The Dream Peddler

by Martine Fournier Watson

  Only once had she been frightened away from her refuge, sitting in stillness while the forest movements surged around her. The sky was darkening, and a storm was coming; as it crept closer, the leaves began to agitate like animals bristling. Everything stiffened to the nervous static charge of the air building to lightning.

  Then she saw, at a little distance, a dead leaf left behind by the autumn before. Crumpled, like a lost note browned by the winter, it hovered. It was not just kicked up by the wind, though the wind was growing stronger. She had never seen a dead leaf behave like this. Picked up by the air but not put down, it fluttered at her as if trying to speak and expecting her somehow to understand its message. She stood up and felt the back of her housedress snagging on the bark of the tree. She went toward the leaf slowly, so as not to startle it away.

  “Benny?” she asked it. “Ben, is that you?”

  Her voice was lost in the greater rustle of the whole forest buffeted, waiting for a storm that would not break. She stared at the leaf while the pulse of her heart took over her senses, and even her hands and feet swelled more and more with every beat.

  The sun pushed out of the clouds then and slanted down into the forest through a break in the canopy, and Evie saw, because of its light, the silver filament of a spiderweb strung between the trees. There was the leaf, caught in the web and trembling as if it feared her.

  Evie realized it was not disappointment she felt but relief.

  As she walked home, she remembered the little-boy smell of him, after his bath on a summer Saturday evening when his hair was still soap-wet and the dirt still staining the fresh-scrubbed caps of his knees. She pulled into herself that memory of holding him, when he was almost defenseless, and the pleasure of his nearness and skin and hair was so intense it was like desire. That memory moved over her like ants on a mound of sugar.

  The late spring was painful with color, the purple of rhododendrons and the insistent yellow banks of forsythia lining the roads. As the round buds came out and the ground was spattered with petals, the world appeared to Evie as just a mass of dots and blobs. She had read once of a kind of paintings that were like this, and back then she had not understood. Now she recognized the passing time dotted down in them as seconds, the endless prick of the brush tip, the moments, all the colors that would never after bleed together. Now she thought this painting must have been invented in the spring, for she looked out and it was all there was—the buds and blossoms and bumbles of bees, everything painted and verdant and about to burst and full of holes.

  And the grass changed now when the sun was lying low in the sky. If she looked down at the right time, she could pick out every single blade of it, and it was like something you weren’t supposed to see or be able to count. The fields of violets, too, were some kind of trick. You couldn’t see their endless blue when you looked right at them—you had to look just above to catch it, gaze off at the horizon. Only then did you discover how blue they truly were. As soon as you looked at them head-on, the spell was broken, into that scattering of flowers on the grass. She wondered if she had made this mistake with everything in her life. Was she looking too closely at things, at everyone around her? Was she doing this and misunderstanding who they all really were? She had missed Benny, maybe. She had stared at him so hard, loved him so hard, when she should have been looking just to the left of him; she should have been free with him and at ease. If she had been more forgiving, less exacting, less needful, more willing to look away, he would not have been taken from her.

  Chapter 16

  “You came to his funeral,” Evie said. “I saw you.”

  “You were leaving. You were climbing up into your buggy.”

  “George had my hand. And then I saw you . . . under the tree.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t go in. I just didn’t know . . . because I never knew him.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I don’t remember any of the faces. . . . They all looked the same. I only noticed you because . . .”

  “Oh, yes. I understand.”

  Robert pushed his hands into his pockets. They felt safer there.

  “So if I take this?” She held up the glass vial he’d brought her.

  “You drink it right before sleep. It should take away your dreams. If it doesn’t—”

  “Yes, I know. Money back.” She looked away, at the shivering orchard beyond him. “I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  Robert watched her. “I wonder if I should warn you . . . I’ve never done this before.”

  “I understand.”

  “I only make dreams. I’ve never . . . I’m not sure what’s going to happen. What your sleep will be like. Or your waking. It might change things.”

  “Don’t worry. It couldn’t make them worse.”

  He leaned a little, looked into her gray eyes, as if he might see something in her she did not yet know was there. “I wonder.”

  She opened her hand and looked again at the vial, then closed it tighter. “You didn’t ask me how he died.”

  “Of course not. I could never ask you that.”

  She looked up. “We don’t know,” she told him. “He was found . . . under the ice. He’d gone through the ice on the bay out there.” She gestured at the distance with her empty hand. The bay, invisible from where they stood, was surely lapping and winking in the sun, the ice long vanished. “But we don’t know why he went out. Why he went out on the ice to begin with.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It doesn’t make sense, does it?”

  “No,” said Robert. “He was how old? Eleven? I wouldn’t think that could ever make sense.”

  Evie rolled the potion between her palms. “He was only nine,” she said.

