Ariel

Seven

In her darkened bedroom, Ariel shifted restlessly under a heavy blanket. Her breathing became rapid and shallow and her heartbeat raced. A cold hand clutched at her heart. With a single spasmodic move she hurled the covers back and thrust herself into an upright position. Her upper lip was drawn back, and her little eyes glowed like a cat’s in the blackness.

A dream.

She fought to catch her breath, telling herself it was a dream and she was out of it now. But she was afraid of this kind of dream. She sensed that all she had to do was lie down and snuggle under the covers and surrender to the darkness and the dream would come back to her and the cold hand would reach again for her heart.

She threw her legs over the side of the bed and checked the radium dial of the clock on her bedside table. It was almost four-thirty. More than two hours before sunrise. Of course the sky would begin to brighten before actual sunrise, but she could not wait that long.

She switched on her lamp. The sudden brightness made her blink but she welcomed it just the same.

Only a dream.

She got out of bed. The room was cold but she scarcely noticed. She went to her schoolbag and drew out her green pen and the spiral notebook she was using as an occasional diary. She thumbed through it until she found the first blank page, uncapped the pen, and sat for just a moment chewing contemplatively on the end of the pen’s plastic barrel.

Then she began to write as fast as her fingers would move.

It was a dream but I have to write it down because I can never tell anybody.

Here’s how it starts. I am asleep in my bed in this room. I am me but my hair is different and I am older. My hair is golden and hangs to my waist. It is absolutely straight. Otherwise I am the same as always except that I am beautiful.

In the dream I can see myself from inside and from outside. Sometimes I am in myself and sometimes I am across the room watching me.

In the dream I wake up. I have to go to the bathroom. I have to go so bad that it hurts. I get up and put on a flowing blue-green robe the color of the sea. It sweeps around me and stays in place perfectly. I do not have to tie it.

I go out of my room and begin walking down the hallway, but it is not the hallway of this house. It is long and winding and paved with cobblestones. It is like a path outside in some old city but it is inside, in a house. I do not know how to explain this.

The part about the bathroom goes away. I just don’t have to go anymore. I am walking because there is something I must do and in my hand is my flute. But it is different. It is longer and thicker and it is made of pure gold.

And there is writing on it, carved into the gold. But when I try to read it the words move around before my eyes. It is important for me to read the message but I can’t read it because the letters won’t stay in place.

I think maybe it’s in another alphabet. But in the dream I can understand that alphabet and I would be able to read it if only the letters would hold still.

I keep on walking while I am trying to read the writing on the flute.

Then I come to the end of the hallway and there is a door. Not a door but a doorway, and it is round and low. I know what it is! It is a rathole except that it is large enough so that I can just barely fit inside. I have to put the flute in first and then I have to get on my hands and knees and squirm through like a snake.

And then I am inside, and it is Caleb’s room.

Exactly like his room in this house.

There is the crib, and Caleb is in his crib playing. He is waving his hands and feet in the air and cooing to them. He is talking to his fish mobile.

He is beautiful.

And I play my flute for him.

I could hear the music in the dream. I can almost hear it now but I don’t think I could play it. I am not sure. Sometimes I can hear music in my head and then play it on the flute but not always.

I might be scared to play this music.

She straightened up on her chair, capped her pen for a moment. Her breathing and heartbeat were normal now. She closed her eyes and deliberately let herself fall back into the mood of the dream, feeling herself very nearly returning to the dream. Then with an effort she opened her eyes again and resumed writing.

The music is the color of seawater turned to smoke.

I play with my eyes closed but I can see just the same. I can see through my closed eyelids and also I can see from across the room and can see myself playing.

Caleb loves the music. His feet grow still and he puts his hands down at his sides and he just looks up at me and grooves on the music.

Then suddenly!

Everything changes.

I am the Pied Piper of Hamelin. I am still me but different. My golden hair is gone. Instead my hair is black and short and cut like Joan of Arc. And I am dressed like Robin Hood and I have leather slippers with pointed turned-up toes. And I am carrying a huge apple pie in one hand. I know that’s not what Pied Piper means but when I first heard the story years ago I imagined him carrying a pie and that’s how it is in the dream.

I am carrying a pie in one hand and I have my flute in my other hand and I am playing one-handed, playing fast scrambly music that keeps curving in on itself. And I am going out through the rathole door and all the little children are following me. Thousands of children.

And all of them following me. I can see from high up, I can look back over all of us, and the parade of little children goes on forever. We are going through a long tunnel that goes on and on.

The tunnel is a sewer. There is water in the tunnel and the little children are crying because they are getting wet. And I play my flute faster and faster. The pie is gone. I don’t know what happened to the pie, but I am holding the flute with both hands and playing as fast as I can, faster and faster and faster, and I am dancing around in a wild little circle and my slippers have hooves on them like a goat, and I play and I dance, and the children are crying.

And then they are not crying but squealing, and I turn and look, and all of the little children have turned into mice and rats. I turned them into mice and rats with my playing. And the water is too deep for them and they are drowning.

All of the little children are rats and they are drowning.

And I almost wake up.

In fact I think maybe I did wake up then but slipped back into the dream. I can’t be sure.

Again she stopped and capped the pen. She scanned the last paragraphs, started to close the notebook, then sighed heavily and began writing again.

I might as well write the rest of it. I’m scared but I’ll write it anyway. I can always tear it up later.

Just as the children were drowning and I almost woke up, suddenly I was back in the dream but I was also back in Caleb’s room. I had my own hair this time and I was me.

Ariel.

I didn’t have the flute anymore. I don’t know what happened to it.

Caleb was sleeping in his bed. And he just looked so beautiful.

Sound asleep.

And I was Ariel and Caleb both at the same time. I was him sleeping in the crib and me looking into it.

And I can’t explain this.

And my hands went in between the bars of the crib. Each hand went between a different pair of bars. And the part of me that was Caleb saw the hands even though my eyes were closed but just went on lying there.

And one of my Ariel-hands went over my Caleb-mouth.

And the other Ariel-hand went over the Caleb-nose.

And Caleb couldn’t breathe and tried to struggle and tried to move and couldn’t move because Ariel’s hands pinched his nose shut and covered his mouth.

And it just went on forever.

And then Caleb couldn’t move anymore. The Caleb part of me just winked out like a lightbulb and there was just the Ariel part of me plus the part looking down from the ceiling and watching.

It was a dream!

It never happened. Nothing like this ever happened. I don’t know where the dream came from. I don’t know where dreams come from. They don’t mean anything. Everybody has dreams and all dreams are crazy and they do not mean anything.

I had to write this down. I don’t ever want to read it but I had to write it down.

I can’t tell anybody about this. I couldn’t tell Erskine even.

I don’t know what to do. I’m scared.

No that’s silly it’s all right it’s just a dream.

She sat there for several minutes trying to think of something else to write. But there was nothing else to write. She capped her pen and closed her notebook and returned both of them to her schoolbag.

She got into bed, pulled the covers up. She reached to extinguish the lamp, then changed her mind and left it burning. She stretched out and closed her eyes but they wouldn’t stay shut. They kept opening.