Call Me Dreamer

by Ryan Maitland

  Stupid psychobiology…

  Peter and Wendy were not thrilled about that incident… They ended up throwing Earl against a wall, jarring him a bit. This earned the kids a scolding and a promise not to hurt anyone in the house unless I told them it was okay.

  “Is this the focus?” I asked, picking up the watch in the bag, as Earl was still setting up.

  ‘Yep,” he answered, typing on the laptop. “It’s from a man we’re pretty sure is a spy. We’ve replaced it with a duplicate, but it would be better if we got this back to him before he notices. Will it work?”

  To answer him, I took the watch out of the bag. It was a gold watch with a leather strap that still looked mostly new. I held the watch with my fingertips and relaxed my mind, testing the connection. The connection I got was not as strong as I would normally like, but it was strong enough.

  “It’s an okay connection,” I answered. “Anything you want me to look for?”

  “Try to get a read on his thoughts, if you can,” he told me. “He usually stays out late on Friday evenings, but he might make contact with someone.”

  “Okay,” I tell him before taking a deep breath and closing my eyes in preparation.

  I push the connection wider, to let his senses become mine and I almost drop the damn watch!

  “I feel shtrange…” I slur, feeling a little dizzy.

  “What do you mean?” Earl asks, his voice sounding far away.

  “I’m… wobbly and my feets feel numb…” I tell him, finding it hard to concentrate.

  “Can you tell where you are?” he asks.

  “He’s… on a stool,” I answer, taking deep breaths in an effort to clear my head. “There’s a glass of clear liquid in front of him. Yuck! Tastes like cough syrup and it burns!”

  “What else do you see?” he asks, sounding a little desperate. “What is he thinking?” he clarifies.

  “There’s a clock on the wall. It’s analog. It reads 8:45 or thereabouts. I can hear people, but they’re not distinct. I don’t think he’s listening to them,” I answer, not liking this feeling.

  “And what is he thinking?” Earl repeats, sounding frustrated.

  “It’s not English,” I answer, digging deeper. At that point, I repeated the man’s thoughts phonetically as well as I could and I could hear Earl scribbling furiously at his little notebook.

  “He’s getting up…” I half-mumble, the words slurring a little.

  “Where’s he going?” Earl asked, stopping his scribbling briefly.

  “Outside,” I tell him, feeling my stomach lurch a little. “He’s… wobbling… He’s having trouble walking straight.”

  “That’s to be expected,” Earl tells me matter-of-factly.

  “Wait,” I mumble as I see the man stopping at a trash bin and feel him reaching inside a coat pocket for what feels like a paper bag. This is confirmed a moment later as I see it through eyes having a hard time focusing.

  “He’s pulling out a paper bag from an inside pocket,” I narrate to Earl. “I think there’s writing on it! It doesn’t look like English, but I can’t be sure… his eyes won’t focus right.”

  “What’s he doing with the bag?” Earl asks, sounding much more alert, like he’s hanging on my every word.

  “He’s… crumpling it up!” I tell him, a little startled. “Why’s he doing that?” I ask, utterly confused.

  I hear Earl talking, but from what he says, I don’t think it’s directed at me. He seems to be hurriedly telling people to get to some bar and check the outside trash bin for a crumpled-up paper bag with writing on it.

  “What’s going on?” I ask Earl as I feel the man lurching away from the bar. It looks like he’s trying to get a taxi.

  “It’s a dead drop,” Earl explains.

  “Dead drop?” I ask, not recognizing the term.

  “Think of it as secretly mailing a letter,” he informs me. It takes me a minute or two to get what he’s saying, and when I do, I feel stupid for not seeing it before. Personally, I blame the target’s altered mental state on my slow thought process.

