The Dream Peddler Read online

  When Cora looked up, they could see that her eyes were outlined with pink, and the flirtation that usually flashed inside them was flattened now and dead. George walked over to the counter and placed his hand on hers. He meant to be helpful, but the cold of it made her start.

  “Mr. Dawson,” she rasped, cleared her throat. “Mr. Bachmeier was here.”

  He nodded. He clutched her hand and petted it.

  “That’s all right, Cora,” he told her. “That’s all right.”

  No other word made it into the air through the tightly closing silence, but they all understood that the search had been called off now, and they could go home and they would have to tell their wives to take out their black suits and brush them off, check for the small moth holes and mend them. They let their heads fall prayerfully forward because that’s what you did, and you kept your eyes down. This was out of respect, but also because no one wished to look George Dawson in the face.

  As George shuffled home with Sam through the stubborn whiteness, he was surprised to feel some tears trying to slither out from his eyes, but they froze in his lashes. It was too cold even to snow, too sharp for that kind of softening, and part of him was relieved to know now that Ben did not suffer this cold. And part of him could not even grasp that Ben was beyond the winter, beyond the world, would never feel it tugging at his body ever again. He was able to freeze and thaw and be immune, could be eaten, even, by pale, patient grubs curling underground and would nevermore feel a thing.

  * * *

  * * *

  The men arrived home, and George found himself looking at his own door in a way he never had before. He had painted it green because that was Evie’s favorite color, but when he entered there, his mind’s eye always leaped forward to what was inside, the beautiful form of his wife turning toward him and the impish laugh of his son.

  Now he could not cross over. For the first time in his life, he did not want to enter here, and he noticed how the rain and the damp of the bay had slunk under the paint and blistered, lifting it up in places from the underside. He pressed the handle and went in. The first eyes he saw there were Rose’s, dark and dry.

  “Upstairs,” she told him.

  He lifted each knee steadily over the risers of the stairs, hearing the thud of his foot dropping onto each one.

  He looked into his own bedroom, where Evie was lying on the bed, curled onto her side. She seemed unaware of him, though her eyes were open and staring out the window where the snow was trying to emerge again, its white thoughts skimming out of the night’s dark mind and wheeling back. He paused in the doorway, watching her, then went to the next door, which was his son’s. Ben, too, was lying in his bed, and someone had covered him up to his chin with the blanket. George went over to him and looked down at the closed face. The skin was no longer a natural color, but the features were the same, the round bump of nose, the curved seams of mouth and eyes. He touched the cold hair, and it was still damp. He sat on the edge of the bed and drew back the blanket enough to take the small hand in his own. When he was done holding the hand, he replaced it gently by the hip where it had lain and pulled the blanket up carefully. It was only the stillness that was strange. He had visited Ben many times before like this, brushing the hair away from his eyebrows and sometimes bending to the peaceful forehead with his own lips, but always there had been that breath, the measured rise of the belly under its covers, the whispered release of air as it went down again, more of a warmth of life in the room than a fully formed sound.

  After he tucked Ben back in, he went to his own bed. He sat on it to remove his boots but did not bother to undress. He opened his side of the bedclothes and jostled in next to his wife. He wasn’t sure if she would want him to put his arms around her, but he did it anyway, pressing his face into the hair at the nape of her neck. It smelled familiar, like baking and smoke. She said nothing but covered his hand with her own, her sign of welcome. With his arms around her, he cried into her back, tears and tears until her hair was wet like their son’s.

  Evie lay awake listening. The house flexed its joints one by one, and George shuddered the bed around her with his soundless sobs. When the tremors subsided, she knew he slept, and eventually she heard his soft snore behind her. That snore had made her crazy with rage many nights. It was such a small noise, so unassuming, as if even in his sleep he would not have disturbed her, would do anything, in fact, for her comfort. Yet it didn’t matter how small it was; it could keep her own sleep at bay for hours, as if sleep were a timid animal circling, giving a wide berth to the slightest sounds. She had seethed, wanting to clamp her hand over his face. Whenever she shoved him and rolled him over, the sound would cease, but it was only a matter of time until it resumed. It was like pushing a bar of Ivory soap underwater again and again only to watch it resurface, unsinkable.

  Tonight she was grateful for the snuffle at her back, this familiar something to listen to. The darkness stroked her for hours, the snoring sucked at her thoughts until she was hollowed out, and she stretched into senselessness. She felt a prayer welling up from her heart that the night would go on, and the sounds of George breathing be the only thing she would ever hear, and the light never come again to her eyes and make them see. But at the edge of the bare, blackened trees, the sky began to flush, its first low streak spreading upward slow and sneaking, until the waking face of the world was a reddened sadness burning. She sat up.

  Yes, she thought to it. That is the way of you. This is your shame.

  Chapter 8

  Robert skulked across the street from the church and watched them come. After that diamond-hard day of cold when Benjamin Dawson was found, the weather had loosened and the ice had given up its hold. Warmth came creeping in, abashed, and things began to drip. Melting icicles pocked the snow below them, and the sleepy surface of the bay broke up so it moved and lived again.

