When she could no longer see his back moving away from her down the road, she let go of her arm and stretched her hand. The blood ebbed back into the places her fingers had been. She bent to the rag, then moved across the narrow hall into Toby’s room. It was just the two bedrooms up here above the store, while her parents slept in a room off the kitchen downstairs, where it was warmer. In Toby’s room she worked faster, ignoring the passersby outside his window, pausing just to tug at the haphazard way he’d made his bed.
As she straightened up, she realized his big form had silently filled the doorway behind her without her knowing.
“What are you doing up here?” she snapped. “You startled me.”
He stepped into the room and held out his arm. “I dropped a jar of beets. Dad said I should come up here and change my shirt.” He thrust the sleeve closer to Cora, and she looked at it, the purple stain running up from the cuff as if he’d cut himself and was bleeding right through the bandage.
“That’s never coming out,” she scolded.
He shrugged and began to unbutton the shirt. “Thought I’d grow out of being so clumsy by now. Guess not.”
Cora watched him for a minute. She had heard a few whispers about her brother and the kinds of dreams he’d been buying from Robert Owens. And supposedly Toby was not the only one. A small idea uncurled itself in her mind. Day by day her feelings for Robert grew, and she could feel herself growing as well, passing from girlhood into womanhood. But he didn’t see it. She studied Toby, wondering about his dreams, wondering if he thought they had made him into a man.
She stepped toward him, gave him a slap on the flank as a farmer would with a lazy cow.
“Out of my way, then.”
“Sorry.” He shuffled aside, still working on the shirt.
“Goose.”
She rushed out to the stairs, the oily rag clenched over her heart.
Chapter 19
Ali McBryde was a farmer’s boy like Benjamin Dawson had been. His unripened life was a round of school and chores, and on summer days he learned to bale the hay and pitch the gold-dust piles of clean straw into the mucked-out stalls. He saw what cultivating was and watched the grubs come struggling up out of the earth when it was turned over and turmoiling their way back in. In his scant free time, he played baseball in the school yard with friends or practiced his carving on forest twigs with the treasured pocketknife he’d been given last Christmas.
With a blade that opened out smoothly on its hinge from a shiny case like a bullet, it was the envy of all his knifeless friends. The tool itself was precious to him, but not as much as what it meant—that he could be trusted, that he was man enough not to cut off his own finger by accident. Whenever he walked with the silver weight of it in his pocket, this was really responsibility he carried, keen as ice against him. It would have burned his skin if not for the flannel pocket lining between them.
Ali McBryde was blond and slight, with a freckled face and hands, a tiny slope of a nose, and large eyes that gave him a look of innocence, but innocent Ali was not. Ali needed money, and to get it he had robbed the till at Jenkins’s general store.
For many weeks he had watched the church collection plates each Sunday, floating back and forth along the pews, filling with the shallow flash of coins like untested boats taking on water. Every week the ushers brought the bloated plates up to the front of the church, and they were never left unattended until everyone had gone out. After Mr. Arnold had said good afternoon to the last parishioner, he always turned immediately and went back up the aisle to his money and carried the plates to some mysterious location in a part of the church Ali had never seen. He had always assumed this was how Mr. Arnold was paid, at the mercy of congregational whim and prosperity from one week to the next.
Finally Ali had decided there was no opportunity here. Even if he could stay behind one Sunday, if he could somehow separate himself from his parents and dash up toward the money as the last few people left, before Mr. Arnold quite turned away from the door, there was always Miss Burnley at the organ playing the postlude. He never could be sure she wouldn’t suddenly pop up her head and catch him stealing.
Besides all these considerations, part of him thought it might be worse to steal from the church than somewhere else. While he knew that theft was always a sin, stealing from God himself, from God’s worker on earth, seemed like going a mite too far. His crime, he imagined, would otherwise be forgiven. It was for a good purpose. It was only for justice, after all, and no greater cause could there be in the heart of an eight-year-old boy.
At Jenkins’s he figured the way would be smoother. When Cora minded the till, she was easily distracted and trusting. She was always going back into the stockroom to check on this or that, even when there was no one else to watch the register. Ali had seen it before, sitting alone in its big-buttoned arch of importance. The bell that was supposed to ring up the sales was broken now, but Mr. Jenkins never bothered to fix it, since no one except his own family ever worked the store. Cora also turned her back on it when she was busy talking with some young man she liked.
One dusty, hot afternoon when the distance was hazy, like chalkboard erasers clapped together in the classroom, his kickball game was breaking for supper when he saw his best chance walking into the store in the form of Jackson Banks. Ali slipped in after him, before the door had quite closed, and watched slyly and listened.
Cora was finishing up selling some ribbon to two young ladies, and when they left, there were only Cora and Ali in the store, and Jackson Banks. Ali stood silent by the penny candy in the clear glass tilted jars. Cora was used to the children hanging around in this attitude, undecided, one finger crooked in the side of the mouth.
“Well, Cora Jenkins, as I live and breathe,” Jackson drawled, leaning one elbow on the counter and smiling at Cora.