  For anyone that hasn’t seen a spy movie or tv show, I’ll try to explain it as simply as I can. At a prearranged time and place, a person will store a message hidden on something innocuous, like some trash, and place it somewhere specific. This place is usually public, where nobody would think twice about seeing someone there. Then, sometime later, another person, will come by and pick up the message. This ensures anonymity for both parties and only looks suspicious to those that are watching for that kind of thing…

  There… spy lesson over…

  “He’s getting into a taxi,” I tell Earl once a car has stopped. The man mumbles his destination, which I relay to Earl, but the man is not feeling well…

  When I felt the man’s stomach give a lurch, I dropped the watch before I could make a mess I would have to clean up, while feeling sorry for whoever the driver of that cab was. As soon as the watch was out of my hands, my thinking became easier and I didn’t feel like I was going to topple over. I rocked my feet on the hardwood floor to make sure I could still feel them and move my head, experimentally, no longer feeling like it was a bobble-head. All seemed well and I was gratified that whatever the target had been feeling wasn’t lingering.

  I was ever so slightly out-of-breath, but it wasn’t too bad. Had the connection been worse, I was certain I’d be too winded to speak.

  “What was that?” I asked Earl, feeling a little irritated at not being warned.

  “I think the target was in a bar and was probably drunk, or at least well on his way,” Earl explained.

  “And that awful liquid?” I asked, wanting its name so I knew to avoid it.

  “Sounds like vodka,” he answered simply.

  “Vodka?” I asked. I had never heard the word before.

  “Booze made from potatoes,” Earl smiled patronizingly.

  “Wait…” I commanded, holding up a finger. “I just turned eighteen. But… I was drunk? Is that legal?”

  “Technically,” Earl chuckled, “you weren’t drunk, the target was. You felt drunk through him. Legally speaking, I think we’re safe.”

  “Oh good!” I mocked. “Remind me to never drink once I turn twenty-one…”

  “Sure,” Earl conceded, still chuckling. “By the way, when did you learn Russian?”

  “I haven’t,” I answered, feeling confused. “Why?”

  “You were speaking it well enough a moment ago…” he told me bluntly.

  “I was only repeating back the man’s thoughts,” I shrugged. “I didn’t know what it meant, but I knew how it sounded. I take it I got it right?”

  “You did,” Earl considered. “It would be useful if you learned Russian. I’ll set you up with a computer program. Your laptop has a microphone, right?”

  “Um… yes, I think…” I hedged, not liking the idea of learning Russian. It’s not spoken in town, where German is much more common. I figured if anyone heard me speaking Russian, I might be seen as more of a freak…

  “For the next mission, can’t I go back to missing-persons?” I asked, wanting to change the subject.

  Earl sighed, but seemed to consider the question seriously before answering, “Missing-persons within the US is not our jurisdiction… We could, maybe, loan you to the FBI, who handles that kind of thing, though…”

  “Loan me out?” I asked, not liking how it sounded.

  “Shorthand for interdepartmental cooperation,” Earl tried to appease.

  “Makes me sound like a used-car,” I muttered under my breath.

  “It’s your idea,” Earl chided. “We could probably work something out, if you want… It might look good for Project Aesop!”

  Project Aesop is the clandestine CIA program I told you about earlier. The project uses psychics to spy on other countries. From what Earl tells me, every major power in the world has a similar program.

  “Okay, do what you can,” I tell him, stifling a yawn. Using my ability lik
e that always leaves me feeling drained, so the two cups of coffee I had just had were doing all they could to keep me from falling asleep in front of the man.

  “I just prefer rescuing people over spying on them,” I told him, sounding a fair bit petulant.

  “I know,” he assured me. “I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, get some sleep and don’t throw away any flash drive you get in the mail, okay?”

  “Because it will have a program to help me learn Russian?” I asked.

  “Exactly,” he answered, packing up his equipment. “Think of it like this, there’s a bonus for each language you learn!”

  “Well, that’s something at least…” I tell him, standing up and walking him to the door.

