The Cure for Dreaming

by Cat Winters

  “I’d like a room, please,” I said to the hotel clerk with the devilish Vandyke beard—the same terrible little man who had belittled the Negro customers and yelled at Henry and me to take our lovers’ quarrel outside.

  “A room for one?” he asked.

  “Yes, a place of my own.” Oh, how I loved the sound of that! “And I’d like to pay in advance to ensure there will be no trouble finding you if I need to check out early.”

  Even if the clerk did remember me as the screeching lunatic from three days before, he made no complaint about my presence once I plunked a dollar bill onto his desk.

  “Room eight,” he said with a smile above his pointy umber beard, and he slid a golden key across the polished mahogany.

  I left my suitcase in the first-floor room with a quilt-covered bed that appeared to be collapsing on one side. Another whiff of the establishment’s mold met my nose, but I had no plans to stay. I shut the door behind me, locked up my possessions, and exited the hotel without checking on Henry and Genevieve upstairs.

  The night before, I had awoken in a panicked sweat from a dream in which I smashed a sledgehammer over a gravestone marked RHODES.

  Instead of confronting that fear, I preferred to walk back home and cling to the illusion that everything would unfold as planned.

  WITHOUT GERDA’S HELP, I SOMEHOW MANAGED TO BUTTON myself up in the same eggplant-purple dress I’d worn to Sadie’s party, the only gown in my wardrobe suitable for an election-night soiree. Gerda must have scrubbed the mud off the hem Saturday morning, for the fabric betrayed no signs of Percy chasing me down in his buggy.

  I descended the staircase toward Father, who was reading the mail in his best wool suit and a crisp black bow tie. The air was rich with the scent of Macassar hair oil.

  He peeked up at me. “You’re finally ready. Why are you wearing that lace scarf?”

  I left the bottom step. “It’s the latest fashion.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “How would you know what young ladies are wearing?”

  “I know what does and doesn’t look garish.” He set down the mail on the hall table. “Please take that off.”

  I pressed the lace against my neck. “I can’t.”

  “You can’t?”

  “It’s covering a blemish.”

  “There’s no such thing as a neck blemish, Olivia. Now, take that thing off”—he reached for the scarf—“before the ladies at the party see you.”

  He gave a firm tug, and the lace unspooled.

  My neck fell bare.

  “The marks are from Percy,” I said before he could match words to his open-mouthed stare. “He tried forcing himself upon me the night of Sadie Eiderling’s party, but all I could say was ‘All is well.’” I yanked the scarf free of Father’s hands and wound the lace back around my neck. “I worried you’d ask Mr. Reverie to do something more to me if I told you what had happened.”

  He just stood there, paralyzed and mute.

  “Are you ready?” I asked with a glance at the door.

  “Um . . . yes.” He blinked and fitted his head with a tall silk hat dating back to the Garfield administration. “I’ve hired a driver and carriage for the night. We’re traveling in high style, which ought to tell you how important I consider this event. Behave as if your life depended on it.”

  “Of course,” I said. “My life indeed depends on it.”

  FIREWORKS LIT UP THE PORTLAND SKYLINE IN BLASTS OF indigo that rattled my seat in the carriage. Along the side of one of downtown’s tallest buildings, an enormous projection of President McKinley’s clean-shaven face and balding head glowed across a sandstone wall.

  “It doesn’t actually feel as if my eyes are playing tricks on me right now,” I said to Father, whose toes kept bumping into mine, “but I see President McKinley’s giant white face watching over the city. Do you see it, too?”

  Father craned his neck to get a peek outside the carriage window. “That’s a stereopticon slide. The newspaper said that’s how the city would announce who’s ahead in the election.”

  “He looks like the Wonderful Wizard of Oz when he was just a huge head sitting in a chair.” I gawked at the passing black-and-white image. “How peculiar.”

  The whimsical rooftop dormers and chimneys of the eight-story Portland Hotel would be coming up next, within a block, across from the courthouse on Sixth Street. I had walked by its opulent grounds hundreds of times.

