“Meaning?” Amy asked.
He looked at her and gave her a huge and dazzling smile. She blushed, and he smiled even harder.
“You have to dream,” he said. “You have to allow yourself to inhabit the dream world. There you will find the legend and the story I want brought to life in wood. Your grandfather understood this way. It was the key to his work.”
“He never shared that with me,” I said.
“A pity. You’ll have to learn it on your own then.”
“How do I do that?”
“Sleep,” he said, “perchance to dream.”
“I’ve never dreamed very clearly,” I said.
“You will.”
“How can you be so sure?”
He leaned back in the chair and crossed one of his legs over the other. He made a steeple with his fingers and braced it under his chin.
“Because your grandfather left you his gift. It’s rare, Lucas. Rare.”
“Why should I believe that?”
“I can think of fifteen thousand reasons,” he said and laughed.
CHAPTER FOUR
Neither Amy nor I were comfortable once Knight had left. He was a mystery. We knew nothing about him, except that he could throw around a lot of money. While that was okay with me, I didn’t like feeling that I was on the outside of things. Dream? What was that supposed to mean? My whole gig was built on carving what I could see. If something was right in front of me, I had no trouble making it appear in wood. But this? This was just weird.
We spent the rest of the day trying to distract ourselves. Amy led me to our favorite secondhand shops, the thrift stores and flea markets where I bought all my clothes and stuff. Paying full price for things wasn’t something I liked to do. Besides, things always felt better to me when I knew they had a life before I got them. I guess that’s why I got so good at carving—I could feel history in things.
We ate at Amy’s apartment. She’s a good cook. She cut a steak into thin strips and stir-fried it with broccoli, snow peas, peppers, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes and spices that made it all tangy and hot. I loved it. Then we curled up on her couch and listened to music in the dark. That’s one of the things we like the most. We turn off everything but the stereo and let the music flow over us in the darkness. It’s really cool. You get right inside the music that way, and you hear things in it that you don’t normally hear. We don’t talk. We just listen. We spend hours that way.
After that I walked home.
Gareth Knight was still on my mind. I wanted to do the job. But there was something about it that bugged me. Knight never said anything straight. He just kind of laid something out there and expected you to run with it or let it hang. And talking about my grandfather—that bugged me a lot. The memory of my grandfather was so special that I never spoke of him. Even to Amy. All of us have things so precious we keep them to ourselves. Things we don’t want to lose. Things we don’t want changed from the way we remember them. I guess I didn’t want anything to change about the way I remembered my grandfather. So I never spoke of him.
When I got home, I read for a while. I was actually afraid to sleep. I didn’t think I bought the mumbo jumbo Knight had talked about. But it kept me awake. Legends brought to life? Legends were stories. Teaching stories. But they were just stories. There weren’t real people in them. They were all dream people.
I tossed and turned once I shut the light off. I thought about getting up and working on something. Instead, I just lay there. Finally, after an hour or so, I drifted off.
I found myself on a riverbank in the moonlight. It was made of stones. There was a tall cliff behind me and a narrow path twisting its way upward. Across the river was another cliff, but this one was less steep. There was a thick carpet of trees on its face. The moon hung right over the middle of the water. The river had eased out of a long, sweeping turn, and the current was slow. It was summer, and the night was cool but not uncomfortable.
There was a canoe on the beach a few yards away from me. I suddenly wanted to paddle. I walked over and pushed the canoe into the water. I waded in knee-deep and stepped over the gunwale and into the canoe. I began to paddle. I could see the reflection of the moon on the calm water. A light breeze barely disturbed the peaceful night air.
But suddenly the wind rose. It came blustering out of the upstream sweep of the river and quickly turned the water to chop. The canoe begin to buck in the waves. The current grew stronger. The canoe was pushed downstream. Nothing I could do would change its course. The river churned and the canoe dipped crazily. I heard laughter. I looked around, but there was no one there. The laughter boomed out across the water.
Then I heard the thunder of a waterfall. I could see the spume rising in clouds a half mile ahead of me. The roar of it grew louder. There was nothing I could do to stop the canoe. The laughter rumbled off the cliffs all around me.
I flailed at the water with the paddle. The canoe hurtled forward. I felt my insides turn to water. Just as it reached the edge of the waterfall, I looked up. There was the face of a man in the moon. He was laughing. That’s all I saw before the bow dropped and the canoe plummeted. I hit the pool at the foot of the falls and was pushed down deeper and deeper, as if by a giant hand. The frigid water produced a burning sensation.
I spun in the crazy current. I had no idea which way was up. Then I heard a voice say, “Open your eyes.” That’s all. It was a deep bass voice. Commanding. I opened my eyes. All I could see was eerie, dark blue. Then I saw the moon. I kicked hard toward it. As I got closer to the surface, the image became clearer. Then I saw the face. A shaman’s face, painted black with three wavy red lines running down its right cheek. Looking down at me from the face of the moon.
“Do you see me?” the voice asked.
