Dreams Underfoot n-1

by Charles de Lint

  You should leave him be, a voice says, and I turn to find an old woman standing on the path beside me. I don’t know where she came from. Every time I lift one of my feet it makes this creepy sucking sound, but I never even heard her approach.

  She looks like the wizened old crone in that painting Jilly did for Geordie when he got onto this kick of learning fiddle tunes with the word “hag” in the title: “The Hag in the Kiln,”

  “Old Hag You Have Killed Me,”

  “The Hag With the Money” and god knows how many more.

  Just like in the painting, she’s wizened and small and bent over and ... dry. Like kindling, like the pages of an old book. Like she’s almost all used up. Hair thin, body thinner. But then you look into her eyes and they’re so alive it makes you feel a little dizzy.

  Helping such as he will only bring you grief, she says.

  I tell her that I can’t just leave it.

  She looks at me for a long moment, then shrugs. So be it, she says.

  I wait a moment, but she doesn’t seem to have anything else to say, so I go back to freeing the bird.

  But now, where a moment ago the netting was a hopeless tangle, it just seems to unknot itself as soon as I lay my hand on it. I’m careful when I put my fingers around the bird and pull it free. I get it out of the tangle and then toss it up in the air. It circles above me in the air, once, twice, three times, cawing. Then it flies away.

  It’s not safe here, the old lady says then.

  I’d forgotten all about her. I get back onto the path, my legs smeared with smelly dark mud.

  What do you mean? I ask her.

  When the Moon still walked the sky, she says, why it was safe then. The dark things didn’t like her light and fair fell over themselves to get away when she shone. But they’re bold now, tricked and trapped her, they have, and no one’s safe. Not you, not me. Best we were away.

  Trapped her? I repeat like an echo. The moon?

  She nods.

  Where?

  She points to the light I saw earlier, far out in the fens. They’ve drowned her under the Black Snag, she says. I will show you.

  She takes my hand before I realize what she’s doing and pulls me through the rushes and reeds, the mud squishing awfully under my bare feet, but it doesn’t seem to bother her at all. She stops when we’re at the edge of some open water.

  Watch now, she says.

  She takes something from the pocket of her apron and tosses it into the water. It’s like a small stone, or a pebble or something, and it enters the water without a sound, without making a ripple. Then the water starts to glow and a picture forms in the dim flickering light.

  It’s like we have a bird’s eye view of the fens for a moment, then the focus comes in sharp on the edge of a big still pool, sentried by a huge dead willow. I don’t know how I know it, because the light’s still poor, but the mud’s black around its shore. It almost swallows the pale wan glow coming up from out of the water.

  Drowning, the old woman says. The moon is drowning.

  I look down at the image that’s formed on the surface and I see a woman floating there. Her hair’s all spread out from her, drifting in the water like lily roots. There’s a great big stone on top of her torso so she’s only really visible from the breasts up. Her shoulders are slightly sloped, neck slender, with a swan’s curve, but not so long. Her face is in repose, as though she’s sleeping, but she’s underwater, so I know she’s dead.

  She looks like me.

  I turn to the old woman, but before I can say anything, there’s movement all around us. Shadows pull away from trees, rise from the stagnant pools, change from vague blotches of darkness, into moving shapes, limbed and headed, pale eyes glowing with menace. The old woman pulls me back onto the path.

  Wake quick! she cries.

  She pinches my arm—hard, sharp. It really hurts. And then I’m sitting up in my bed.

  5

  “And did you have a bruise on your arm from where she pinched you?” Jilly asked.

  Sophie shook her head and smiled. Trust Jilly. Who else was always looking for the magic in a situation?

  “Of course not,” she said. “It was just a dream.”

  “But ...”

  “Wait,” Sophie said. “There’s more.”

  Something suddenly hopped onto the wall between them and they both started, until they realized it was only a cat.

  “Silly puss,” Sophie said as it walked towards her and began to butt its head against her arm. She gave it a pat.