  The carriage eased down the Yamhill Street slope, but to my consternation, I did not see all those wonderful chimneys. On a tall, lumpy hill, in the erratic shots of light from the streaks of blue fireworks, stood a castle with towers severe and black.

  “No, that’s absurd.” I turned away from the carriage window and covered my eyes with the lace scarf.

  “What’s absurd?” asked Father.

  “It’s not a good sign.” I squeezed the lace and spoke more to myself than Father. “It shouldn’t look like Dracula’s castle—and death. I shouldn’t be afraid.”

  “No, you shouldn’t.” Father shifted his position on his seat with a squeak of leather. “And you should stop reading that damned horror novel. Perhaps that’s one more item I should have Mr. Reverie remove from—”

  He cut himself off, and at first I wondered if he was about to revise his stance on the hypnosis. A second later, a sound that must have distracted him reached my ears.

  Singing.

  Women’s voices singing.

  I lowered the scarf and shifted toward the window again.

  Outside our carriage, females of all ages, sizes, and backgrounds lined the lamp-lit sidewalks in front of our beautiful Portland Hotel with its soaring walls of dark stone and terracotta. The women and girls wore yellow ribbons on their coats and their hats, and they belted out a song while raising homemade cloth flags bearing the words VOTES FOR WOMEN!

  I slid across the seat and stuck my head into the chimneyscented air to better hear them sing the satirical lyrics of “Oh, Dear, What Can the Matter Be?”

  “Put your head back inside the carriage.” Father pulled me down to my seat by my shoulder. “If those are the type of women I think they are, you’ll get sick to your stomach.”

  The driver steered the trotting horses into the hotel’s circular driveway, a grand roundabout surrounded by shrubberies and ornamental trees, almost as green in the nighttime lighting as during the sunshine splendor of day. The line of singing women and girls stretched clear up to the front doors.

  The carriage rocked to a stop, and Father opened the door and clambered out. He turned around to help me down, just as the chorus of females switched to “Keep Woman in Her Sphere,” another saucy anthem, sung to the tune of “Auld Lang Syne.”

  I spotted Frannie and Kate near the hotel’s front doors, but I turned my face away and pretended not to notice or hear them, even though my eyes swam with tears of gratitude.

  Father offered me his elbow and helped me down to the ground. With my head held high—I swear, I grew four inches—we trod forward to my fate.

  A wind snapped at my ears.

  The world went black and tipped off balance, and the ladies’ voices seemed distorted into muffled wails. The scents of death and decay breathed in my face, and fiery torches guided our way to the hotel’s double doors, which stretched open before us like a pair of jaws with jagged teeth.

  “I can’t do this.” I pulled back. “Something’s not right. It reminds me too much of death.”

  “Don’t be silly.” Father tugged me onward. “Your fears are all in your head.”

  With a firm pull, he wrenched me inside.

  banner for the Oregon Association Opposed to the Extension of Suffrage to Women hung above a white semicircular stage, its letters as bold and red as knife wounds. Below the sign a twelve-piece orchestra strummed their bows at a dizzying pace for the brisk Viennese waltz careering around the waxed parquet floor.

  The first dancer I saw was none other than Sadie Eider
ling, dressed in a long scarlet gown, whirling about in the arms of bespectacled Teddy from her party. Sunken-Eyed John waltzed with a blond girl in black, while his sister, Eugenia, danced with the leering, long-nosed fellow who had called me a tart. They held their upper bodies as stiff as shop-window mannequins, and their faces appeared handsome and young in the bright wattage of the crystal chandeliers.

  Whenever they veered into shadow, however, oh, how they changed. Their teeth, their burning eyes, the black-tinged blood on their lips—all their hidden savagery—triggered an ache in the marks on my neck.

  Percy, primped like a peacock in a dark suit and tails, strutted our way with his hands folded behind his back. “Dr. Mead, Olivia, how lovely to see you. Pretty scarf, Olivia.”

  “Father knows about my neck,” I said, and Percy turned and skedaddled to the opposite end of the room.

