The Darkening Dream
Read The Darkening Dream Online
Authors: Andy Gavin
Table of Contents
Chapter 8: An Unusual Conversation
Chapter 14: Grist for the Mill
Chapter 17: Pride and Prejudice
Chapter 21: Egyptian Mythology
Chapter 26: Breaking and Entering
Chapter 37: Unexpected Visitor
Chapter 44: Donation to the Cause
Chapter 51: Into the Maelstrom
Chapter 57: Enemy at the Gates
Chapter 58: Seventy-two Virgins
Chapter 59: Climbing into the Light
Chapter 64: In the Land of Moriah
What the critics are saying about T
HE
D
ARKENING
D
REAM
:
“Wonderfully twisted sense of humor” and “A vampire novel with actual bite” — Kirkus Reviews
“Inventive, unexpected, and more than a little bit creepy - this book has something for everyone!” — R.J. Cavender, editor of the Bram Stoker nominated Horror Library anthology series
T
HE
D
ARKENING
D
REAM
Andy Gavin
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Electronic Edition v5.03f / lv3.4
MASCHERATO PUBLISHING
PO Box 1550
Pacific Palisades, Ca, 90272
Copyright © Andy Gavin 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Cover Photo-Illustration copyright © Cliff Nielsen 2011
E-book ISBN
978-1-937945-02-2
One:
Agitation
Salem, Massachusetts, Saturday afternoon, October 18, 1913
A
S SERVICES DREW TO AN END,
Sarah peered around the curtain separating the men from the women. Mama shot her a look, but she had to be sure she could reach the door without Papa seeing her. After what he’d done, she just couldn’t face him right now. There he was, head bobbing in the sea of skullcaps and beards. She’d be long gone before he extracted himself.
“Mama,” she whispered, “can you handle supper if I go to Anne’s?” Last night’s dinner debacle had probably been Mama’s idea, but they’d never seen eye to eye on the subject. Papa, on the other hand, was supposed to be on her side.
Mama’s shoulders stiffened, but she nodded.
The end of the afternoon service signaled Sarah’s chance. She squeezed her mother’s hand, gathered her heavy skirts, and fled.
The journey through Salem’s bustling downtown took only ten minutes, but the Indian summer sun left her corset sticky and cruel. A final two blocks brought Sarah to her friend’s pre-Revolutionary house, a kernel of which dated to the seventeenth century. Wings, rooms, and gables had sprouted during the past two hundred years, and in its present form the house and stables were large enough for five family members, seven boarders, a decent collection of horses, and a dog.
Sarah entered without knocking. Mr. Barnyard, the Williamses’ obese basset hound, rushed to greet her. After suffering his affections, she found Anne in the sitting room helping her mother with the mending. Several inches taller than Sarah, she wore her straw-colored hair in two looped braids, and possessed all the womanly curves Sarah found lacking in herself.
“What a nice surprise,” Mrs. Williams said. “Sarah, I know you’re not much for the needle, but some conversation would help pass the time.”
Behind her mother, Anne stabbed herself in the chest with an imaginary dagger.
“I hate to disappoint you,” Sarah said, “but I hoped to steal away your oldest daughter. Where’s Emily? Can’t she help?”
Mrs. Williams shrugged a padded shoulder. “Out back somewhere. If I hadn’t whelped that one myself, I’d swear she’s some sort of changeling. But take Anne, she’s all thumbs today.”
Anne set down the trousers she was sewing and tugged Sarah out the door.
“Thank God,” she said, leading Sarah upstairs to the bedroom she shared with her younger sister. “It was so stuffy in there I thought my stitches might melt.” She cracked the window, sat on the bed, and patted the quilt next to her. “What’s brought you here on a Saturday? Shouldn’t you be helping your own mother?”
Sarah pulled the door closed and sat next to her friend.
“I had to talk to someone. Your brother isn’t going to barge in?”
“Sam’s earning extra money at the cotton mill. Tell me.”
“My parents ambushed me at
Shabbat
dinner last night.”
“That sounds exciting,” Anne said. “Attacked you with candles and loaves of bread?”
“Papa brought a man home with him unannounced. Not one of his usual cronies, a
gentleman.
In his twenties. His name was Chaim Hoffmann.”
Anne squealed. “That’s a mouthful. Was the fellow handsome?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Extra, extra! Sarah Engelmann forgot something!”
Sarah had to smile at that. She replayed last night’s dinner in her head, trying not to grimace as the awkwardness returned with the imagery.
In her mind’s eye, her parents and Mr. Hoffmann hung before her as vividly as if they sat in the room. His skin showed little evidence of exposure to the sun, his bearded face was thin, and his spectacles were twice as thick as her own.
Sarah blinked and the memory vanished. “Not handsome, not ugly.”
“Then his manner was bothersome?”
She shook her head. “Gentlemanly enough. Clearly he was very bright. A student of Papa’s friend.”