  Once Earl was gone, I locked up and went to bed several hours earlier than I had planned to, as I felt like I was close to collapsing on my feet. I had already been feeling drained from having to maintain two connections at the party, not to mention finding out how tiring small-talk can be, and all that was before I had to push open a connection to some guy in a bar who had had a few too many…

  At this point, I was counting it as a win that I had managed to stay awake while Earl was here!

  Maybe tomorrow would be better…

  Chapter 6

  Rumor Mill

  One of the bad things about working in retail, aside from having to deal with people all day, is that you don’t get weekends off. Weekends are busy days for stores since this is the time everyone picks to go shopping. I was thinking about this as I got ready for my shift at the antique store, dressing in warm layers to combat the chilly morning. I have a hard time putting on weight, despite my high-calorie diet, so the cold tends to go right through me and I struggle to stay warm.

  But then, that’s what coffee is for! Well, one of the things coffee is for!

  I still had some time before I had to leave, so I indulged in one more cup of coffee before I left, having put the rest into a thermos for my lunch break. I also made sure to pack some more of my jerky while thinking of tweaking the recipe a bit, like switching to a low-sodium soy sauce or maybe adding some garlic to it…

  Yes, I think about food often… I know what it’s like to feel real starvation and be unsure of when your next meal will come or if it will be enough, so food is a major part of my thinking. Deal with it.

  It wasn’t until I was heading outside to grab my bike that I noticed something odd that I should have caught sooner. I hadn’t seen Peter or Wendy all morning… Usually they hover around me long enough to make sure I’m awake and they can enjoy some of their noisier types of play or they’re telling me about some new bug that has moved in or an interesting rock they found, but not this morning…

  As I was walking my bike to the front of the house, I found out why I hadn’t seen the duo. I saw two boys throwing rocks at my house while Peter and Wendy gleefully swatted the rocks out of the air and onto the gravel driveway. The boys had come partway up my drive and were using the gravel from the driveway as ammunition.

  “What’s going on here?” I yelled at the kids, trying to get their attention.

  “WITCH!” one boy yelled.

  “MONSTER!” the other joined in, still throwing rocks.

  “GET OFF MY LAWN!” I scream at them, feeling like an old man. “NOW!” I add when they hesitated.

  Once their brains kicked in, they ran like the devil was chasing them!

  Okay, that was weird…

  Once the boys were safely out of earshot, I turned to Peter and Wendy, my ghostly housemates, and asked, “What’s going on?”

  “I saw the boys opening the gate and got Wendy!” Peter told me sounding quite proud of himself.

  “And when they started throwing rocks, we knocked them away before they could hit the house!” Wendy informed me, sounding just as proud.

  “You both did a wonderful job!” I praised. “Thank you for saving the house!”

  “You’re welcome!” the two sang together before giggling at what they had done.

  With that, I got on my three-wheeled bike that I refused to call a tricycle or a trike or whatever. Saying that I went to work on a tricycle makes me sound like a toddler, but an actual bike doesn’t have enough room for the large cooler I keep on the back for when I’m buying meat at the butchers or other groceries.

  I confess that I didn’t think much of the two boys throwing rocks at my house. I figured it was some Halloween prank done a few days early. My house is a big target for such pranks, since it seems to have a reputation for being haunted and looks more than a little creepy from the outside. The fact that nothing was actually damaged probably had more to do with how blasé I was about the whole incident. No harm, no foul, right?

  As I cycled my way to work, I noticed one or two other people starting their day off early. Normally I get a glance or two but this morning I was getting outright stares! I had a harder time brushing off the feeling that something was going on that I didn’t know about, but I still chose to believe that everything was fine.

  I got to the store, went around back, and locked my bike in the usual spot before making my way inside to report to Anne, the store owner, for what I’ll be doing this shift.

  “Today I want you stocking shelves,” she informs me, looking a little tired. “I’ve got everything in the basement and the prices are already attached.”