  Father kept me pulled against his side and didn’t even mention a word about Percy. “I don’t see the hypnotist.” He gazed about the throng of Portland’s wealthiest, who danced and milled about and drank champagne at round tables draped in red, white, and blue. “Let’s go pay our regards to the Underhills.”

  I scanned the room for Henry as well, but he was nowhere to be found amid all the jewels and stiff collars. Waiters in white coats glided about with trays of savory-smelling appetizers and flutes of bubbling gold liquid, but they and Father were the only non-society men in the entire place.

  On our way to the Underhills, we passed Percy’s bald father, Judge Acklen, whom I recognized from the newspapers. He sipped a dark drink that resembled a vial of blood and appeared to be alone, until a vaporous haze of a woman, perhaps Mrs. Acklen, slipped into view beside him.

  Father pressed onward to Mr. Underhill, who was conversing with another young couple I recognized from Sadie’s birthday party. They chatted in front of an eight-foot-tall ice sculpture carved like the Statue of Liberty, propped on a round table with a star-spangled cloth. The air around them chilled me more than our mudroom in January.

  “Mr. Underhill.” Father thrust out his hand, interrupting their chat. “Thank you again for inviting us.”

  “Oh. Dr. Mead.” Mr. Underhill shook Father’s hand, and his white mustache wriggled with a smile. “So you arrived.”

  “Have you spotted our entertainment for the evening yet?” asked Father.

  “I think she’s right here.” Mr. Underhill gestured toward me with his champagne. “This is the girl I was telling you about, Lizzie. Go ahead, say the word to her—but stand back.”

  The female half of the young couple, a pretty brunette with glossy ringlets, leaned forward with pouty lips and said with a chirp, “Suffrage.”

  I slapped my mouth and hacked a deep, retching sound.

  The girl squealed and clapped her hands, and her broad-shouldered escort gave one of those firm-lipped sorts of nods that males seem to make when they’re feeling especially mannish. I swallowed down my humiliation.

  “You haven’t seen young Mr. Reverie, then?” asked Father.

  “No,” said Mr. Underhill. “But all of our guests will be especially interested in his cure after that disgusting display outside the hotel just now.”

  “I’ve always told Mother,” said chirpy little Lizzie, “that women like that remind me of freakish men with bosoms.”

  Her escort laughed. “Lizzie!”

  “I’m sorry, James, but it’s true. Just look at this one.” She nodded toward me.

  I picked at the tips of my hot gloves and pretended not to have heard the insult. My blood simmered. My chest felt overly exposed.

  Sadie and Teddy strolled our way, arm in arm, and under no circumstances was I about to bear the brunt of her wicked barbs, too. I pulled free of Father and veered toward the exit.

  Ten feet before I reached the doorway, Henry walked into the ballroom while fussing with his tie.

  I released a pent-up breath and stopped in my tracks.

  Henry halted, too, and something worse than his usual fatigue weighed down his shoulders. He looked deathly ill— his lips cracked, his face drawn, his eyes devoid of all fire.

  Father snatched my elbow and jerked me away before I could ask what was wrong.

  “Henry looks sick,” I said, twisting my head to see his red vest disappearing behind us.

  “You cannot interact with him before the demonstration.” Father tripped me over my feet to the farthest corner of the ballroom. “People will think the hypnosis is a fake, and that I’m a fake—or a fool.”

  “I just want to find out what’s wrong with him. I don’t think that was an illusion.”

  “He probably just drank too much last night. Showmen tend to do that.”

  “Dentists, too, from what I’ve seen.”

  Father plunked me down in a cream-colored chair near the stage. “Sit here for now,” he said over the frenzy of strings. “Mrs. Underhill will likely let us know when she’s ready.”

  I leaned forward to better see through the throng of dancing bodies and spotted Henry wandering behind them as if he didn’t know where to go. The waiters with the trays of food didn’t even stop to talk to him. The frantic strumming of the orchestra propelled everyone in the room into a faster-than-average speed; people were flitting and swerving all over the place, rushing, rushing, rushing—except for Henry.

