Tapping the Dream Tree (38 page)

“So what words do I say?” she asked instead.

“You'll know when the time is right.”

“But…”

Meran gave her another of her smiles. “Don't worry so much.”

“Okay.”

Sheri looked from the magical woman sitting across the table from her to the even more magical little man sitting on a Barbie kitchen chair between them. Jenky watched her expectantly. Meran said nothing, did nothing. There was an odd, unfocused look to her gaze, but otherwise she seemed to merely be waiting, managing to do so without conveying the vaguest sense of pressure.

But there was pressure all the same—self-imposed on Sheri's part, but no less urgent for that.

What if she didn't say the right thing? How much was she supposed to say? How was she supposed to know when the time was right?

It was all so nebulous.

“So when do we start?” Sheri asked.

Meran's gaze came into focus and found Sheri's.

“Breathe,” she said. “Slowly. Try to still the conversations that rise up in your head and don't concentrate on anything until you feel a change. You'll know it when you feel it.”

Then she slowly closed her eyes.

Sheri copied her, closing her own eyes. Breathing deeply and slowly, she tried to feel this change. Something, anything. Maybe a difference in the air. Some sense that they were sideways from the world as she knew it, inhabiting a pocket of the world where magic could happen.

If magic
was
real, that was.

If it…

She wasn't sure where it originated, the sudden impression of assurance that came whispering through her, calm and sure and secret. She felt like she was at the center of some enormous wheel and that all the possibilities of what might be were radiating out from her like a hundred thousand filigreed spokes. It was like floating, like coming apart and reconnecting with everything. But it was also like being utterly focused as well. She could look at all those threads arcing away from her and easily find and hold the one that was needed in her mind.

“Hope,” she said.

“Is that word for them or for you?”

As soon as Meran asked the question, Sheri saw how it could go. She realized that under the connection she felt to this wheel of possibilities, she'd continued to harbor her own need, continued to reach for that elusive partner every single person looked for,whether they admit it or not. He could be called to her with Meran's old tribal word. The right partner, the perfect partner. All she had to do was say, “for me.”

Because magic was real, she knew that now. At least this magic was real. It could bring him to her.

But then she opened her eyes. Her gaze went to Jenky, watching her with expectant eyes and held breath.

Promises made. Promises broken.

What good were promises if you didn't keep them? How could you respect yourself, never mind expect anyone else to respect you, if you could break them so easily? What would the perfect man think of her when he learned how she'd brought him to her?

Not to mention what she'd said barely ten minutes ago, how it wasn't right to have something for nothing.

But that was before she'd realized it could really be made to happen.

That was before all the lonely nights were washed away with the promise of just the right man coming into her life.

“No,” she said. “I meant faith. Belief. That bird and Little can be one again, the shape they wear being their own choice.”

Meran smiled.

“Done,” she said.

Sheri felt a rumbling underfoot, like a subway car running just under the basement of her apartment building. But there was no subway within blocks of her place. The tea mugs rattled on the table and Jenky gripped the seat of his chair. Something swelled inside her, deep and old, too big for her to hold inside.

And then it was gone.

Sheri blinked and looked at Meran.

Was that it? she wanted to ask. What happened? Did it work?

But before she could speak, there was a blur of motion in the middle of the kitchen table. Jenky leapt up, knocking his little chair down. He lifted his arms and they seemed to shrink back into his body at the same time as his fingers grew long, long, longer. Feathers burst from them in a sudden cloud. His birdish features became a bird's head in truth, and then the whole of the little man was gone and a gray and brown bird rose up from the tabletop, flapping its wings. It circled once, twice, three times around the room, then landed on the table again, the transformation reversing itself until Jenky was standing there.

He looked up at her, grinning from ear to ear.

Sheri smiled back at him.

“I guess it worked,” she said.

A couple of days later, Sheri looked up from her drawing table, distracted by the tap-tap-tapping on her windowpane. A little gray and brown bird looked in at her, its head cocked to one side.

“Jenky?” she said.

The bird tapped at the glass again so she stepped around her table and opened the window. The bird immediately flew in and landed on the top of her drawing table where it became a little raggedy man. Sheri wasn't even startled anymore.

“Hello, hello!” Jenky cried.

“Hello, yourself. You're looking awfully pleased with yourself.”

“Everyone's so happy. They all wanted to come by and say thank you and hello, but Palko John said that would be indecorous so it's just me.”

“Well, I'm glad to see you, too.”

Jenky looked like he wanted to dance around where he was standing, but he made himself stand straight and tall.

“I'm supposed to ask you if you've decided on your wish,” he said.

“I already told you—I don't want a wish.”

“But you helped us, and that was our promise to you.”