  Outside the church the mourners hitched their horses and drifted together. They stood talking in low voices or turning their solemn faces toward the sun that tried halfheartedly to warm them from its field of clouds. Eventually the street quieted, and he knew the funeral was beginning when he heard the organ halt in its prelude, pause as if uncertain what to do next, and drizzle out the opening bars of “Nearer My God to Thee.” There was the frayed sound of voices staggering upward into song. Up and down the singing wandered while Robert listened, thinking that to raise one’s voice in mourning should be a wail and a tuneless keening, and hymnals had no business here.

  It was Violet playing the organ. She had left the house well before him, expecting him to follow her later, but now that he was here, he couldn’t go in. He’d been no use to Benjamin’s parents, had only floundered after George Dawson that day in the snow like a child pretending to help, and even his little hopeful vial had done nothing. He stood outside waiting for Violet, thankful the cold had eased.

  When the wood doors opened, he took an instinctive step back and watched a shrunken casket ride out on the shoulders of four stooped men. The people who had faltered into the church now spilled out of it fast, like pumped water. Robert saw the casket floating along on this dark river, past him into the cemetery’s moored fleet of stones. Following behind was the family—Robert recognized George, so the dark-haired woman beside him must be Ben’s mother. Close on their heels was an older couple he thought would be her parents, clasping each other’s hand. The father kept reaching forward to try to place his free hand on his daughter’s shoulder, until it seemed to dawn on him they could not walk like that.

  Robert found himself staring at Mrs. Dawson’s face. His chest seized at its familiarity. It wasn’t her features so much as her expression. He had known it, he felt, once before, in the last look he’d seen on another beautiful face, a face he had loved. He remembered the surprise of seeing no more pain in her eyes, only blank disbelief.

  He could see that the tears had been shocked out of the boy’s family;
wetness had left their bodies, just as breath does after a certain kind of fall. Weepers trailed after them as the rest of the mourners proceeded across the road, leaving a little fearful distance between themselves and the clump of stricken family. Men held the backs of their women steady with their work-worn palms, the rough, red shell of their knuckles turned toward the air. It was a parade of adults and only the oldest children, as though the Pied Piper had passed through town the night before. All the littlest children were at home eating Evie’s cookies under the watchful eyes of their grandmothers.

  Sturdy laced winter boots shuffled through the melting snow beneath the dark funereal finery. They seemed to say that this was all that might be done; there was no such thing here as fancy boots, and working farm life would resume as soon as it could to turn the earth over this interlude of helplessness. In the graveyard they gathered around the pine coffin and the minister’s murmuring as they might have around a fire. The ground was still frozen. A small pile of ceremonial earth was mounded nearby for the mourners to sift from their fists over the boy’s wooden roof. When this ritual was over, the casket was left politely in the graveyard. Only in private would it be removed to the shed where it must be stored until the earth had softened.

  Robert shrank back as the people again filed past. They would go to Dr. Whiting’s home now for some cakes and a muffled tea service. Robert thought he would wait there to take Violet home, but really it was Evelyn Dawson he wanted to see again. The damage done. Like a truant he slipped behind a big tree and hid there. He stood at an angle so the tree was between himself and the people as they spread out from the cemetery gate, and then he came forward.

  The only person who turned and saw him was Evie. His stare had spun her around like a tug. She did it quickly, as George was guiding her toward their sleigh, and fixed her gray eyes on Robert’s face. Did she know who he was? Or did she wonder? He couldn’t tell from her expression, and she did not look at him very long. As fast as it flashed away, though, Robert felt it lingering on him like a touch. He never even saw Violet pass on the other side of the road, and as all the horses were untied and all the people climbed into buggies and rolled away, Robert stood alone, the snow shadows creeping toward him. He stood so deep in his own silence that he was unaware even of the much larger silence around him.

  Until it was disturbed by something shuffling in the snow behind him, muffling its own breath, stopping now and again as if to measure a safe distance from him. Robert stepped back to where he could look along the blue edge of snow behind the graveyard wall. A hatted, mittened creature dented the drift, its rough tracks dotting and dragging away behind it, a little patch of wetness under its nose, which it wiped away on the sleeve of its coat.

  “Hello,” said Robert.

  The boy shifted. He seemed undecided about bolting away or coming still closer. Robert smiled, and the boy took one step nearer. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Robert Owens.”

  Another step. “I don’t know you.”

  “No, you wouldn’t. I’ve just come to town.”

  “Did we get a new schoolmaster?”

  “No, you’ve got a new dream peddler.”

  “A dream peddler? What’s that?”

  Robert stooped down and scooped up some snow. He shaped it between his gloves while he spoke. “A dream peddler is a person who can make magic potions. Stir up any kind of a dream you want, and after you drink it, you have your best-ever dream.”