  6

  The next night I’m standing by my window, looking out at the street, when I hear movement behind me. I turn and it isn’t my apartment any more. It’s like the inside of an old barn, heaped up with straw in a big tidy pile against one wall. There’s a lit lantern swinging from a low rafter beam, a dusty but pleasant smell in the air, a cow or maybe a horse making some kind of nickering sound in a stall at the far end.

  And there’s a guy standing there in the lantern light, a half dozen feet away from me, not doing anything, just looking at me. He’s dropdown gorgeous. Not too thin, not too musclebound. A friendly open face with a wide smile and eyes to kill for—long moody lashes, and the irises are the color of violets. His hair’s thick and dark, long in the back with a cowlick hanging down over his brow that I just want to reach out and brush back.

  I’m sorry, he says. I didn’t mean to startle you.

  That’s okay, I tell him.

  And it is. I think maybe I’m already getting used to all the toand-froing.

  He smiles. My name’s Jeck Crow, he says.

  I don’t know why, but all of a sudden I’m feeling a little weak in the knees. Ah, who am I kidding? I know why.

  What are you doing here? he asks.

  I tell him I was standing in my apartment, looking for the moon, but then I remembered that I’d just seen the last quarter a few nights ago and I wouldn’t be able to see it tonight.

  He nods. She’s drowning, he says, and then I remember the old woman from last night.

  I look out the window and see the fens are out there. It’s dark and creepy and I can’t see the distant glow of the woman drowned in the pool from here the way I could last night. I shiver and Jeck comes over all concerned. He’s picked up a blanket that was hanging from one of the support beams and he lays it across my shoulders. He leaves his arm there, to keep it in place, and I don’t mind. I just sort of lean into him, like we’ve always been together. It’s weird. I’m feeling drowsy and safe and incredibly aroused, all at the same time.

  He looks out the window with me, his hip against mine, the press of his arm on my shoulder a comfortable weight, his body radiating heat.

  It used to be, he says, that she would walk every night until she grew so weak that her light was almost failing. Then she would leave the world to go to another, into Faerie, it’s said, or at least to a place where the darkness doesn’t hide quicks and bogles, and there she would rejuvenate herself for her return. We would have three nights of darkness, when evil owned the night, but then we’d see the glow of her lantern approaching and the haunts would flee her light and we could visit with one another again when the day’s work was done.

  He leans his head against mine, his voice going dreamy.

  I remember my mam saying once, how the Moon lived another life in those three days. How time moves differently in Faerie so that what was a day for us, might be a month for her in that place.

  He pauses, then adds, I wonder if they miss her in that other world.

  I don’t know what to say. But then I realize it’s not the kind of conversation in which I have to say anything.

  He turns to me, head lowering until we’re looking straight into each other’s eyes. I get lost in the violet and suddenly I’m in his arms and we’re kissing. He guides me, step by sweet step, backward towards that heap of straw. We’ve got the blanket under us and this time I’m glad I’m wearing the long skirt and peasant blouse again, becaus
e they come off so easily.

  His hands and his mouth are so gentle and they’re all over me like moth wings brushing my skin. I don’t know how to describe what he’s doing to me. It isn’t anything that other lovers haven’t done to me before, but the way Jeck does it has me glowing, my skin all warm and tingling with this deep slow burn starting up deep between my legs and just firing up along every one of my nerve ends.

  I can hear myself making moaning sounds and then he’s inside me, his breathing heavy in my ear. All I can feel and smell is him. My hips are grinding against his and we’re synched into this perfect rhythm and then I wake up in my own bed and I’m all tangled up in the sheets with my hand between my legs, finger tip right on the spot, moving back and forth and back and forth ....

  7

  Sophie fell silent.

  “Steamy,” Jilly said after a moment.

  Sophie gave a little bit of an embarrassed laugh. “You’re telling me. I get a little squirmy just thinking about it. And that night—I was still so fired up when I woke that I couldn’t think straight. I just went ahead and finished and then lay there afterwards, completely spent. I couldn’t even move.”

  “You know a guy named Jack Crow, don’t you?” Jilly asked.

