Lady of Dreams

by W. R. Gingell

  “This should be interesting,” I said, sitting my incorporeal self down on Hyun-jun’s window seat much as my real body was sitting in my own room. “Ae-jung is coming here. You’re going there. Yong-hwa is meeting Ae-jung, but what if she meets you first? I wonder if I’ll help you? Maybe I’ll help Yong-hwa instead. It’ll make Carlin happy, and it’s Yong-hwa’s turn, I think.”

  “Is it Yong-hwa hyung again?” asked Jessamy’s voice, faint but surprised. “You’re Dreaming about him a lot, aren’t you, Nuna?”

  “Hyun-jun this time,” I said, trying to wriggle out of the Dream. Jessamy didn’t sound despondent, but I preferred to be sure.

  “Oh.” I felt Jessamy settle himself beside me. He poked me in the shoulder, and kept poking me in the shoulder, Jessamy-like, until I began to be able to see him through the Dream. “That’s all right, then. I’m going to get us some breakfast, Nuna.”

  “You can call one of Eun-hee’s servants, you know,” I said. Jessamy, having decided to be cheerful again, was cheerful. “They’ll bring up a tray from the breakfast table just as quickly as you will.”

  “Yes, but they don’t get the best things, and they never get enough for both of us,” said Jessamy. “That’s where the Carlin-automaton is useful. I wonder when he’ll get back? We should play a trick on him, Nuna! We’ll go out before he gets back to the manor; he won’t know what to do with himself! Maybe he’ll shut down like the automatons at the Contraption Exhibition did when they ran out of objectives.”

  An outing wouldn’t be a bad idea, if it came to that. Yong-hwa was likely to be busy with Ae-jung, but I’d still like to be comfortably out of sight if he came looking for me again. If I could stay out of sight today, it was highly unlikely that he would remember anything about me by tomorrow. “Perhaps,” I said. “Where will we go?”

  “Somewhere bright,” said Jessamy. “Maybe the rose garden.”

  “Not the rose garden,” I said. “The rose garden is occupied.”

  “All right,” Jessamy said obligingly. “We’ll decide after breakfast.”

  But when he came back with a breakfast tray, Jessamy also came back with an open note in his hand. “Sorry, Nuna,” he said. “Abeoji wants me to go back into the city today. He’s away and there’s a delivery I have to supervise. I’ll be back late tonight, I think.”

  “Never mind,” I said. A journey and something to do would be just as good for him as an outing with me. “Carlin will be back any time now. Come and see me when you get back, even if it’s late.”

  “I’ll bring you a present,” said Jessamy, gulping down the last of his breakfast and wiping his grubby hands on his trousers. “I’d better go change. I’ll see you after, Nuna.”

  I waved languidly at his crumpled shirt back as he left and just as languidly slipped into my Dreams to see what there was to see. I was drawn into one straightaway: a scene in Se-ri’s brightly lit room. So she was up and about, too.

  “Maybe she’s planning on meeting Ae-jung as well,” I muttered to myself, and found that I was grinning. Se-ri was taking fully as much care in her dressing as Hyun-jun was: her maid was applying her makeup in sure, precise movements of her brushes, and Se-ri’s hair had been curled into great, rolling waves down her back. On her finger was a bright, intricate promise ring. Now where had she gotten that? Not from Hyun-jun, I was sure. That settled it: Se-ri was intending to pay Ae-jung a visit today.

  I watched her thoughtfully until she was finished arranging her appearance. If Eun-hee had been at home I would have asked her to delay Se-ri so that Ae-jung would have a chance to escape the cottage before the other girl got there. I could ask Dong-wook, of course, but although Dong-wook could be a very sticky burr, he was a very obvious one. Eun-hee was far more likely to be tactfully unnoticeable. I drew back a little from that Dream and surveyed all the present Dreams: there was Hyun-jun, there Jessamy, there Yong-hwa, carrying his gayageum down the hall toward the foyer, and there was Ae-jung, just beginning a late breakfast and blissfully unaware of the various people converging on her. I could even see a Dream of Eun-hee and Carlin, merging with Ae-jung’s Dream as she joined them at the breakfast table. At the cottage there was one time and one set breakfast. It looked as though Eun-hee had enlisted Carlin to help serve it, too, and I giggled as I saw them. Carlin was just barely containing his impatience, his movements and responses short, correct, and precise, while Eun-hee was stretching out everything to take twice as long as it should have taken, with a relish that was as little hidden as Carlin’s annoyance. I needn’t have worried that they were getting too close; after this I’d be lucky if they even acknowledged each other when they passed in the hall. Carlin and I, now that I came to think of it, hadn’t spent so much as a single night under a different roof since he was given to me. It wasn’t surprising that he was impatient to be back. As for Eun-hee, she just liked to have fun.