Sheri shook her head. “I still don't want it. You should keep it for yourselves.”

“And I already told you. We can't use it for ourselves.”

Sheri shrugged. “Then find someone who really needs it. A person whose only home is an alleyway. A child fending off unwelcome attention. Someone who's dying, or hurt, or lonely, or sad. You Littles must go all over the city. Surely you can find someone who needs a wish.”

“That's your true and final answer?”

“Now you sound like a game show host,” she told him.

He wagged a finger at her. “It's too late in the day to be cranky. Even you have to have been up for hours now.”

“You still don't get my jokes, do you?”

“No,” he said. “But I'll learn.”

“Anyway, that's my true and final answer.”

“Then I'll find such a person and give them your wish.”

With that he became a bird once more. He did a quick circle around her head, followed by a whole series of complicated loops and swirls that took him from one end of the room to the other, showing off.

“Come back and visit!” Sheri called as he headed for the window.

The bird twittered, then it darted out the window and was gone.

“So what's the deal with Meran?” Sheri asked Holly the next time she came by the bookstore. “Where do you know her from?”

“I had a … pixie incident that she helped me out with last year.”

“A pixie incident.”

Holly nodded. “The store was overrun with them. They came off the Internet like a virus and were causing havoc up and down the street until she helped us get them back into the Net.”

“Us being you and your hob?”

Just as she had the last time the subject of the hob came up, Holly's gaze went to an empty chair near the beginning of the store's furthest aisle, only this time there was a little man sitting there, brown-faced and curly-haired. He gave Sheri a shy smile and lifted a hand in greeting.

“Oh-kay,” Sheri said.

She could have sworn there was no one sitting there a moment ago and his sudden appearance made the whole world feel a little off-kilter. She'd only
just
gotten used to little men who could turn into birds.

“Sheri, this is Dick Bobbins,” Holly said. “Dick, this is Sheri Piper.”

“I like your books,” the hob said.

His compliment gave Sheri perhaps the oddest feeling that she'd had so far in all of this affair, that a fairy tale being should like
her
fairy tale books.

“Urn, thank you,” she managed.

“He didn't appear out of nowhere,” Holly assured her, undoubtedly in response to the look on Sheri's face. “Hobs have this ability to be so still that we don't notice them unless they want us to.”

“I knew that.”

Holly grinned. “Sure you did.”

“Okay, I didn't. But it makes sense in a magical nothing-really-makes-sense sort of a way. Kind of like birds turning into Littles, and vice versa.”

“So was Meran able to help you?”

The hob leaned forward in his chair, obviously as interested as Holly was.

Sheri nodded and told them about how it had gone.

“I understand why you didn't let Meran's magic bring you the right guy,” Holly said when she was done. “I mean, after all. You
were
calling it up for the Littles. What I don't understand is, why didn't you use the wish they offered you?”

“Because it's something for nothing. It's like putting a love spell on someone. Isn't it better to get to know someone at a natural pace, work out the pushes and pulls of the relationship to make it stronger, instead of having it all handed to you on a platter?”

“I suppose. But what if you never meet the right guy?”

“That's the risk I have to take.”

So here I am, still waiting like an idiot on the man of my dreams.

I don't know which bugs me more: that he hasn't shown up yet, or that I'm still waiting.

But I got to do a good turn and my picture book is done. Meran loved the paintings I did of her as the forest queen. Her husband even bought one of the originals once I'd gotten the color transparencies made.

What else? I've got a new friend who's a hob and at least once a week Jenky Wood flies up to my windowsill in the shape of a bird, tapping on my windowpane until I let him in. I've got my Barbie furniture permanently set up for him on a shelf in my studio, though I have repainted it in more subdued colors.

So what am I saying?

I don't know. That we all have ups and downs, I guess, whether we bring them on ourselves, or they come courtesy of the Fates. The trick seems to be to roll with them. Learn something from the hard times, appreciate the good.

I didn't really need fairy encounters to teach me that, but I wouldn't trade the experience of them for anything. Not even for that elusive, perfect man.

“You'll never guess who came over
last night.”

“You're right. I won't.” “Come on. You could at least try.”

“Why do you want me to work for this? Just tell me already.” “It was Brenda.” “Bullshit.” “I'm serious.”

“I thought she dumped you.” “No way. I dumped her. Nobody ever dumps me.” “Whatever. So what did she want?” “Cheap sex.”

“Now it really is bullshit.” “I'm kidding. She wants us to get back together.”

“What did you say?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you getting back together? Maybe you dumped her, but you're always talking about her.”

“She was a great kisser.”

“But?”

“No buts. I just don't know. I didn't say yes or no.”

“So what did you do?”

