Words That Bind

by Ash Krafton

  It always did.

  This desert-scaped dream had haunted her since her earliest memories. And these dreams were the only time she ever truly felt something.

  She lay back on the pillow, kicking the sheets that entangled her legs. Nothing. She was empty again. No matter how intense the emotions when she dreamed, they always vanished. But this time—this time, it had been so much more.

  She hadn’t been lucid in this dream. This time, the dream was all too real.

  And, this time, it had been more nightmare than dream.

  Fully awake, she snatched her phone from the night stand and thumbed through the contacts until she got to her co-worker’s number.

  The phone rang several times before it was answered by a muffled voice. “Hello?”

  “Dolly. I’m sorry—”

  “Tam?” Dolly’s voice was muddled with sleep. There was a loud clacking as if she’d knocked over her alarm clock. “What time is it?”

  “Three, I think. I just had a dream.”

  A sigh from the other end. “What do you remember?”

  “Fire, Dolly. I died.” Tam’s voice was a whisper. “I was burned alive.”

  “Shit.” The other woman’s voice took on a tone of worry. “Okay. How did you feel?”

  “That’s the weird thing.” She pushed back her hair and sat forward, hunching over her knees. “I was okay with it. He looked so scared but I was okay.”

  Dolly didn’t ask who he was.

  Why would she? This wasn’t the first fire dream she’d told her about. This was, however, the first time she’d called Dolly in the middle of the night, sounding rattled.

  She knew Dolly wouldn’t miss the significance.

  “You’re usually okay with anything.” Dolly sighed again. “I’ll come in tomorrow. We can talk about it.”

  Tam hung up the phone and sank back onto the pillow, the image still a fierce memory. The image’s intensity would fade, just like the brief feelings had. They always did. But those first waking moments—that was the closest she ever came to feeling panic.

  Flashes. Images. Sounds. Her life was a string of vivid dreams and déjà vu and the images had haunted her all her life. As a child, she talked about the sand box yard, the candle-wick man, the king and the treasure. Her parents had exchanged alarmed looks and steered her onto other distractions. Only her grandmother had ever seemed to understand her.

  Grammy had come to live with her family after she’d placed her own mother in a nursing center, a big elegant palace of a home outside London. Great-Grandmama Lily, who had come from a small town called St. Ives, had grown increasingly incoherent in her advanced age and had regressed to her childhood.

  Being in London had calmed Lily but did little for Grammy’s nerves. She was American, through and through, and had been glad to come home to her daughter’s family.

  Grammy had listened to Tam’s stories and asked interested questions, accepting her quirks without hesitation. She, above all others, had loved Tam. The child confided in her grandmother all things, unafraid to discuss dreams or hunches or ideas. Of course, her parents loved her; her mother had worried, however, that Tam may have had inherited the strangeness that had plagued Lily, an odd woman who had suffered from delusions and disconnection, dying in an assisted living facility the very day Tam had been born.

  Her parents hadn’t wanted history to repeat itself. Shortly before her tenth birthday, she was introduced to Ms. Schumann, a child psychologist.

  Therapy had a startlingly different effect than the one the Kerishes expected.

  She was fascinated by Ms. Schumann’s questions and showed adeptness in trapping the counselor with her own strategies. By the end of fourth grade, Ms. Schumann had resigned as her counselor, stating reasons of poor health, before pursuing counseling of her own. Apparently, the girl had unearthed repressed emotions that had prevented the older woman from forming healthy relationships. Who knew?

  She met several other counselors who arrived at the same general conclusions: her sole emotional problem was that she simply wasn’t prone to emotion. They’d never met a more objective child. The child had a keen talent for analyzing emotion in others, a talent that was blamed on her parents’ own evasive maneuvering.

  Her last therapist, an Associate Dean from Temple, had a reputation for a steely heart and an iron nerve. The wide-waisted Polish woman excelled with incarcerated clients who tended toward violent extremes and was bull-headed when it came to conflict. It would be a counseling cage match. The secretaries shook their heads in sympathy for the young girl, thinking it cruel that anyone would subject a child to the harsh sentiments of that no-nonsense woman.

