Lair of Dreams

“But what is it?” Ling said, more to herself than to Wai-Mae. “How did you get here? Did you come here on the train?”



“The train?” Wai-Mae’s eyes crinkled as she smiled. “Oh, yes! The train! Did it also bring you?”



“Yes. But I came with a boy, another dream walker, Henry—”



“There’s another?” Wai-Mae gasped, delighted. “But where is he?”



“I don’t know. That’s the trouble,” Ling said evenly. She was beginning to think that Wai-Mae wasn’t terribly bright. “When we stepped off the train, he ran, and I lost him.”



“You lost the dream walker?” Wai-Mae shook her head. “That’s very careless, Ling.”



Ling glared, but Wai-Mae didn’t seem to feel her silent scold. “Can you at least help me look for him?”



Wai-Mae’s eyes widened. “Is this other dream walker your husband?”



“My…? No! No. He is not my husband,” Ling sputtered. “He’s… never mind.”



“I don’t know if it’s proper for you to be walking in dreams with a boy who is not your husband, Ling,” Wai-Mae tutted. “Very well. I will help you. But you really should be more careful with your friends in the future, Little Warrior. Come. This way.”



Ling wasn’t sure whom she wanted to kill more for ruining her night’s dream walk: Henry or this thoroughly irritating girl. She opened her mouth to say something, then thought better of it, and with a heavy sigh resigned herself to following Wai-Mae through the wood.



But once she found Henry again, she’d have plenty to say to him.



Louis’s voice, no longer a memory, unlatched Henry’s emotions. He wanted to throw his arms around Louis but was afraid that if he did, Louis would disappear, leaving him in an embrace of smoke.



“Louis, is that really you?”



“You know another Louis looks like me?” Louis said, just as if they were on the Elysian, headed up the river on a hot day, as if no time had passed at all. “Where are we? What is this place? Looks like the bayou but it isn’t. Not quite.”



“It’s a dream. We’re inside a dream,” Henry explained, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. He was laughing and crying all at once.



Louis let out a long whistle. “Well, then. Got to be the nicest dream I ever had.”



Henry couldn’t take it another second. He wanted to kiss Louis, to hold him in his arms. He’d never been able to do that in a dream before, but he’d never been in a dream like this one, either. Carefully, he reached out to touch Louis’s sleeve, and his heart sank when he couldn’t quite make contact. It was as if the thinnest pane of glass separated them. How could it be that he could smell gardenia and feel the grain of the wood but not touch his lover? The logic of dreams was unknowable and cruel.



Sharp barking sounded from the river, and a moment later, a freckled hound came sniffing up to Henry through the grass, its tail wagging.



“Gaspard?” Henry said, amazed. The dog circled him twice before tearing after a mourning dove.



“It’s all so real,” Henry said, but his wonder soon gave way to anxiety. “Louis, where have you been?”



“What d’you mean, where I been? ’Cept for some trips up the river, I been where I’ve always been. You’re the one who left, not me,” he said, and Henry heard the note of recrimination in it.



“Only because I had to. Because of my father,” Henry said. He told Louis what had happened the day his father found the letter. “I tried to get word to you, believe me. I’ve been looking everywhere for you—even in dreams.”



“And here I thought you’d gone and forgotten me.” Louis played it light, but Henry knew him too well. He was hurt. Maybe even angry.



“Never. I could never forget you, Louis,” Henry said, and he wished once more that this weren’t a dream and that he could hold Louis.



“I went on over to your house lookin’ for you. Thought Flossie might know somethin’.”



Henry’s heartbeat quickened. “What happened?”



“Found your maman sitting in the cemetery talking to the angels. She didn’t know nothin’. About ’at time, your daddy come out and found me talkin’ to her. He knew who I was, all right. Told me I’d better never come ’round there again or he’d shoot me as a trespasser. Not that that woulda kept me away.” Louis’s smile was short-lived. “He told me you’d left town and that you didn’t want nothin’ to do with me no more—you didn’t even want to say good-bye.” Louis’s voice went feathery. “He told me you hated me.”