  “Okay, sounds good!” I affirm. Stocking shelves is a good news/bad news situation. The bad news is that I spend all my time on my feet, climbing stairs, and walking around. The good news is that I get a first peak at the new items that I can test for whether they’re worthy of joining the rest of my collection in the serenity room!

  I should probably explain… One of the… let’s call it side-effects, of my ability is something Earl calls psychometry. When I touch an object, like one of the knickknacks I’ll be stocking the shelves with, I can either get a peek into a person’s head, if they’re still alive and the connection is strong enough, or I can get a sense of the emotions attached to an object if the person is no longer around or it has been passed around to different people. This doesn’t happen with every object, but when I find an object that is full of good emotions, I like to buy it before anyone else gets a chance. I keep these mementos in a room that used to be a nursery that I call my serenity room. This is the room I use to decompress after a bad experience from one of Earl’s assignments. It’s also where I read to Peter and Wendy, whose favorite book is Peter Pan (whence the names I’ve given them in this book).

  Rarely, though, I’ll find a piece that has some truly awful feelings attached to it. Feelings of blind, murderous, rage or bloodlust, or terror. I’ll buy these items as well, but only to destroy them so they won’t influence anyone else. I like to think of it as aesthetic deletions…

  Also, for the record, I have never stolen anything from the store, no matter what some no-good biographer has told you! I bought everything fair and square and at sticker price!

  Now, back to the story…

  I carefully place each object in the large plastic basket, that I think was marketed more for laundry than for the use Anne used it for. I tested each item by holding it with my fingertips and trying to get a feel for it with my mind before arranging it just so, ensuring it won’t get damaged as I carry the basket about the store. Only one object stands out to my senses, that of a small, crystalline, ornate, angel figurine that Anne has marked for five dollars. The feelings I get from it are of sweet romance and tearful goodbyes. I set the small figurine aside and write a quick note on a small sticky note that I want to buy this particular item before carefully heading upstairs with the basket in hand.

  I’m still stocking the shelves by the time people start coming in to browse. I’d work faster, but all the walking around the store and going up and down stairs leaves me winded, necessitating semi-frequent breaks to catch my breath. I’ve asked Anne whether she minds me doing this, but she waved off my concern saying that some help is better than no help
and that I was more reliable than most.

  So, as I was putting some old wooden bowls and spoons on a shelf, I noticed that some of the customers were staring at me and whispering, pointing me out to others… Now, the kids from this morning I was willing to overlook. The people staring at me on my ride into work I could ignore, but this? This I had a harder time shrugging off! I couldn’t confront the customers directly, since that would be rude, so I resolved myself to asking Anne if she knew anything about this.

  I waited until I had everything put away before I approached Anne sitting at the cash register with the crystalline angel figurine that held a feeling of fond love.

  “Find something you like?” she asked amiably.

  “I did!” I smiled, placing the figurine on the little counter and pulling out cash to pay for it. Anne rang it up, placing the figurine carefully into a paper bag and handing it back with a receipt so I could store it in my lunchbox that was still sitting downstairs.

  I tried to figure out a way to broach the subject of everyone staring at me when a woman came in, saw me, and whispered something to the man beside her, giving me furtive glances all the while.

  “Why does everyone seem to be staring at me?” I whispered to Anne, still sitting at the register.

  “Oh, I doubt they’re staring at you!” Anne tells me, trying to brush me off. I can see that she feels uncomfortable about this topic, but I figured I was feeling more uncomfortable to be the talk of the town without knowing why, so I press on.

  “They are!” I insist, glancing at the man who was now staring at me, wide-eyed, to prove my point.

  With a sigh, Anne tells me, “I hear they found a body at the cemetery last night…”

  I remember that Wendy had overheard the conversation the sheriff had had. She had mentioned this news, but I still didn’t see how that related to me.

  “Okay…” I acknowledge hesitantly. “And? What does that have to do with me?”

  “Well…” Anne squirmed, clearly uncomfortable. “There are rumors going around about… well, you!”