Dream thief

22

… TO ONE WH0 HAD endured the artificial interiors of Gotham and had left his footprints in the rock-strewn red dust of Mars, the sparkling white mansion with its three-story white columns and its red brick wall joining the white gravel drive across a lawn of smooth-shaved green grass looked to Spence inexpressibly old, almost medieval. Holyoke Haven, only shouting distance from the sea, had not changed at all in three hundred years. Once the home of a wealthy owner of sailing ships, it now sheltered, as a safe harborage, the troubled souls who roamed its corridors and muttered along its hedgerows.

Spence was surprised there was no fence. "They don't need one," explained Ari. "The patients here are very well looked after. Each one has an attendant with them virtually every minute of the day. They are very exclusive; they don't take violent or dangerous patients."

He would have been further surprised to learn that those stately walls housed the relatives of fine old families, kings of commerce, and politicians-weird sisters whose presence in public would have proven embarrassing and perhaps unsafe.

They walked quietly down cool hallways after registering at a small antique desk with a kindly elderly lady who wore a large purple orchid pinned neatly to her pink uniform. "Your mother will be so glad to see you, Ari. And your gentlemen friends, too." The old woman sent them off with a light flutter of her hands, as if to cookies and milk in the parlor.

Spence found the juxtaposition of the grand manner of the place against the grim insanity of its patients a little hard to bear. He was haunted by the feeling that he had been and, for all he knew still was, very close to taking up permanent residence in such a place. Still, it was far from the snake pits of fifty or a hundred years ago. With a morbid interest he found himself reconnoitering the asylum with the air of a value-conscious consumer and feeling a little like a potential lodger on a rental tour.

Then they were standing before a wooden door and Ari was knocking gently. The door opened and a round smiling face peeked out. "Ari! How good to see you!" The nurse glanced beyond her to the two young men. "You've come to see your mother, of course."

"Of course. Belinda, I'd like you to meet my friends." She introduced Spence and Adjani and said, "Is Mother up to a visit?"

"She's been asking about you today." The nurse opened the door wider and ushered them in. Her eyes round with animated disbelief, she said, "And here you are! I never would have believed it. She said you'd come-and here you are!"

"Thank you, Belinda. You may leave us. I'll call you when we're finished."

"I was just about to take her for a walk on the lawn. Perhaps you would like to do that with her."

"Yes. We'll chat first and then a walk would be just the thing. Thank you."

The attendant clearly wanted to linger nearby, but Ari adroitly pushed her out of the room and closed the door so they would have privacy.

"Mother?" Ari crept close to the old red chair. The woman sitting in it had not so much as glanced at them all the time they had stood at the door. Now she turned toward them for the first time.

Spence recognized the mother of his sweetheart; they were as alike as mother and daughter could be, as close as look-alike sisters. The woman was trim and youthful, though her hair had faded to a darker blonde and tiny lines creased the corners of her eyes and mouth. Her eyes were just as blue as Ari's but they were different: wary, furtive, somehow sly. This is what shocked him: They were the eyes of a wild and hunted creature.

"Ari! You've come! Oh, at last you've come. Did you get my letter?"

The woman reached out her hands and Ari stepped in and hugged her mother. It could have been a normal homecoming. Spence turned away and looked out the wide open French doors onto the placid lawn outside.

"I didn't get your letter, Mother. Did you write me a letter?",. "I did." She shook her head fiercely, and then looked puzzled. "At least, I think I did. Didn't I?"

"It doesn't matter; I'm here now. What did you want to tell me?"

"Tell you?"

"What did you want to tell me in your letter?" Ari spoke to the woman in calm, patient tones as if she were a child, a shy, apprehensive child. Spence began to feel that their trip had been for nothing. He could not imagine they would get any useful information.

"How nice you look, darling. How pretty you are. I'm going to make you a beautiful new dress. You'd like that?"

"Of course, I'd love it. What did you want to tell me in the letter?"

"About the Dream Thief, Ari."

At this Spence faced around at once; maybe they would discover something after all.

"What about the Dream Thief, Mother?"

Adjani, who had been hanging back, came to stand beside Spence between the woman and the French doors.