I clawed frantically for the surface. “Yes,” I said.
“Bring me to life,” it said.
“I can’t,” I said.
“Then die.”
I felt icy hands push me deeper into the pool. My lungs wanted to explode. The moon had vanished. There was only the terrible dark of the water.
I woke up bathed in a cold sweat.
CHAPTER FIVE
At first, it was only dreams. They seemed to come even before I was fully asleep. All I had to do was close my eyes, and I was deep in the shimmer of light and color. Each of them was a story. Each of them had something to do with the shaman. I was in them as an observer. But I could see everything. I knew the man had power. I knew that he was a wizard, a sorcerer. I knew that he had lived a long time ago, before white people came to North America. I knew that he was cold. Heartless. I knew that he was mean.
But they were such grand dreams. I saw parts of the life my people had led many years ago. I saw trappers and hunters. I saw canoe makers, drum builders, toolmakers, hide tanners and men who were born to fight. Everywhere I looked in those dreams, I felt as though I was there. It was like they were shining a light on my own history, and I found myself eager to go to them, to find myself in them, to be among those people.
Those people included the man with the painted face. He carried a powerful magic. He lived alone, apart from the people, and when the smoke rose from his wigwam, the people seemed to creep around their camp. Songs and drumming and strange incantations came from that lodge then. Sometimes it would shake as though there was a violent struggle going on inside. The people averted their eyes. No one spoke. Everyone was afraid. But I couldn’t take my eyes off that small wigwam in the trees.
Amy began to notice a change in me.
“You’re so quiet lately,” she said. “Is everything all right?”
“It’s fine,” I said. I was scraping a bevel-edged chisel along a line of wood and didn’t look at her.
“It doesn’t feel fine, Lucas. You feel far away from me.”
“I’m busy,” I said.
“You’re always busy lately. But I never see anything get done. You stare off into space and rub the edge of a tool on wood, but you don’t create anything.”
I stood up suddenly. I could feel the raw, dark edge of anger in my gut.
“Are you going to start telling me how to work?” I asked. It didn’t feel like my voice.
She sat back farther in her chair. She looked at me wide-eyed.
“You never raised your voice at me before,” she said quietly.
I felt guilty. The anger had risen in me before I knew it was even there.
“I’m sorry,” I said in my own voice. “This whole project has got me anxious, and I was never anxious about a piece before.”
“It’s the money, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. That and Knight and the damn dreams.”
“What dreams?”
I looked out the window at the skyline of the city. I spoke without looking at her. I told her about the vision of the camp and how it almost felt like I’d been transported back in time. How real the people and their lives seemed. I told her about the man with the painted face. I left out the part about the wigwam shaking and the feeling of blackness that fell over everything when that happened. I told her everything except the hold these dreams were starting to have on me. Like I needed them. Like I couldn’t wait to get back to them.
“Knight told you to dream,” she said. “He said you would.”
“I haven’t seen the legend though,” I said.
“Maybe the legend is in the lives of the people.”
“Too ordinary,” I said. “Knight’s after something heavy.”
“Heavy as in what?” she asked.
I spun in my seat so fast, it shocked both of us. I stood up. Suddenly I felt heavier, bulkier, taut with muscle. My face felt like a chunk of stone. It was a heady feeling. I felt incredibly powerful. The voice that came out of me was harsh and sharp like a hiss.
“There are powers and secrets best not spoken, girl child.”
Amy stood up and backed away from me. Her hand was at her throat, and her eyes were huge and scared-looking. I took a step toward her. She held the other hand out to keep me at arm’s length.
“Don’t,” she said.
“Amy, I…I…” I stuttered.
“Just don’t, Lucas. Don’t do or say anything.”
I felt smaller then, back to my usual size. My body sagged. There was a feeling in my head like the moment after an accident happens and you wonder where you are. I still had the chisel in my hand. I looked at it dumbly and laid it on the table. She was watching me closely. When I slumped into my chair, I saw her slowly start to relax.
“You called me girl child, Lucas. You never speak like that.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
“And your face? Your face was wild. Your eyes were almost red. I thought you were going to attack me with the chisel.”
“I wouldn’t,” I said.
“You wouldn’t, no.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I mean, I’ve never seen you react like that. It’s like you were someone else. Someone I don’t want to know.”
I stared at the floor. I felt as though a chunk of time had been ripped from my life. It was as though I’d been pushed to the sidelines and forced to watch as things went on. As though I had no power to step off those sidelines and say or do anything different. But I couldn’t tell her that. It made no sense to me. If it made no sense to me, it was sure not going to make any sense to her. I felt sure of that.
“I’m just stressed,” I said. “I’ll get some better sleep tonight and I’ll be fine.”
“This work isn’t good for you. It scares me. You scare me.”
All I could do was look at her and nod.
