The Dream Virgin

by Don Quine

  Will stepped onto the wharf.

  “Ah, it’s just a place I took an interest in way back. It had a good deal of incest, adultery, and murder going on. Sordid secrets and such.”

  “Popular themes,” Leon said. Then frowned.

  “Hold on a minute. Peyton Place. Wasn’t that an old TV series with Mia Farrow? And Ryan something?”

  Will nodded. “Primetime soap opera. Three nights a week, back in the disco days.” Will stopped smiling and pointed toward Ravens Rest.

  “Damn! Look at that!!”

  The reason Will was suddenly taken was that he saw Al fly off a wing of the Rest to meet Ed who was flying above the lake, bobbing and weaving until Al met up with him, then they took off up toward the mountains on the south side of Lake Meadows.

  “They like to fly around, check the forest for lost campers which is what Harry trained them to do. Helped with too many rescues to count. Harry had Oliver and Jack work the birds with him when they were young like James did with Harry. After Harry’s death, Molly told Oliver to keep Ed over at the Nest. He and Al were acting out, dive-booming tourists, causing trouble.”

  “I’ve heard they’re smarter than dogs. Elfri told me about seeing the black one do some tricks at the campus.”

  “That’s Ed. He’s a trickster, but Al’s the instigator. The Poe Brothers. Now that they each have their own space, they’re less obnoxious.”

  Leon secured the oars, tapped on the rear seat of the boat.

  “Ever use an Uzi in the force, Will?”

  “Nope. For rim fire we used MP5s.”

  Leon tied the boat up to the dock. Turned to Will.

  “I want you to know I don’t hunt for sport.”

  “You don’t look like someone who would, Leon.”

  Considering the possible danger that could occur in Lake Meadows, Will walked back to Leon’s house and wondered how long he’d stick around before putting Elfri on the bus and getting the hell out of town.

  Will knew how she’d respond if he told Elfri about Reimer, what he did to Chip.

  They could be in Lake Meadows a long time.

  CHAPTER 25

  The Obstickle was dark.

  Then dawn slipped down from the studio skylight and touched Ed, played up the rich purple in his feathers and caused the raven to blink. Ed was resting on the tallest tree in the Tungle, the #5 course of the Obstickle, tree tongues jungled together, perma-moist branches at rest, not licking like lap dogs, the way they did when they were switched on.

  Ed flew off the tree and over to Oliver who was asleep near the exit of the course. Lili was at Oliver’s feet as Ed landed on her back, poked her near the ear and gave her a “Luvya.”

  The big poodle stretched, yawned, and made Oliver open his eyes.

  He was lying on a tongue leaf he’d been working on, gadgets and gizmos next to him, tools and clothes covered in pinkish goop.

  Lili got up, went over and licked Oliver’s nose. He yawned and said to his watch, “aisa karane ke li’e.”

  The watch responded in Hindi and gave Oliver a to-do list.

  The clearing was quiet except for morning meadowlarks, then the Hummingbird’s turbine engine started with a fast-rising shrill that slowly eased into two-bladed air-chops as it lifted loudly above the early morning forest, up and away from Scarface.

  Oliver loved flying the helicopter. It felt like a part of him, like his unicycle did.

  Leon had taken Oliver and Nicole on a helicopter ride over the Walla Walla trail a few months after they first moved to Lake Meadows and Oliver, who had ridden in all kinds of airplanes, but never in a helicopter, fell instantly in love with the whirlybird and asked Leon if he could fly one.

  Leon told Oliver it would be like trying to balance a ball bearing on the end of a pin, and he thought Oliver might want to wait a few years before he gave it a spin.

  Oliver learned to fly a helicopter his second year at the Nest after Leon made a deal with him. Leon would pay for the helicopter kit, Oliver would put it together, build it, then Leon would teach him how to fly it and help Oliver install some retractable floats. Leon explained how the four-seater would be shared, sometimes parked near Leon’s dock for aerial views of Lake Meadows. There would be weekly business flights across the lake to Leon’s boat dock, and then over to the Lewiston-Nez Perce County airport ninety miles away where Leon kept a Piper M500 that could fly to Portland in less than two hours.

