Lair of Dreams

Louis’s voice, no longer a memory, unlatched Henry’s emotions. He wanted to throw his arms around Louis but was afraid that if he did, Louis would disappear, leaving him in an embrace of smoke.

“Louis, is that really you?”

“You know another Louis looks like me?” Louis said, just as if they were on the Elysian, headed up the river on a hot day, as if no time had passed at all. “Where are we? What is this place? Looks like the bayou but it isn’t. Not quite.”

“It’s a dream. We’re inside a dream,” Henry explained, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. He was laughing and crying all at once.

Louis let out a long whistle. “Well, then. Got to be the nicest dream I ever had.”

Henry couldn’t take it another second. He wanted to kiss Louis, to hold him in his arms. He’d never been able to do that in a dream before, but he’d never been in a dream like this one, either. Carefully, he reached out to touch Louis’s sleeve, and his heart sank when he couldn’t quite make contact. It was as if the thinnest pane of glass separated them. How could it be that he could smell gardenia and feel the grain of the wood but not touch his lover? The logic of dreams was unknowable and cruel.

Sharp barking sounded from the river, and a moment later, a freckled hound came sniffing up to Henry through the grass, its tail wagging.

“Gaspard?” Henry said, amazed. The dog circled him twice before tearing after a mourning dove.

“It’s all so real,” Henry said, but his wonder soon gave way to anxiety. “Louis, where have you been?”

“What d’you mean, where I been? ’Cept for some trips up the river, I been where I’ve always been. You’re the one who left, not me,” he said, and Henry heard the note of recrimination in it.

“Only because I had to. Because of my father,” Henry said. He told Louis what had happened the day his father found the letter. “I tried to get word to you, believe me. I’ve been looking everywhere for you—even in dreams.”

“And here I thought you’d gone and forgotten me.” Louis played it light, but Henry knew him too well. He was hurt. Maybe even angry.

“Never. I could never forget you, Louis,” Henry said, and he wished once more that this weren’t a dream and that he could hold Louis.

“I went on over to your house lookin’ for you. Thought Flossie might know somethin’.”

Henry’s heartbeat quickened. “What happened?”

“Found your maman sitting in the cemetery talking to the angels. She didn’t know nothin’. About ’at time, your daddy come out and found me talkin’ to her. He knew who I was, all right. Told me I’d better never come ’round there again or he’d shoot me as a trespasser. Not that that woulda kept me away.” Louis’s smile was short-lived. “He told me you’d left town and that you didn’t want nothin’ to do with me no more—you didn’t even want to say good-bye.” Louis’s voice went feathery. “He told me you hated me.”

“That bastard,” Henry spat. “But what about all those letters I sent you? And two telegrams—one when I reached St. Louis, one from New York. When you didn’t write me back, I thought…”

Louis shook his head. “Didn’t get no letters. No telegrams, either.”

“My father,” Henry said. He didn’t like to think that anybody at Celeste’s would sell them out, but money was money, and his father had a lot of it. It would be just like him to pay someone to intercept Henry’s letters and make sure they were thrown out before they could even be delivered. If so, that meant his father had Henry’s return address in New York and had done nothing to try to find him. It was a relief to know that his father wouldn’t drag him off to military school, but it stung, too, knowing that it was easier for his father to erase his only son’s existence than it was for him to tolerate the disappointment of who his son really was.

“But you’re here now, cher,” Louis said. “We’re here now.”

Louis raised his palm toward Henry’s and Henry followed suit, their fingers nearly touching.





Wai-Mae’s mouth hadn’t stopped moving the entire walk through the wood. “Do you know the story of Mu Guiying? She is my favorite of the Dao Ma Dan. When she battles with Yang Zongbao and falls in love with him, saving his life? It’s the most beautiful love story,” she said, huffing alongside Ling like an excited puppy. There’d still been no sign of Henry. “I think it’s my favorite. Except for the Courtesan Yu Tang Chun. Or the Drunken Beauty. Or possibly the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.”

“Henry!” Ling called again, more desperately. “Henryyyy!”

“I’m sorry, Ling. Uncle says that I talk too much, and I’m a silly girl and my head is too full of romantic stories to be much good,” Wai-Mae said in cheerful apology. “Would you like to know a secret?”