Dreams Underfoot

by Charles de Lint

  “I don’t. Do you?”

  Zoe just didn’t know anymore. The whole thing sounded preposterous, but she couldn’t shake the nagging possibility that he wasn’t lying to her. It was the complete sincerity with which he—Bob, Wolfe, whatever his name was—spoke that had her mistrusting her logic. Somehow she just couldn’t see that sincerity as being faked. She felt she was too good a judge of character to be taken in so easily by an act, no matter how good; ludicrous as the situation was, she realized that she’d actually feel better if it was true. At least her judgment wouldn’t be in question then.

  Of course, if Bob was telling the truth, then that changed all the rules. The world could never be the same again.

  “I don’t know,” she said finally.

  “Yeah, well, better safe than sorry,” Hilary said. She turned her attention back to Bob. “Well?” she asked. “Are we in danger?”

  “Not at the moment. Zoe negates Wolfe’s abilities.”

  “Whoa,” Hilary said. “I can already see where this is going. You want her to be your shadow so that the big bad Wolfe won’t hurt anybody else—right? Jesus, I’ve heard some lame pick-up lines in my time, but this beats them all, hands down.”

  “That’s not it at all,” Bob said. “He can’t hurt Zoe, that’s true. And he’s already tried. He’s exerted tremendous amounts of time and energy since last night in making her life miserable and hasn’t seen any success.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Zoe said. “I haven’t exactly been having a fun time since I ran into him last night.”

  “What I’m worried about,” Bob said, going on as though Zoe hadn’t spoken, “is that he’s now going to turn his attention on her friends.”

  “Okay,” Zoe said. “This has gone far enough. I’m going to the cops.”

  “I’m not threatening you,” Bob said as she started to stand up. “I’m just warning you.”

  “It sounds like a threat to me, pal.”

  “I’ve spent years looking for some way to stop Wolfe,” Bob said. The desperation in his eyes held Zoe captive. “You’re the first ray of hope I’ve found in all that time. He’s scared of you.”

  “Why? I’m nobody special.”

  “I could give you a lecture on how we’re all unique individuals, each important in his or her own way,” Bob said, “but that’s not what we’re talking about here. What you are goes beyond that. In some ways, you and Wolfe are much the same, except where he brings pain into people’s lives, you heal.”

  Zoe shook her head. “Oh, please.”

  “I don’t think the world is the way we like to think it is,” Bob went on. “I don’t think its one solid world, but many, thousands upon thousands of them—as many as there are people—because each person perceives the world in his or her own way; each lives in his or her own world. Sometimes they connect, for a moment, or more rarely, for a lifetime, but mostly we are alone, each living in our own world, suffering our small deaths.”

  “This is stupid,” Zoe said.

  But she was still held captive by his sincerity. She heard a kind of mystical backdrop to what he was saying, a breathy sound that reminded her of an LP they had in the station’s library of R. Carlos Nakai playing a traditional Native American flute.

  “I believe you’re an easy person to meet,” Bob said. “The kind of person that people are drawn to talk to—especially those who are confused, or hurt, or lost. You give them hope. You help them heal.”

  Zoe continued to shake her head. “I’m not any of that.”

  “I’m not so sure he’s wrong,” Hilary said.

  Zoe gave her friend a sour look.

  “Well, think about it,” Hilary said. “The weird and the wacky are always drawn to you. And that show of yours. There’s no way that Nightnoise should work—it’s just too bizarre a mix. I can’t see headbangers sitting through the opera you play, classical buffs putting up with rap, but they do. It’s the most popular show in its time slot.”

  “Yeah, right. Like it’s got so much competition at that hour of the night.”

  “That’s just it,” Hilary said. “It does have competition, but people still tune in to you.”

  “Not fifteen minutes ago you were telling me that the reason I get all these weird people coming on to me is because I’m putting out confused vibes.”

  Hilary nodded. “I think I was wrong.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake.”

  “You do help people,” Hilary said. “I’ve seen some of your fan mail and then there’s all of those people who are constantly calling in. You help them, Zoe. You really do.”

  This was just too much for Zoe.

  “Why are you saying all of this?” she asked Hilary. “Can’t you hear what it sounds like?”

  “I know. It sounds ridiculous. But at the same time, I think it makes its own kind of sense. All those people are turning to you for help. I don’t think they expect you to solve all of their problems; they just want that touch of hope that you give them.”

  “I think Wolfe’s asking for your help, too,” Bob said.

  “Oh, really?” Zoe said. “And how am I supposed to do that? Find you and him a good shrink?”

  “In the old days,” Hilary said, “there were people who could drive out demons just by a laying on of the hands.”

  Zoe looked from Hilary to Bob and realized that they were both serious. A smartass remark was on the tip of her tongue, but this time she just let it die unspoken.

  A surreal quality had taken hold of the afternoon, as though the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields were playing Hendrix, or Captain Beefheart doing a duet with Tiffany. The light in the Mall seemed incandescent. The air was hot on her skin, but she could feel a chill all the way down to the marrow of her bones.

  I don’t want this to be real, she realized.

  But she knelt down in front of Bob and reached out her hands, laying a palm on either temple.

