“Was Basil okay?” the sheriff asked.
“Yep, he’s resting now.”
“Be sure to tell him I’m awful sorry about what I did.”
One step through the doorway, and the sheriff froze in his tracks. The sound of the closing door was quietly embraced by the thin darkness. The bed that held the soundly sleeping girl, the curtains, the machine by her pillow, and even the feeble darkness of human design were all very much like her old room.
“I just stopped it a little while ago,” the hospital director said, having noticed how the sheriff’s gaze fell on the machine. “She was connected to your brain, and it was working beautifully, but things got fouled up when we were so very close.”
“Don’t you have any nurses in here?” the sheriff asked.
“They’ve finished up. From here on out, no one comes into this room except you and me. And if anyone else tries it . . . Well, I suppose a doctor committing murder does pose a bit of an ethical dilemma.”
The sheriff eyed the elderly physician with something akin to anxiety. “And what reason would you have for going to that extreme to protect Sybille?”
The hospital director gestured to one of the chairs and seated himself in another. After he’d watched the sheriff seat himself in a chair with its back against the wall, Dr. Allen said, “I want to ask you the God’s honest truth. Are you sure you really don’t know?”
Feeling like he might be incinerated by the blazing spark in the other man’s eyes, the sheriff replied, “I don’t know. What are you talking about?”
The hospital director stared at him. The fierce light in his eyes had a hint of desolation to it that suited the perpetual twilight of the room. Suddenly, the active doctor looked like a tired old man covered with wrinkles and hung with heavy shadows, and Sheriff Krutz had trouble believing his eyes.
“Earlier, when I was bringing that Hunter back to town, I saw Sybille.” As the lawman spoke, he paid special attention to the director’s face to see what reaction it would register,
but the old physician didn’t react at all. Maybe he thought it
was a joke, maybe other matters were occupying his mind, or
just maybe—
Tracing back through his memories so he might describe Sybille better, the sheriff suddenly remembered something. Something he’d seen somewhere before. Her clothes . . . The white blouse and the skirt . . .
“The Sybille you saw was one I called forth.”
The impact of the director’s words jarred the sheriff back to his senses. The wind whistled in his ear. “What did you just say?”
“To be a bit more precise, I extracted Sybille’s image from her dream. Using this device here.”
“Then, does that mean you can use that thing to wake her up?”
The director said nothing.
“I guess that’s what I should expect from a machine from the Capital. That’s fantastic.”
“No,” Dr. Allen said as he looked down at the peacefully slumbering girl with a pained gaze, “this machine can’t awaken Sybille. The only thing that can do that is the Noble who left his fang marks on her throat. And another thing—this isn’t from the Capital.”
“It’s not? Well, who made it then?” Sheriff Krutz asked, suspiciously eyeing the complex arrangement of metal, crystals, and batteries.
“I did. And it took me just two hours.”
The sheriff was at a loss for words.
“Two hours before I ran into you and the Hunter outside her room, I had just gone back to my office after finishing my rounds. I thought I’d stare out the window for a while, have myself a smoke, straighten up my desk—when I found this there.”
The sheriff was still speechless.
“Well, not really this, but all its parts. They didn’t even have plans with them. But I took one look at them and knew how to put it together. Now, don’t you look at me that way,” he said to the sheriff. “I’m not crazy. You should know better than anyone I’m not that kind of person. I always tell the truth.”
“That’s true, but—”
“Come on, Krutz,” the hospital director said in a nostalgic tone. Very rarely did he call the sheriff by name, but what they were involved in now had made them compatriots, or, perhaps more accurately, co-conspirators. “It’s been a long thirty years. When this happened to Sybille, I was just thirty-five, a doctor still wet behind the ears. I tried so hard to save her, like I was fighting for my very life . . .”
A ghastly spark resided in the director’s eyes. It was as if something extremely precious had been taken from his soul, and that spark was a light shining out of the abyss left in its place.
“I can still recall how it was back then. You and Sybille walking home from school, holding hands. And Sybille making you garlands with flowers from the field out back. White and blue ones—maybe they were celaine blossoms? She put them around your neck, but you got all bashful and took them off like a big dope. On the other hand, that time Sybille fell into the river, you jumped in without a second thought—even though the current was wild enough to drag a man away in only knee-deep water. And when she went out grape picking with her friends and she was the only one who didn’t come back, you were the one who went off with a beat-up old rifle in hand to search for her all over a demon-filled forest. Isn’t that right?”
Sheriff Krutz nodded. His expression looked like he was staring at something right in front of him, but on the other side of an eternal gulf.
“Were Sybille’s hands warm? Were her lips soft the first time you kissed them? Was that golden hair of hers as soft as silk? Well, was it?” Dr. Allen asked. “And when she pressed her feverish cheek against your chest, didn’t she tell you it was like iron? And that she could hear the beating of your heart?”
“Probably.”
The tone of the old man’s voice suddenly dropped. “What if all of that was a lie?” he said.
For a brief while, the sheriff’s expression showed he was still lost in remembrance. And then, slowly studying the face of the elderly physician, he said, “What?!”
