Rich Shapero (15 page)

"Put the book down, wash your hands,
and help me set the table." She smiled to herself and began dishing food
onto platters.

Robbie nodded and did as he was told. But
he didn't like the way Mom looked, and he didn't think Dad would either.

At the sound of his car in the drive, Mom
hurried to the door, and when it opened, she hugged him and gave him laughing
looks. Dad took in her costume and laughed back, but he was tired and Robbie
saw the indifference in his eyes.

"I remember that pendant," Dad
told her, being polite.

Mom hurried to finish putting food on the
table, shouting directions to Robbie and apologizing to Dad. Robbie glanced at
him. Dad shrugged. Neither could make any sense of it.

Mom saved the strangest thing for last.
When they sat down, she struck a match and lit the two candles on the table.

Then she drew the curtains and turned off
the lights.

There was a long silence.

"I can't see my food," Robbie
said finally.

Dad laughed.

Mom's lips widened. In the dim light, her
face was like a mask—etched with emotion, but frozen. Robbie couldn't tell if
she was smiling or not.

"It's romantic," she said lowly.

"I think it's stupid." Robbie
glanced at Dad.

"A nice idea," Dad said with a
conciliatory nod.

"Please—" Mom sighed.

"Really, I mean it."

"You see?" Mom turned her mask
toward Robbie. In the flicker, the painted lips grinned, clown-like. They
twisted, vengeful, almost malevolent.

"Felicia—" Dad's voice had a
sharp edge.

Mom was still staring at Robbie. "Go
to your room."

"He didn't mean anything," Dad
said, bristling.

Robbie felt a chill settle over the table,
and he was suddenly fearful. Why couldn't he keep quiet?

Mom rose slowly. She stood for a moment,
her head lost in darkness. Then she clasped one of the candles and flung it at
Dad. Next, she turned to the meal—casserole, soup, vegetables—grabbing one
after the other and hurling the crockery to the floor. Dad rose in the midst of
it, watching her rage and the crashing and splattering. But he didn't respond.

Robbie stared at the lone candle, seeing it
flicker, shaking with dread. It was flat on top, like the Dream Man's head.

A sound from Mom, half-gasp, half-cry. Dad
reached out and spoke in a sad voice. Mom responded, bitter and despairing.

But Robbie didn't hear what they said. The
rushing noise had started up. The spoon by his hand came alive, wings
jackknifing out. He recoiled with amazement as the giant bug lifted, glittering
turquoise and lemon, and circled the table. All the spoons were dragonflies,
Robbie realized, and the knives and forks, too. Without anyone knowing, they
whirred their lace wings and came and went. He heard a bit more from Dad, a
little of Mom, and then the rushing sound mounted, drowning them out. The
furniture vanished, or rather Robbie realized it had never been there. They
thought they were on firm ground, but they were really just floating. The
table—it wasn't real, and neither was the food. It was all just pretend. The
rushing was deafening now. The house was careening through space. And where the
living room wall was, the great eye of the Dream Man was looking in. A billion
dragonflies whirred, the glowing hurricane churned, a billion thoughts
interwoven, and what was real and what was not was, moment-by-moment, decided
in the depths of that mind. Robbie's world, his mom and his dad— Whatever
happened was up to the Dream Man.

"A dream," the deep voice
confirmed. "A bad one."

At some point, he heard a command.
"Your room. Go to your room." Was it Dad or Mom? Or the voice of the
Dream Man? Did he whisper that? Yes, it was definitely him. So Robbie floated
down the hall, shoes barely touching, and when he lay on his bed, he bobbed
like his toy tug when Mom filled the tub. "Dream, Robbie, dream," the
Dream Man said. He put his head under the pillow to blacken the night, and the
Dream Man lifted him. Robbie drifted in oblivion for what seemed a long time.

An outburst jarred him from sleep—Mom and
Dad. Their voices pulled him back.

"I'm trying," Dad insisted, but
he sounded hopeless.

