The Darkest of Dreams

by Emigh Cannaday

  He waited for Dorsey to refill his mug and then gave her an abrupt bow.

  “Oh, I understand you perfectly. See you tomorrow after lunch,” he said in a brusque tone. Then he turned on his heel to rejoin his family.

  * * *

  The next day was bright and partly sunny, and a fresh blanket of snow had rendered the world white and glittering with sheer radiance. Yet amidst all that light was a dark cloud that hung over Finn Marinossian’s head. He’d woken up that morning with a dull ache running the length of his spine. The last thing he wanted was to get out of bed and begin barn chores. He chose to lie underneath the quilts and read until he felt guilty about not feeding the horses their breakfast. The last thing he wanted was to travel to his office at the school and make it official that he would never work there again.

  He took his time with the chores, which included finding enough crates to haul his books and teaching materials home. Those were placed into the back of the sleigh before he hitched Galileo up to it. Even his horse could sense the heavy weight hanging around Finn’s heart, and he nudged him with his dark nose until he finally smiled.

  “You don’t give a fig about my past, do you old chap?” He stretched his sore back, then reached under Galileo’s flaxen mane and stroked the length of his golden neck. It was long and shaggy now that his winter coat had grown in. “No, you don’t care at all…you’re only concerned that I feed you on time. We’re going to town for a bit. Why don’t we stop at the pub on the way back? I have it on good authority that Dorsey and Spedding have been saving you some of their spent grain.”

  The huge palomino gave a low grunt of approval, and then the sleigh was drawn out of the dark carriage house and into the bright sunshine. The metal runners whisked across the snow with every step the horse took, and it wasn’t long before Finn asked him to trot. The faster gait made the bells on his harness jingle even louder, and he couldn’t deny the effect that the happy sound had on him as it rang out across the fields, down the road, and through the village. So many familiar faces smiled at him and waved as he drove through the snowy streets of Derbedrossivic that he almost forgot about the reason for his trip into town. Then the school came into view, perched on a slight hill away from the shops along the main square. Ignoring the painful tugging at his heart, he hitched Galileo to one of the posts and carried the stack of crates through the halls and into his office. He pushed through the open door and saw Eleanor sitting at his desk with a sandwich in her hands. She had just taken a bite when she looked up at him in surprise. She immediately set down her lunch and covered her mouth.

  “You’re early!” she said while trying to choke down the mouthful of food. “I thought we agreed you wouldn’t be here until the afternoon.”

  “Technically we didn’t agree on a set time,” he coolly replied, and set the crates onto the floor. He pulled off his gloves and stuffed them into the pockets of his heavy coat. “I didn’t see the point in waiting until after I ate. I’d rather get on with it.” He walked over to one of the bookshelves and grabbed a handful of texts, working quietly and methodically to fill up his crates as Eleanor continued to stare at him in curiosity. He found a notebook and set it on the desk beside her sandwich. Then he opened it up to a page with a list of student names written in no particular order.

  “Here’s my reference guide for substitute teachers,” he said, and tapped on the paper. “Peter has a propensity for plagiarism whenever he’s asked to write a paper. Make sure you check his references. And Zara is deaf in her right ear so she’s always allowed to sit in the front row. Even so, you should address her by name before asking her a question.” His finger slid down a few names on the attendance roll before stopping again. “Lola’s family doesn’t always feed their children much of a breakfast, so I always try to have snacks available for her. She’s rather bright but you’d never know it because she has a difficult time focusing when she’s hungry. Max is highly allergic to bee stings. If he starts to swell up like a balloon you’ll need to give him an injection in his thigh to stop the anaphylaxis. His mother gave me a few syringes of his medicine in case of emergencies. They’re locked up in the bottom left drawer.”

  Eleanor groaned and leaned forward on the desktop.

  “Not anymore,” she said, and rubbed her temple in frustration. She looked like she was about to cry. “I thought they were yours and I arranged for them to be disposed of accordingly.”

  Finn stared at her in disbelief, but only for a moment. Then he sighed and gave a bitter and contemptuous laugh.

  “You thought a drawer full of syringes was my personal stash? Tell me, if you’re so clever, then explain how a strung-out junkie could effectively masquerade as a schoolteacher, and carry out his position so well that he was highly regarded by most of his students?” He threw his hands up in frustration after seeing the distressed look on her face. “Why shouldn’t you have thought that about me? All you know about me is what you’ve read in the papers.” He quickly turned back to face the bookshelves so that she couldn’t see his brown eyes beginning to water up. “At least now I know that it’s utterly pointless to apply for any future positions that might open up. I’ll be damned if the administration would let me do so much as push a bloody mop through the hallways!”

  “But one of them has to know about Max’s allergy,” she tried to reason. “Surely the nurse or his parents can vouch for why his medicine was in your desk drawer. I’ll speak to the headmaster and tell her that I made a horrible, horrible mistake.”

  Finn shook his head.

  “Why bother fighting it? The damage has already been done,” he said, and went back to filling up his crates with books and papers and other odds and ends. He felt the dull ache in his back begin to throb harder, and a lump had formed in his throat. “Now that the entire Estellian Empire knows about my past, there’s no place for me anywhere. I’ll never teach again.”