“I don’t know who else you’d expect, when you come into our store.”
Her voice was tart, but she was looking down at the counter trying not to smile. When Jackson said no more, she sighed as if already exasperated with him.
“What can I get for you today, Jack?”
“I don’t know, I haven’t decided. I just came in to pass the time.”
“Well, let me know when you make up your mind.”
She grabbed a feather duster from under the counter and stalked over to the shelves, reaching up and dusting all the rows of jars and cans, methodically making her way to the front window and away from Jackson and Ali. Ali didn’t think she had even noticed him come in.
“What if I wanted . . . a kiss from a pretty girl?” Jackson called to her. “What would the price for that be?”
She turned, brandishing the feathers like a weapon. A fairy-tale knife or sword, changed at the last moment by some sorcery of Jackson’s.
“I don’t find that very funny.”
“Aw, come on now.” He shifted his elbow along the counter as if leaning had become uncomfortable, while the pose of nonchalance could not be abandoned. He grinned, but he made no move toward her.
“You know Christina Blackwell is my very best friend, don’t you?”
“I guess. I never paid that much attention.”
“Well, she is. And she’s a wonderful girl, and it’s about time you saw sense. Start paying attention. You should have asked her for a kiss long ago.”
“Christina Blackwell?”
Ali almost laughed. Jackson sounded as surprised by the suggestion as if Christina Blackwell were an eighty-year-old widow with no teeth left in her mouth.
“Certainly Christina. Why not?”
“I don’t know. I never thought of her that way. I just never really noticed her.”
“Well, you should. A callow boy like you doesn’t even deserve her.”
Jackson only grinned harder. “I’m sure I don’t. So you won’t put me out of my misery, then?” Now he le
ft the counter and walked toward her.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You are not in any misery over me.”
“Oh, but I am. I’ve been thinking about you all the time. You’re the sweetest girl in town.”
Ali was so fascinated watching them he almost forgot his purpose.
“Christina fancies you. . . . I never will. And I won’t betray my friend.”
“You never will like me? Not even a little?”
“No.”
Ali moved soundlessly around the counter. He was so short he almost disappeared behind it. Jackson had his back to him, and as he stood in front of Cora, he was now blocking her view of the till as well.
“No harm in one little kiss, then. Just for fun.”
“Yes, there is harm. You’re being silly. Go chase someone else.”
Carefully Ali pulled open the drawer of money and began helping himself. Not to very much, not enough to be missed until it was being counted and compared with the ledger at the end of the day.
“I don’t want to chase anyone else, I told you.”
“Jackson Banks, if you take one step closer, I will call out, and Mother and Dad will come in here. They’re right in the back, you know, having their tea.”
“I don’t think you will.”
Jackson was almost beside her now, and something like a static charge was building between them. Ali felt it, like the ground waiting for dry summer lightning to strike. He had come back around by now to the candy jars, lifted one silver lid, and treated himself to a jawbreaker. While he sucked on it, he watched Jackson bring his lips to the air in front of Cora’s mouth, without ever touching her skin. Ali tried to see the sense in that. Maybe he just wanted to find out if she would stand still? This was like a game of Truth or Dare, Ali thought. Jackson was daring Cora to do something, but no one in the room was sure what.
Ali was at the door now and slipped back out. The peal of the bell snapped the air like a rubber band, and Ali imagined the puff of it blowing Cora and Jackson away from each other. He would never know. He didn’t turn back to look, because there, sitting alone on a bench just outside the store, was the very person he was looking for.
“I’d like to buy something from you, sir,” he said, sitting himself down on the empty plank beside Robert Owens, breathing in the faint poison of tobacco smoke and holding his chest tight and still, so he would not cough like a baby. The dream peddler turned and peered down into his earnest, peppered face.
“Well, now. I shouldn’t have thought a young scalawag like you could afford any of my wares. How are you going to manage it?”
For a moment Ali feared that Robert Owens had somehow caught him out, by watching through the window or simply by some magician’s intuition. But as he made no direct accusation, Ali plunged on, figuring he was in it now and nothing as yet had been said. And maybe a traveling man like the dream peddler didn’t care too much where his customers’ money really came from.
“I have a grandmother, far away, who sends me money every birthday,” he fibbed.
“I see. And what would you like to spend your granny’s gift on, then?”
Ali leaned over, resting his elbows on his knees. Robert tried not to smile, while under the world-weariness of this posture the little brown shoes dangled, unable to touch ground.
“I want a nightmare,” he said finally. “A real gruesome, scary one, where I’m running away all night from something terrible.”
Robert tapped his cigarette thoughtfully. “Something terrible.”
“A sea monster, an angry ghost, or a band of pirates. It doesn’t really matter, as long as it’s really, truly scary.”
“You like to be scared, then, do you?”
“Sure.” He sat back up again. “I was reading Treasure Island last week, and that was just a ripping good book. Maybe not quite scary enough, though.”
“Treasure Island, eh? That is a great book. You must be a smart reader, to get through something like that at your age.”