  What now? she thought. Am I supposed to reel off some gibberish to make it sound like a genuine exorcism?

  She felt so dumb, she—

  The change caught her completely by surprise, stunning her thoughts and the ever-playing soundtrack that ran through her mind into silence. A tingle like static electricity built up in her fingers.

  She was looking directly at Bob, but suddenly it seemed as though she was looking through him, directly into him, into the essence of him. It was flesh and blood that lay under her hands, but rainbowing swirls of light were all she could see. A small sound of wonder sighed from between her lips at the sight.

  We’re all made of light, she thought. Sounds and light, cells vibrating…

  But when she looked more closely, she could see that under her hands the play of lights was threaded with discordances. As soon as she noticed them, the webwork of dark threads coalesced into a pebble-sized oval of shadow that fell through the swirl of lights, down, down, until it was gone. The rainbowing pattern of the lights was unblemished now, the lights faded, became flesh and bone and skin, and then she was just holding Bob’s head in her hands once more.

  The tingle left her fingers and she dropped her hands. Bob smiled at her.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  That sense of sincerity remained, but it wasn’t Bob’s voice anymore. It was Wolfe’s.

  “Be careful,” he added.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “I was like you once.”

  “Like me how?”

  “Just be careful,” he said.

  She tilted her head back as he rose to his feet, gaze tracking him as he walked away, across the marble floor and through the doors of the Mall. He didn’t open the doors, he just stepped through the glass and steel out onto the street and continued off across the pavement. A half-dozen yards from the entrance, he simply faded away like a video effect and was gone.

  Zoe shook her head.

  “No,” she said softly. “I don’t want to believe this.”

  “Believe what?”
Hilary asked.

  Zoe turned to look at her. “You didn’t see what happened?”

  “Happened where?”

  “Bob.”

  “He’s finally here?” Hilary looked around at the passersby. “I was so sure he was going to pull a no-show.”

  “No, he’s not here,” Zoe said. “He…”

  Her voice trailed off as the realization hit home. She was on her own with this. What had happened? If she took it all at face value, she realized that meeting Wolfe had brought her a small death after all—the death of the world the way it had been to the way she now knew it to be. It was changed forever. She was changed forever. She carried a responsibility now of which she’d never been aware.

  Why didn’t Hilary remember the encounter? Probably because it would have been the same small death for her as it had been for Zoe herself; her world would have been changed forever.

  But I’ve negated that for her, Zoe thought. Just like I did for Wolfe, or Bob, or whoever he really was.

  Her gaze dropped to the floor where he’d been sitting and saw a small black pebble lying on the marble. She hesitated for a moment, then reached over and picked it up. Her fingers tingled again and she watched in wonder as the pebble went from black, through grey, until it was a milky white.

  “What’ve you got there?” Hilary asked.

  Zoe shook her head. She closed her fingers around the small smooth stone, savoring its odd warmth.

  “Nothing,” she said. “Just a pebble.”

  She got up and sat beside Hilary again.

  “Excuse me, miss?”

  The security guard had returned and this time he wasn’t ignoring Rupert.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “but I’m afraid you’ll have to take your dog outside. It’s the mall management’s rules.”

  “Yes,” Zoe said. “Of course.”

  She gave him a quick smile, which the guard returned with more warmth than Zoe thought was warranted. It was as though she’d propositioned him or something.

  Jesus, she thought. Was she going to go through the rest of her life second-guessing every encounter she had? Does he know, does she? Life was tough enough without having to feel self-conscious every time she met somebody. Maybe this was what Wolfe had meant when he said he had been just like her once. Maybe the pressure just got to be too much for him and it turned him from healing to hurting.

  Just be careful.

  It seemed possible. It seemed more than possible when she remembered the gratitude she’d seen in his eyes when he’d thanked her.

  Beside her, Hilary looked at her watch. “We might as well go,” she said. “This whole thing’s a wash-out. It’s almost twelve-thirty. If he was going to come, he’d’ve been here by now.”

  Zoe nodded her head.

  “See, the thing is,” Hilary said as they started for the door, Rupert walking in between them, “a guy like that can’t face an actual confrontation. If you ask me, you’re never going to hear from him again.”

  “I think you’re right,” Zoe said.

  But there might be others, changing, already changed. She might become one of them herself if she wasn’t—

  just be

  Her fingers tightened around the white pebble she’d picked up. She stuck it in the front pocket of her jeans as a token to remind her of what had happened to Wolfe, of how it could just as easily happen to her if she wasn’t

  —careful.

  13

  The Moon Is Drowning While I Sleep

  If you keep your mind sufficiently open, people will throw a lot of rubbish into it.

  —William A. Orton

  * * *

  Once upon a time there was what there was, and if nothing had happened there would be nothing to tell.

  * * *

  2

  * * *

  It was my father who told me that dreams want to be real. When you start to wake up, he said, they hang on and try to slip out into the waking world when you don’t notice. Very strong dreams, he added, can almost do it; they can last for almost half a day, but not much longer.

  I asked him if any ever made it. If any of the people our subconscious minds toss up and make real while we’re sleeping had ever actually stolen out into this world from the dream world.

