Charles De Lint - Memory and Dream

“Just this guy,” Jilly repeated.

Isabelle nodded.

“This is so mysterious. So how did you meet him?”

“It’s kind of a long, weird story ....”

Jilly sensed her discomfort. “Which you’re not ready to share quite yet.”

“I just don’t know where to start. I ...”

“You don’t have to explain,” filly said as Isabelle’s voice trailed off. “Nosy, I might be, but I’m patient, too. Just promise you’ll tell me all about it when you’re ready to talk about it.”

“That I can promise.”

Jilly admired the painting for another couple of moments before laying it back down on the window seat.

“But I do have to know something,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“Did you borrow some paint and brushes before you left this morning?” Isabelle waved a hand at her unpacked boxes. “The one thing I don’t need is more art supplies.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

“Why? Have you lost something?”

“The only thing I care about is my favorite brush, but there’s also a couple of tubes of paint gone missing. A piece of hardboard, some turpentine. I can’t figure it out at all.”

Isabelle thought of her surviving numena. It would be so like Cosette to have “borrowed” the art supplies that Jilly was missing.

“That kind of thing happens to me all the time back on the island,” she said. “I think I must have brought one or two of the local Good Neighbors along with me.”

Jilly gave her an interested look. “Really? You’ve seen faeries on the island?”

July, Isabelle realized, was probably the only person she knew who would take something like that at face value. And it wasn’t really a lie—many of her numena were very much like the little mischievous sprites and hobgoblins that inhabited folk and fairy tales.

“I don’t see them,” she explained, “but things are often rearranged or borrowed for extended periods of time. I’ve gotten used to it.”

“Well, they’re welcome to share,” Jilly said. “I just wish they hadn’t taken that brush.”

“Why don’t you leave out a note, asking for it back?”

Jilly gave her a quick smile. “Maybe I will. But that doesn’t help me at the moment. It’s back to the art shop for me. Will you be coming by this afternoon?”

Isabelle nodded. “I shouldn’t be here too much longer. Rubens isn’t giving you any trouble, is he?”

“Rubens,” Jilly announced, “is an absolute angel, just like he always is.”

Isabelle waited until Jilly had left before returning to the windowseat. When she was sitting down again, she picked up the other parcel, the one that felt like a book, but first she looked out the window, not at the view of the river, but down below at the street, searching for a dark-haired man in white shirt and jeans. But if John Sweetgrass was skulking about Joli Coeur, trying to catch a glimpse of her the way she was of him, he was being surreptitious about it.

After a while she sighed and began to open the parcel. The book inside had no title, or byline. But three-quarters of the pages were filled with a familiar handwritten script that she immediately recognized as Kathy’s, and although the entries were undated, it was obviously a journal.

Yet another mystery, Isabelle thought, for Kathy had never held with the business of keeping a journal—or at least not in all the time that they’d lived together.

“If people want to find out about me,” she’d said once, “they can read my stories. Everything I want anybody to know about me is in them.” Apparently, she’d changed her mind.

II

Marisa felt guilty taking Alan’s bed from him while he slept on the sofa, but as usual, once he’d made up his mind there was no arguing with him. His gentlemanly quota was as high as ever—a feature of his personality that she found both endearing and frustrating. Just for once she wished he wouldn’t feel the need to always do the right thing. If he could just have put aside his sense of decency for one night and come to bed with her—it didn’t have to be a lifetime commitment; just for tonight. Much as she cared for him, she wasn’t so sure she was ready for any long-term commitment ever again anyway. All she wanted was to be held through the night, held by someone who cared about her. Who understood her.

But that wasn’t Alan, and she hadn’t been able to quite muster enough courage to ask him, so she found herself lying in his big bed on her own, listening to the sound of his washing up in the bathroom, followed by the creaking of the sofa’s springs as he shifted from one position to another, trying to get comfortable.

She didn’t think she’d ever fall asleep. Her head was too full of a bewildering jumble of worries and emotions. Questions prowled through her mind without respite. What was George going to do when it finally sank in that she’d really walked out on him? What was going to happen to her? How was her relationship with Alan going to be affected? What did she even want out of their relationship? When was she going to take control of her own life for a change?

Leaving George was a step in the right direction, she knew, but it had left her in a state of limbo. If only Isabelle hadn’t come back into the picture. If only she’d had the courage to leave George earlier—even a week ago would have been time enough. Or was that it at all? Perhaps she’d been waiting for this situation to arise, for Alan to be taken, before she could make the move on her own. That seemed to be perverse enough to fit into the constant mess she made of her life.

When she finally fell asleep, it was to dream of a face looking in at her through the bedroom window.

She couldn’t tell if it was male or female, friendly or hostile; if it was some anima risen up from her subconscious, panicking at what she had done, or a night muse looking in on her with approval, eyes dark with the promise of what was to come. All she knew for sure was that when she woke in the morning, she was alone in the bed and there was no one at the window.

She rose, still wearing Alan’s shirt, and went into the living room, where she watched him sleeping for a few moments before going on into the kitchen to brew some coffee. When she returned to the living room, two mugs in hand, Alan was sitting up, blinking sleep from his eyes. She didn’t know the details of the dreams he’d been having just before he woke up, but judging from how his penis lifted the sheet up between his legs, they hadn’t been chaste.

Were they about Isabelle or me? Marisa found herself wondering.

He bunched up the bedclothes onto his lap and blushed, but he didn’t look away.

Me, she realized. He’s been dreaming about me.

The realization both excited and scared her. She sat down on the coffee table in front of the sofa and placed the two mugs beside her. Alan reached for her hands and she wasn’t sure if he was simply comforting her as he had last night, or if he was about to draw her to him on the sofa.

What about Isabelle? she wanted to ask him, not sure she even wanted to know.

But before she could speak, before he could reveal his intentions, before she could find out if this impulse toward intimacy came from his heart or from what had sprung up between his legs when he woke, the doorbell rang. They both jumped, starting with a guilt she knew neither of them should be feeling. Alan let go of her hands.

“I, uh, I’m not wearing anything,” he said.

Marisa couldn’t resist making a small joke. “Not even a bow tie?” she asked. The small grin he returned helped diffuse the awkwardness of the moment. “Do you want me to answer that?” she added.

“If you don’t mind.”

As she went to get the door, Alan fled into his bedroom, trailing a sheet. Marisa hoped whoever this was wouldn’t take long. Last night’s indecision had fled and she was determined to grasp the moment as it arose. But when she opened the door it was to find two strangers in waiting in the hall. They both wore dark suits that seemed to have been bought off the same rack. The smaller man had dark hair combed back from his forehead and a thin mustache that followed the contour of his upper lip, giving him the outdated air of a forties ladies’ man. His companion had short brown hair and broad, placid features that seemed at odds with the sharp intensity of his gaze. The smaller man, standing to her right, held up a billfold to show his identification.