  “Go check on him.” I tugged on Father’s coat. “He doesn’t even know where you want him to be. He looks even more out of place than we do.”

  “We do not look out of place.”

  “You were the one who wanted him here. Go take care of him.”

  Father grunted and circled around the dance floor to meet up with Henry on the other side. He then gestured with his arms while speaking to Henry and pointed toward Mrs. Underhill, who had joined her husband by the frozen Statue of Liberty. Henry headed over to the ice sculpture as well, raking a hand through his hair.

  Father hurried back to my side. “He hasn’t been feeling his best, but he assured me that everything will go as planned. He’s going to ask Mrs. Underhill if we should start soon.”

  “Did he say anything about his sister?”

  “No, and please, just sit here and stop fretting about everything. All will be well once we start the demonstration.” Father tugged his handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his forehead.

  I rubbed the tops of my legs through the purple sheen of my skirt. “Show me Henry’s money.”

  Father blinked as if he hadn’t heard me quite right. “I beg your pardon.”

  “Prove to me you intend to pay him if I go up there and let him hypnotize me again. I won’t play nicely until you do.”

  His jaw stiffened.

  “Please,” I said.

  He rustled an envelope out of his breast pocket, gave me a quick peek at the cash inside, and then tucked the envelope straight back into the folds of his coat. “He had better remove every last shred of your sass tonight, young lady. I’m getting tired of this.”

  The orchestra’s song dwindled to a much-needed end, and the room slowed its pace and settled to a stop. Mrs. Underhill climbed aboard the stage in a royal-blue gown with a long train that swished behind her like a cat’s tail. She waved at the conductor to keep the music at bay and walked to center stage.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our election-night ball, sponsored by the Oregon Association Opposed to the Extension of Suffrage to Women.”

  I gagged over the word suffrage, while everyone else applauded and cheered.

  “To the Republicans in the crowd,” continued Mrs. Underhill, “a hearty congratulations. It looks as though President William McKinley and his running mate, Theodore Roosevelt, will be helming the country as we sail into this glorious new century.”

  Fewer than half of the attendees smiled and slapped their gloved hands together, while the anti-imperialist Democrats folded their arms across their chests and sat there with a wilted air of defeat.

  “What we can all celebrate together as a group,
however”— Mrs. Underhill lifted her index finger and waited for the applause to fade—“is the continued tradition of men alone voting for president while we women devote our attention to more ladylike pursuits.”

  An astounding abundance of women and girls clapped at this sentiment, including bold Sadie Eiderling, who seemed far too despotic to be opposed to female empowerment. I ground my molars.

  “My sincerest apologies,” said Mrs. Underhill, folding her hands together in front of her waist, “for the unpleasant display that greeted your arrival at the hotel this evening. More than ever it seems we need a remedy for the growing army of loud, obnoxious women who insist they are the same as men.” She shifted her royal-blue bosom our way. “And I have good news for you on that account. Some wise men in our very own community have used their innovative brains to create such a remedy.”

  Silence befell the mesmerized crowd.

  “My dear friends,” continued Mrs. Underhill, “you may have noticed a few extra people at this party whom you may not have expected to see tonight. Dr. Walter Mead, a local dentist.” She stretched out her hand in Father’s direction. “And Monsieur Henri Reverie, the talented young hypnotist from Montreal, Canada.” She extended her right arm to Henry, who stood in front of the opposite side of the stage from us. “Together, they have invented a cure for female rebellion, using the astounding power of hypnotism. Young Monsieur Reverie is going to demonstrate this revolutionary antidote for wayward women right here, right now, in front of all of you. Please welcome to the stage Henri Reverie and his subject, young rabble-rouser Olivia Mead.”

  The audience’s applause walloped me in the face like a sack of rocks, and I couldn’t even think to stand on my own. Father had to yank me out of the chair to get me to come to my senses and move.

  “Go up, go up,” he said, spinning me toward a small staircase at the side of the stage. “He’s waiting for you.”