Lair of Dreams

Theta knocked firmly on Evie’s door in the Winthrop Hotel. “Open up, Evil. I know you’re in there. I’ll just keep knocking until—”

The door swung open to reveal a very rumpled Evie, a velvet sleep mask pushed up on top of her tangled curls. She regarded Theta with a look bordering on murder. “What’s the big idea, waking a girl before it’s decent, Theta?”

Theta pushed past Evie. She eyed the empty bottles and glasses littering the filthy room. “Big night?”

“The biggest.” Evie yawned, falling back onto the bed. “Before the party proper, we had a little merry here in my room. I met this maaarvelous burlesque queen from Poughkeepsie, some darling stockbrokers, and a very entertaining fellow who could bounce a quarter off the end of the dresser and have it land in a glass of gin on the nightstand and… aaaah! Are you trying to kill me, Theta?”

Late-afternoon sun pierced the hotel gloom through the window where Theta had yanked the drapes aside.

“Depends.”

“Depends on what?”

“Whether or not you keep using that phony accent around me.”

Evie rubbed her forehead. “Oh, applesauce. Theta, will you have a talk with my head, please? Tell it to stop playing the marimba across my skull.”

Theta sniffed the nearby glasses, finally finding one that didn’t smell of gin. “Hold on.” She disappeared into the bathroom, returning a moment later with a glass of water and two aspirin. “Down the hatch. Doctor’s orders.”

“What’s the rumble? What’re you doing here?” Evie managed to say between gulps.

Theta had been trying to figure out how to talk about this with Evie for weeks. She narrowed her eyes. “If you breathe a word of what I’m about to say, I swear I’ll hunt you for sport and wear your skin as a coat.”

Evie opened one eye. “It would have a satin lining, though. Promise me it would.”

“Evil…”

“All right. I’m shutting up.” Evie mimed locking her lips and throwing away the key.

One of Theta’s eyebrows shot up. “Boy, do I wish that really worked,” she muttered. “Okay. Listen: All these Diviners running around—”

“Not this again…”

“What happened to shutting up?” Theta barked and Evie quieted. “These Diviners. Any of ’em dream walkers that you know about?”

Evie rolled onto her side, her brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, are any of ’em able to walk around inside a dream just like they were walking around Times Square. Sleeping, but fully awake at the same time.”

“Inside people’s dreams?” Evie asked, confused.

Theta threw up her hands and rolled her eyes. “Do I need elocution lessons? That’s what I said.”

Evie scoffed. “That is pos-i-tute-ly impossible.”

“It’s not.”

“Pull the other leg!”

“Henry can do it.”

Evie propped herself up on her elbows. “You’re telling me that Henry, our Henry, can walk… in dreams?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Henry’s a Diviner.” Theta tore into her handbag and pulled out her silver cigarette case. “Evil, you gotta let me smoke or I’m gonna chew all my fingernails off.”

Evie made a face before waving her approval, and Theta slipped a cigarette free and tapped the end of it against the case’s hard shell. “You remember at Christmas, when Henry asked you to read his hat because he was trying to find Louis?”

“Yes. I wasn’t much help, though.”

“Well, Henry finally found Louis in the dream world,” Theta said, lighting up and taking a drag deep into her lungs. “That ain’t all. He’s met another dream walker. A girl named Ling, lives in Chinatown. Every night, they’ve been meeting inside dreams and walking around. He thinks I don’t know, but I do.”

“Gee, sounds like a swell talent. So what’s got you all balled up about it?”

“You know how you get sick if you read too much? It’s the same with Henry and dreams. We had a deal—no more than one hour a week. Evil, he’s walking every night now, and I don’t even know how long he’s under. He’s missed rehearsals, and even when he shows up, he isn’t really there. His mind’s on dreams,” Theta said on a stream of cigarette smoke. “He’s the only family I got.”

“What can we do? You want me to come with you and we’ll sit Henry down?”

“Lecturing Hen won’t help. But this lecture might.” Theta pulled out a newspaper advertisement and shoved it into Evie’s hands.

“‘The Society for Ethical Culture presents World-Renowned Psychoanalyst Carl Jung: Symposium on Dreams and the Collective Unconscious,’” Evie read. “Gee, say that three times fast.”

“We got a dream question, we go to the dream expert.”

“‘Eight o’clock in the evening on January…’” Evie stopped reading. “Theta, that’s tonight!”