The Dream-Maker's Magic (18 page)

B
ack at Cottleson's, I found I was not the only one whose day was going badly. Sallie looked harassed and irritable as I stepped through the front door. It was afternoon, but there were half a dozen tables full of customers, and she seemed to be handling them all by herself.

“Where's Leona?” I asked, and Sallie jerked her chin toward my domain.

“In the kitchen. With
Phillip.
Fine mood she's in, too.”

I raised my eyebrows, but I was aware of more interest than apprehension. Finally a chance to meet the elusive and disagreeable brother.

I pushed through the swinging door into the kitchen to find Leona in a pose of tense confrontation with a young man who could only be Phillip. He was tall and gangly, with dirty blond hair and a sullen demeanor. He was quite a few years younger than Leona, maybe sixteen or seventeen, and he looked nothing like her in coloring or bone structure. All they seemed to have in common at this particular moment were expressions of bitterness.

They both pivoted to stare at me as I stepped into the room. Neither of them looked welcoming. “Sorry,” I said, my hand still on the door. “Should I go?”

“Who's that?” the young man said, ready to pounce. “Is that the stranger you've put in my place?”

“That's Kellen, yes,” Leona replied evenly. “But it's hardly your
place
since you left it months ago and have showed no interest in coming back.”

He turned back toward her, his dark eyes bright with malice. “Whether I'm here every night or gone for the next five years, I have an interest in the business,” he said. “Half of it's mine, don't you forget that. Maybe more than half. That's what Barney says.”

“I've done the work. I've paid for the upkeep. I've kept the whole place
running
, and you think any of it is
yours
?” Leona demanded. The words sounded well worn, as if she had uttered them many times before and rehearsed them over and over silently in her mind. “I've told you before, you're welcome to sleep here, to eat here, anytime you want. But the tavern belongs to me.”

“We'll see about that, won't we?” Phillip taunted. “Barney says—”

“Barney can keep his stupid, drunken words to himself,” Leona shot back. “What
Barney
doesn't know about inheritance and law—”

Phillip spun on his heel and hit the back door hard, causing it to jangle open. “He knows more than you think,” he said in an ominous voice. “I'll be coming back. This isn't done yet.” And he stalked out and disappeared.

Leona stood for a moment, her whole body a study in frustrated rage, then sank with a little moan to a stool set by the large kitchen table. She rested her head in her hands and seemed ready to start crying.

“I don't know what that was all about,” I said cautiously. “But—”

“I hate him,” she said, her voice muffled by her hands. “I know you shouldn't say that about your brother, but I do. I
hate
him. He's never been anything but miserable and greedy and unkind and relentless.” She raised her head and looked at me with an unseeing gaze. “He was born ten years after I was. It was all my mother could talk about. ‘I have a son, I finally have a son.' It was as if I had stopped to exist, after ten years, because I was only a daughter. Was your mother like that?”

I hardly knew how to answer. “Yes,” I said finally. “I never would have pleased her if I had been born a girl.”

“I don't understand it.” Leona dropped her head to her hands again. “So, as you can imagine, he was much indulged, and he became the most unlikable child imaginable. At least I thought so—he's always had friends, of a sort, despicable people like this Barney fellow. They just encourage all his worst traits, and now he's—he's—”

“It sounds like he wants to fight you for possession of the tavern,” I said.

She nodded, still staring down at the table. “That's what he came for tonight. He wants me to sell the tavern, take his half of the money, and invest it in some dreadful scheme of Barney's. Which you know can only lead to disaster! I told him I wouldn't do it, and now he's threatening to try to take the business away from me altogether.”

“Can he do that?”

“I don't know. My father said he left it to me. I can inherit it, can't I, all of it? A father can leave property to one child and not another, can't he?”

“I don't know,” I said. “Maybe you need a lawyer.”

She made a sound that was halfway between a laugh and another groan. “I can't afford one. Oh, Kellen, we're barely making it as it is. I don't know, maybe Phillip's right. Maybe I should sell the place.” She looked up again, and her eyes were red with tears. “This was always my dream,” she whispered. “To run a business of my own. I love Wodenderry. I love this place. What will I do if I have to sell it?”

I put a hand on her shoulder to comfort her, afraid to hug her as I wanted because she might feel the shape of my body under my vest and guess my secret. “Maybe you should visit the Dream-Maker,” I said.

She laughed again, shook her head, and stood up, trying to look calm and determined. “I don't have time to go chasing after my dreams that way,” she said. “I just have to work harder. I have to figure out how to stop Phillip. I have to—well, I have to go out there right now and help Sallie. Can you get dinner started? Everyone's hungry.”

“Right now,” I said, reaching for a head of lettuce. “It will be the best dinner you ever tasted.”

She gave me a tremulous smile. “Oh, Kellen, I don't know what I would do without you,” she said. “I like you so much better than my own brother.”

“Anybody would,” I said practically, and she actually laughed. “Try not to worry,” I added. “And I'll try to think of something else I can do to help.”

Well. What would help most would be to go to the Dream-Maker and lay all our hopes before him. I tried. I did. I went to the palace three more times in the next five days, sure that this time I would be able to overcome my shyness, or my fear, and approach Gryffin. But I couldn't do it. I would know as soon as he saw my face if my own dream might come true, and I suppose I was not ready for such an immediate answer. I went, I watched him, and I walked away. I was so used to being rejected by the person I most wanted to love me that I found myself unable to take the risk. It was preferable not to know. It was preferable to think there was still a chance.