“Nothing. We just talked.”

“About getting back together.”

“No. More about what we've been doing, old times, stuff like that. We must've been up until almost three.”

“And then you had sex.”

“No. Then she kissed me good night and went home.”

“Still a good kisser?”

“She was always the best. We're supposed to get together again tonight.”

“So it's semi-serious.”

“I don't know what it is.”

“You know what I did last night?”

“Jumped your own bones?”

“Oh, very funny. No, I met this guy in the Crossroads Bar and he showed me this trick. Look at this.”

“How'd you do that?”

“I figure it's mostly a mental thing.”

“What, like, you only hypnotized me into seeing it?”

“No, the flame's real. Good trick, isn't it? Be a great way to pick up a girl in a bar—just light her cigarette with a snap of your fingers.”

“How'd you do it really?”

“It's this way of, I don't know. Seeing things differently. Like, you can actually see the molecules of the air and you just kind of convince them to be something other than what they are. Apparently, when you get good at it, you can do it with anything, and not just a tiny flame like this. But air to fire's supposed to be one of the easier ones so that's why he started me out with it.”

“And he just showed it to you, out of the blue.”

“Pretty much. He said he's been looking for someone to teach all this stuff he knows to and I looked like the right kind of guy. He said I was ‘receptive.' “

“More like gullible.”

“Hey, this is real.”

“Let me—ow!”

“I told you.”

“So what's he get out of it?”

“Nothing, really.”

“Come on. He's got to want something.”

“Well, he had me sign this piece of paper …”

“Jesus, what did you sign away?”

“My soul.”

“Get real.”

“That's all it said. He gets it when I die.”

“This is too weird.”

“Don't go all Catholic on me. I don't believe in souls and neither do you. Hell, when was the last time you were in a church?”

“Yeah, but think about it. That was based on limited knowledge.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, souls are kind of like magic, right? And this trick the guy showed you is like magic.”

“So.”

“So if one kind of magic can be real, maybe other kinds can, too. Maybe we do have souls.”

“You think?”

“Well, I'm leaning more to the affirmative right now.”

“I've screwed myself, haven't I?”

“I guess it depends. What did he look like?”

“I don't know. Kind of normal.”

“No horns—no tail?”

“Oh, for Christ's sake.”

“You're the one he taught to make a flame by snapping your fingers.”

“That's real.”

“I know it's real. I saw it.”

“I guess he looked kind of like Elvis, circa the Vegas years, only older.”

“Elvis.”

“Not exactly like him. More like Harvey Keitel sort of playing him in that movie we rented a while ago.”

“Finding Graceland?”

“Yeah, that's the one.”

“And you just up and traded him your soul to be able to light smokes for women in bars without using matches or a lighter.”

“I don't own a lighter.”

“I know you don't. I'm making a point here.”

“I don't get it.”

“The point is, how stupid can you be?”

“Hey, he's going to teach me other stuff. I'm going to be his protege.”

“Until you die and he gets your soul.”

“Something like that. If I even have a soul.”

“The more I think about it, the more I'm betting we do. I mean, why else would the guy ask you to sign it over to him? But the difference between you and me is, I still own mine.”

“I am so screwed.”

“Maybe, maybe not. We're smart guys. Maybe we can figure a way out of this. Hell, maybe we can even come out ahead.” “I'd settle on having my soul back.” “It's not gone yet.” “You know what I mean.” “Let me think on this.”

“So did you ask him how to live forever?”

“Yeah. He said, if I can't figure it out for myself, then I don't deserve to know. But he showed me another good trick. All I have to do is concentrate, sort of like you do with the air molecules, except this is with molecules of time.”

“I don't get it.”

“It lets you predict the future.”

“Get out of here.”

“No, really. But it's a bitch. I can only look ten seconds or so ahead and it gives me a headache that makes a hangover feel good. But it's like the other thing, he said. The more I practice, the easier it'll get and the further ahead I can see.”

“So you could predict lotteries and horse races and all kinds of crap.”

“I guess.”

“Did you get a name from this guy?”

“He said I could call him Mr. Parker.”

“Meaning, it's not really his name. That's just all he'll give you.”

“I guess.”

“Well, I've figured out the living forever bit.”

“Bullshit.”

“No, he was right. It's pretty simple, really. Here. Look at these.”

“What are these?”

“Souls.”

“How'd you get them?”

“Well, I figured I'd try buying them. So I went into Your Second Home and kept offering the losers drinking in there five bucks if they'd sign over their soul to me. You'd be surprised at how many people who swear they don't believe in God will balk at signing over their soul, but I got a few takers.”

“Yeah, well, I wish I'd been smart enough not to sign away mine.”

“Doesn't matter now. You've got these.”