“I’ll tell you.” Gently resting his hand on Sybille’s forehead, the director muttered in a low voice, “I’ll tell you something you’re better off not hearing. Something you’re better off not knowing.”
.
When Sheriff Krutz got back to the station, D was lying down in the cell without bars.
“What happened here?” the sheriff asked, and Bates explained the situation. “As soon as Clements gets out of the hospital, lock him up,” the lawman ordered. “We’re gonna make an example of him. Give him two weeks. Now, get out there and patrol. I’m gonna ask our guest some questions.”
“Yes sir.” Wearing an expression that showed he didn’t completely understand, Bates stepped out of the office.
The sheriff turned around to face D. There was an incredulous look in his eyes as he inspected the shattered wall.
“Did you solve the mystery about Sybille?” D asked softly.
“Nope. Think you know the answer?”
“How long are you going to keep me in here?”
“Until this is over.”
“When will it be over?”
“I don’t know,” the sheriff replied wearily. Of course, D had no way of knowing the lawman wore the same tired air as the hospital director. “From what Bates tells me, you were sleeping. You dream about Sybille?”
“There was some interference,” the Hunter replied.
“Interference?”
“It seems there are those who don’t want me to respond to the girl’s call.”
“Are you saying a foe can get inside dreams?” the sheriff muttered as if in a daze. “In that case, could you even call it a dream? What do you think?”
“Maybe even dreams can dream.” D quietly gazed at the sheriff. “I don’t mind staying in here, but are you sure that’s the best thing for the rest of you?”
“Just what’s that supposed to mean?” Sheriff Krutz was gazing
back at D. For the first time, a mood of impending violence hung between them.
Their eyes shifted in the same direction simultaneously. A plump female form burst energetically into the cell while her feverish knocking still echoed from the door. The face, now pale, was that of the jack-of-all-trades—Maggie.
“Sheriff, we’ve got serious trouble!” she bellowed, her tone perfectly matching the energy that carried her into the room.
“What is it?” the sheriff asked.
The woman pointed out the door. “Well, I hadn’t been out there in a dog’s age—to Old Mrs. Sheldon’s, I mean.”
D’s eyes sparkled with sudden interest.
“But when I got there, you just wouldn’t . . . When I got there, I found the old woman out back in her garden . . . with
a black arrow through her throat . . .”
THE AWAKENED
CHAPTER 5
.
I
.
It was thirty minutes later that a trio arrived at Old Mrs. Sheldon’s house: Maggie the Almighty—who discovered the body—Sheriff Krutz, and D. The sheriff himself had requested that D accompany them. “Are you coming?” he’d asked, and D had stood up. That’s all there was to it. For some reason, the sheriff
had brought the Hunter’s longsword with him. D didn’t seem
to care at all.
When the little house came into view beyond the ever-changing contours of the hill, the sheriff furrowed his brow and looked over at Maggie, who rode by his side. Smoke was rising from the chimney. Apparently she had noticed it, too. “That’s odd. When I left, there wasn’t anything coming out,” she shouted.
Her words were soon obliterated by the thunder of hoofbeats as they quickened their pace toward the house. With riddles locked in their hearts, the three of them halted their mounts in front of the little house. The sheriff was the first one through the front door—where he froze on the spot. Peeking around from behind him, Maggie let out a scream of terror. “It can’t be . . . When I saw her, I’m sure she was—”
“What’s this you’re so sure of?” Old Mrs. Sheldon asked, setting her steaming cup of coffee down on the living room table and glaring at her boorish intruders.
“We’re not . . . It’s just . . . We got word that someone had found you murdered, you see,” the sheriff explained with a rare feebleness in his voice.
“I’m not sure I want to hear any more of that talk, Sheriff. Sure, a lonely old bird such as me likes to have company, but certainly not on account of that sort of rumor.” The old woman closed the front collar of her coat as she stood up.
“But this can’t be! I saw her lying in the garden out back, covered with blood,” Maggie bellowed, her meaty jowls shaking. “Check into it, Sheriff. Check into it real good.”
“Take a good look. The person you claimed was dead is standing right in front of us. If there’s anything human that can survive getting shot through the neck, I’d sure like to see it.” And saying that, the sheriff turned around and suddenly exclaimed, “Where’s D?!”
It appeared that the Hunter had vanished from the doorway without anyone noticing.
Maggie and the sheriff circled around behind the house to the flower garden and found a tall figure in black swaying with the breeze.
“You stay where I can see you,” the sheriff told him.
“There’s not even a trace of the blood. That’s impossible,” Maggie said from behind them. Stepping in front of the two men, she extended her hand toward part of the riotous mix
of blooms. Amazingly, her limb wasn’t even trembling. It was this same courage that allowed her to work as a jack-of-all-trades visiting scattered villages across the Frontier. “She was
lying right over there and the ground all around her was bright
red with blood . . . There was a black arrow jutting out of her neck . . . What’s this?!”
The sheriff squinted at her exclamation.