In the end, it was Emily who betrayed me. One too many letters from Gryffin had arrived at the Parmer Arms addressed to me, and she snatched this one away from Sarah before Sarah could forward it on. “She's living in Wodenderry now, at a place called Cottleson's,” Emily wrote on the envelope before returning it to the mail coach. “She goes by her own name but she's dressed as a boy.”

“It does nobody any good to try to hide,” she declared, her hands on her hips. “I should know. I tried it. And I'm so much happier now.”

Of course, I didn't learn all this until Sarah's letter reached me, a day after Emily's note made it into Gryffin's hands.

I was working in the kitchen, busy with preparations for the night's meal, when I heard the low murmur of shock and excitement buzz through the outer room. Some locally famous figure, I supposed—one of the wealthy merchants who lived in the city, or maybe even a group of young noblemen, mingling with the common folk as a lark. The room had been only about a quarter full when I'd peeked out a few minutes earlier, which made the cook's task easier but made Leona's burden heavier. How to make a profit from such a thin house? I hoped the noblemen liked my chicken pie, one of my better dishes, and were willing to come back often if it was on the menu.

The door swept back and Leona brushed through, looking utterly bewildered. “Kellen. There's somebody out there. Who says he knows you.”

I looked up from my chopping board. “Really? Did he give his name?” It couldn't be Ayler, because Leona would recognize him, but Randal or Bo or one of the Parmer boys could have come to Wodenderry. It would be wonderful to see any of them.

“Did he—no, I don't think he gave his name,” Leona answered in a very strange voice. “But why don't you go out and see if you know who he is.”

I laid aside my knife, dried my hands, and stepped into the taproom.

To see Gryffin sitting there, his eyes expectantly on the door.

I stood silently for a moment, unable to move, merely staring. Well, of course, everyone was staring at everyone. The ten or so people in the tavern were all still watching Gryffin. Leona and Sallie were focused on me. Gryffin and I had eyes only for each other. He was seated in the new wheeled chair, pulled up to one of the center tables, his hands folded before him. I thought his face looked a little fuller than it had when he had left Thrush Hollow, though at the same time sharper—as if he was meant by nature to have a round, comfortable face but a year of listening to whispered dreams had whittled away any softness that came from harboring illusions. He knew now the extent of want and desire; he was acquainted with both simple and impossible hopes.

“Gryffin,” I whispered, and put a hand to my throat.

“You
are
here,” he replied. “Didn't you think I'd want to know?”

“I—” I looked around the room, acutely conscious of a dozen pairs of eyes watching me, everyone wondering how a boy like me had come to know the Dream-Maker.
A boy like me.
I couldn't forget how I was dressed, who I was supposed to be. “I came to the palace. To see you. But you seemed so busy.”

“I'm not busy now,” he said. “Sit down. We can talk.”

“I—” Now I glanced back at the kitchen door, still quivering slightly on its hinges. “I have work to do. I handle the cooking. Maybe later, when I'm done—”

Gryffin nodded. “I'll wait,” he said. Unexpectedly, he smiled. It was as if all the stained-glass windows in the tavern suddenly turned to lit jewels; that's how much the room brightened. “I'll have dinner while I wait. I'm hungry.”

“Dinner. Right away,” I said, and grabbed Leona's arm as I headed back through the kitchen door.

“Kellen!” she exclaimed when we were alone. “How do you know the
Dream-Maker
? Is he a friend of yours? How can that be?”

“He lived in Thrush Hollow when I did,” I said briefly. “Leona, go get Sallie's sisters. Get the neighbor girls, or boys, or anyone who can work. You wanted to bring more customers to the tavern? You're going to be busier tonight than you've ever been.”

“Why? Because the Dream-Maker is here? I'm not sure anyone even saw him come in.”

“It doesn't matter. Trust me. In an hour, you're going to have a line of people out the door. We need help.”

She stared a moment longer, and then she laughed. “I'll be back as soon as I can,” she said, and flew out the back door.

That
was a night none of us ever forgot, Gryffin's first visit to Cottleson's. I was right, of course. Within the hour, the place was packed to overflowing, and patrons lined up patiently on the walk outside. Sallie's sisters helped me in the kitchen, while her younger brother worked the crowd outside, selling drinks and plates of food. The neighbor woman, who ran a millinery shop, was pressed into service to find any vendors who might still be open at this hour, selling raw ingredients or prepared food. I chopped and sliced and kneaded and stirred and baked with such fierce concentration that I hardly felt the hours go by, except that I finally began to slow from dizziness and exhaustion. By that time, it was very late, and we had served hundreds of people.

Leona came staggering through the door, looking dazed but happy. “Go,” she said. “I've cleared out the room. Everyone's gone but the Dream-Maker and the guards who came with him, and they're waiting outside. He wants to talk to you.”

I looked around the kitchen. “I'll never get this clean,” I said.

“We'll do it in the morning. Right now I'm going straight upstairs to bed,” she said. “Go visit with your friend.”

I washed my hands, smoothed back my hair, and stepped into the tavern to see Gryffin.

He was sitting at the same table, looking almost as tired as I felt, but he smiled when I pulled up a seat. “I enjoyed that,” he said. “Much more fun than holding a formal audience. Every third person told me they would never be so bold as to go to the palace so they never thought they'd have a chance to meet me. I should come here once a week, at least.”

“Leona would like that,” I said. “The business is struggling. But if you were here from time to time—”

He nodded. “I'll do that. I'll go anywhere you are.”

He was watching me very closely, but the expression in his eyes was hard to read. I felt myself gulping, trying to swallow an obstruction in my throat. “It seemed so different,” I said in a small voice. “When I came to the palace to find you. You seemed—it seemed—there was a place there for you.”