  “But that’s the problem—they don’t know about your past,” Eleanor insisted. “They don’t know what you’ve been through, or what you’ve overcome. They’re missing a huge part of your history that only the people in your village understand.”

  Finn stopped clearing off the shelves and turned to her with a skeptical expression.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m saying that you’re correct that all I knew about you was what I read in the papers, along with some village gossip here and there. Clearly, I wasn’t in possession of all the facts when I met you,” she admitted. Her tone had shifted to a much more sympathetic one, a tone that was nearly begging for forgiveness now that it had seen his glassy eyes. “After Hannelore and I returned home, I told my brother about our encounter. Eddie informed me that it was a polo accident that prompted your trajectory down such a…err, wayward path. He said he was there when it happened.”

  “He was, although I don’t recall very much after I fell,” he said, blinking back his tears. “After I woke up from surgery, my family told me that Edison was one of the men who rolled my horse off of me.”

  Eleanor nodded emphatically.

  “Yes, that’s what he said. He told me he’d never seen such a freak accident before in his life, and that he still hasn’t to this day. I can’t imagine being thrown from a horse at a full gallop, and then to be crushed by it!” Eleanor grimaced at the thought. “Nor can I imagine breaking my back in two places, along with a number of ribs. No wonder you were in so much pain. I’ll never understand the sheer magnitude of how devastating it was for you, but I understand why you became addicted to the only thing that gave you any relief. I’m so sorry that I was so quick to judge you. I swear that I didn’t know the rest of your story until last night when Eddie told me.”

  “Well then, there you have it,” Finn replied and tossed another notebook into a crate. “Although if you wish to be in possession of all the facts, my back was broken in three places, not two, and my broken ribs punctured one of my lungs and caused it to collapse. I never thought the act of me
rely existing could be so excruciating…until I had to learn how to walk again.” As if to prove it, he gently twisted his back until a series of pops and cracks sounded from his vertebrae. “I can feel it in my bones whenever a storm is coming. I suppose I can always find work as a living barometer…I can tell you that snow will be flying within a matter of hours.”

  Eleanor’s hazel eyes softened even more.

  “Does that mean you’re in pain right now?”

  “It’s tolerable,” he muttered while gazing out the window at the schoolyard. The sunshine was now hiding behind light grey clouds, and darker ones loomed in the distance.

  “Is there anything safe that you can take for it?”

  “I usually take a hot bath with a glass of wine…preferably with a good book to distract me.”

  “That sounds like the perfect evening…minus the barometer in your back,” she said with a thoughtful expression while he continued to fill the crates. She motioned towards the two chairs positioned on the other side of the desk. “Perhaps you should sit down and rest for a moment? I’m not the one demanding that you hurry up and take your things away as soon as possible.”

  Finn wanted to ignore her and keep working through the pain, but the manners he’d been brought up with were too deeply instilled in him. He gave an inaudible sigh of resignation before finally walking over and easing himself into the chair

  “You look like you can’t wait to get back out into the cold. Why don’t you take off your coat and hat?”

  “What for? I believe I’ve gathered all of what was important,” he replied with a shrug.

  “I want to try and make things better for you,” she said. “I have a good friend who’s a reporter. I think you should speak to him about your accident. It will help if others can hear your side of the story.”

  Finn turned up his nose ever so slightly.

  “There’s always another side to the story. Unfortunately, it’s not as sensational for most newspapers to bother reporting on it.”

  “He’s not that kind of reporter,” she clarified. “He’s a very talented journalist. He’s won lots of awards for it.” Finn was still staunchly unconvinced.

  “Who wants to hear about a polo player who was crushed by his horse and became addicted to painkillers during his recovery?”

  “A lot of people would, including me,” said Eleanor in a soft voice. “I want to know the truth about everything. It’s the reason why I love studying history so much. It’s the reason why I’m annoyed at myself for not being more objective when I met you, and for that reason, I’d like to apologize for my rude behavior last night. You know what they say about those who make assumptions, and it would appear that I was quite an ass.”

  Finn shook his head in silence, then sighed in resignation.

  “I’ll have to disagree with you there. I don’t know what definition constitutes being an ass in your rulebook, but my brother has set the bar quite high within mine. Or has he set it low? Regardless, I’ll only accept your apology as a courtesy. You’re entitled to your own opinions without needing to be sorry for having them.”

  Eleanor suppressed a grin.

  “Oh, but I am sorry for having them,” she admitted as her cheeks began to redden. “When Hannelore and I got home, the first thing she did was tell her parents just how badly her favorite aunt embarrassed her in front of her favorite professor. The three of them took me to task so severely that I’m rather ashamed to admit it.”

  Finn was touched by her words, but he didn’t want her to know exactly how much. Instead, he kept his eyes focused on the sandwich still sitting on Eleanor’s desk. Just then, his stomach began growling so loud that it was now his turn to appear sheepish.

  “I expect that’s my cue to leave,” he hummed, and reluctantly rose from the chair. “I still have to stop by the pub on my way home, and Mother will take me to task if I’m not home in time for lunch. It’s not every day that your son comes back from the dead.”