  The boy looked up at him. Mixed with the wonder in his eyes was a twinkling suspicion, common to little brothers who had often been teased. “Gosh. I’ve never heard of that.”

  “It might be I’m the only one.”

  “Oh.” He rubbed at his freckles. He seemed to be thinking. “I don’t see why they had to keep us away. We all know he’s dead.”

  “Yes.”

  “And we’re not allowed to go skating on the bay anymore. Not till next year.”

  “I imagine not.” Robert studied him. Now that he’d made up his mind to acquaintance, the boy did not seem to be shy.

  “Did you see his dead body?”

  “No. I’ve been waiting out here, but I didn’t go in.”

  “Wouldn’t they let you in either?”

  “Didn’t seem right. Strangers don’t go to funerals.”

  “But then why are you standing out here in the cold?”

  “I don’t know.” Robert pulled up his collar. “And yourself? Why are you here in the cold?”

  The boy pointed to a distant spot beyond the gravestones, where a lumped-up, lopsided snowman leaned into the trees. “I’m not supposed to be here. They wouldn’t let me come. It’s not fair. I wanted to, but everyone said I was too young.” He squared his shoulders. “I’m eight, you know.”

  “I see.”

  “I’m Alistair McBryde, and I sat close to Ben in school, only we called him Dawson, and we even played baseball together, too. Sometimes.” He kicked at the snow. “He was our fastest runner. Faster even than Richie Smith Elk. His daddy’s an Indian.”

  “Ah.” Robert eyed the sky, where the light was beginning to give, to yellow away from white like aging cloth. “Won’t someone soon be looking for you?”

  Alistair sniffled. “I don’t care.”

  “Well, I should be getting inside where it’s warm. So I can have my supper. I expect you’ll want to do the same.”

  He touched his hat and turned away. He heard no more sounds from the boy behind, and he knew that Alistair must be watching him walk down the road beyond the low wall, until he would turn the corner. He and the stump of snowman staring where Robert had tracked through the snow.

  When he arrived back at Violet’s, she jumped from her chair in the parlor and headed out to the kitchen, as if she’d been waiting on him to start supper. He poked his head in to see her shifting pots around, lifting lids and clanging them down, her corseted back to him rigid under her dress.

  “Everything all right?” he asked.

  She turned. “Of course it’s all right.” She walked to her pantry, and while she scanned its shelves, she said, “You weren’t at the service, were you? I thought you said you intended to come.”

  “I realized I didn’t belong there. How could I say good-bye to someone I never knew?”

  “I see.” She stalked out of the pantry empty-handed, then walked back in and took out the day’s bread. She lifted the lid on her butter dish to check the contents.

  “It was a lovely service. Instead of flowers they had . . . Evie or someone had put spruce boughs down, mounds and mounds of them, and the whole church smelled like Christmas. I suppose flowers would have been impossible, and this was so much finer and fresher. . . . Just like a forest . . . for a little boy . . .”

  She put the bread down. Robert broke her rule about crossing into the kitchen. He reached into his pocket and unfurled a white handkerchief like a magician, and Violet took it.

  * * *

  * * *

  The moon had risen early, almost full like a white face turning away. The dream peddler put on his coat and went out into the sunset. Each house he passed exhaled a warm food smell into the road—a puff of bread baking, smoke. All the townspeople had gone in for supper, and he felt as if the houses themselves were now watching him, the flickers of light at their windows following him down Main Street and out of town. He walked away from them all, from the church and the store, and the distance between the buildings stretched like blankness between snowflakes at the end of a storm. The snow funneled the quiet toward his bootsteps and past, his movements swallowed like sound.

  He left his tracks across the snow of a farmer he did not yet know. The bay tried to hide herself behind the trees, and as he snaked his way through the sparse fringe of saplings that leaned over the edge of the ice, his boots slipped under him. He thrust out his arms to grab at stunted trunks and s
teady himself. From then on he took each step on its own, pausing between them to stay upright, listening as he went farther out for the deep shock of sound, a first crack crazing away from him into its surface. Behind him the sunset flared, and the sky glittered with the gold underbellies of birds as they wheeled through it.

  He remembered Evelyn Dawson, with the same feeling of a hand pressing into his chest, over the cave of his heart. If she had not been outside the town life before, she would be now. And he remembered her mother behind her, looking so like her that it was as if Evelyn’s shadow were cast not by light then but time.

  Over the back of the bay, the gray shadows rose. Out there in the thickest darkness, where the white ice turned black, a person might break through and be lost. Even here, he thought, if the burden were heavy enough, it might smash its way under and be carried away by the brackish current. He lifted a feeling of relief from that thought, pictured the dark, heavy water dense as tar. He imagined bending in supplication and tapping a small hole into the surface, putting his face to the hole like an egg painter blowing out an egg. Every secret of the past could be breathed down into it, and he could replace that water with all his breath.

  * * *

  * * *

  Afterward Evie would think it was strange she’d been able to rise and dress herself to attend Ben’s funeral.