The Book of Dreams (9 page)

“Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen. We’re going to take you to the cleaners,” said Dee, swinging her mallet like a golf pro.

“There’ll be no gambling here,” Gran Gowan said.

“Don’t mind those two,” Gabe said to his wife. “They’re all bluff and bluster. It’s the dark horses we’ll have to watch out for, Dana and Mom.”

Dana listened to the banter as she lined up for her shot. She felt safe with her family, and was happy to forget about the nightmare of the previous week.
Clack
went her bat as it hit the hollow ball that rolled over the grass. When it sailed through the wire hoop, everyone cheered.

By late afternoon the barbecue had cooled and the table was cleared. Aradhana went to her room to rest, while Gabe and his mother sat on the chesterfield in the parlor to watch the news. The two aunts stayed outdoors, sneaking gin into their lemonade from a flask. They sent Dana into the kitchen to fetch more ice. That was when she overheard her father and grandmother talking in the next room.

“… dreadful,” Gran Gowan was saying, “even paler than usual. And she still has no friends! I’ve said it before, Gabriel, and I’ll say it again, Toronto is no place for the girl. You’ve taken her from a small town in Ireland and dropped her into a big foreign city. A year has passed and she has not settled in. Every time I see her, she looks unhappier than the last. She should be here with me in Creemore. I know you love her, but you’re too busy with your new job to look after her properly and you have a wife now as well. Dana was used to having you all to herself.”

“Dana loves Radhi!” Gabriel protested.

“Don’t interrupt your mother. That’s not the point. I’m not going to stand by any longer and watch that bright, lively child grow more miserable by the day. She’s withering away. It’s not natural. She would flourish here. Creemore is a close friendly community. She’d go to the high school in Stayner—a good size, but not too big—and there are plenty of young people to be her friends, like that sweet Holly Durnford down the road.”

“Dana’s eccentric, like her aunts,” Gabriel argued defensively. “They had no friends either, and they grew up here in Creemore.”

Gran Gowan was stumped by that truth for a moment, but she recovered quickly.

“Well, they had each other. Dana has no siblings. Which is another point. You’re married now and not getting any younger. It’s time you started thinking of a family. There is already too much of a gap between—”

“Aradhana and I will have kids when we’re ready!” Gabriel’s voice thundered. This was forbidden territory.

“Hmph,” said his mother, retreating quickly.

Dana could hear her father spluttering. Here was undoubtedly one of the reasons why he had lived in Ireland for so long. Gran Gowan had no qualms about interfering in her children’s lives.

Dana backed away from the door. Why was everyone always talking about her? As if she were nothing but a problem! She was overcome by the shame, the unfairness, the sheer awfulness of her life. It only compounded the nightmare of the week gone by. Her eyes flooded with tears. She barged through the screen door and out into the garden.

“Where’s the ice, O slow but faithful one?” Dee called out.

Her aunts were lounging on deck chairs on the far side of the lawn, where Gran Gowan was unlikely to detect the scent of liquor.

Dana didn’t answer, but raced blindly around the side of the house and onto the street. She had no idea where she was going; she just wanted to get away. Too miserable to see anything, she didn’t notice the car parked across the road—a black sedan with tinted windows. Nor did she notice that it moved off to follow her as she ran down the street.

Now, like a panther stalking its prey, it pulled up beside her. The passenger window slid noiselessly down.

Shocked by the sight of the driver, Dana stopped.

“Hello, my dear,” came the whispery voice. “Fancy meeting you here. Small world, isn’t it? I missed you at school all week. Are you feeling better now?”

Mr. Crowley looked even thinner than she remembered him. His frame was skeletal and his face, gaunt and gray. The only part of him that seemed alive was the eyes that burned into hers, though they, too, had something hollow about them.

“Would you like to come for a ride with me? Yes. Open the door. Yes. Get in.”

Alarm bells rang in Dana’s head, yet she found herself inexorably drawn to the car. Her hand reached out to open the door. She knew it was wrong—
what am I doing?
—but she couldn’t resist. Crowley’s voice was mesmeric. His eyes transfixed her.