  Twenty minutes into their session, the dean had emerged from the room with a red nose and a crumpled Kleenex. Later, stories would tell her transfer to Stanford had been arranged within the hour and she’d cleaned out her office without speaking a single word.

  In fact, the entire incident was eventually reduced to an anonymous urban legend that Temple psychology students faithfully circulated every fall. Initiation for the weak-hearted: the client to break you is the last one you suspected.

  She heard a version of that story soon after beginning her first year. Although she remembered Mrs. Krukoski quite clearly, she refrained from correcting anyone about the details. She distinctly recalled her mother mentioning Ann Arbor, not Stanford.

  As she’d promised, Dolly arrived at Tam’s office during lunch.

  “So, two discharges, a crisis, and a handsome delusion.” Dolly raised her eyebrows at Tam and reached for the other half of her sandwich. “Although handsome isn’t a word I’ve heard you use in your summaries before.”

  “Um, yeah.” Tam studied her nails. “It never seemed appropriate before.”

  “It still isn’t.” Dolly’s flat remark was poorly matched to the glimmer in her eye. “But there’s no harm in looking. Anyway. You certainly did have an interesting week.”

  Dolly was the part-time counselor who saw select clients twice a week. Her position with county social services kept her more than busy. Fluent in Spanish, she saw the clients Tam would otherwise be unable to see due to the language barrier.

  They’d known each other since college. Theirs was a relationship that Tam valued because Dolly was the only one Tam would ever call a close friend.

  “I’m always glad to come in.” Dolly shifted and re-crossed her legs against the front of Tam’s desk. “How’ve you been, anyway? Your dream sounded like it’s getting worse.”

  “Other than last night, they’ve been the usual.” Tam set down her cup and toyed with the edge of the napkin beneath it. This conversation was why they ate lunch in her office and not the break room. “Although, I think…the dream is changing.”

  “Well.” Eyes alight, Dolly sat up straight, sandwich forgotten. “A change. That’s significant. They haven’t changed much over the last three years. What kind of change?”

  “Voices.”

  “That’s good. What are they saying?”

  Tam sighed. “I have no idea. It’s in a different language.”

  Dolly laughed and covered her mouth. “I’m sorry. I just thought if it’s in a different language, you have no hope.”

  She took the good-natured teasing without a complaint, knowing it was more truth than tease, anyway. They’d met in the language lab in college, where the pretty Latina tutored the language-impaired. Dolly had marveled at her complete inability to retain even the basics of such a simple and logical language. Passing Spanish class was nothing short of miraculous.

  Tam picked up her cup and scowled into it before looking up, mouth open. A memory nagged her and she struggled to search back through it.

  “What is it?” Dolly asked.

  “Yeah, I’m—just thinking. There was something else. An animal.” She rubbed her eyes, fighting to capture the image. “A cat? Maybe a cat.”

  “Okay.” Dolly wrapped the remainder of her lunch and stowed it into her tote bag. “Up
until now, it’s been sand, tornadoes, fire—”

  “Candlewick.”

  “Candlewick,” Dolly corrected with a wave of her index finger. “Whatever that means. And a circle. There was a man on a high seat, a grouping of columns, and eyes that followed you in the dark. Is that where the voice comes in?”

  Tam chewed her lip. “No, I don’t think. The voice and the cat go together.”

  Dolly entered notes into her mobile organizer. What were friends for, if not a little informal psychoanalysis? “You really should keep a journal next to your bed. You might remember things better. Now, what about this burning alive image?”

  A rap at the door kept her from replying. Cindy stuck her head in, waving an envelope. “This was on my desk. I thought you’d want it.”

  Tam took the paper, turning it over once in her hands. It was cream stationary, folded in three and sealed with a blot of gold wax. Her full name was written in a swirling script. Calligraphy of some sort. “Who left it?”