"Who are these men? Do they work for him?" She shuddered as she said the word. Clearly, she referred to the Dream Thief. "No, they're friends of mine. But they want to know about the Dream Thief. They want to know about him so they can stop him. You would like that, wouldn't you, Mother?"

"No one can stop him!" cried the woman. "It's too late! Too late! He is too powerful! He was here, you know. He came to see me." She suddenly adopted a sly, conspiratorial tone.

"He was here? Dream Thief?"

"Yes. He came to see me and he said he would come back." "What did he wish to see you about?" "To give me a present. A beautiful little present."

"Where is the present? I don't see it." Ari looked around the room.

"He will bring it when he comes back. He said he would. I must wait and do as he says."

"When was the Dream Thief here, Mrs. Zanderson?" asked Spence.

"I don't know you, young man," the woman replied as if Spence were a stranger who had accosted her on the street.

"This is Spencer Reston, Mother. My friend, remember? And this is Adjani. He's my friend, too. They've come to see you to ask you some questions."

The woman looked at them closely as if she wanted to remember them in order to describe them later. "I'm glad to know YOU, gentlemen." She offered her hand. Both men took it in turn.

"How nice to meet you, Mrs. Zanderson," said Adjani. There was not the slightest trace of condescension in his manner. "Could you tell us about the Dream Thief? I'd very much like to know."

Slowly she came to herself, as out of a daydream. "Oh," she sighed softly, "have I been carrying on again?"

"No, Mother," replied Ari. Her mother reached up and patted her hand absently.

"I hope I haven't embarassed you in front of your friends." She smiled ruefully.

"Nonsense," said Spence. "We'd like to help you if we can."

"I wish I could believe that; I'd very much like to be helped."

"Suppose you just tell us what you know about the Dream Thief." Adjani spoke normally, but he seemed to radiate a warmth and, Spence thought, a love which drew the woman out and settled her mind. He had never witnessed anything like it; Adjani's influence was magical.

"It was many years ago now." The bright blue eyes held a faraway look as memory came flooding back across the years. "I was a little girl. My father was a professor; very stern, very upright he was. There was just me and my mother. I used to play outside every day with the children. We lived way up in the mountains, maybe seventy-five miles from the city, in a tiny village called Rangpo.

"It was beautiful there. The seminary was an old monastery, I think. It had the most beautiful courtyards and gardens. My father taught there and we had a little house nearby. I can still see the little purple wildflowers that grew along the road. Passion flowers we called them; I don't know what they were. And safflowers-red and yellow, all over the hillside. It was lovely.

"There was an ancient palace nearby. We used to go sometimes to look at it. But only from a distance. You couldn't go there; it was too dangerous. The bridge was very old and decrepit. I used to wonder what kind of treasures lay inside it. There was certain to be gold and rubies-all the children said so. But they said the palace was guarded by the demons of the Dream Thief, and they watched over the treasure and whoever dared to touch it would be stricken down dead.

"One time I asked my father about the demons. He said it was just backward superstition, the kind we had come to wipe out. But none of us ever went to the castle or even near it. We were too afraid."

Spence noticed that the woman's voice had become softer, higher. She was experiencing her childhood again. Ari, in rapt attention, sat at her side with her hand clasped in her mother's. Very possibly she had never heard the story of her mother's childhood before.

"But you did go there, didn't you, Mrs. Zanderson?" Adjani said. The woman nodded.

"Yes, but I never told anyone about it. I was afraid." Her eyes showed the depths of that old fear.

"What happened?"

"It was a few days after my twelfth birthday. My mother told me that I was a young lady now and that I could start making up my own mind about things. I decided that I wanted to go look inside the castle and see the treasure. Father had said there were no demons, so I went. I was grown-up, so I didn't tell anyone.

"The castle was a long way; by the time I got there it was late afternoon. The shadows of the mountains were creeping into the valleys. I went across the bridge and it held me up. I went up to the castle and looked through the holes in the gates. There was nothing there. The courtyards were empty and full of dried leaves; the stones were all moss-covered and rotting away. It looked as if no one had ever lived there. I began to believe that there were demons-I never really stopped believing in them, despite what my father said.