  He and Nicole flew together for monthly Ventures Nest conferences with the other guardians that oversaw Oliver’s foundation.

  The first two years of business between Leon and the foundation was limited to the land-lease agreement and 15% of Ventures Nest annual net on all their partnerships. By the fifth year, with the rigging of Wonder Way’s infrastructure for two hundred and forty-seven million, Leon became very involved with investment bankers, and negotiated a 50-50 split on all income from the Wonder Way shop leases.

  From which Molly got half.

  Oliver was glad he only had to attend the Foundation meeting twice a year. Unfortunately, in a few months when he turned twenty-one, things would change.

  Oliver would have to take on more responsibility. He wasn’t sure what yet, but whatever the Foundation and his guardians had in mind, he guessed that it would require more time dealing with finances, which was not Oliver’s favorite thing to deal with even though understanding the bottom-line came naturally. While he was aware that the Nest’s ledger sheets determined its financial destiny, creating and nourishing the sources for success was what turned Oliver on, not overseeing its profit and loss.

  That’s why Nicole was such a godsend.

  His economic guardian, Nicole raised him to understand and respect the complex factors that went into the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services, Nicole protected the Nest bottom-line and helped Oliver see it soar. Kept his spending in check.

  Nicole waited until Oliver got the copter well above the Nest and the blades quieted down some before she spoke.

  “I made a doctor’s appointment, Oliver, but I couldn’t be seen until tomorrow. Leon said he had to drive to Vancouver to meet a friend after our meeting and said it would be no problem staying over; we would fly back after my appointment. That work for you?”

  Like always, Nicole was pulled together with a briefcase on the lap of her pants suit, but Oliver could feel her energy was not up to normal speed.

  “Works fine. You feeling okay?”

  “I’m fine, but my hormones want to commit murder.”

  Nicole pulled a tiny piece of something from the back of Oliver’s shirt.

  “It’s going to be a tough time convincing the Foundation to keep supporting the Obstickle, Oliver.”

  Oliver tapped Nicole’s briefcase.

  “You’ll make them see reason. We’re not that much over budget.”

  “You’re five million over. The other guardians are not going to let you dip in the bank for another million that Akizu says you’re asking for. Not without giving them a demo.”

  Oliver guided the helicopter over the east side of town and across the lake.

  “Tell them I ‘ll have a demo ready by Labor Day. Remind them we’re diversified and have five venture capitalists sharing the R&D on it.”

  Nicole nodded.

  “We’ll see what they say.”

  The helicopter landed next to Leon’s dock.

  He was waiting, dressed for sand and sea, like always.

  During the flight to the airport, Leon told Oliver and Nicole that while he was grateful to Elfri for bringing Chip out of his shell, he was concerned about involving her and Will in their business with Reimer. But since Leon had chosen to do that with Will, but not Elfri, he wanted Oliver to sit in on some of Elfri’s dream circles and get to know her better. Spend a little time with her.


  Leon told Oliver that Jack would have one of his ex-con Indians keep an eye on Elfri without letting her know. Waiting for Reimer to make a move had them all on edge.

  CHAPTER 26

  It was harder than Elfri thought.

  The DZ project sucked up most of her time and what was left went to Chip. In just a few weeks he’d become a kid brother, shadowed her everywhere. Elfri had to explain again and again that she was trying to develop a plan of action on how to make Dream Zoo reach more kids. She told Chip she had to spend her days at Ventures Nest for meetings to share and discuss and get feedback to figure out what kind of work she needed to do and what it would cost.

  If the project didn’t look like a winner, investors wouldn’t invest and Dream Zoo would go nowhere. When she came back to the house from the Nest, she had to keep working on DZ. Chip needed to understand. She had to take care of business.