“I am a good reader. Taught myself a few years ago. My older sister, she helps me with the words I don’t know yet.”
“Aren’t you lucky to have such a kind big sister?”
“Yes, sir, I am.”
“And what’s your name, young man?”
Ali studied him. “It’s Alistair. Ali McBryde. Don’t you remember me?”
“Oh, I see. Yes, now I remember. You made the snowman?”
“That’s right. It didn’t melt for a whole week.”
“Well, Ali McBryde, you might as well come along with me. I stay at Miss Burnley’s, and it’s close by. I can have a fantastic nightmare ready in time for you to go home for your supper.”
Ali smiled brightly. “Really, Mr. Owens? I didn’t even think it would be so easy.”
He hopped up off the bench and took Robert’s free hand, pulling him down the grooved board stairs and looking pleased, like he’d just leashed an escaped circus bear. The bell rang again behind them, and Ali turned to see Jackson Banks skipping down the steps. With his hands as always in his pockets, it didn’t appear as though he’d bought anything, even for all that time he’d spent in the store. Jackson was going one way down the road while the dream peddler and his new client were going the other. But Jackson did turn and look at them over his shoulder, the two arms linked in the space between the tall body and the short, an odd swinging joint where Ali’s small hand disappeared into Robert’s large one.
* * *
* * *
Later, as Ali made his way home, he munched a blueberry scone Miss Violet had sent along with him and thought about the nightmare he’d purchased. It was blue-black in its bottle, like translucent ink. He told Robert Owens he didn’t need to know the details of the dream—it would be scarier, he explained, if he could just be surprised. And now he felt a satisfaction like a slosh of water in his belly.
When he entered the house, it was full of the salt air of his mother frying ham and cooking corn bread in the pan.
“Ali, come and wash and tear the lettuce for our salad,” she called, without looking over her shoulder. She always knew when he’d come home, no matter how stealthily he thought he’d entered.
“Aw, Mom.”
A cackle fluttered down from the stairs above him. “Looks like it’s women’s work for you again, Allison.”
Just the sound of Barto’s voice fell down hard across his narrow shoulders like a yoke. Ali did not have an older sister. Or a sister of any kind. All he had was an older brother, Barto, who was stupid and cruel.
Ali moved through the hall to the kitchen without looking up. If he did not look up, the disembodied voice wouldn’t exist and he could walk out from under pretending he hadn’t even heard it.
Obediently he washed the lettuce head. It took a long time, because the fine grains of dirt were all trapped down in the tight snarl of leaves. While he worked his fingers through the rubbery mess, he plotted. His glass of milk and Barto’s were already poured and at their places. When he was sure the lettuce was clean and he had sliced the tomatoes and scooped it all into the big salad bowl, he waited for his mother to turn away from the table. As soon as she did, he walked over, uncorked the vial from his pocket, and poured the contents into his brother’s glass.
At first, while the dark drops pulled apart and spiraled through the milk, he feared that it would be stained blue and he would have to spill it to hide what he had done. The dream would be wasted, and instead of revenge he’d have only punishment for his carelessness and his brother would laugh even harder, gusting out of his gut. Sometimes that laugh fizzed around Ali’s head long into the after-silence, like an angry horsefly.
As he watched, though, the ink-blue threads whirled down into the milk and disappeared, spun out like twisters. His mother was still banging around the stove top behind and did not notice him. Gingerly he picked the glass
up with his fingertips and worried it. The milk was a little off its color, but not enough for anyone else to notice. He had heard that the potions had no flavor except for a subtle sweetness, and he counted on that, too, being lost in the folds of cream.
His bedtime was earlier than Barto’s, but he did not go to sleep. He wanted to lie awake all night and listen to Barto struggling with his monsters in the other bed. The only instruction Ali had not been able to follow was making sure Barto drank it close to bedtime. He was a few hours early instead, and he would just have to wait to find out if it mattered. Eventually Barto came in with his lamp, and Ali lay with his back to his brother, facing the wall, breathing as evenly as he could and watching the ghoul thrown out of Barto’s lantern shadow its way up the wallpaper. It stretched across the ceiling as his brother bent down to pull off his socks, bounded with every small movement, then yawned upward again. He heard Barto creaking into his bed and tossing until the blankets had settled around him comfortably. Ali lay still, waiting, waiting, and waiting until he forgot to wait and the sleep came in and took him.
When Ali awoke the next morning, Barto was already gone, the bed made and the quilt smoothed over whatever troubles he might have tossed in during the night. Ali dressed quickly, dragged his own bedclothes up carelessly, and bumped downstairs.
In the kitchen Barto was having a big yawn over his bowl of oatmeal.
“You’ve had a sleep,” his mother told Ali, sliding his own bowl into his place and briefly resting her hand on the top of his head.
Ali looked across at his brother. Barto’s mouth was stretched open pink and dark, and every time he closed it again, he shook his head like a wet dog drying.
“What about you?” Ali asked him. “You look like you hardly slept at all.”
Barto stretched out, big fists searching the air like a baby’s. “Mind your own business,” he said.
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