"I heard something strange, like singing, only not like any singing I have ever heard before, coming from one of the buildings inside the walls. It grew louder and I waited to see if someone would come. I hid behind a bush outside the gates, but no one came.

"I could not get in the castle-the gates were locked and the walls were too high. Anyway, I don't think I really wanted to go in at all. I just wanted to look inside and see what I might see. But I waited until the music stopped and when nothing else happened I started to leave. I did not want to be out alone in the hills after dark. That was when the Dream Thief came, they said. He was an evil god and a powerful one. My father said there was only one God and he was love. But my friends said that he was only for the Christians.

"So, I started back. I started to run and I ran toward the bridge. The shadows had grown long across the path and I stepped into a hole and fell down, twisting my leg. It was not a bad injury; it just hurt. I sat down in the path and rubbed my leg, knowing I would have to hurry back and hoping my leg would not hurt too much.

"As I was sitting there I heard something-not music this time, but something else, a strange sound. It came from the castle and it sounded like a great bird rustling to flight, yet it crackled like fire.

"I looked back over my shoulder to the castle and then I saw him, the Dream Thief. He was standing outside the gates and he was looking at me. He was very thin and tall and he had long arms. He turned his head and he saw me, and I looked at his two great yellow eyes. He didn't move or come near me, but I could feel him calling to me. I could feel it inside my head. I don't know how this was, but I heard him even though he did not say a word."

Mrs. Zanderson's voice had become a whisper. "Then behind him I saw three great black things-all hunched up like giant insects, but they had wings folded over their bodies and they came out from the castle to stand beside the Dream Thief. I felt him speak to them, but I could not understand what he said; it was just a feeling I got that he was talking to them. Two of them turned away and flew off and the other one came toward me. I knew then that he meant to come and get me. I jumped up and started to run.

"I reached the bridge and, without even stopping to think, dashed across it. I found the path on the other side and ran as fast as I could. I looked back over my shoulder and the demon stood on the far side. I kept running and when I looked back again he wasn't there. I thought he'd gone away. But-" Her voice pinched off suddenly.

"What happened then, Mrs. Zanderson? It's all right, we won't punish you," said Adjani. He spoke as one would to a child who feared the wrath of a parent for some imagined transgression. "You can tell us what happened."

The woman's eyes had gone empty. She was no longer in the room with them; she was reliving the past. Her face suddenly twisted into a contorted mask of terror. Her hands became claws which clutched the arms of her chair, her body rigid. When she spoke again it was a trembling whisper. The others had to lean close to hear the words; they held their breath.

"A shadow came over me and I looked up and saw the most hideous face-right above me. The demon stretched out his wings over me and reached for me. I felt his hands tear at me as he scooped me up from the ground. He clutched me in his arms-they were hard and brittle like insect arms. His wings buzzed as he flew; this was the sound I had heard coming from the castle. He carried me back to the Dream Thief and put me down on the ground. I was too scared to scream; I scarcely knew what was happening.

"The Dream Thief reached out a hand and touched me on the head and then all went black. I don't remember anything at all, just his hand reaching for me, his fingers touching me.

"The next thing I knew I was lying in the road just outside the town, not far from where we lived. I don't know how I got there, but the sun was almost down. It was a red, glowing sunset and the whole sky burned red and orange as if it was on fire.

"I got up and ran home and never said a word about what had happened to anyone. I really could not remember it very well anyway, not to tell about it. Just sometimes in my dreams it would come back to me. And sometimes I would feel the Dream Thief trying to call to me-I would feel his voice inside me. No words at all, just a feeling, and thoughts I knew were not my own. But I never went back.

"About a week later I got sick and the fever came on me. I could feel myself changing through the sickness. I was a different girl, but I kept it to myself and never told anyone about the changes I felt inside. I stopped playing with the other children. I stayed in my room and locked the door so the Dream Thief couldn't get me. I had bad dreams and couldn't sleep sometimes for several nights.