"You don't care a thing for me,"
Mom said between sobs.

Then the rushing roared up and the Dream
Eye advanced, and it churned and devoured what remained of the house. At the
back of his mind, Robbie was wondering, "Is it really that bad?" And
the Dream Man answered, "You don't want to know." It was just him on
his bed now, rising, weightless. And then his bed fell away, and he was on his
belly, arms spread, headed toward that great vortex of light. Below—a
bottomless void with a few winking stars.

I'm frightened,
Robbie thought.

"As well you should be."

The gyre turned, drawing him closer.
Where
am I going?

"Into my mind."

Robbie twisted his hips and teetered his arms,
trying to master the currents. But they were beyond his control. The furious
rush sucked him, the eddy arched over, the living plait telescoped out.

A nightmare,
Robbie thought, as
the hurricane engulfed him.

"Bad dreams are things precious the
soul fears it may lose."

The dragonfly hordes whirled around Robbie,
a myriad thoughts flashing, forming chains and uncoupling, twisting and
cross-linked and woven with Ys.

"Breathe, Robbie, breathe. I want you
to see."

Robbie inhaled and a deep calm infused him.
The glowing plait parted and Robbie dropped through. It was a memory, a moment,
a tiny cove in the Dream Man's mind.

He was floating above the black trees, and
the Dream Man was around him, in the form he'd first seen him—a billowing
cloud. But now Robbie was inside. The cumulus was suffused with dragonfly
glitter, fiery trails like threads of stray thought, and the vapor itself
seemed to glide forward, imbued with purpose. Then the dark mass folded in on
itself, turning dense and doughy, and it fell from around Robbie's shoulders
like a heavy cloak.

There was a path through the black trees
and it led to the Cabin. And the cloak settled onto it in the shape of a man—a
black silhouette, naked with glints, with a head impossibly tall. He walked
behind a woman, naked as well, and she had arms, not wings. And as they walked,
the woman was singing, and the Dream Man was murmuring, "Dream, dream,
dream, dream . . ."

When they reached the Cabin, the Dream Man
stopped and gestured her forward. The woman turned and embraced him, and his
silhouette changed. The borders of his body dissolved, while his arms reached
forward and his head billowed like smoke. His hands came loose and inflated
like antlers, and a beast's face grew down from them, furry and long.

The woman stepped to the door, and as she
approached, it swung open. Hands entered before her and took his place on the
wall. She lay on the mattress and drew the dark blanket over her. Then the
Dream Man's head billowed hugely, surrounding the Cabin, and his thoughts
stirred anew. Hundreds, thousands, monstrous eyes gleaming turquoise and lime,
wings whirring, threads circling, their flight paths lighting the cloud from
within. Billions now, more and more alive, the dragonfly gyre hissing and
crackling—

Then, in an instant, dragonflies fired
inward, a thousand bright darts, and the Cabin burst into flame.

Tapers rose up, gold and blood-orange,
licking the windows. As they danced, they reached, overtopping the roof, giant
tears with blue hearts, searching and meeting. A sharp cry from within, and
then a long trailing moan.

"Dream, dream, dream," the flames
chanted, feeding the cloud. And through the flames soared the moan, like an
answer. The woman was burning, with pain and with bliss. Her pain, Hands
watched over with an understanding eye. And her bliss rose to join the one she
adored. Above the Cabin, wings of smoke were unfolding.

The woods were hushed, now thick with
eyes—wild things staring with dreams in their minds, rapt and expectant as the
augured rite mounted. "Dream, dream, dream," the flames chanted. And
the Dream Man's deep whisper wove through it all. The Cabin grew black, and the
trees nearby charred. And as the great wings spread and rose from the Hollow,
every heart thrilled, knowing its master. For the deliverance of Dawn was the
triumph of Too Far.

The tortured voice faded and the flames
died down. The embers blinked and the eyes dispersed. And the woods and the
Cabin were silent as before.

