The Cure for Dreaming

by Cat Winters

  My daughter, Olivia Mead, must come to my dental office directly after school. She should NOT go home.

  Respectfully,

  Dr. Walter Mead

  My blood froze. I reread those phrases at least three more times apiece. Our rather somber rendition of “Silent Night” seized the room with a harmony that pricked the little hairs on the back of my neck, and Father’s ominous second sentence stared me in the eye.

  She should NOT go home.

  n Father’s downtown office, tucked in the heart of Portland’s business district, a door with a frosted glass pane separated his mahogany-lined lobby from the windowless operatory in which he tended to his patients’ teeth and gums. I could see him moving beyond the glass—a distorted figure in a trim white coat, bending over the silhouette of a man tipped back in the padded dental chair. Laughter erupted from the patient, first in snickers, then in loud brays and hiccups that told me the man had inhaled a bag of nitrous oxide, otherwise known as good old laughing gas.

  I seated myself in a rigid chair in the lobby and stared up at Father’s four-foot-wide oil painting of a pair of silver dental forceps shining against a green background. I recalled Percy’s utter dread of my father’s profession (even though Father worried I would scare Percy away), and I slunk down a little farther in my spindle-back seat, wishing Father were a bookstore owner like Frannie’s pa, or even a chimney sweep or a sailor. Someone who didn’t hang pictures of torture devices on his workplace walls or cause men to suffer from fits of laughter while they shouted out, “No! I’m not ready!”—as was happening beyond the frosted glass beside me.

  I eyed the main door to the street and debated bolting home. I can claim I never received the note, I realized. I could say that I—

  The front door opened.

  Henri Reverie stepped into the lobby.

  I drew a sharp breath and averted my eyes. My shoulders inched toward my ears. He’s come to take away my free will. I knew it!

  Henri removed a dark square-crown hat from his head, closed the door, and lowered himself into a chair across from me, below the painting of the forceps. He was dressed in a three-piece suit and tie, all as black as midnight—a shadow with cobalt-blue eyes and blond hair. His complexion was poorer than I remembered, probably due to all the lard-based greasepaint theater people had to wear on their faces, according to my mother. His slumped posture gave him the shifty look of a peddler trying to pass off bottles of booze as magical cure-alls.

  “No!” cried the patient in the operatory.

  I gave a start—as did Henri.

  “Noooo! I’m not ready! Nooooooo!”

  Shrieks and loud smacks and another fit of hysterical laughter came from beyond the glass. Henri grabbed hold of his armrests with whitening fingers, and his knees swerved to his right, toward the door, as if he were about to flee.

  A smile twitched at the corners of my lips. I relaxed my shoulders and folded my hands in my lap, for I realized something absolutely delightful: Henri Reverie’s fear of my father’s dental practice gave me the upper hand in our current situation.

  Interesting.

  “Are you here for an appointment, Mr. Reverie?” I asked.

  “Stay still, Mr. Dibbs!” yelled Father from beyond the door. “If you don’t stop flailing about, I’ll need to clamp your wrists to the chair in addition to your head.”

  Henri grimaced as if his own head were being clamped to a chair, while Mr. Dibbs cackled and whooped and let loose the screams of a man suffering the tortures of the Spanish Inquisition.

  “I said, are you here for an appointment, Mr. Reverie?”

  “I—” Henri’s blue eyes shifted toward me for a swift moment, but they veered straight back to the bobbing and ducking figures beyond the frosted pane. “Yes, an appointment.”

  “A bad tooth?” I asked, sitting up straighter, stifling another smile. “Swollen gums? Do you need your tissues leeched of blood?”

  A howl of pain echoed through the office walls. “No!” cried Mr. Dibbs in a decibel that made my ears ring. “No! I wasn’t ready.”

  “It’s all done,” said Father. “The extraction was a success. Hold this ice over the wound and rest a few minutes. You’re fine.”

  The patient sobbed and moaned and then cackled with laughter. “You had a blasted smile on your face, Dr. Mead. You looked like you enjoyed ripping my tooth from its socket.”