“Yes. Get in,” he insisted. “Come with me now.”

Dana was almost in the car when she heard a shout. Slowly, with huge effort, she turned to see her aunts. They were running toward her.

“
Get in!
” Crowley urged.

His will seemed relentless; but the shouts of her aunts jarred against it. The two forces pushed and pulled at her. As the aunts drew nearer, Dana saw the panic on their faces. Dee was ahead, boots pounding the pavement, with Yvonne close behind despite her high heels.

Crowley cursed and leaned over to grab Dana.

Just as Deirdre arrived in time to grab at her also.

The car door slammed and the sedan screeched away.

Dee clasped her niece.

“What’s the license number?” Yvonne shouted, catching up to them.

Deirdre squinted at the speeding vehicle as it disappeared down the road.

“I don’t have my lenses in,” she said, nervous and jittery.

Yvonne was the same.

“For chrissakes, how can you go around half-blind like that!”

“New perspectives. Fuzzy edges.”

“Great. A myopic filmmaker.”

“We’re babbling,” Dee warned. “Shock.”

“You’re right,” her sister agreed. “We should call the police.”

They both pulled out their cell phones as if they were pistols.

“Did you get a good look at him?” they asked Dana. “What did he say?”

Dana was bewildered. She was glad that Deirdre was holding on to her. Her head hurt and she felt loose and disconnected, as if she were unraveling. She had a vague sense that something terrible had just happened, but she couldn’t remember what. At the same time she was confused by the memory of a harmless conversation.

“I … it was … someone asking for directions.”

“Oh yeah?” Dee demanded. “Then how come he took off like a bat out of hell?”

“And what were you doing getting into the car?” Yvonne asked, more gently. “You know better than that, kiddo.”

Dana shook her head as she looked from one to the other. Tears trickled down her face. She had no idea what was going on. Could her life get any worse?

The aunts were calming down. Their terror at seeing their niece being abducted began to ebb away as they found themselves questioning what they had seen. The more they thought about it, the vaguer were their impressions. The only thing they were really sure of was Dana’s distress.

“Tea room,” Yvonne announced, throwing her sister a look. “Hot chocolate and chocolate buns with heaps of chocolate sauce and chocolate doughnuts.”

“When in doubt, administer chocolate,” Deirdre agreed.

• • •

The Mad Hatter Tea House was a favorite of the aunts. Everything about it was “darling.” The wood-framed building was painted eggshell blue with yellow trim. A line of pink flamingos marched past the front window. Inside, the big room was chock-a-block from floor to ceiling with shelves of teapots. Big ones, small ones, plain and patterned, delicate china or glazed ceramics, they came in every shape and color; a black-and-white cow, a hen on her nest, ladies in long skirts, a honey hive with bees, a piano, a chair. Each was a work of art and no two were alike.

The three settled into an alcove by the lace-curtained window. Though the menu offered sandwiches and other savories, they went immediately to the desserts. By the time they had tucked into the chocolate-mousse cheese-cake and chocolate-chip cookies, they had forgotten why they were there.

“Gran will kill us,” Dana said, her mouth full. “She made a rhubarb tart.”

“Hah! We’ll eat that too,” said Dee.

Yvonne dialed her cell phone.

“Maisy, we’ve gone for a walk,” she said, winking at the others. “Put the pie in the oven. We’ll be back soon.”

The aunts had huge appetites and ate like horses without any visible effect on their weight. “Good breeding,” their mother maintained. “Hyperactive madwomen” was their own prognosis.

“So why did we get so upset when that guy asked you for directions?” Yvonne wondered.

Dana shrugged.

“Toronto paranoia,” Dee concluded. “Do you ever get the reverse kind? When you think you’re following someone?”

“Oh yeah,” said Yvonne, dropping brown sugar cubes into her coffee. “Everywhere you go, you keep seeing the same person and you think ‘My God, am I trailing them?’”