"And then, during one of my fevers, I slipped into a coma and slept for a long time, although it didn't seem very long to me. When I opened my eyes again I had forgotten all about the Dream Thief and his demons. It was like it never happened-only I knew it did. Inside I knew it, although I could not remember it or think about it. I just knew that something was there-deep in my mind, deeper than any other memory.

"I didn't get sick any more. After a while we went home to America and I tried to forget all about living in India. I tried to block it out of my mind…"

When she finished the room was silent as a tomb. No one moved or breathed; no one wanted to break the spell that had grown. But Spence had a question that needed asking – something the woman had said triggered an image in his mind.

"Mrs. Zanderson? What was the castle like? Can you describe it?"

"Yes," she replied, speaking in the same faraway voice, as one in a trance. "It was a strange castle, but it had a pretty name: Kalitiri. It had a high stone wall which kind of weaved back and forth, not straight. Inside the walls I couldn't see the main building very well but there were two large domes, round like globes, and a tower, thin and tapering. It was very tall. The gates were wooden but old. The wood was black and scarred, as if by fire or battle. I don't remember any more."

Spence only nodded. "Thank you. That has helped me very much."

Mrs. Zanderson seemed to come to herself then; she slumped back in her chair and her head fell forward. A long sigh came from her lips and she raised a shaking hand and rubbed her face. She looked around at the three visitors and smiled wanly.

"Oh, are you still here? Ari?"

"We're still here, Mother. You've been telling us about your girlhood in India."

"Oh? I don't remember. I hope I didn't ramble on. You didn't let me ramble on, did you?"

"No, no. I only hope we haven't tired you out." Ari's mother looked as if she could fall asleep at any moment. Her face was drained of color and her lids drooped heavily over her eyes.

Adjani stood and motioned to Spence. "Ari, we'll take a little walk out on the lawn. You can be alone with your mother and join us when you're ready."

The two men left through the French doors and walked out onto the green expanse. When they had moved away from the building a short distance, Spence touched Adjani on the arm. "Did you hear? Did you hear what she said?" He gripped Adjani's arm hard in his excitement. "I've seen it-the castle-in my dream! It exists! She's been there; she knows. It's real!"

Adjani nodded.

"And the Dream Thief, Adjani. She's seen him, too!"

"Have you seen him?" Adjani regarded him closely.

Spence hesitated. "Well, there's something strange about that-" A woman's scream cut him off. "Ari!" cried Spence. "Come on!"

The two raced back across the lawn and into the room. It appeared nothing had happened. Mrs. Zanderson still sat in her chair, but her head fell to one side and she breathed deeply and evenly. She was sound asleep.

Ari was nowhere in sight.

Spence did not stop to look around. He dashed through the room and into the corridor beyond. He looked both ways up and down the long hallway, but saw only a woman with a suitcase creeping along the far side of the wall. He went to her.

"Did you see anyone run from this room?" He pointed to the room he had just come from.

The woman looked at him with wide, unseeing eyes. He knew then that his question was hopeless. "Is the ship coming? I must hurry to meet it. I must not be late."

He ran to the entrance and asked the receptionist if she had seen anything. "No," she told him. "No one has come in since your party."

"What about before?"

"No one all day."

He raced back along the corridor to Mrs. Zanderson's room. He looked in the open doors of the rooms he passed and saw the rooms were empty. One door was closed. He grabbed the doorknob and burst into the room.

An elderly lady turned to regard him with a motherly smile. She held a potted plant in her hands and caressed the plant's shiny leaves. She was not wearing a stitch of clothing.

Embarrassed, he quickly closed the door and returned to where Adjani was waiting for him.

"I can't find her," Spence puffed. "No one has seen her."

"You won't find her. She's gone." Adjani held out his hand and Spence saw a small black object-a little stone carving. "They meant for us to find this. It is a clue to where they are taking her."

"What is it?"

"I'm not sure. But I know who can tell us-my father."

Spence, mystified, looked at the carving and back at Adjani.

The day seemed very dark and cold, as if the sun had been blanketed in the sky. He felt a sharp sting of fear pierce him like an icy chill.

"We've got to find her, Adjani. Before anything happens to her. We've got to find her!"