  I hovered with them for a little while and was amused to find at the end of breakfast that Ae-jung was walking out to the village to fetch necessary supplies of ink and paper. Whether Hyun-jun or Se-ri arrived first wouldn’t be important, in that case; neither of them would get to see her. Se-ri, though, was quite determined; I wouldn’t put it past her to follow Ae-jung into the village.

  I clicked my tongue, finding in myself a faint wish that Carlin were back. It wasn’t so much that I liked interfering; it was more that I liked to have the option of interfering if I chose to interfere. Without Carlin around to do the actual work, making changes to the Dreams was a far more exhausting prospect. Should I leave Ae-jung to Se-ri’s mercies?

  But when Se-ri reached the cottage, it turned out that I had reckoned without Eun-hee. Eun-hee took in Se-ri’s glowing face and promise ring in one swift glance and sweetly instructed Carlin to accompany her to the café at the small hot springs the village boasted—where, she assured Se-ri with the most innocent of eyes, Se-ri was sure to find Ae-jung.

  “You can go back to the manor after that,” she said to Carlin, just as sweetly.

  Carlin protested: “Miss’s chaise longue!”

  “Oh, that,” said Eun-hee. “I had the footmen take it back before breakfast this morning.”

  Carlin said in a rather strangled voice, “That was very thoughtful of you. Madam. I’m sorry to have burdened the cottage with my presence all morning if that was the case.”

  “Not at all, not at all,” said Eun-hee, fluttering a hand. “Off you go. I’m sure Se-ri-ssi would like to meet with Ae-jung before the sun gets too warm.”

  I was quite sure Se-ri would; there was still an hour or so until noon, but the day was already unpleasantly humid. Those pearlescent, abundant clouds outside could turn dark in an instant if the weather remained as it was. Whether humidity or storm, Se-ri was sure to dislike it greatly—not to mention that the hot springs were in a completely different direction from the one Ae-jung had taken, and getting to them would involve trekking over a particularly hilly path that wound around most of the village and through a stream that had no bridge.

  Left with nothing else to do, Carlin opened the front door for Se-ri, who minced toward the lane puffer and stood waiting for the door to be opened for her. Instead, Carlin strode on ahead of her, avoiding it completely. Over his shoulder he tossed, “The puffer can’t go along the grass. It’s a path.”

  I found myself smiling again. Carlin had my permission to be as rude as necessary to anyone who wasn’t I, Eun-hee, or Jessamy. He was obviously taking full advantage of that.

  Se-ri, scrambling to keep up with him, made it to the top of the first small hill and squeaked, “You! Wait!”

  Carlin didn’t hear her—or, more likely, pretended not to hear her. He continued to stride ahead instead of walking deferentially behind, as a footman should do, and Se-ri was left with no other option but to hobble along behind him, her beautiful shoes painfully unsuited to the rigors of a hilly, grassy path. Despite her efforts, she didn’t catch up with him until they came to the stream, and by that time there w
as a healthy glow to her face. There was also a distinct reddening to her stockings above the heels of her shoes that suggested she had formed and broken blisters quite some time ago.

  Carlin, who was already bootless and ankle deep in water, impatiently watched her approach and subsequent exhausted sinking against a tree.

  “Hurry up,” he said as she slipped one foot painfully out of its shoe and dislodged a small stone. “I have to get back to my mistress. Take off your shoes and wade; there’s a line of rocks just beneath the water. It’ll make your blisters feel better.”

  Se-ri straightened at once, her back very erect. “I don’t have blisters!”

  Carlin grinned suddenly. “Really? Show me! I bet you do.”

  He started forward and Se-ri gave a surprised squeak, falling back into the tree trunk. She hit him with her shoe. “Get away! What are you doing?”