  * * *

  * * *

  Toby was holding court on the back steps behind the store. The dream peddler had changed everything for him, and now the boys who had so often laughed at him were listening while he spoke. Toby had always been popular in his way, wanted for shooting or fishing expeditions, but he’d never garnered any respect for his words or ideas. He wasn’t quick-witted enough to say much when the boys gathered and joked. He laughed loud when he heard others laugh, even if he didn’t understand. And when he talked, he kept his voice low. That way he felt like he was a part of things but didn’t have to worry the fellows might hear and laugh harder at what he said.

  Now they were all paying attention. There was a taut, stretched respect for what he’d discovered. Of course it was not right to give details, but a few were enough: where, how long, how many times. What color the dress, before she removed it.

  They leaned against the porch rails or sat on the steps, and Toby regaled them with talk of how lucky he was to have money set aside, how relaxed and easy he’d become around the girls. Robert Owens was a man you could trust, he told them. A quiet man. Discreet.

  “Sounds about right,” said Ansen Smith. “But I’m saving up just now. Wouldn’t spend my money that way.”

  “Saving to marry Jenna?” asked Barto McBryde. The group hollered as if it were funny, and Ansen was clapped on the back.

  “I might think about it,” John Shaw said. “Not guilty like Ansen here, if you know what I mean.”

  “I wonder some of the married men don’t give it a try. That’d be the ticket. No getting tired of just one. Great solution if the wife’s feeling poorly.”

  They all laughed again.

  “What about you, Rolf? You gonna try it?”

  “He figures he’ll wear Christina down one of these days. Get her to kiss you, that right?”

  Rolf went scarlet to his ears.

  All too soon they were bored, and tired of Toby’s big talk. Most of them stood and jumped down off the steps, pushed off the wood and away. They all had chores to do, and they were all hungry.

  Jackson lingered behind the rest. He leaned at the porch rail,
resting his forearms on it and looking out at the greening land behind the store. With his eyes on the horizon, he asked, “Those dreams work for you every time? For sure?”

  “Haven’t failed yet,” said Toby.

  “That’s something.” He pushed back and forth as if testing the wood. “You got any to spare?”

  “Well.” Toby jammed his hands into his pockets. “As a matter of fact, I do have one I’ve been saving. Got it the other day.”

  “Oh, yeah? You could do that? I mean . . . what if it isn’t fresh?”

  Toby licked his lips. “Don’t think it makes any difference. I done it before. I have to buy them on the sly, whenever I can, and that isn’t so often. So I don’t always use them on the same day.”

  “Huh.” Jackson laced his fingers together. He tapped his thumbs.

  Toby grinned in his slow-dawning way. “You want it, don’t you?”

  Jackson glanced at him. “I wouldn’t mind.”

  “I guess I could sell it. I mean, I don’t think I could just give it away.”

  “No, I don’t expect it for free. I just . . . I don’t want to be seen knocking on that door, you know? Miss Violet probably answers. It’s embarrassing.”

  “Oh, she won’t know what you’re there for. I mean, of course she’ll know, but she’d never guess what kind of dream.”

  “I’ve just been thinking . . . you’ve done this before, and you’ve got used to it. I’d feel strange about it. I don’t want any girls in town to see me there. Or for it to get back to my parents that I was, you know . . . consorting with him.” Toby didn’t know what “consorting” meant, but he could guess. It was too long a word to mean anything good. He watched Jackson stand up straight. “But I have money. Always have money. What if I made you a deal? Since you go there regular anyway, would you buy some for me, too, when you’re there? Next time I can even pay you in advance.”

  “Well, sure. That’d be all right with me.” He quoted Jackson a price just slightly higher than what he’d been paying. That was his rightful fee, he imagined, and thought himself pretty clever after all.

  Jackson counted out the money, and Toby pulled a tiny vial from his pocket and held it up.

  “Looka that,” said Jackson. “That’s a lot smaller than I thought it would be.”

  “Yup. Really just one swallow, that’s all they are. Take a swig at night, go right to sleep. You won’t be sorry.”

  “I just bet I won’t.” Jackson took the vial, held it gingerly up to the light, squinted at it. He shook it a little to see the liquid move, and it was more viscous than water but still seemed to spit bits of rainbow. “Thanks.” He put it into his own pocket. “I guess I’ll let you know if I’d like any more.”

  Toby grinned. “I think you will. Every dream I’ve had has just been . . . swell. All different girls. Different kinds. Most beautiful girls I’ve never seen.” He smiled wider at his own joke.

  “We’ll see.” Jackson took the porch steps all in one leap and loped around to the front of the store and the street. He almost hoped to see some acquaintance and stop to shoot the breeze, the warm dream rolling in his pocket, but he saw few people. Only the old men who spent all their last, stiff days folded on benches in the storefront shade. Instead he whistled, lightly at first and then louder. Whistle and I’ll come to you, my lad, he thought.

  The dreams would be the thing, he knew. He could feel a change coming, the liquid growing warmer, promising that the change would soon be worked inside himself. He would buy as many as it took, and then he would dream of women, only women, each more beautiful than the last. Their beauty and passion would overwhelm him, and there would be no more confusion.