  Chip understood, but he was twelve and the only business he was interested in was following Elfri around and listening to what she had to say about anything; especially his drawings.

  The only times she had to herself were when Chip took the boat out on the lake to swim and fish or went to the cemeteries to visit his mom and Timber.

  Elfri learned from Leon that when Chip was seven he saw a lady at a pet fair with tarantulas for sale and watched how people backed away when the woman held up a big hairy one in her hand for all the pet lovers to see.

  Chip liked that the tarantula creeped people out and walked up to the spider lady, signaled to Leon he wanted to hold it.

  The spider lady told Chip and Leon it was a Rose Hair tarantula and you fed them cockroaches and crickets. The one she held was a female and could live twenty years. The spider lady could only let Chip hold it if he was ready to buy it.

  Chip did some hand gestures and Leon agreed to buy the spider along with the terrarium she lived in.

  For the rest of the day Chip studied the tarantula, wore goggles like the lady told him to when he fed it just in case it felt attacked and kicked off the bristly hairs on its belly. It was important for Chip to know that the hairs could blind you if they got in your eyes. Once the spider got to know you, she’d be totally friendly and you didn’t need to wear goggles.

  Chip went to sleep that night thinking about his new spider that he named Rosie and the next morning before breakfast Chip drew his first nightmare, a drawing of little boys and their dogs being protected in a barbed-wire web from giant-jawed monsters by tarantula soldiers on a bloody field of heads.

  The blade-toothed beasts had ripped through areas of the web, snatched dogs and boys, popped them into their horrible mouths as they bit off arms and legs and tossed heads.

  The gory action wasn’t exactly like his nightmare, but Chip was okay with what he remembered from it, and the following day asked Leon to call the spider lady.

  Seeing the overnight change in Chip, his furtive glances diminished and replaced with shy, steady looks, and a hidden talent, Leon got on the phone.

  By the time Chip turned twelve he had nineteen tarantulas and seventy-two drawings, difficult drawings to look at and harder to turn away from.

  Nightmare art.

  After the first few drawings, Chip showed them to Leon and let him know he didn’t want anyone else to see them.

  Leon understood and converted a guest room at the end of the hall into a private room for Chip.

  Chip’s early drawings were stark and simple. Black and white.

  When he was nine, he began to incorporate the color red.

  His recent drawings used all the primary colors to illustrate the battlefields of terror. With some significant changes.

  On the battlefield, the heads of little boys and puppies were replaced with monster heads, and the monsters, still alive, no longer tried to rip through the web to get at the kids. Instead they tried desperately to escape from the attacking tarantulas whose troops had grown in size along with the boys who rode them using incredibly fearsome weapons.

  Elfri told Leon that she’d been talking to Chip about him creating some drawings he could sleep on. Tarantula soldiers and cannibal monsters, bloody bodies and heads was a neat nightmare theme, but maybe Chip could try something Slumber used in some of her Dream Zoo adventures where you turn your nightmares into Nightdares. Elfri explained how Nightdares challenged you to face dreams that scare you, helped you find out that your fears are often bodyguards testing to see if you have the courage to confront their threats and help redirect their frightening power to better purpose.

  Dream circles were a good place to talk about Nightdares and Elfri figured it was the right time to talk to Leon about starting one at his place.

  CHAPTER 27

  Elfri drove the Dreamland Express from Leon’s to Ventures Nest and thought back on her third day there when Nicole and some of the Associates showed her and the other Nestlings where the Crazy Ideas Bash would be held at the rear of the meadowland.

  They crossed one of the brook bridges and walked by a dozen tree stumps set in a circle when Manny stopped.

  “We had a stump setup like this at Camp Cazadero when I was a kid, went there after chow, roasted marshmallows and made baloney sandwiches, told some real whoppers until eight. Which was late.”

  Manny sat down on a stump using an interesting technique.

  “Some rigorous brainstorming’s been done here for sure,” Hunter said and sat down on a stump next to Manny, tried to copy his muscle-tweaking technique, which, of course, Manny encouraged.