Sitting between the two, Dana felt her spirits lift. She was always in good humor when her aunts were around. They expected nothing of her and accepted her as she was, regardless of her mood. She wished she could tell them about the attack at school, but it wasn’t possible. They knew nothing of fairy life, and she couldn’t begin to explain what happened when she didn’t know herself.

“I still miss Ireland,” she confided instead. “It’s like an empty feeling in my stomach that won’t go away.”

“Try the cheesecake,” Dee said. “It’s almost as good as—”

Her sister frowned her into silence.

“You’re just like your dad,” Yvonne said with sympathy. “We weren’t surprised Gabe stayed so long in Ireland. Aside from escaping Mom, of course, he was always crazy about everything Irish—music, books, history, language, Irish this and Irish that.”

“Irish Guinness,” Dee added.

“The trouble is,” Yvonne continued, “you haven’t seen enough of Canada. All you’ve seen is Toronto and Creemore.”

“Toronto’s good,” Dee interjected. “Creemore’s good.”

“Yeah but,” said Yvonne. “There’s so much more. Like Hugh MacLennan said, ‘This land is far more important than we are. To know it is to be young and ancient all at once.’”

“How do you remember these things?” her sister said admiringly.

“There’s been no time to travel,” Dana pointed out. “We’ve had so much to do from the time we got here. Find a place to live, Gabe and Radhi’s marriage, their new jobs, my new school.”

“I rest my case,” said Yvonne. “No time to smell the roses, to appreciate where you are and what you’ve got.”

“I appreciate you two,” Dana declared.

Her aunts beamed back at her.

“And we’re crazy about
you
,” Yvonne said. “We’re really glad you’re over here and we just hope someday you will be too.”

• • •

The three returned to Gran Gowan’s in time for the rhubarb pie and a family game of Scrabble. As the night grew darker, Dana was eventually sent to bed. Climbing under the soft quilt, she was nagged by a stray thought. There was something she had forgotten. Something that happened during the day. What was it? But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t remember. Giving up at last, she fell into a troubled sleep.

Later that night, when the others had gone to bed and the lights were out, Crowley returned.

D
ana was standing on the sidewalk in front of her grandmother’s house. She had no idea how she had got there or what she was doing.

A black sedan drew up to the curb. The door swung open. A whispery voice issued from the dark interior of the car.

“This time you will get in. Yes. You cannot resist.”

Crowley wasn’t lying. Though it was the last thing she wanted to do, Dana did as she was told. As soon as she sat in the passenger seat, the door shut and locked of its own accord. Now the seat belt slithered over her shoulder to bind her fast.

“You’re mine!” he hissed triumphantly.

“Where—?” Dana’s voice was small and strangled. She found it difficult to think or speak. “Where are we?” she tried again.

Creemore was gone. Outside her window was a bleak and blackened landscape. As far as the eye could see, everything was dead or dying, sered by fire. The earth was gashed and torn, and thrown aside in clots of dank mud. Swamp willows crawled from the roscid hollows. A polluted snye trickled like
ink past a wood of withered larch and spruce. The sky was ashen.

“This is a dream,” Dana told herself. “There’s no reason to be afraid.”

“To the contrary,” he said with a cold laugh that made her shiver. “You have every reason to be afraid.”

• • •

While Dana’s dream held her spellbound in Crowley’s car, her real self was sleepwalking through her grandmother’s house. With no knowledge of the fact, she had slipped out of bed and padded downstairs in her bare feet and pajamas. When she reached the kitchen, she searched through the bundle of keys that hung on a hook near the stove. Then she left the house.

Still trapped in her nightmare, Dana stepped across the damp grass to where the old Triumph Herald was parked. Not yet stored away for winter, the antique car stood in the driveway. She unlocked the door, slipped behind the wheel, and put the key in the ignition. Reversing the car onto the road, she drove into the silent streets, past the stately homes of Gran Gowan’s neighbors, beyond the Creemore Public School and Recreational Center, out beyond the town’s border and into the countryside.