  * * *

  * * *

  Evie met Robert almost every week to get her medicine. He tried not to charge her at first, but she insisted. He also tried to give her a lot of it. Unlike the dreams he sold, what she required could be made in larger batches to last her longer, he reasoned. She didn’t want to take a big bottle, she told him. The small glass vials could be easily tucked into a drawer of linens, even stashed in a pocket, and she wanted to hide what she was doing from her husband. And the weekly payments worked best for her as well. The small bits missing from her grocery money would go unnoticed at home.

  “Tell me about yourself.”

  Robert expected her to shrug off the question, stand up brushing her skirts in that way she had, and say something about getting her husband’s supper, as she always did.

  “I didn’t think I’d ever get married,” she said.

  What a waste that would have been, Robert thought. He studied the side of her face, the dark line of lashes shading her eyes, the way her lips curved into each other. Every so often a flush came into her cheek, but it never stayed. He found himself waiting for it. “You didn’t?”

  “Not really. I was always so independent. I never had many friends, even. My mother made people uncomfortable.”

  “Oh, yes. I don’t see much of her. I gather she doesn’t care to come often into town.”

  “No. She’d rather keep her own company. The women here . . . well, they don’t like that. I think they don’t understand how a woman could be happy without all the quilting bees, the church socials, the endless gossip.”

  “Vi told me a little about her. She left me with the impression some people think she’s a bit . . . that she might be . . . simple.”

  Evie smiled. “Or she is altogether too deep for them. They think she’s in touch with dark forces, the occult, something like this.”

  “Ah. Just like me.”

  “Yes, exactly. Like you.” She bent and snapped up a long blade of grass. “Always on the outside.”

  She said it lightly, but the words pulled on him, drew off his smile.

  “They don’t like that she won’t go to church, of course,” Evie said.

  “And why won’t she go? Does she not believe in God?”

  “She says the minister droning and the tuneless singing interfere in her communion with him.”

  Robert laughed. “So . . . which is it? Does your mother know witchcraft? Does she have the second sight?”

  “I’m sure you don’t expect me to tell my mother’s secrets. Unless you tell me yours.”

  “Well, no. I can’t do that. A magician must never reveal how he does his tricks.”

  Evie put one hand behind her, leaning back on the trunk of a tree. “Sometimes it’s as if she knows things. And it’s strange. She was the one who told me . . . when I’d be expecting. With Ben.”

  “A mother’s intuition?”

  “We’ve always been close. Maybe she does have a special sense when it comes to me.”

  “So why did you think you would never be married?”

  “Just because . . . that’s how it was. I was closer with her than anyone because of how she was—not mixing in, people thinking she . . . I didn’t have anyone else at times. There were some little girls who weren’t supposed to come to our house or even play with me.”

  Robert pictured little Evie Whiting, long dark braids bouncing along her back while she ran through the woods by herself. Little Evie tossing a rubber ball or making mud pies in the road, alone. He remembered his own boyhood and the many friends he’d had, how easily they joined together at school and how year by year he had shed them until now he was more alone than she could ever have been.

  “That’s sad,” he said.

  “Mm. I’ve never been sad, about that. My mother was my best friend. And she still is. And now I have George and his family.”

  “So George didn’t care about your mother? Like everyone else?”

  “I don’t know. When George started coming into town to see me, it was all decided pretty fast. He knew her a little by then, and he knew what people said about her, but I guess he ignored it.”

  “He wanted you enoug
h it didn’t matter.”

  She seemed to stiffen. He wondered if she didn’t like that word, “want,” coming from him.

  “I was the one who approached him, you know, the first time we met. We knew each other from school, but this was later on.”

  “Now I see.” Robert smiled. “You bewitched him.”

  “Like mother, like daughter. Yes, that’s probably what they say.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Sam Whiting had been up most of the night with a croupy baby, and he was tired driving homeward from the Thomson farm. His eyelids wanted to close, but the feeling of sand underneath them kept him blinking and lifting them up again. He turned in at the graveyard gate and stopped his motorcar, looked out across the jumble of stones as if he might spot Ben’s little resting place. He had wanted to pay for a large monument, something that would tower over the graveyard, carved with corner cherubs and one big angel, maybe, huge scalloped wings of stone banking out over the grass, but Evie refused. He wanted something grand, a tribute that could be easily seen from the road. Evie was adamant and seemed to think that towering gravestones were unsuitable for children, like too much rich food. Instead she chose a small slanted stone, low to the ground, that curled back on itself at the sides like a partially read scroll. She embellished it with no carvings or Bible verses. Just his name, “Beloved Son,” and the dates of Benjamin’s short life.

  Sam felt himself stumbling over the uneven ground. It seemed so far away, this unassuming grave hidden among all the taller ones. Everything between the stones was brilliantly green, like some distorted land from a dream. When he reached the scroll, he stood for a moment, looking down at his grandson’s last gift. The lettering was incised clean white into the granite, and the stone itself freckled the light. Starry spots within it glittered like a clear night sky. He crouched down and ran his fingers lightly over the letters without really reading them. His eyes were blurring straight edges and starting to close.