  Nicole said, “The stumps would make a neat dream circle, don’t you think, Elfri?”

  Everyone looked at Elfri, like what a cool idea, and she felt obliged to agree.

  With excited insistence from Akizu and Leah, Elfri held a dream circle on the tree stumps the very same night and all twelve stumps were taken. Dozens of Greenhorns, the summer apprentices, stood behind the stumps and listened respectfully as Elfri told stories around the fire, how when she was on the road and temperatures got too hot for her to teach inside the Dreamland Express, she and her grandfather would set up a daytime dream circle at summer youth programs and at senior citizen centers. A portable fan and strips of orange, yellow, and red crepe paper made the dream circle fire. But there was nothing like the real deal on a brisk evening when a group of dreamers shared their lucid travels with one another under a full moon.

  Elfri told her stump dreamers that sometimes, not often, but sometimes she’d discover a dreamer at one of the circles who had been awake to their dreams for as long as they could remember. Their wide-awake imaginations bodied forth unknowns and gave them form. Some of these dream explorers traveled into The Mystic, which was an area that held a lot of psychic intrigue for Elfri. She told the circle that almost every gifted dreamer she ever met had one thing in common. Their visions might be unreal or unsettling, but they all tried to discover new realms of wonder.

  After twenty minutes of road trip stories and explaining brain waves, how to ride REM down into Gamma, Elfri asked the Nest listeners if anyone had a dream or nightmare they’d like to share, get feedback on.

  Several hours later, Elfri said she had to go home and grab a nap.

  Word about the Wednesday night stump circle got out fast and that’s why a dream circle at Leon’s made sense. Elfri could help the Greenhorns start their own circles, then invite some Associates and Nestings to Leon’s for an early Sunday evening BBQ before the dream circle.

  And Chip could sit in.

  Elfri pulled the Express slowly onto the special area off Ventures Nest Road set up for the Nestlings to use to work on their projects. It was near a grove that the Greenhorns pitched their handmade summer tents on; tents with attitude.

  Since Elfri and Will had moved into Leon’s house, they weren’t using the Express, so Will agreed that parking it near her work area at the Nest would give Elfri access to
her comics and all the DZ products.

  Each of the seven lot-sized areas had a high-roof Quonset to work in, the semi-circular cross sections were made of papercrete like the transport depot, and the spaces were painted to blend in with the landscape in contrast to the Greenhorn grove tents which was all about self-expression.

  The Quonsets were less than a quarter the size of the solar roofed R&D labs on the far side of the Nest where Oliver and Associates worked on their funded projects. The projects were kept private; they were multi-million dollar investment projects whose security was significant.

  Elfri parked the Express not far from where Amarosa’s Funny Mirror truck was parked and checked her watch.

  She hated being late.

  CHAPTER 28

  Fourth Round.

  Last week of the first month.

  Kick-It-Around time.

  Backpack heavier than usual, it took Elfri six minutes to walk from the Express and her project space to the nine o’clock meeting held in the Garden of Earthly Delights where a round table was set for eight, the seven Nestlings, and a Greenhorn. A serene setting under a canopy of trees, the Garden helped curb the conflict that often crossed the table.

  This morning Amarosa was It.

  Elfri would be It in the afternoon.

  Kick-It-Arounds gave each Nestling project two hours of cross talk, two Nestlings a day, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, except on Wednesday, when they did three hours with Associates sitting in.

  Alec, who constructed the Nest’s digital connectivity as well as its sites, told them that online access was available at 10 Gbps. Pretty quick.

  The Greenhorns who Alec assigned to provide research sat at a special spot at the round table where they could type a request into a search engine and the data would pop up on the screens in front of the Nestlings to see and refer to, often debate source merits, Didjano tossing in factoids for laughs.

  Except Elfri, all the Nestlings took notes on tablets and laptops. Elfri used her Pitt pen and sketchpad.