than without. The boundary between genuine spiritual guidance and self-delusion has always been treacherously thin. Those of us who walk it risk falling to either side—becoming either frauds or fools.
Tomorrow would force a reckoning with that boundary. I would either discover confirmation that Seamus Green’s spirit had indeed reached out to me, or I would face the uncomfortable possibility that I was constructing elaborate fantasies to justify my profession—and my fee.
With that unsettling thought, I watched the digits on my clock change from 4:59 to 5:00, another hour lost to doubt and speculation, wondering if I was following the breadcrumbs of truth or simply losing my mind.
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