Maggie’s hand then pointed to an area a little in front of the first spot she’d indicated. “Even the flowers have vanished!” she shouted.
“The flowers?”
“There were blue flowers in bloom. Right in here. Prettier than any I’d ever seen. And now, as you can see, they’re just gone . . .”
As if in a daze, she turned to Sheriff Krutz, and as their eyes met, D asked the lawman, “When’s the last time you were out here?”
“About five days back,” the sheriff replied in a voice as thin as paper. “But I didn’t actually see her then. I was just in the area—and I saw the smoke coming out of her chimney.”
“Were there blue flowers in bloom then?”
Thinking a bit, the sheriff shook his head. “Nope.”
“So, they bloomed and then disappeared, did they?” the Hunter mused.
“I think her eyes might’ve been playing tricks on her.”
“Wait just one minute there—you think I dreamed all this?” the woman roared angrily, but she immediately fell silent at the result of her words.
The trio was enveloped by tension as tight as a nerve at the breaking point. D quietly looked at the sheriff. The stiffness that’d taken hold of Krutz’s whisker-peppered cheeks was gone in an instant, and the placid atmosphere returned.
“What kind of flowers were they?” D asked Maggie.
Perhaps thinking him her ally, the traveling merchant stared at his profile as if hypnotized, then hastily made some gestures with her plump fingers. “They were about this big, and just the most beautiful shade of blue. Though I’ve never been there before, I have to wonder if it’s the same color as the ‘sea’ that I’ve been hearing about since I was a kid.”
The sea—a blue petal.
D turned right around. Faster than anyone else, he’d determined there was no use staying there any longer.
The sheriff apologized to the old woman for their sudden call, and then the three of them mounted up.
“You should show your face around here from time to time, Sheriff,” the old woman called out, her words clinging to them as they rode away.
On the road leading back to town, D alone wheeled his horse around.
“And where are you going?”
“I can’t leave the village.”
“You’re in custody,” the sheriff said bitterly.
“Your wife told me all about the girl. Where’s the shortcut to the dance?”
Giving it some consideration, Sheriff Krutz then pointed in the direction of the forest to the southwest. “Go about two miles,” he said. “When you come out of the forest, there’ll be a little path. Follow that for three-quarters of a mile.”
“I’ll come back when this is finished.”
As D finished speaking and prepared to give a kick to his horse’s flanks, a long, thin shape flew toward him. Catching the longsword in his left hand without even turning, D galloped off.
“Not the most social type, is he?” Maggie muttered as she smoothed her hair. “But that’s how the lookers have to be. I don’t care how cold he was to me; I suppose I’d still try to move heaven and earth for him . . . even knowing he’d leave me for sure.”
“You can tell how it is?” the sheriff said as he watched the dwindling figure.
“Hell, anyone can tell. He’s not trying to do it, but he makes the people around him unhappy. At my age, and with me leaving the village behind real soon, it’s not a big problem . . .” She looked at Sheriff Krutz with a sort of pity in her eyes, then turned the same gaze toward the old woman’s home. “But I figure it’s gotta be pretty hard on the rest of you folks . . . Gotta wonder if it wouldn’t have been better if you’d never let him in.”
.
By the time D arrived at the vacant lot, the sunlight was already fading and the sky was graced with a languid blue tone. Tethering his horse to a tree trunk, D trod across the yellowed grass. The scene around him was a familiar one. The lot was fairly large—some might even call it vast. At present, it held no mansion steeped in blue—just a gra
ssy field stroked by the wind. Not speaking a word, D stood in the center of the lot where, in the dream, the great hall would have been. Here, the girl the sleep-bringer loved had imagined dance parties every night, and here in this overgrown lot she’d danced with furtive steps. And her partner had been—
“Can she come out of the dream?” D asked, as if putting the question to the wind.
“I don’t know,” the unsociable reply came, riding on the wind.
“Shall we give it a try, then?”
“Sure, why not?” the voice said.
D moved a little to the right. The tall grass hid him completely where the garden would have been. If he went still further to the right, he’d come to the gate, and beyond that, to the road that led to the mansion.
Catching strange sounds on the wind, D quietly turned around and saw two figures approaching from the path at the opposite end of the lot. The slender one was a little quicker. Squinting, he saw that it was Nan. The young man behind her was about the same age, though his face was quite boyish. The two of them probably lived close by.
“Aw, don’t get so mad about it,” the young man said, trying to keep his tone down, although the wind carried it clearly enough.
“I’m not mad at all. Go home,” Nan said tearfully. This wasn’t a quarrel between siblings, but between lovers.
“I didn’t mean to say that, it just came out. You don’t have to get so hot about it,” the boy said. “C’mon. Let’s go back. The sun’ll be going down soon.”
“There’s nothing to worry about. I’ve been coming here for a long time. You can go home alone.”
“Stop being such a ninny,” the boy said, anger tingeing his words. Then he reached around from behind Nan and grabbed her by the wrist. Nan shook her arm free of his grip and quickened her pace.
The Stuff of Dreams Page 11
