Lair of Dreams

“Here we are. Just like old times,” Sister Walker murmured.



The car’s headlights bounced off the eyes of a rabbit that sprinted through the winter-dead grass. Will kept a hand on the folder of newspaper clippings in his lap.



“Not quite,” he said at last and kept his eyes on the road ahead.



Just before bed, Ling set her alarm, said her prayers, lit some incense, and slid George’s track medal under her pillow, resting her fingers on top in the hope that she’d be able to make contact with him in the dream world. She kept her eyes on the ticking second hand of the clock, letting it lull her into a hypnotic trance. A moment later she woke, gasping, inside the dream world. Henry was there, doubled over, breathing heavily. “Fancy meeting you here.”



“Are you all right?” Ling asked.



“Sure… just need a minute to catch my breath. I’m… not used to doing so much dream walking. Need to get my sea legs under me.”



“Don’t you carry any jade for protection?” Ling asked.



“I’m plenty jaded all on my own.”



Ling rolled her eyes. “You’re an idiot. Find some jade. It helps me.” While Henry caught his breath, Ling searched for any hint of George, but she didn’t see him anywhere.



“George?” she whispered. “George Huang. George, are you here?”



“What are you doing?” Henry asked, coming to her side.



Ling whirled around. “Nothing. I thought I saw a friend, but I was mistaken.”



The fog lifted on the streets of the old-fashioned dream-jumble city, and the familiar scene started up like a clockwork show: The fighting men falling out of the saloon doors. The children chasing the rolling hoop, shouting, “Anthony Orange Cross!” The ghostly wagon and driver clopping by—“Beware, beware, Paradise Square!”



“Huh. It’s exactly the same scene,” Henry said.



“So?”



“Well, it’s curious, isn’t it? I’ve had a recurring dream before, but there’s always something a bit different each time—the scarecrow in the cornfield has a different hat, or the house that’s supposed to be your house has unfamiliar rooms. But this has been the same sequence of events in precisely the same order each time we’ve come here. If I’m correct, any second now, there should be fireworks right over… there.”



Henry pointed, and the night sky exploded with pops of light.



“You see? And now…” Henry gestured like a circus barker. “The man in the vest, please.”



Like an old vaudevillian respectful of timing, the man appeared, a glimmering in the haze.



“Ladies and gentlemen! Come one, come all, for a ride on Alfred Beach’s pneumatic train. See this marvel for yourselves and be amazed, ladies and gentlemen—the future of travel, beneath these very streets!”



“It’s like a loop of dream time that’s stuck for some reason,” Henry said.



A shriek reverberated throughout the foggy city, and then: “Murder! Murder! Oh, murder!”



Henry and Ling crowded together.



“Here… she… comes,” Henry said.



Right on schedule, the ghostly veiled woman in the blood-smeared dress emerged from the fog and ran past them and through the wall of Devlin’s Clothing Store. The shimmering portal opened once more.



“C’mon!” Henry said, and he and Ling darted down the steps into the dark underworld of the dream.



As they waited in the train station, Henry told Ling about what happened after they’d been separated, how he’d followed the path to the cabin and Louis. “But what happened to you afterward?” Henry asked as he sat at the old Chickering, marveling once more that there was a piano he could play inside a dream.



“I met another dream walker last night. Her name is Wai-Mae,” Ling said. “She talks too much. Even more than you do.”



Henry smiled at the jibe. “So there are three of us? It’s getting mighty crowded in this dream world. Tell me,” he said, picking out a melody, “what do you do when you’re not talking to the dead or leading wayward musicians into magical train stations, Miss Chan?”



“I help my parents in the restaurant,” she said, sitting on the edge of the fountain to watch the goldfish darting about. “But I want to go to college and study science.”



“Ah. That stack of books you had with you.”



“I remember the first time I read about Jake Marlowe’s experiments with the atom. It made me think of dreams.”