Lair of Dreams

Louis took a deep breath. He twirled a fallen leaf between his fingers, making it dance like a ballerina. “Just before you left town, your daddy tried to get me to go away. He sent a man over to Celeste’s with a fat envelope fulla money and said it was all mine if I’d agree to leave town on the next boat up the river and never see you again.”


“Bastard,” Henry muttered. His father ruined everything. He didn’t want to be related to a man like that. How did you learn to be a man if the one who raised you was a bully who wasn’t worth your respect? “How much money?”

“A thousand dollars,” Louis said.

A sinuous fear wrapped itself around Henry’s heart. “I suppose a fella could live pretty well on that, if he had a mind to.”

“I reckon he could.”

Henry pulled up a handful of grass. “Did you take it?” He gave Louis a sideways glance and saw the hurt on his face.

“That what you think of me?”

“I’m sorry, Louis. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t really think you’d do that,” Henry said, cursing himself. He wished he could take it back.

Louis let out a long sigh and blinked up to the sky.

“Please, Louis. I’m sorry.”

Louis shook his head. “You know I can’t stay mad at you, cher.” He kissed Henry on the cheek, but it was halfhearted, Henry could tell. Louis was still nursing the wound.

Gaspard’s bark sounded up on the path. “What manner of trouble that dog got himself into now?” Louis said, hopping up.

Henry followed, but all he really wanted to do was pull Louis back down on the dock and kiss him. He felt lousy that they’d fought, and he wished he could take back what he’d said.

Gaspard dug furiously at the morning glories, barking and growling as if he’d cornered an animal.

“Gaspard!” Louis shouted. “Get away from there right now!”

“He’s just being a dog,” Henry said. “Probably got a bone there somewhere. After all, it’s his dream, too.”

“He shouldn’t be digging in there. Gaspard!” Louis whistled, but the dog wouldn’t budge.

Louis took a step forward onto the morning glories and stumbled. He put a hand to his head, hissing.

“Louis!” Henry righted him.

Louis stepped back. “I’m… I’m all right, Henri. Gaspard!”

Henry marched through the blanket of purple flowers and shooed Gaspard away. The dog bounded over to Louis. The spot where he’d been digging was dirt and nothing more.

“Henry!” Ling called from the path.

“Ling, what’s the matter?” he asked as she reached him. “Is Wai-Mae with you? Say, what happened to your hand?”

Ling’s voice shook. “I want to go back, Henry. I want to wake up.”

“You want me to wake you up, like last time?”

“No. Together. We need to go together.”

Henry looked over at Louis with regret.

“Go on, cher. I’ll see you soon enough,” Louis said. “You can’t refuse a lady.”

“Just one more day,” Henry said, hoping he hadn’t ruined everything.

“One more day,” Louis said.

“You need to wake Louis up,” Ling said, and from her expression, Henry knew not to argue.

“Louis,” Henry said, “it’s time for you to go on back to the cabin now. And then, in a few minutes, you’ll wake up, and when you do, you can watch the sunrise and have some chicory coffee before you catch your train to New York.”

Louis laughed. “All right, then, Henri. All right.” He climbed the steps to the cabin with Gaspard wagging along behind. From inside, Louis’s fiddle picked up the strains of “Rivière Rouge,” right where he’d left off, and then it went quiet.

“What’s got you so spooked?” Henry asked Ling.

“Not here. I’ll explain later. But I don’t want to be here anymore,” she whispered.

“But we didn’t set our alarms, darlin’. We’re stuck till we wake up on our own.”

“Then let’s see if we can find a different dream somewhere else,” Ling said. “Even if we go back to the streets where we come in. If we enter through Devlin’s, maybe we can reverse it.”

“Sounds reasonable. We just reverse our steps. Which way is the station from here?” Henry asked, looking around.

Through a gap in the trees, he spied the dark mouth of the tunnel.

Ling followed his gaze. “We’re not supposed to go in there.”

“Seems like it’s either through the tunnel or we wait until we wake up.”

“But one of us could wake up first, stranding the other one here,” Ling said, shivering. A question had been lurking in the depths of her. Only now could it surface. “Henry, what happens if you die in a dream?”

Henry shrugged. “You wake up.”

“Even here? Even here, where everything’s real?” she said, feeling the heat from her burn.

Light pulsed against the velvety dark of the tunnel.

“It’s happening again,” Henry said.

The edges of the trees unraveled, as if there was some sort of energy surge.

“What is that?” Henry said.

“I don’t know,” Ling whispered, fear stealing most of her breath. Wai-Mae’s words swam back to her: I’m frightened of that wicked place. If we do not trouble her, she won’t trouble us.