  “Nobody enjoys the sight of a decayed bicuspid rotting away in an inflamed mass of bleeding gums, Mr. Dibbs. Take better care of your oral health, sir.”

  Father’s distorted image came closer to the frosted glass; his beard and white coat grew sharp and clear behind the pane until I could almost see the browns of his eyes. He opened the operatory door and poked out his head. “Ah, good. You’re both here. I’ll lay Mr. Dibbs on the cot and bring you in.”

  I jumped to my feet. “I am not going in there like one of your patients.”

  “Now, don’t be difficult, Olivia.” Father let go of the doorknob. “Mr. Reverie has kindly agreed to help you accept the world the way it is.”

  “You actually hired this person”—I pointed toward the still-seated hypnotist—“to extract my thoughts in your operatory, as if my brain were a decayed thing, like Mr. Dibbs’s disgusting bicuspid? Do you know how cruel and horrifying this is?”

  “Olivia . . .” Father put out a cautious hand and trod toward me as though I were a rabid dog. “I told you, I only want the best for you. Don’t have a conniption.”

  I lunged for the front door, but my father pounced and took hold of both my arms before I could escape.

  “Olivia, please.” He spun me toward him. “Please behave for me. Your mother—she abandoned the both of us, not just me. She left you behind, too.”

  “I know that.” My eyes smarted with tears, and I saw a blurry version of Henri Reverie turning his face away from us, pretending not to hear, which made me want to cry all the more.

  “She said she wanted the vote, too,” said Father. “I hear her voice in yours. You can’t do that to some poor husband and child one day. I won’t let you break people’s hearts.”

  “I’m not going to be like her.”

  “You’ve got to change.”

  “No.”

  “Think of your future sons and daughters. Think how much better your childhood would have been if your mother had accepted her place in the world and ignored her selfish dreams.”

  “She did it all wrong.” I wriggled my shoulders and struggled to break free of his grip. “I won’t be like her, I swear. Please don’t pay him to take away my thoughts.”

  “Please do not be afraid, Miss Mead.”

  I turned and looked straight into Henri Reverie’s eyes—a mistake.

  “Do not be afraid,” said the hypnotist again in a voice that soothed me as much as when I had succumbed to his anesthetizing words on the stage. Those eyes of his—those potent blue irises that tugged me toward him—swallowed me whole and assured me there was nothing to fear inside that dental office. There was nothing to fear in the entire world. My muscles slackened. My worries evaporated into the sweet nitrous oxide in the air.

  Father let go of my arms.

  “It is a pleasure to see you again, Mademoiselle Mead,” said Henri, rising to his feet. “I can tell you are nervous about my presence here, but I promise, your session in this building will be as relaxing as your trance yesterday. Ne vous inquiétez pas. Do not worry.”

  I exhaled a sound between a laugh and a gasp and tore my eyes from his, an action that hurt as much as pulling a thorn from my finger. “How can I possibly feel relaxed,” I said, “when I don’t know what’s about to happen to me?”

  Henri walked toward me with footsteps that scarcely made a sound on the lobby’s dusty floorboards. “I swear to you, Miss Mead, you will not be harmed in any way. You will feel the same sense of well-being and euphoria you experienced when you reemerged from my trance on the stage. Do you remember that beautiful sensation?” />
  He stood in front of me and trapped me again with those unshakable eyes. The flaws in his skin and light stubble on his chin faded to insignificant blurs compared to those two orbs of brilliant blue. My breath grew shallow and fluttery. My veins seemed to flow with hazy waves of Father’s laughing gas instead of blood.

  Henri took my hand, and a rush of warmth passed between us. I remembered that warmth all too well.

  That sensation was my undoing.

  He jerked me toward him by my arm and called out, “Sleep!”

  My face crashed against the buttons of his coat.

  “Melt down, melt down.” He cupped his hand over the back of my head, and my body slackened against his chest. “Let yourself go, downward, downward, downward.”

  He dragged my rag-doll body across the floor and plopped me into one of the lobby chairs, still holding the back of my head. “Keep going down, Miss Mead. Keep easing deeper into sleep. Melt down. Let go, let go.”