  “Hey!” said Carlin, just as surprised. He stared at her for a moment before grinning again. He said, “You’re going to have to wade to get across. Don’t you want to see Ae-jung-ssi? Maybe Hyun-jun-ssi will get to her first; I heard he found out where she is.”

  “Carry me,” said Se-ri, her chin setting resolutely. She put her shoe back on with one wary eye on Carlin, wincing as it went over the back of her heel.

  “What?”

  “Carry me.”

  “What am I, a pack mule?” said Carlin, looking down at her. “Ask nicely if you want something.”

  Se-ri looked down for a bitter moment, obviously aware that she had come too far to go back now, then said a savage “Aish!” that caught Carlin by surprise.

  “Oooof! That was scary,” he said. “All right. Just say please.”

  “Please,” said Se-ri, in the same savage voice, and he knelt for her. His back was to her, which was just as well, because Carlin was grinning again. “And don’t you dare drop me!”

  “Don’t wriggle, then,” said Carlin. “Here, hold my boots.”

  Se-ri, more by surprise than intention, took them, and they were out in the stream well before it occurred to her what she was doing. Her mouth compressed, and she dropped the boots over one side of the submerged path.

  “You!” said Carlin wrathfully, turning perilously on the rocks to make a frantic grab at his swiftly sinking boots. “What did you do!”

  “Pabo!” gasped Se-ri, as his antics dipped a good few inches of her skirt into the stream. “Oh, you idiot! Be careful! If this dress gets moss stains on it—!”

  “Look after your own skirts,” growled Carlin, his fingers closing over the toe of the second boot. “Why are you so heavy?”

  Se-ri hit him. It was a good, sharp cuff to the ear, and I wasn’t sure whether she or Carlin was the more surprised.

  Carlin stood very still. Then he said, “Whoops,” and, quite deliberately, fell over backward into the deepest part of the stream.

  I gave the smallest hiss of laughter. Se-ri flailed over to one side of the stream, Carlin to the other, and when he had hopped on each foot successively to put his rescued boots back on, he left her on the other side without a backward look. Se-ri watched him go with the light of murder in her eyes, then sat down on a sunny rock to regroup, her eyes very far away and narrowed. I wondered whom she was plotting about, Carlin or Ae-jung, and came to the conclusion that at this moment, all her thoughts were probably centred on Carlin’s perfidy. It might be less important, but it was almost certainly more immediately pressing.

  “Well done, Eun-hee unni,” I said. Se-ri had been routed beautifully. I would have to find a way of letting Eun-hee know just how well her plan had worked.

  I emerged from my Dreams long enough to eat the last remaining crumbs from my breakfast tray, then leisurely sank back into them to look for Hyun-jun. Finished dressing at last, he was now walking toward the cottage. He was just beyond Eun-hee’s ridiculously long driveway and had abandoned the lane for a shortcut across one of the surrounding fields. Currently he was walking parallel to the hedge that screened both the rose garden and Yong-hwa. He evidently hadn’t counted on his shortcut’s being an occupied field, fraught with dangers such as a cow, her calf, and, more important—in Hyun-jun’s eyes, at least—frequent cow patties.

  Hyun-jun, looking at the calf with dark suspicion, skirted around without taking his eyes off it, and very nearly mired his shoes in a fresh pile of cow manure.

  “It’s not that one you have to watch out for,” I said. The calf’s mother was in the back corner of the field, steadily munching its way through a gentle embankment there, but if it looked up and saw someone so close to its calf, Hyun-jun would learn the difference between a milk cow and a milk cow with a calf.

  I gave the ghost of a laugh and let myself rise higher. Yong-hwa should be setting up his gayageum in the rose garden right about now; a little higher and I might be able to see him over the hedge on the other side of the lane. Yes: there he was, head bent over the gayageum. I heard the distinct closing of a door and for a moment wondered who had found a door outside, Hyun-jun or Yong-hwa, when it occurred to me that Carlin must have returned. I would have pulled out of the Dreams again to see if he was still soaking wet, but they had too great a hold to make me capable of seeing anything else, and I gave up the effort.