The Dream Man didn't wait. He led his love
aloft, and he took Robbie, too. Time past or time present—who really knows. But
the Dream Man, and the one he wished to wed, spent the night in his heavenly
home. And Robbie was with them, and heard every word. Vows and
endearments—meant for each other, or the ears of a child? Or for all who would
join them? Who knows, who knows. It was late when they tired, Robbie curled
between them. And the Dream Man sighed, kissed his temple and spoke. "Fear
is the fire, soul is the smoke."

***

Death to a dream is waking. As the morning
filtered into Robbie's room, his dream slowly died. He was leaving a place of
great exhilaration, falling down a dark well. The whisper of the Dream Man
trailed after him, incoherent, indistinct. And then it was gone, and Robbie
felt his head on his pillow, a new day prying at his lids.

Someone was in his room, standing just
inside the door. Was it Mom? Bleary, he saw her regarding him.

"I'm sorry." Mom stepped forward
and kissed his cheek. "We both are."

Dad was behind her. He sighed and leaned
over, and Robbie felt Dad stroke his hair.

He mumbled something, and sleep rolled back
over him. What a surprise—that the house was still there, and that he was in
it. He drifted on the border of waking and sleep, and then he stirred again.

Robbie yawned and sat up. The light through
the curtains was blinding. He squinted, gaze wandering over the brain on his
wall. Had his parents really been there, or had he imagined it? All that
remained of his wild dream were vague impressions, trails of two dragonflies
circling his bed. What was a brain, really? Just a head full of thoughts,
waiting to be set free. It's the Dream Man they need.

That's what happened to Dawn. She wouldn't
ever wake up. Her body was gone, and all the thoughts inside her had flown to
him. Robbie imagined flocks of souls converging from all quarters, their smoky
forms blinking as they crossed the gray heavens, headed for the Dream Man's
whirling eye. The notion so energized him that he leaped out of bed, threw his
door open and stepped down the hall.

As he entered the living room, a deep chill
stole over him. Mom and Dad's anger and pain. It had claimed their house. If it
could, it would take him as well.

Trudy was on the sofa, filing her nails.

He hurried back to his room and changed his
clothes, eager to relate what had happened to Fristeen.

***

She was waiting for him in the shrubs. As
soon as she saw him, she hunched over and clenched her fists. Then she was
sobbing, distraught.

"What is it?"

"Grace," she said venomously.
"Can you get me something to eat?"

Robbie saw the shame in her eyes.
"Sure."

"There's no food," Fristeen said.
"She forgot."

"Wait here."

Robbie got Trudy to make him two
sandwiches. When he returned, Fristeen wolfed one down.

"Did you eat last night?"

She shook her head.

"I didn't either. Mom and Dad had a
really bad fight."

Fristeen saw how upset he was. "Why do
they do that?"

Robbie shrugged. "Mom started
it." He sniffled. "That's a lie. It was me."

"What did you do?"

"Still hungry?" Robbie held out
the second sandwich.

She took it and bit in.

"I made fun of her." Robbie felt
his throat tighten.

"I bet you're sorry," Fristeen
said.

Robbie nodded and wiped his nose.

They climbed the Hill, followed the Bendies,
and scrambled under the Fallen Down Trees. Neither spoke. The trials in their
separate homes returned, filling their minds, keeping them dark and apart. But
it didn't take the sun and the forest long. When they reached Where You Can
See, the view and the breeze brought them close. Fristeen stopped where the Dot
Trees started and gave him a hug.

"Guess what?" she said.

"What?"

"I had a dream last night. I'm pretty
sure it's true." She combed her lip with her teeth. "Dawn came to get
me. I thought we were friends, but I was wrong. She's my real mom."

"She'd be a good one." He smiled
and they headed down.

"She can be both our moms,"
Fristeen said.

When they reached the Perfect Place, they
joined hands and brushed shoulders as they walked. They paused before the hole
in the Needle Patch, then Robbie knelt and started through it. The needles
pricked them as always. Robbie stopped midway.