Charles De Lint - Dreams Underfoot

“You know a guy named Jack Crow, don’t you?” Jilly asked.

“Yeah, he’s the one who’s got that tattoo parlor down on Palm Street. I went out with him a couple of times, but—” Sophie shrugged “—you know. Things just didn’t work out.”

“That’s right. You told me that all he ever wanted to do was to give you tattoos.”

Sophie shook her head, remembering. “In private places so only he and I would know they were there. Boy.”

The cat had fallen asleep, body sprawled out on her lap, head pressed tight up against her stomach.

A deep resonant purr rose up from him. Sophie just hoped he didn’t have fleas.

“But the guy in my dream was nothing like Jack,” she said. “And besides, his name was Jeck.”

“What kind of a name is that?”

“A dream name.”

“So did you see him again—the next night?”

Sophie shook her head. “Though not from lack of interest on my part.”

8

The third night I find myself in this oneroom cottage out of a fairy tale. You know, there’s dried herbs hanging everywhere, a big hearth considering the size of the place, with black iron pots and a kettle sitting on the hearth stones, thick handwoven rugs underfoot, a small tidy little bed in one corner, a cloak hanging by the door, a rough set of a table and two chairs by a shuttered window.

The old lady is sitting on one of the chairs.

There you are, she says. I looked for you to come last night, but I couldn’t find you.

I’m getting so used to this dreaming business by now that I’m not at all weirded out, just kind of accepting it all, but I am a little disappointed to find myself here, instead of in the barn.

I was with Jeck, I say and then she frowns, but she doesn’t say anything.

Do you know him? I ask.

Too well.

Is there something wrong with him?

I’m feeling a little flushed, just talking about him. So far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing wrong with him at all.

He’s not trustworthy, the old lady finally says.

I shake my head. He seems to be just as upset about the drowned lady as you are. He told me all about her—how she used to go into Faerie and that kind of thing.

She never went into Faerie.

Well then, where did she go?

The old lady shakes her head. Crows talk too much, she says and I can’t tell if she means the birds, or a whole bunch of Jecks.

Thinking about the latter gives me goosebumps. I can barely stay clearheaded around Jeck; a whole crowd of him would probably overload all my circuits and leave me lying on the floor like a little pool of jelly.

I don’t tell the old lady any of this. Jeck inspired confidences, as much as sensuality; she does neither.

Will you help us? she says instead.

I sit down at the table with her and ask, Help with what? The Moon, she says.

I shake my head. I don’t understand. You mean the drowned lady in the pool?

Drowned, the old lady says, but not dead. Not yet.

I start to argue the point, but then realize where I am. It’s a dream and anything can happen, right?

It needs you to break the bogles’ spell, the old lady goes on. Me? But Tomorrow night, go to sleep with a stone in your mouth and a hazel twig in your hands. Now mayhap, you’ll find yourself back here, mayhap with your crow, but guard you don’t say a word, not one word. Go out into the fen until you find a coffin, and on that coffin a candle, and then look sideways and you’ll see that you’re in the place I showed you yesternight.

She falls silent.

And then what am I supposed to do? I ask.

What needs to be done.

But

I’m tired, she says.

She waves her hand at me and I’m back in my own bed again.

9

“And so?” Jilly asked. “Did you do it?”

“Would you have?”

“In a moment,” Jilly said. She sidled closer along the wall until she was right beside Sophie and peered into her friend’s face. “Oh don’t tell me you didn’t do it. Don’t tell me that’s the whole story.”

“The whole thing just seemed silly,” Sophie said.

“Oh, please!”

“Well, it did. It was all too oblique and riddlish. I know it was just a dream, so that it didn’t have to make sense, but there was so much of a coherence to a lot of it that when it did get incomprehensible, it just didn’t seem ... oh, I don’t know. Didn’t seem fair, I suppose.”

“But you did do it?”

Sophie finally relented.

“Yes,” she said.

10

I go to sleep with a small smooth stone in my mouth and have the hardest time getting to sleep because I’m sure I’m going to swallow it during the night and choke. And I have the hazel twig as well, though I don’t know what help either of them is going to be.

Hazel twig to ward you from quicks and bogles, I hear Jeck say. And the stone to remind you of your own world, of the difference between waking and dream, else you might find yourself sharing the Moon’s fate.

We’re standing on a sort of grassy knoll, an island of semisolid ground, but the footing’s still spongy.

I start to say hello, but he puts his finger to his lips.

She’s old, is Granny Weather, he says, and cranky, too, but there’s more magic in one of her toenails than most of us will find in a lifetime.

I never really thought about his voice before. It’s like velvet, soft and smooth, but not effeminate. It’s too resonant for that.

He puts his hands on my shoulders and I feel like melting. I close my eyes, lift my face to his, but he turns me around until I’m leaning against his back. He cups his hands around my breasts and kisses me on the nape of my neck. I lean back against him, but he lifts his mouth to my ear.

You must go, he says softly, his breath tickling the inside of my ear. Into the fens.

I pull free from his embrace and face him. I start to say, Why me? Why do I have to go alone? But before I can get a word out he has his hand across my mouth.

Trust Granny Weather, he says. And trust me. This is something only you can do. Whether you do it or not, is your choice. But if you mean to try tonight, you mustn’t speak. You must go out into the fens and find her. They will tempt you and torment you, but you must ignore them, else they’ll have you drowning too, under the Black Snag.

I look at him and I know he can see the need I have for him because in his eyes I can see the same need for me reflected in their violet depths.

I will wait for you, he says. If I can.

I don’t like the sound of that. I don’t like the sound of any of it, but I tell myself again, it’s just a dream, so I finally nod. I start to turn away, but he catches hold of me for a last moment and kisses me.

There’s a hot rush of tongues touching, arms tight around each other, before he finally steps back.

I love the strength of you, he says.

I don’t want to go, I want to change the rules of the dream, but I get this feeling that if I do, if I change one thing, everything’11 change, and maybe he won’t even exist in whatever comes along to replace it. So I lift my hand and run it along the side of his face, I take a long last drink of those deep violet eyes that just want to swallow me, then I get brave and turn away again.

And this time I go into the fens.

I’m nervous, but I guess that goes without saying. I look back, but I can’t see Jeck anymore. I can just feel I’m being watched, and it’s not by him. I clutch my little hazel twig tighter, roll the stone around from one side of my mouth to the other, and keep going.

It’s not easy. I have to test each step to make sure I’m not just going to sink away forever into the muck. I start thinking of what you hear about dreams, how if you die in a dream, you die for real, that’s why you always wake up just in time. Except for those people who die in their sleep, I guess.