  He knew of at least one that had, he said.

  He had that kind of lost look in his eyes that made me think of my mother. He always looked like that when he talked about her, which wasn’t often.

  Who was it? I asked, hoping he’d dole out another little tidbit about my mother. Is it someone I know?

  Even as I asked, I was wondering how he related my mother to a dream. He’d at least known her. I didn’t have any memories, just imaginings. Dreams.

  But he only shook his head. Not really, he told me. It happened a long time ago. But I often wondered, he added almost to himself, what did she dream of?

  That was a long time ago and I don’t know if he ever found out. If he did, he never told me. But lately I’ve been wondering about it. I think maybe they don’t dream. I think that if they do, they get pulled back into the dream world.

  And if we’re not too careful, they can pull us back with them.

  * * *

  3

  * * *

  “I’ve been having the strangest dreams,” Sophie Etoile said, more as an observation than a conversational opener.

  She and Jilly Coppercorn had been enjoying a companionable silence while they sat on the stone river wall in the old part of Lower Crowsea’s Market. The wall is by a small public courtyard, surrounded on three sides by old three-story brick and stone townhouses, peaked with mansard roofs, the dormer windows thrusting out from the walls like hooded eyes with heavy brows. The buildings date back over a hundred years, leaning against each other like old friends too tired to talk, just taking comfort from each other’s presence.

  The cobblestoned streets that web out from the courtyard are narrow, too tight a fit for a car, even the small imported makes. They twist and turn, winding in and around the buildings more like back alleys than thoroughfares. If you have any sort of familiarity with the area you can maze your way by those lanes to find still smaller courtyards, hidden and private, and deeper still, secret gardens.

  There are more cats in Old Market than anywhere else in Newford and the air smells different. Though it sits just a few blocks west of some of the city’s principal thoroughfares, you can hardly hear the traffic, and you can’t smell it at all. No exhaust, no refuse, no dead air. In Old Market it always seems to smell of fresh bread baking, cabbage soups, frying fish, roses and those tart, sharp-tasting apples that make the best strudels.

  Sophie and Jilly were bookended by stairs going down to the Kickaha River on either side of them. Pale yellow light from the streetlamp behind them put a glow on their hair, haloing each with her own nimbus of light—Jilly’s darker, all loose tangled curls, Sophie’s a soft auburn, hanging in ringlets. They each had a similar slim build, though Sophie was somewhat bustier. In the half-dark of the streetlamp’s murky light, their small figures could almost be taken for each other, but when the light touched their features as they turned to talk to each other, Jilly could be seen to have the quick, clever features of a Rackham pixie, while Sophie’s were softer, as though rendered by Rossetti or Burne-Jones.

  Though similarly dressed with paint-stained smocks over loose T-shirts and baggy cotton pants, Sophie still managed to look tidy, while Jilly could never seem to help a slight tendency towards scruffiness. She was the only one of the two with paint in her hair.

  “What sort of dreams?” she asked.

  It was almost four o’clock in the morning. The narrow streets of Old Market lay empty and still about them, except for the odd prowling cat, and cats can be like the hint of a whisper when they want, ghosting and silent, invisible presences. The two women had been working at Sophie’s studio on a joint painting, a collaboration that was going to combine Jilly’s precise delicate work with Sophie’s curr
ent penchant for bright flaring colours and loosely-rendered figures.

  Neither was sure the experiment would work, but they’d been enjoying themselves immensely with it, so it really didn’t matter.

  “Well, they’re sort of serial,” Sophie said. “You know, where you keep dreaming about the same place, the same people, the same events, except each night you’re a little further along in the story.”

  Jilly gave her an envious look. “I’ve always wanted to have that kind of dream. Christy’s had them. I think he told me that it’s called lucid dreaming.”

  “They’re anything but lucid,” Sophie said. “If you ask me, they’re downright strange.”

  “No, no. It just means that you know you’re dreaming, when you’re dreaming, and have some kind of control over what happens in the dream.”

  Sophie laughed. “I wish.”

  * * *

  4

  * * *

  I’m wearing a long pleated skirt and one of those white cotton peasant blouses that’s cut way too low in the bodice. I don’t know why. I hate that kind of bodice. I keep feeling like I’m going to fall out whenever I bend over. Definitely designed by a man. Wendy likes to wear that kind of thing from time to time, but it’s not for me.

  Nor is going barefoot. Especially not here. I’m standing on a path, but it’s muddy underfoot, all squishy between my toes. It’s sort of nice in some ways, but I keep getting the feeling that something’s going to sidle up to me, under the mud, and brush against my foot, so I don’t want to move, but I don’t want to just stand here either.

  Everywhere I look it’s all marsh. Low flat fens, with just the odd crack willow or alder trailing raggedy vines the way you see Spanish moss do in pictures of the Everglades, but this definitely isn’t Florida. It feels more Englishy, if that makes sense.

  I know if I step off the path I’ll be in muck up to my knees.

  I can see a dim kind of light off in the distance, way off the path. I’m attracted to it, the way any light in the darkness seems to call out, welcoming you, but I don’t want to brave the deeper mud or the pools of still water that glimmer in the pale starlight.