Dangerous Dreams: A Novel

by Mike Rhynard

  “Take it easy, Hon. Don’t break it!”

  She tapped the stem gently on the tabletop—once, twice, three times. On the fourth try, the lid popped open. Allie stared dumbstruck at the contents. “Oh, no!” She removed a tuft of dark hair. “It’s the wrong hair. It should be brown.” She examined the locket. “But look here, on the back.” She pointed at two faded letters. “See . . . the second one’s a C . . . for Colman. But I can’t read the first one—too faded. But look, you can still see part of the five and seven from 1587, but that’s badly worn, too. Got to be her locket. But why’s the hair wrong?”

  Nancy reached into the box, retrieved another item. “Is this it?” She held out a second locket, identical to the first.

  Allie’s heart boomed like a cannon as she took the second locket. It had no engraving, except for a partial C in the same place as the C on the first locket.

  Nancy said, “This one’s much more worn . . . touched a lot more.”

  Allie nodded as she fumbled with the stubborn trap door. “Oh my God. Stop shaking, hands!” She squeezed the sides with maximum force until the stem grudgingly extended. She then applied the proper twists, pushed in on the stem to open the trap door. When the lid failed to open, she tapped the stem on the tabletop as before. On the second try, it popped open. Allie stared blankly then gradually smiled at the lock of brown hair inside. “This is Emily’s locket . . . her mother’s hair. Oh my God. I’m holding it in my own hands . . . something she held . . . then the Panther . . . then Emily again . . . and God knows who else.” She visualized Emily alone by the fire at Roanoke, reading her mother’s letter, fondling her locket in her other hand, speaking to her as if she were suddenly beside her from across the sea. “But here it is . . . Emily’s precious locket . . . in my hand . . . shaking like there’s no tomorrow.”

  Nancy picked up the first locket, stared at it for a moment, looked at Allie. “So whose is this?”

  Allie smiled. “This must be the locket Emily’s father gave to her mother, also on the day he and Emily left England. Emily told George they exchanged identical lockets . . . and his hair was dark . . . but . . . but how”—she stared at her mother—“maybe her mother, or brother, or both, eventually made it to the New World . . . but . . . but how did Ian come to have it?”

  “I think I can answer that question. Smidgeons of this stuff are starting to come back to me—from a long way back—and I kinda . . . vaguely . . . remember my mom saying Ian had always had one locket, but Great-Grandpa gave her another one the day they were married; and she about fainted because she knew where it came from . . . even though he didn’t . . . but he did know it had been in his family, like forever.”

  Neither spoke as Allie reverently turned the lockets over and over in her hands, caressed them, thought of Emily, her father, their adventures, their disasters. Suddenly, she grabbed the old picture of Ian, held it close to her eyes, shifted her gaze back and forth between it and the lockets. “Mom! I’ve got it! Look here, see those black stones around Ian’s neck?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, black stones are what Emily and Isna . . . and I . . . thought they were when we saw them in Isna’s vision and Emily’s dreams. But guess what?”

  “What?”

  She smiled. “They just look like black stones because they’re so small in the picture. They’re actually these two black lockets.” She held up the lockets. “Look here . . . see the little holes drilled in the edges for a necklace?”

  “Oh my God!” Nancy shook her head. “You’re right.”

  Allie held the lockets in the palm of her hand, pondered them with teary eyes, then picked up Isna’s pipe and the picture of Ian. “It’s all true, Mom . . . all of it . . . everything . . . every last bit of it . . . everything I dreamed . . . everything I saw and felt . . . real history . . . our history, and—”

  Her mother touched her arm. “One last thing from the box, Hon.” She looked into Allie’s eyes, handed her another picture, which she immediately snatched, stared at.

  “There’s Ian with the lockets and pipe . . . but who’s the little girl whose head she has her hand on?”

  Nancy smiled. “That would be your own mother, Ms. O’Shay . . . me!”

  Allie’s mind spun; she shook with chills. “Mom . . . Isna’s vision . . . the dreams . . . the old woman—Ian—with the stones and pipe. Remember? She had her hand on the head of a little white fawn. And then Ian and the stones and pipe vanished . . . and . . . and then the fawn grew into a . . . a”— her voice quavered; she choked on tears—“a doe and had a little white fawn of her own, the last little white fawn.” Allie laid the lockets and pictures aside, held her mother’s hand, stared tearily into her eyes. “Mom, you’re the doe . . . and . . . and I’m your little white fawn—the last little white fawn in Isna’s vision. And, Mom, that’s exactly what Emily and I dreamed in her last dream—the one I tried to tell you and Steve about the other day . . . and you, a few minutes ago.” She released a flood of tears, rubbed her eyes continuously with both hands, blubbered through her sobs, “At the end of the dream, the last little white fawn changed form, and . . . and, Mom . . . she changed into me. And as soon as I string these lockets and the pipe onto a necklace, they’ll be hanging around my neck . . . exactly as in the last scene of Isna’s vision, when the pipe and lockets suddenly appear around the last little white fawn’s neck . . . and finally, in Emily’s last dream, around my neck . . . and the vision and dreams will then be fulfilled.” Mother and daughter stared at one another, their eyes filled with tears as they fell into each other’s arms and sobbed.

  A half hour later, Allie and Nancy sat together, held hands, stared silently into each other’s eyes, glanced at the lockets, the pipe, the pictures, pondered all that had happened since the dreams began. Allie said, “Mom, I wonder how the lockets and pipe got to Ian and Great-Great-Grandpa . . . what happened to them over four hundred years of American history . . . where they’ve been . . . who’s held them, cherished them. Mom . . . I’ve got to know.”