“I don't get how it works.”

“I don't either. Not yet. But there's got to be a reason your Mr. Parker wanted your soul, and I figure this has to be it. You must be able to use the souls you acquire to prolong your own life. And if you don't die, then he doesn't get yours.”

“I don't know.”

“Just take them. Ask him if you can trade for yours. Only don't offer them all at once.”

“I won't.”

“So how'd it go?”

“He didn't want them. He says there's varying grades of souls. The ones you got are only worth a year or so because the people that signed them over don't really care about their lives anymore.”

“He could tell that just by looking at pieces of paper?”

“Apparently. He says you need higher quality ones to buy you a decent amount of time.”

“But we're on the right track.”

“I suppose. But it doesn't feel right.”

“What doesn't?”

“Trading people's souls like this.”

“Hey, they didn't have to sign them away.”

“But they didn't know.”

“So what are you saying? I should give them back?”

“I don't know. It's just … after signing away my own I can feel for them.”

“I was just trying to help.”

“I know. And I appreciate it.”

“So what did he teach you today?”

“Nothing new. He just showed me some meditation techniques to make it easier for me to narrow my focus. You know, so that when I practice, it's more productive.”

“Figures. He's already got you hooked.”

“It's not what you're thinking. Maybe he conned me with the soul business, but the rest of what he's showing me's on the level. Here, look how hot I can make this flame.”

“Jesus, it's like a tiny blowtorch.”

“Cool, huh?”

“Sure, if you ever want to weld anything really, really small, I guess.”

“Mr. Parker?”

“Yes?” “My name's Robert Chaplin.”

“Oh, yes. Peter's friend. The one who's trying to help him break his deal with the devil.”

“Are
you the devil?”

“The devil is rather a recent conceit. I'm much older than that.”

“Which doesn't really answer my question.”

“It's not really relevant. Was that all you wanted to know?”

“No. I… this stuff you're teaching Peter. Is it all just going to be parlor tricks?”

“What I've taught him, and will teach him, are hardly tricks. They are lessons that will help him to understand the underpinnings of the world. The more proficiency he gains, both in understanding the makings of the world and in manipulating them, the closer he will come to achieving the potential I see inside him.”

“Unless he dies first.”

“Everyone dies, Mr. Chaplin. Everything has an expiry date.”

“Except for you.”

“Even me. I'm long-lived, not immortal.”

“So why Peter?”

“He has a bright fire in his soul. He has so much potential.”

“But what's that to you?”

“I like to help people.”

“By stealing their souls.”

“That isn't how I'd phrase it.”

“Then how would you phrase it?”

“I'm bound to help others. It's … part of the bargain I made.”

“Of course. You had to make a bargain, too. Who'd you sell your soul to?”

“What exactly is it that you want from me, Mr. Chaplin?”

“Can you teach me?”

“Teach you what?”

“Everything.”

“That depends. What can you give me in return?”

“I guess I've only got one thing you want.”

“If you're referring to your soul, I'm afraid not. Even knowing you have it, does not make you value it any more than you did before you gained that knowledge.”

“And Peter did? Valued his soul, I mean?”

“He did, indeed.”

“He didn't believe any more than I did.”

“I assume that's simply what he led you to believe. Your friend has hidden depths that it appears he never shared with you.”

“Whatever. So I'm out of the loop.”

“Not necessarily. Offer me the soul of someone who values what they have and perhaps we can do business.”

“And once it's accepted, the contract can't be broken?”

“Not so long as both parties adhere to its conditions.”

“I've got this weird idea, Brenda.”

“What's that?”

“Well, things didn't work out so well before, did they? Between us, I mean.”

“I don't blame you. Neither of us was pulling our weight. It takes two to make a relationship work.”

“I know that. But I was just thinking … if we're really going to try to make it work this time, maybe we should, I don't know, put it all down in writing. Make it official.”

“You want to get married?”

“Not this minute or anything, but that's certainly something to work toward. For now I was thinking more of a kind of contract— something to show that we're taking all of this seriously.”

“A contract.”

“Yeah. We each write down what we're putting into this and what we expect from the other person. We keep it simple.”

“How do you think that will change things?”

“I don't know. It'll be a commitment in black and white. Something we can reread if we start to get frustrated or antsy. To remind us of how we really feel so that we don't say or do anything stupid.”

“Like writing our own wedding vows.”

“Sort of. Except this would be more our relationship vows.”

“You're right, it is weird.”

“Yeah, I thought it was. Too weird, right?”

“No. I actually like the fact that you're taking the time to think about this sort of thing.”

“This is really nice.”

“Thanks. But I can see I got a little long-winded, now that I'm reading yours.”