  “I didn’t see anyone,” Cindy said. “I’d turned to answer the phone and when I looked back, it was there.”

  Tam flicked her gaze toward Dolly, who lifted her chin.

  “Open it,” Dolly said.

  Nothing to lose. Sliding her finger under the edge of the paper, she cracked the seal. Cindy remained in the doorway.

  “Thank you, Cindy,” Tam said, without looking up.

  The secretary’s expression fell, and she dutifully backed out, pulling the door closed.

  Oh, well. She’ll have to find a new subject for gossip elsewhere today.

  “And?” Dolly prompted.

  Tam scanned the note twice before dropping it onto the desk. “And it’s from my new client. He’s messing with me.”

  “Drop the case.” Dolly peeled the lid off a cup of yogurt.

  “No.” It came out too fast. She hurried to continue. “No, he needs me. I mean, therapy.”

  She flashed back to the bottled water episode, knowing there was no way she could work it into the conversation. Although discussing cases in a broad sense with another therapist wasn’t taboo, something else held her back. She didn’t have Burns’ permission, and her ethical judgment kept her from revealing the particulars of her clients.

  Not even the magical ones.

  Even more important than boiling water was the fact that, for the first time, during her waking hours, she had felt something. She actually experienced emotion and the manifestation of physical reaction to them. It was the Holy Grail of everything she’d ever pursued in her life.

  Why now? And why him?

  And she couldn’t tell Dolly a single word of it.

  She toyed with the note before sliding the edge of it under the desk blotter. “He says a visit to his house will remove all doubts about our initial consultation.”

  “Right. As if you’d go to the home of a client.”

  “As if I even could.” Tam pushed the letter out of sight. “This address doesn’t exist. The least he could have done is pick a street I didn’t know like the back of my hand.”

  “So, it’s a bluff?”

  “Yep. And I have no problems calling him on it.” She grinned. “I don’t even have to go out of my way to do it.”

  Dolly laughed and resumed her lunch. “If I didn’t know what team you played for, I’d be worried for him. Go easy on the guy. If his thought-processes were logical, he wouldn’t be here in the first place.”

  Tam picked up her drink, tapping the straw against her mouth. What new performance did Burns have in store? She wondered if there’d be fireworks.

  The memory of the curve of his sly smile flashed in her mind, the sparkle of mischief in his eyes. Fireworks? She rather expected there would be.

  Chapter 6

  The next day at lunchtime, Tam left the office with Burns’ note in hand, fully intending to put all questions to rest—all her questions.

  One does not simply boil water with their hand. Genies do not exist. End of story. If she couldn’t find the logical explanation behind Burns’ claims, she might as well begin to believe everybody.

  And if that happened, her entire practice may as well go up in a puff of smoke.

  The address Burns listed was less than three blocks away, on the same block as her favorite coffee shop. She could snap a photo of the address that wasn’t there on her way to lunch. It wouldn’t even take a minute to help him address what was obviously a delusion.

  She walked down Carbonnet Street at least three times a week and knew every building, every doorway, every break in the sidewalk of this block. At the far corner was Dunkin’ Donuts, and more often than not, she walked with her eyes trained on her phone; she didn’t have to see where she went. Even in the edge of her periphery, the store fronts and doors were familiar.

  Dollar variety store, dry cleaner, apartment, salon, pizza, apartment, donuts. Six doors between the corner and her beloved donut shop.

  Except today.

  Just—impossible.

  She paused before a set of dark oak doors, with heavy brass handles and a shiny split knocker. These doors should not be here. Her back to the street, she counted doorways, trying to look inconspicuous. Seven doorways.

  Impossible. But then again, so was most of everything else Burns had said. Fortifying herself with a deep breath, she marched up the three steps—marble, no less—and reached for the knocker.

  Her hand hovered over the striker, a simple ring held fast in the snarling jaws of a brass tiger. A line would be crossed the moment she touched that knocker.