  “Yeah, he’s the one who’s got that tattoo parlor down on Palm Street. I went out with him a couple of times, but—” Sophie shrugged “—you know. Things just didn’t work out.”

  “That’s right. You told me that all he ever wanted to do was to give you tattoos.”

  Sophie shook her head, remembering. “In private places so only he and I would know they were there. Boy.”

  The cat had fallen asleep, body sprawled out on her lap, head pressed tight up against her stomach.

  A deep resonant purr rose up from him. Sophie just hoped he didn’t have fleas.

  “But the guy in my dream was nothing like Jack,” she said. “And besides, his name was Jeck.”

  “What kind of a name is that?”

  “A dream name.”

  “So did you see him again—the next night?”

  Sophie shook her head. “Though not from lack of interest on my part.”

  8

  The third night I find myself in this oneroom cottage out of a fairy tale. You know, there’s dried herbs hanging everywhere, a big hearth considering the size of the place, with black iron pots and a kettle sitting on the hearth stones, thick handwoven rugs underfoot, a small tidy little bed in one corner, a cloak hanging by the door, a rough set of a table and two chairs by a shuttered window.

  The old lady is sitting on one of the chairs.

  There you are, she says. I looked for you to come last night, but I couldn’t find you.

  I’m getting so used to this dreaming business by now that I’m not at all weirded out, just kind of accepting it all, but I am a little disappointed to find myself here, instead of in the barn.

  I was with Jeck, I say and then she frowns, but she doesn’t say anything.

  Do you know him? I ask.

  Too well.

  Is there something wrong with him?

  I’m feeling a little flushed, just talking about him. So far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing wrong with him at all.

  He’s not trustworthy, the old lady finally says.

  I shake my head. He seems to be just as upset about the drowned lady as you are. He told me all about her—how she used to go into Faerie and that kind of thing.

  She never went into Faerie.

  Well then, where did she go?

  The old lady shakes her head. Crows talk too much, she says and I can’t tell if she means the birds, or a whole bunch of Jecks.

  Thinking about the latter gives me goosebumps. I can barely stay clearheaded around Jeck; a whole crowd of him would probably overload all my circuits and leave me lying on the floor like a little pool of jelly.

  I don’t tell the old lady any of this. Jeck inspired confidences, as much as sensuality; she does neither.

  Will you help us? she says instead.

  I sit down at the table with her and ask, Help with what? The Moon, she says.

  I shake my head. I don’t understand. You mean the drowned lady in the pool?

  Drowned, the old lady says, but not dead. Not yet.

  I start to argue the point, but then realize where I am. It’s a dream and anything can happen, right?

  It needs you to break the bogles’ spell, the old lady goes on. Me? But Tomorrow night, go to sleep with a stone in your mouth and a hazel twig in your hands. Now mayhap, you’ll find yourself back here, mayhap with your crow, but guard you don’t say a word, not one word. Go out into the fen until you find a coffin, and on that coffin a candle, and then look sideways and you’ll see that you’re in the place I showed you yesternight.

  She falls silent.

  And then what am I supposed to do? I ask.

  What needs to be done.

  But

  I’m tired, she says.

  She waves her hand at me and I’m back in my own bed again.

  9

  “And so?” Jilly asked. “Did you do it?”

  “Would you have?”

  “In a moment,” Jilly said. She sidled closer along the wall until she was right beside Sophie and peered into her friend’s face. “Oh don’t tell me you didn’t do it. Don’t tell me that’s the whole story.”

  “The whole thing just seemed silly,” Sophie said.

  “Oh, please!”

  “Well, it did. It was all too oblique and riddlish. I know it was just a dream, so that it didn’t have to make sense, but there was so much of a coherence to a lot of it that when it did get incomprehensible, it just didn’t seem ... oh, I don’t know. Didn’t seem fair, I suppose.”

  “But you did do it?”

  Sophie finally relented.

  “Yes,” she said.

  10

  I go to sleep with a small smooth stone in my mouth and have the hardest time getting to sleep because I’m sure I’m going to swallow it during the night and choke. And I have the hazel twig as well, though I don’t know what help either of them is going to be.