  “No,” Eleanore agreed as she gathered her papers to resume grading them. “I imagine it’s quite an uncommon experience. Are you stopping by the pub for a glass of medicinal wine before the snow flies?”

  “Actually, I need to pick up a barrel.” Eleanor looked up from her papers and cast him a curious glance. “Not for myself—it’s for the horses,” he quickly replied before he pulled his gloves out of his pockets. His comment only seemed to cause more confusion. “Dorsey and Spedding always save their mash for the village horses after they’ve brewed a batch of ale. It’s good for them, as long as they don’t overdo it. They told me to stop by and they’d have a barrel of it waiting for me.”

  “I’ve never met anyone who stopped by the pub on behalf of their horses,” she observed, and watched as he took a long roll of burlap out of another coat pocket. He unfurled it onto the floor and placed the crates on one end of it. Eleanor tilted her head to the side when he gathered the other end of the fabric into his hands. “What are you doing now?” Finn raised an eyebrow and smiled back at her. Then he began to drag the crates towards the door, pulling them as easily as a sled in the snow.

  “Well, seeing as how I won’t be teaching anytime soon, the least I could do is mop the bloody hallway on my way out.”

  16

  Secrets Unearthed

  Finn returned home to find his parents, his sister Anthea, and Asbjorn all gathered in the kitchen and inspecting it as if they were looking for something, although not very hard. Instead of tearing through the damaged cupboards, they folded their arms and scratched their heads while they milled about from one corner to the other.

  “There you are!” his mother exclaimed. “I tried to keep your lunch warm, but after waiting almost an hour I gave up. What kept you so long?”

  “The snowstorm’s done a number on my back,” he explained. “I stopped by the Tortoise and the Hare for a drink. I must’ve forgotten what time it was.”

  Althea narrowed her eyes at him.

  “You always know what time lunch is served. You didn’t eat there instead, did you? You better not have—I made you tomato cobbler with cornmeal scones.”

  Finn shook his head and grinned.

  “That’s precisely why I refused to eat there—tomato cobbler sounds perfect. I don’t care if it’s not piping hot. I’m a bit too fuzzy-headed to care. I didn’t plan on drinking more than one glass of otrova on an empty stomach.”

  “More than one glass? Does that mean you had someone helping you?” his sister asked. “I recall you mentioning that you were going up to the school to collect your things from your office. Did you by chance run into any old friends that we didn’t see last night?”

  “Or any new friends?” Asbjorn teased. “Perhaps that pretty professor who’s replaced you?”

  Finn held his tongue, but his cheeks were flushed from the otrova and when combined with his silence, they had already given him away.

  “I knew it,” Asbjorn said with a wide grin. “Although after last night I didn’t think she’d give you the time of day.” Finn simply smiled back at him.

  “She didn’t give me the time of day. That’s why I’m so late.” He quickly turned to his parents before his brother-in-law could pester him any more about pretty professors. “Now then, what’s so interesting that you’ve all gathered in here?”

  Ambrose and Althea shared a barely-contained look of happiness.

  “Your mother and I are sick and tired of avoiding this room and using the makeshift outdoor kitchen instead. Especially in this damned cold. Now that you’re alive and well, we think it’s high time we did something about the bloody kitchen,” said Ambrose.

  “It’s not bloody anymore,” Finn joked. His parents were less amused. Instead of reprimanding his son’s sense of humor, Ambrose motioned to the boarded up windows, the broken curtain rods, the cabinets missing doors, and the sink with a sizable gouge near the edge of it.

  “We can’t easily move the hearth or the oven or the stove, but we think it would be ni
ce to knock down this wall and have it open up directly to the dining room.”

  “It gets so crowded in the hallway otherwise,” Althea said, walking over to the oven. She took out the dish of leftover tomato cobbler and set it on the stove. “And it seems silly to have to walk through the hall to get to the kitchen when it’s time to fetch the next course. Our family is growing, and I’d like it if the heart of our home reflected those happy circumstances.”

  “Then I vote for a larger icebox,” Finn said, and walked over to the stove. He picked up the serving spoon and took a large bite of the tomato-soaked cornbread scone, then gave a happy hum. It was still warm in the center.

  “If we get a larger icebox, where are we going to put it?” his mother asked.

  “By the root cellar,” he said before taking another bite.

  “But that’s where we keep the cabinet with all of the formal dishes and the good linens,” Anthea argued. Finn simply shrugged.

  “Move them out to the dining room. That’s the only place where they’re used anyhow. The kitchen ought to be for cooking, and the dining room ought to be for dining. Speaking of which, I’m going to go sit down to eat.”

  He carried his late lunch out to the dining room, where he found Hilda sitting with Violet snuggled up in her lap. A box of crayons was spread across the table and they were supposed to both be coloring, but the little girl had fallen asleep and Hilda was too determined to finish the picture to put her to bed. A bittersweet, yet fleeting thought passed through Finn’s mind as he realized that the two of them hadn’t been alone together for almost a full year. After battling against the Pazachi, he’d come home and she’d left with Nikola to look after the survivors. Now they were parents to one of them.