  From my elevated position, it was pleasantly easy to keep track of both Hyun-jun and Yong-hwa; with the number of Dreams floating around my head today, it was nice to have two of them join together for long enough to keep my head from spinning. When Hyun-jun finally walked beyond the rose garden hedge and fairly out of Eun-hee’s estate, it would become tiresome again. For the time being, however, they were divided merely by a lane that was hedged on either side. Hyun-jun’s head continued its swift passage behind one hedge, only slowly drawing away from the lane and across the field. Yong-hwa’s head remained bowed over the gayageum behind his hedge, and along the lane itself—Oh! That was Ae-jung’s head bobbing along between both hedges, her face set toward the manor just as surely as Hyun-jun’s face was set toward the cottage.

  “You should have walked in the lane,” I said to Hyun-jun. “You’re both so awkward.”

  It would have been the easiest thing in the world to make sure they didn’t meet; all I had to do was wait, and they would safely pass each other, all unknowing, on opposite sides of the hedge. I had said, after all, that it was Yong-hwa’s turn to be helped. The problem was, I didn’t really want to help Yong-hwa; and unlike Yong-hwa, I didn’t have to examine my motives to know the reason why. Ae-jung and Hyun-jun, as difficult and confused as they were, made a very good couple; I’d matched much less compatible ones at Eun-hee’s manor. It was very possible that Ae-jung would come to love Yong-hwa if she was separated completely from Hyun-jun; in fact, it had occurred to me many times, watching the four of them, that Yong-hwa would be a much easier proposition to love than Hyun-jun. But if Ae-jung loved Hyun-jun, he loved her too, and I didn’t see any reason why they should be separated by Se-ri, only for the sake of Yong-hwa’s happiness. I wouldn’t even have done that for Jessamy.

  “All right,” I said to Hyun-jun, as he strode through the grass just a few yards away from Ae-jung. “I hope you’re a fast runner, Hyun-jun-ssi.” Then I put a sudden burst of energy into the softly blowing wind and slapped a razor-thin meadow reed against the cow’s haunches. Its head jerked up with a bellow, and it started forward a step or two, drawing Hyun-jun’s suddenly horrified gaze.

  I’m certain they locked eyes. The cow saw its calf mere feet away from a tall, thin intruder; Hyun-jun saw a ridiculously large, angry cow with foot-long horns and the light of murder in its eyes. I’m not sure which one of them began to move first, Hyun-jun or the cow. I’m not even sure which moved faster; the cow had rage to press it into movement, but Hyun-jun’s feet were lent wings of fear. Muddy turf and meadow reeds were kicked into the air in a thundering of hooves, and Hyun-jun’s top hat was likewise thrown to the breeze as he dashed for the safety of the hedge He cleared the hedge and the fence alike with an agility I would ne
ver have expected from a novelist, and tumbled down the embankment. He skidded to his feet with a mad windmilling of his arms, a patch of mud streaking the back of his trousers, and stumbled to a halt just quickly enough to avoid a collision with Ae-jung.

  She was staring at him in astonishment, but Hyun-jun, who must have been just as surprised, only panted, “There you are! I want to talk with you! Why did you leave so suddenly?”

  “Seonbae! Are you all right?”

  “I’ve lost my hat,” said Hyun-jun, after fixedly feeling about his head. “That’s not important! Why did you leave without telling me?”

  “That—” Ae-jung looked down, up, and then around. “Seonbae, are we going to talk in the lane? Oh! There’s something on the other side of that hedge!”

  “It’s a devil cow,” said Hyun-jun, seizing Ae-jung’s arm and propelling her across the lane to the bank on the other side. “Sit down. It’s shady here.”

  Two Dreams pushed against each other, and on the other side of the hedge, I saw Yong-hwa’s head jerk up. I rose again, taking in the overhead view, and said thoughtfully, “Ah.”

  Hyun-jun and Ae-jung were sitting almost directly opposite Yong-hwa, separated from him only by the hedge. He couldn’t have avoided hearing their voices even if he wanted to; he was sitting at one of Eun-hee’s bench-and-side-table affectations that randomly dotted the rose garden, his gayageum set up on another behind him, and the hedge was just across the path that his feet stretched out on.

  I sank down again into the Yong-hwa Dream as Hyun-jun’s voice said, “I told you I loved you, and you ran away.”

  Yong-hwa winced almost imperceptibly.

  “And don’t tell me that it’s because you’d feel burdened to love me,” Hyun-jun added. His voice was tight, and I was surprised to realise that this was exactly what he was afraid of: that Ae-jung wasn’t actually in love with him. “Se-ri was threatening you, wasn’t she?”