  A lock clicked into place. Curtains clattered closed.

  “Teach her to accept the world the way it truly is,” begged Father in a voice that trembled and cracked. “Make her clearly understand the roles of men and women.”

  “I’ll try my best, monsieur—”

  “And tell her to say ‘All is well’ instead of arguing whenever she’s angry. Please. Her rebelliousness has got to be removed if she’s going to survive.”

  I was too submerged in a warm and comfy eiderdown blanket of peace and darkness to care anymore what that silly man was blathering on about. Henri took hold of my left hand, and a numbing shot of heat flowed up my arms and fanned throughout my body to my farthest extremities. I gasped. My chin melted to my chest. The entire world slipped away, except for the soft lull of Henri Reverie’s voice.

  “You are doing beautifully, Miss Mead. But now I need to take you into an even deeper level of hypnosis. I am going to stand behind you and use my hands to guide your head in a complete circle. Each revolution will send you further and further into the desired state of relaxation.”

  His warm hands clasped my temples and revolved my head in a gentle, circular motion that slowed my breathing and dropped me down into a tingling world of blackness. My shoulders slumped forward.

  “Yes, very good . . . you are melting even deeper now.” He rotated my head again, tilting back my chin until my neck was stretched and exposed. “You are doing so well. Keep going . . . all the way down. All the way down . . .”

  Two delightful revolutions later, my chest collapsed against my legs.

  “Excellent. Wonderful. I am so impressed.” He seemed to shift his position and kneel in front of me. His hand cradled the back of my skull. “You are now submerged in one of the deepest levels of hypnosis. Say yes if you understand me.”

  “Yesss,” I mumbled with heavy lips into the wool of my skirt.

  “Magnifique. Now, Miss Mead, I want you to listen to me, for the next part of my instruction is extremely important.” His lips bent close to my ear, and his voice traveled directly inside my head, as if he were taking up residence in the middle of my brain. “When you awaken, you will see the world the way it truly is. The roles of men and women will be clearer than they have ever been before. You will know whom to avoid. Say yes if you understand me.”

  “Yesss.”

  “Good.” He exhaled a feathery sigh against my cheek. “Now, some of the things you see with your new vision might make you angry. However, you will be incapable of uttering angry words. Whenever you are upset, all you will be able to say is ‘All is well.’ Say it right now.”

  “All is well.”

  “Good. All is well. You will see the world the way it truly is. The roles of men and women will be clearer than they have ever been before. Instead of getting angry, you will say ‘All is well.’ Say it once again.”

  “All is well.”

  “Wonderful. I am so glad you understand. I am going to bring you back up again. Let us just take our time and do this slowly. I will count to ten, and you will feel my hands rising up from your feet. One . . . two . . . You feel the force between us cooling, weakening . . .”

  The blanket lifted off me, and I rose like a swelling loaf of bread.

  “Three . . . four . . . five . . . let it go, you are doing splendidly, Miss Mead . . . let it go . . . six . . . seven . . . eight . . . you are almost back . . . nine . . .” He pressed his hand against my forehead. “Ten. Awake.”

  I opened my eyes.

  “Oh—my Lord!” I sank back against my chair and grabbed the armrests. “Oh, God!”

  Henri Reverie kneeled on the floor in front of me, and he had turned into the most delightful creature upon which my eyes had ever feasted. Flawless skin. A perfectly structured nose. Sumptuous red lips that looked ripe and full and ready to be touched. Pure blue eyes with bottomless pools of dark pupils that reflected his sincerity and concern. Concern for me.

  “Do you feel all right, Miss Mead?” he asked in a voice like a distant echo, as if spoken from the opposite end of a tunnel. He leaned forward on his knees, and I couldn’t help but reach out and sift my hand through his hair, which slid through my fingers like golden threads of sun-bright silk. The rest of the world darkened into shadow around him. All I could do was look at him—really look at him.

  “Olivia!” snapped Father, also in a faraway voice. “Why are you touching him?”