  Hazel twig to ward you from quicks and bogles, I hear Jeck say. And the stone to remind you of your own world, of the difference between waking and dream, else you might find yourself sharing the Moon’s fate.

  We’re standing on a sort of grassy knoll, an island of semisolid ground, but the footing’s still spongy.

  I start to say hello, but he puts his finger to his lips.

  She’s old, is Granny Weather, he says, and cranky, too, but there’s more magic in one of her toenails than most of us will find in a lifetime.

  I never really thought about his voice before. It’s like velvet, soft and smooth, but not effeminate. It’s too resonant for that.

  He puts his hands on my shoulders and I feel like melting. I close my eyes, lift my face to his, but he turns me around until I’m leaning against his back. He cups his hands around my breasts and kisses me on the nape of my neck. I lean back against him, but he lifts his mouth to my ear.

  You must go, he says softly, his breath tickling the inside of my ear. Into the fens.

  I pull free from his embrace and face him. I start to say, Why me? Why do I have to go alone? But before I can get a word out he has his hand across my mouth.

  Trust Granny Weather, he says. And trust me. This is something only you can do. Whether you do it or not, is your choice. But if you mean to try tonight, you mustn’t speak. You must go out into the fens and find her. They will tempt you and torment you, but you must ignore them, else they’ll have you drowning too, under the Black Snag.

  I look at him and I know he can see the need I have for him because in his eyes I can see the same need for me reflected in their violet depths.

  I will wait for you, he says. If I can.

  I don’t like the sound of that. I don’t like the sound of any of it, but I tell myself again, it’s just a dream, so I finally nod. I start to turn
away, but he catches hold of me for a last moment and kisses me.

  There’s a hot rush of tongues touching, arms tight around each other, before he finally steps back.

  I love the strength of you, he says.

  I don’t want to go, I want to change the rules of the dream, but I get this feeling that if I do, if I change one thing, everything’11 change, and maybe he won’t even exist in whatever comes along to replace it. So I lift my hand and run it along the side of his face, I take a long last drink of those deep violet eyes that just want to swallow me, then I get brave and turn away again.

  And this time I go into the fens.

  I’m nervous, but I guess that goes without saying. I look back, but I can’t see Jeck anymore. I can just feel I’m being watched, and it’s not by him. I clutch my little hazel twig tighter, roll the stone around from one side of my mouth to the other, and keep going.

  It’s not easy. I have to test each step to make sure I’m not just going to sink away forever into the muck. I start thinking of what you hear about dreams, how if you die in a dream, you die for real, that’s why you always wake up just in time. Except for those people who die in their sleep, I guess.

  I don’t know how long I’m slogging through the muck. My arms and legs have dozens of little nicks and cuts—you never think of how sharp the edge of a reed can be until your skin slides across one. It’s like a paper cut, sharp and quick, and it stings like hell. I don’t suppose all the muck’s doing the cuts much good either. The only thing I can be happy about is that there aren’t any bugs.

  Actually, there doesn’t seem to be the sense of anything living at all in the fens, just me, on my own.

  But I know I’m not alone. It’s like a word sitting on the tip of your tongue. I can’t see or hear or sense anything, but I’m being watched.

  I think ofJeck and Granny Weather, of what they say the darkness hides. Quicks and bogles and haunts.

  After awhile I almost forget what I’m doing out here. I’m just stumbling along with a feeling of dread hanging over me that just won’t go away. Bogbean and water mint leaves feel like cold wet fingers sliding along my legs. I hear the occasional flutter of wings, and sometimes a deep kind of sighing moan, but I never see anything.

  I’m just about played out when suddenly I come up upon this tall rock under the biggest crack willow I’ve seen so far. The tree’s dead, drooping leafless branches into the still water around the stone. The stone rises out of the water at a slant, the mud’s all really black underfoot, the marsh is, if anything, even quieter here, expectant, almost, and I get the feeling like something—somethings are closing in all around me.