CHAPTER SIX
One morning my hands took on a life of their own. I’d found a nice piece of cedar that was large enough for a life-size mask. I split it with a tree-felling wedge and a small sledgehammer. I had to be careful. I wanted a perfect half round to work with. I needed the grain in the wood to be consistent and clear. I carefully chiseled the bark off. I moved slowly. I tapped the end of the chisel lightly, then guided it forward with my hands so the bark would come off easily. It took some time, but I ended up with a glistening, reddish surface with a fine grain. I’d never done this before. But somehow I knew how.
That didn’t bother me. What bothered me was how I suddenly was able to just carve at will. Normally there was a subject, someone I could look at, that made the magic happen. But now there was nothing. There was only the recollection of the dreams. There was only the painted face. I tried to go through the specifics of the dreams. I wanted to figure out which legend Gareth Knight wanted me to carve. But all I could see was the dim painted face of the man in the wigwam. That’s when my hands began to really move on their own.
I hadn’t had a clear look at him since the first dream of the waterfall. Even that wasn’t detailed enough. The face was flat. It had no edges or angles or hollows, and I didn’t know what the bone structure was. All I saw was the leering, painted face. But my hands knew what to do. I sat there for hours every morning. It was like I fell into a spell. Time just disappeared. I don’t know what happened to me during those times. But I do know that by the time I came out of them, there were shavings all around my feet. And I felt thick. Like my blood was sludge. Like my head was stuffed with cotton. Opening my eyes was like coming out of a coma. It was like I had left the world behind me. I felt odd, out of shape, not comfortable in my own body.
Every morning I would wake and sit with my coffee, looking out my window over the neighborhood. Every morning I would try to get a fix on the face. It wasn’t a legend, but it was the one thing that kept coming to me. I couldn’t shake it. I was worried Knight would call off the deal. I wanted that money. I wanted it bad.
Then I would move to my work table, and the day would disappear.
One day, after about a week of this, the telephone rang. I didn’t answer it. I couldn’t. Nothing existed for me but the mask, the face. I couldn’t take my eyes from the work I was doing. It rang again. I let it ring. It rang three times before I could break out of the trance I was in to pick it up. Finally I picked it up.
“Yes?” The word came out of me dully.
“Is that you, Lucas?”
“Yes.” It was the same thick voice.
“Lucas?” It was Amy. “Are you all right? You sound different.”
“Yes,” I said again. It seemed to be all I could say.
“Lucas, you’re scaring me. I haven’t seen you in nearly a week. You don’t call. You don’t answer voice messages, and you sound like you’re stoned.”
“Yes,” I said.
“I’m coming over there right now.”
I lay the phone in its cradle and stared at the wall.
I was still doing that when Amy walked into the apartment. I turned slowly to look at her. She shrank back against the door.
“Oh my god,” she said. “Lucas.”
“What?” I asked. I tried to smile, but the muscles in my face felt odd.
She walked toward me slowly. Her eyes were wide. “Your face,” was all she said.
“What about my face?” My mind was clearing now that she was here.
“It’s different.”
“Different how?”
“It’s older. It’s definitely older.”
“Can’t be,” I said, coming back to myself. “It’s only been a few days.”
She looked around the room. Except for the mess on my work table, the place looked tidy. When she came to sit across from me, there was a worried look in her eyes.
“You haven’t been eating,” she said. “There�
�re no dirty dishes and your garbage is the same as the last time I saw it.”
“No time,” I said. “All I’ve been doing is working. Sleeping. Dreaming. Working.”
“Dreaming about what, Lucas?”
“Don’t know. Can’t find the legend. Only got a face.”
“What face?”
“The painted man. That’s all I got. Painted man’s face.”
“Can you show me what you’ve done so far?”
I got up sluggishly. My body felt that same odd heaviness, and I couldn’t get my feet to move. Finally I summoned enough strength to walk slowly over to the work table. The mask was covered with a black cloth. I didn’t know where the cloth had come from. We stood side by side looking at it, and I could feel Amy’s worry.
“That’s it,” I said. “The mask. The mask of the painted man’s face.”
“Is it finished?” Amy asked.
“No,” I said. “It seems to be taking a really long time.”
“Have you heard from Gareth Knight?”
“No. But he’ll be pleased that I’m working.”
“Even if it’s going as hard and slow as you say?”
“Yes.” I said it in the dreamy, detached voice she had heard on the phone.
She looked at me. Then she reached out and slowly pulled the black cloth from the carving. I heard her moan. I heard a sob in her throat. She looked at me with eyes brimming with tears.
“Lucas,” she said shakily.
When I looked at the carving, I was staring at a blurred outline of my own face.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I sat there in disbelief. I’d worked so hard. It felt like the hardest work I had ever done. Now, there was just my face. I thought I was carving the painted man. I thought I was entering the dreams and coming out with a better idea of how to bring him to life in the wood. Amy and I sat there not knowing what to say. I felt beaten. I felt terrified. The week had been one long blur, and this was all I had to show for it. Amy looked scared. Plumb scared. She put both hands to her face and stared without blinking at the mask.
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