Lair of Dreams

“What time is it?” Henry asked. His mouth was dry.

“Half past three. In the afternoon,” Theta said tersely. “You look like hell.”

“Why, thank you, Miss Knight.”

“I’m not kidding. How long before you can get up outta that bed?”

Henry’s muscles ached like he’d been moving furniture all night long. He ran his tongue across chapped lips. “I’m right as rain. Just got a little cold, that’s all.”

“No, you’re not okay.” Theta slapped down a piece of paper. It was an advertisement cut from the newspaper for a lecture by “Dr. Carl Jung, renowned psychoanalyst” at the New York Society for Ethical Culture. “This egghead fella, Jung—he knows all about dreams. Maybe he knows about dream walking. Maybe he could help you, Hen.”

“I’m fine.”

“I think we should go.”

“You go.”

“You could at least hear what he has to say—”

“I said I’m fine!” Henry snapped.

Theta flinched. “Don’t yell,” she whispered.

“Sorry. Sorry, darlin’,” Henry said, feeling guilty and angry at the same time. His teeth chattered and his stomach hurt. “Come sit next to me. It’s so cold.”

For a second, it looked like Theta might give in and lie down next to him with her head on his chest, like old times. Instead, she swiped back the newspaper advertisement and headed for the bedroom door without looking back. “I gotta bathe. Rehearsal’s in an hour. In case you care.”

At rehearsal, Henry was so exhausted he could barely concentrate.

“Henry! That was your cue!” Wally barked from the front row.

Henry looked up to see the dancers glaring at him.

“Sorry, folks,” Henry drawled, snapping back to the present. For a second, his eyes caught Theta’s. He saw the worry there just before it edged into anger. He tried to make her laugh with a silly face, but she wasn’t having it.

“If there’s anything I hate, it’s having my time wasted. Let’s get this show on the road,” she announced to no one in particular, though Henry understood the comment was meant for his ears.





Other stories appeared here and there: A couple of subway workers vanished underground. Their lanterns were found still glowing in the tunnel they’d been hollowing out for the extension of the IRT. A pocketbook belonging to a Miss Rose Brock mysteriously ended up on the tracks near the Fourteenth Street station. Despondent over a failed love affair, she’d gone to a speakeasy on the West Side with friends and disappeared. Suicide was feared. A token booth clerk was suspended on suspicion of drinking when he swore he saw a faintly glowing ghost down at the dark end of the tracks. One minute, the pale thing was crouched on its haunches, he claimed, and the next, it skittered up the walls and out of sight. Some riders reported seeing odd flickers of greenish light from subway train windows. Diggers working on the construction of the new Holland Tunnel refused to go below. Down in the depths, they’d heard the terrifying swarming sounds of some unnameable infestation. A Diviner had been called in to give his blessing; he insisted it was all clear, but the workers knew he’d been paid to say it, and now they would only go down in groups and wearing every one of their charms against bad luck. The vagrant population was down; all the unfortunates known to frequent subway platforms, sewers, and train tunnels for warmth in the winter had seemingly disappeared in a matter of days.

On the West Side, two boys had been playing near a storm drain when one was suddenly swept away. Police searched the area below the grate, shining flashlights in sewer lines. They found nothing except for the poor boy’s baseball and one of his shoes. But the surviving child insisted that it wasn’t the water to blame, for he’d seen an unearthly pale hand reach up from below and yank his friend down by his ankle, quick as a rabbit snatched by the strong jaws of a trap.

People disappeared. That wasn’t unusual in a city where ruthless gangsters like Meyer Lansky, Dutch Schultz, and Al Capone were as famous as movie stars. But the missing weren’t gangsters “disappeared” after a disagreement or turf war. Handmade signs appeared on lampposts and outside subway entrances, desperate pleas from frantic loved ones: VANISHED: PRESTON DILLON, FULTON STREET SUBWAY STATION. MISSING: COLLEEN MURPHY, SCHOOLTEACHER, AUBURN HAIR, BLUE EYES, TWENTY YEARS OF AGE. DO YOU KNOW: TOMAS HERNANDEZ, BELOVED SON? LAST SEEN ENTERING CITY HALL SUBWAY STATION. LAST SEEN IN THE VICINITY OF PARK ROW. LAST SEEN LEAVING FOR WORK. LAST SEEN. LAST SEEN. LAST SEEN…