  Nancy studied her daughter with deep, knowing eyes. “Allie, Hon, I think you’re going to find out.”

  Alone in her room, Allie looked down at the lockets and vision pipe dangling from her neck, imagined centuries of wild adventures that had brought them to her great-great-grandparents. Suddenly, an impulse commanded her to turn off the light. She did so, walked to the window, stared out at a black sky filled with so many stars the Milky Way looked like a solid strip of white from horizon to horizon.

  In the ten minutes Allie stared blindly at the stars, thinking of Emily, seeing her together with Isna, she missed four shooting stars but noticed the first glow of the three-quarter moon as it peeked over the eastern horizon. She stood at the window for another half hour, watched the moon and its bright companion star rise slowly into the sky. As she held Emily’s locket to her cheek, she closed her eyes, begged to see Emily again. “Emily, wherever you are, I love you . . . will always love you.”

  And then, as if in a dream, a misty scene appeared in her mind. Emily, in her doeskin dress, stepped slowly toward her from the mist, stopped, stared into her eyes with a warm, loving smile, extended her arm toward her as if handing her something, then slowly faded back into the mist.

  Allie stood motionless, eyes closed. No, Em! Don’t go! Pleeease don’t go. Come back to me . . . please come back . . . let me see you again; I miss you so. Eyes still closed, she held both hands over the lockets and pipe at her heart, savored the vision of Emily; she then sadly opened her eyes, turned on the lamp, stepped toward the bed. But she immediately stopped, stared straight ahead through a gush of bittersweet tears when she saw why Emily had come. On her pillow, like a precious, pink gem glistening on a blanket of snow, lay Emily’s first flower of spring.

  EPILOGUE

  The basic historical events presented in this story, up to the time of John White’s departure, as well as what he found upon his return in 1590, are true, including Manteo’s visits to
England, the circumstances and details of the elder George Howe’s death, the accidental attack on friendly Croatans, the Spanish visit to Roanoke, and the Powhatan prophecy of doom. It is also true that the Powhatans annihilated the Chesapeakes out of fear of the prophecy, though the exact date is unknown. All English character names were taken from the actual Roanoke manifest; but all connections between those names and the events of this story, other than as stated above, are fictional.

  Dangerous Dreams incorporates elements of six prevalent theories regarding the Lost Colony: that some escaped to Croatan Island and assimilated with the Croatan Indians; that the entire colony fled to the Chesapeake Bay area, only to be annihilated by the Powhatans; that the colonists likely considered moving inland from Roanoke Island and could have done so; that the colony was destroyed by a hurricane; that Spanish forces found and destroyed the colony; and that there was a conspiracy to undermine the colony and foster its failure.

  The Lakota, or Sioux, in fact lived in the Ohio Valley until approximately the arrival of Columbus in the New World in 1492, at which time they migrated northwest to the area near present day Mille Lac, Minnesota, near the western shore of Lake Superior and the headwaters of the Mississippi River. They remained there until they moved west to the Missouri River in the early 1730s, then finally crossed the Missouri and moved onto the Great Plains after obtaining the horse from the Cheyenne tribe in the latter part of the 1700s. It is equally well known that before the white man, tribes from all over North America, including the Great Lakes region, traveled and traded throughout the continent for items they valued but did not have where they lived.

  Viking explorers discovered North America and made several attempts to settle there around AD 1000, and possibly earlier. Some hypothesize that because they settled near the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River at L’Anse Aux Meadows, Newfoundland, they could have explored the Great Lakes via portages and the rivers that join the lakes. Viking artifacts, some of arguable authenticity, have been discovered in Minnesota and Wisconsin, adding to the curiosity, if not the credibility, of these hypotheses.

  The scientific theories presented in Dangerous Dreams—such as activation synthesis, morphic resonance, formative causation, the individual and collective unconscious, atavism, Lamarckian inheritance, and genetics— are legitimate theories with credible advocates and varying degrees of validation. The author believes that the fact that mankind’s body of proven knowledge regarding dreams—why and how they happen, where they come from, and what they mean—is so remarkably scant that until disproven, all such theories remain in the mix. Accordingly, Dangerous Dreams weaves a logical, creative tapestry of explanatory fact, theory, and imagination into Allie O’Shay’s dream characteristics. And while the author makes no assertions as to the validity of any theory, or Allie’s gift, when one studies these theories, even at an elemental level, it is impossible not to imagine that someday some of them might be proven—in part or in whole.

  Emily Colman never returned to Virginia, nor did Virginia Dare. But both lived full, happy lives with the Lakota; and over the next four hundred years, Emily and Isna’s descendants—the many brown and white fawns—spread across North America. And as for Allie, it was not at all obvious how both of the Colmans’ lockets came to be in her great-great-grandmother’s possession. In fact, it took her a lifetime of dangerous dreams and adventures to discover the truth. And the truth was not at all what she at first supposed.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  In Dangerous Dreams, Mike Rhynard integrated technical writing experience from careers as a test pilot, aerospace engineer, and consultant; lifetime experiences gained in combat, cattle ranching, and primitive survival instructing; a lifelong love of American history; and a deep admiration for Native American heritage and spirituality. He then enriched and enlivened the blend with a passionate desire to present the past in the exciting, personal manner in which it occurred.

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