  I lifted my face toward Father to try to describe Henri’s confounding beauty, but my tongue froze when I caught sight of a fiend in a white coat standing in the lobby where my father should have been. The brute’s red eyes gleamed bright and dangerous, and his skin went deathly pale and thin enough to reveal the jutting curves of the facial skeleton beneath his flesh. His graying beard resembled the flea-infested fur of a rat.

  “What is it?” asked the fiend, his canine teeth as sharp as the fangs of a wolf or the deadly tip of a scythe. “Are you cured or not?”

  I clutched the armrests until my fingers ached, and my knees knocked against each other with the thumping of bones and a wild rustle of skirts. I opened my mouth to shout, You look like a monster! What’s wrong with you? Get away from me. I hate you!

  Yet only three limp words emerged from my lips.

  “All is well.”

  bolted.

  I didn’t even wait to see what Mr. Dibbs and his bloody tooth socket looked like back in the recesses of the operatory. The monstrous version of Father shouted something about catching me, but I darted out the front door and down the street before anyone could chase me down.

  Outside, the world felt as if it had tipped sideways and knocked everything askew. The air had grown too thin to breathe. Shop windows reflected blinding sunlight that throbbed behind my eyes. The city had turned as bright and vivid as a theater stage at the height of a performance, yet the noises of my surroundings—carriage wheels, trotting hooves, peddlers hawking wares from carts—sounded muffled and tinny. Even my sense of smell dulled as my eyes viewed the world with startling clarity. I saw two women across the street with blood on their necks. A man in a business suit and derby hat came my way, and his face was as gaunt and pale and fanged as Father’s.

  I panted and slid my hand across the cold sandstone walls for support and somehow managed to run across the street and down the next block—before I stopped in front of an establishment that was caging up women.

  Yes, caging women.

  On a corner lot where a regular storefront should have stood, a giant copper cage held five ladies prisoner. Their shoulders and hats squished together in a crowd of feathers and fine wool dresses, and they buried their noses inside some sort of pamphlet that distracted their attention from the freak-show absurdity of their situation.

  Out in front of the entrapment, a female carnival barker—I didn’t even know women could be barkers!—in a red-striped jacket and a straw boater hat yelled, “Welcome! Welcome! Come see the only proper place for women and girls.”

  A young blond woman in a tailored
blue suit took a pamphlet from the barker and climbed inside the cage with the other ladies. The barker promptly shut the cage door and locked it tight.

  “Miss Mead!”

  Footsteps ran toward me, and before I knew what was coming, Henri Reverie grabbed me by my arm. “Are you all right?”

  The hypnotist had returned to his shady young showman appearance, and he smelled as dusty and smoky as the letters Mother wrote from backstage dressing rooms. Sounds regained their full volume. Henri’s hair lost its brilliance.

  “Th-th-they’re caging up women,” I said. “They’re locking them up right here . . .”

  I turned and pointed, but instead of the copper cage, I saw a brick building with a wide white banner hanging above the glass door.

  HEADQUARTERS

  THE OREGON ASSOCIATION OPPOSED TO THE

  EXTENSION OF SUFFRAGE TO WOMEN

  A slender middle-aged brunette with an entire stuffed quail perched upon her hat—not a strange female carnival barker—stood in front of the opened door, and she caught my eye and said, “Would you like to come inside and see what we’re all about, dear?” She held out a pamphlet and smiled with a fine pair of false front teeth, undoubtedly fitted by Father. “Read about the hair-pulling, face-scratching women of Idaho who turned into heathens once their state allowed them to vote. We’ll teach you about the proper sphere for ladies.”

  I yanked myself free of Henri and continued down the block.

  Henri followed, and our feet clapped across the sidewalk in near unison. He caught me by my elbow before I could cross another street. “What are you seeing?”

  “All is well.”

  “Tell me.” He grabbed both my shoulders and turned me around to face him.

  “All is well!”

  “I need to know if everything went as planned with our session. Tell me what you see.”

  “All . . .” A frustrated cry burst from my lips. “All is . . .” Itchy tears filled my eyes, but the more I fought to hold back my emotions, the more a fit of crying longed to break free. A stray tear slipped down my cheek. A sob exploded from my mouth.