  Another line would be drawn if she didn’t.

  She rolled her lips between her teeth, gnawing away at a nagging sense of ethical murkiness. She was a creature driven by curiosity, more so than a sense of professional duty or personal humanitarianism. It wasn’t difficult to determine which line meant more to her.

  The brass strike plate was in the shape of an oil lamp, exactly the kind she’d assumed genies lived in. Appreciating his sense of humor, she rapped twice, harder than she’d meant to, before snapping her hand back to her side. She didn’t want to draw attention.

  No need to worry. She glanced around, but no one seemed to take any notice that she or the door were even there. The passersby simply streamed around the new stoop as if it was too far beneath their notice to warrant a reaction.

  One of the doors opened. A short, slender man, in a long brown tunic and wide tan pants, bowed and swept an arm inward to admit her. After a brief hesitation she stepped in, feeling that invisible line disappear behind her as if it had never existed.

  They stood in a modest foyer, burgundy wallpaper with gilt design, a brass floor lamp and crystal nightshade, a richly-patterned carpet underfoot. The air was scented with a heady spice, warm and smoky with the barest trace of cinnamon.

  She inhaled. His scent. It had lingered in her office after he’d left.

  “Will madam follow me?” His voice was as slender as he, a reedy sound. “Sir awaits in the parlor.”

  “Of course.” She pressed her smile into place and tried to sound as if she were led about by servants all the time. He bowed and walked through an arched doorway into a long hall.

  An impossibly long hall.

  It seemed to stretch on into the distance as if she’d walked into a palace, not a city apartment building. She flipped her hair back over her shoulder and followed, determined to suspend her disbelief and to refrain from wondering where, if any place, she might actually be.

  Vaults and galleys opened to the sides, creating a labyrinth of rooms and hallways, each different from the next. A lush sun-filled hanging garden around one corner, a banquet hall around the next. Each was a treasure waiting to be discovered, each more opulent than the next.

  A crow, almost a trumpet blast, of birdsong made her jump. So close. The sound was magnified by the spacious halls and grand chambers of the impossible palace. What could make such a sound?

  She paused at one of the doorways and peered in. In t
he distance, a peacock dragged its regal train behind him with slow, stately steps, craning its slender blue neck to examine her.

  “If madam will follow?” The man called her attention, and she hurried to catch up. After a brisk hundred-foot walk, he paused before a large door and reached up to the handle.

  Another brass lamp shape. What a joker, that Burns.

  The servant pushed the door open and stood aside and motioned for her to enter. She thanked him quietly as she passed. He bowed a bit deeper before pulling the door closed behind her with a muted click.

  Looking around, her mouth fell open. This could be a palace, after all.

  The cobalt dome ceiling was at least thirty feet high, and amber glass windows circled the base. Arches and pillars formed a ring around a central chamber, which was set apart from the outer by several silken panels and beaded curtains.

  Overhead, the sunlight streamed through rectangular windows of multi-hued glass. It shimmered through a thin haze of rose-colored smoke, which was occasionally stirred by the churning wings of butterflies. She counted five of them, each fluttering through the smoky heights.

  Couldn’t be real. It had been overcast when she’d stood on the marble stoop and rapped at the door that shouldn’t be there.

  And yet, here she was. She chewed her lower lip. Time to redefine reality

  Rather than plow through the silken walls, she remained still and cleared her throat. “Burns? Are you here?”

  “Of course I am.” His voice came from everywhere, a distant whisper that sounded in echoes. The silken sheets in front of her gathered back to the sides, forming a doorway; another set gathered back in the same way as door after door appeared before her until they revealed at last the inner sanctum. She passed through the series of silken doorways until she reached a wide room.

  A library.

  Startled by the change in the décor—fireplace flanked by bookshelves, high-backed chairs on a hardwood floor—she jerked her gaze around. The silken panels were gone. Only hard shelf-lined walls and ordinary library trappings remained. A wooden door stood behind her, one that looked quite solid.