She comes here as a visitor, stranger to a place she once knew and loved, so she has to walk the narrow path through the graveyard. She does it without thought or complaint, though she knows this is not right. The night sky is a velvety dark blue, and three stars shine bright to her eyes. A crisp white moon lights her way, and she murmurs thanks to the kind goddess who has lent her this aid.

The crosses watch her in the night, bearing silent testimony to the long years. The night is quiet and still, too quiet and too still for New York City. She does not notice. She does not care. The whispers in her mind occupy her too much: voices from her past, voices from the future, voices from the dirt beneath her feet. She hears without listening. She looks without seeing. There was a time when the names on the gravestones meant something to her: Swin, Asjha, Tamika, Shea, Maria, Ashley, Jessica, Ann, Barbara, Ketia, Jamie, Lauren, Betty, Janell, Yolanda, Tanisha, Katie… there are others, too, and these mean even less than nothing to her.

The walk is longer than she thought it was at the gate. She continues walking. She has to get to her destination before the end of the night. She passes line after line of crosses, the names faded and hard to see, the letters blurring together until she can no longer even make out who lies beneath. Someone is screaming, piercing cries that shatter the still of the night, but not the stillness of her mind.

Maybe she should feel something. Fear, shame, guilt, anxiety, nervousness, anger, curiosity- something, anything. And she tries, but she can no longer summon up the will to worry, to doubt, to fear, to do anything but keep walking to the end of the path, to the destination that looms larger and larger in her sight. This is where she was always meant to be.

Even mounds of earth give way to their inverse. One last cross, at the very foot of the stairs leading to the court where she once carried teams to glory, where rings once weighed down her fingers. One last time, her name blazes out for all the world to see, a short burst that echoes down the years. Even now, she is calm, emotionless, unresisting. This is where she's always belonged.

She steps forward and down, lies in her own grave, and closes her eyes to the welcoming embrace of darkness and silence.

She awakens again in Diana's arms, where she belongs, where she's always belonged. There is nowhere else but here; there is no one else but her; there is nothing else but this love that has consumed her heart, her body, and her soul. There is no past, because she gave it to Shea. There is no future, because she gave it to Diana. There is only the present, and only Diana, and this knowledge soothes her, comforts her, protects her from the past she has surrendered, the present she has created, and the future she will shape.

She remembers nothing of the dream. She never does.