Unquiet Dreams Read online

  "Celia, did you let Pogo out?" Kari asked, turning around. No Celia. She walked to the closet and pulled the door back open. "Celia!"

  From the darkness, a rustle. "I'm—I'm sorry."

  "It's all right, we just have to find him, before he gets out of the room and off into the kitchen or something. That one time he crawled under the dishwasher, he wouldn't come out for three days. Boy, was my dad mad!"

  "I—I sort of let him out, b-b-but—"

  "Yeah? Well, did you see where he went?" Kari was already looking into the netherworld under the bed. "C'm'ere Pogo! Hey, boy!"

  Celia took a hesitant step out of the closet. "Um, I mean…I mean… I'm really really sorry, but I couldn't help it, I really couldn't, I don't want you to be mad at me, you're my only friend now and—" but Celia was overcome by the flow of tears and covered her face with her cold little hands.

  Kari brushed off her knees and stood up, hands on hips. "What did you do with Pogo?"

  "I didn't mean to!" Kari continued to stare stonily at her. Celia turned her back to her friend. "I really didn't mean to do it but—I ate him!"

  "What!" Kari grabbed Celia and spun her around. "You ate my hamster!"

  "I didn't mean to!"

  "How could you eat little Pogo!" Anger lost way to sorrow, sorrow to tears. "Now we can't even have a funeral, like we did for Snowball." Kari wiped the tears from her cheeks, but more quickly followed them.

  "I didn't mean to, it just sort of happened. I was just so hungry and it's the first thing that sounded—good," Celia finished lamely. "I'm really sorry, Kari. I am. I know it doesn't bring him back, but I am. And if I can make it up—"

  "How?" Kari sniffled but she was listening.

  Celia thought about it. "I think I still have my allowance in my piggy bank. I could sneak in at night and get it and get you another hamster. It's not the same, I know," she added quickly, "But then you won't be lonely."

  "I suppose."

  "And I didn't get a funeral either, so it's not too terrible."

  "You did," Kari countered. "I was there. I wore my navy blue church dress."

  Celia looked surprised. "How did they have a funeral without me?"

  Kari chewed her lip. "Well, it was kind of different. There wasn't any coffin, just people saying things about how nice you were and such a sweet little girl—they didn't know you very well, did they?" Kari laughed.

  "Ha, ha," Celia responded, pretending to be offended, but smiling at her friend.

  "I was really sad thinking about not seeing you again."

  "Did you cry?"

  "Yes. But then there was cake and lasagna and cookies and all kinds of stuff, so we pigged out big time."

  "Must have been nice," Celia said wistfully.

  ***

  Kari rubbed her eyes sleepily, then smiled. Saturday morning! And Saturday morning, rain or shine, late night or early, good times or bad—Saturday morning meant pancakes, hot, golden brown pancakes, with real maple syrup from Granny Elizabeth's farm in Vermont. It was a tradition, one her folks looked forward to as much as Kari herself did. Whatever the rest of the week might be, Saturday morning was olly-olly-oxen-free. Her Mommy and dad didn't argue about The Bills in the mail marked URGENT. If their voices were loud, it was because they were laughing, or tickling Kari, or her dad was lifting her up over his shoulders, crying "Let's throw her to the moon, Alice!" even though her mommy's name wasn't Alice. She liked it so much when her folks were laughing.

  Kari stretched and looked across the bed. No Celia. Now where? Maybe she went home, Kari thought hopefully. There had been that awkward moment in the middle of the night when Kari had awoken to the distinctly unpleasant sensation of Celia chewing on her arm. And although Celia was really, really sorry again, Kari was more than a little tired of her friend's strange habits. She knew she was supposed to be tolerant of the differences of others, like Ms. Gordon had taught them in class, but this wasn't like having a different god or skin color. It was unsanitary to say the least, Kari knew her mother would say. Unsanitary—get the hand sanitizer! Celia was going to have to go home, if she had not already.

  Kari scented the air like a questing hyena. Hmph—no smell of pancakes yet. Mommy must have overslept. Time to get her out of bed with a flying leap. They might grumble at first, but her folks were always glad it was Saturday too. Hey, maybe they could go to Grand River Park today, too, and feed the ducks. It was a beautiful sunny day, full of possibilities.

  Kari hitched up her PJ bottoms and hopped out of bed. Her feet made a small sound as she pattered down the hall to Mommy and Dad's room. The door remained closed. But just as Kari reached for the doorknob, the door opened and Celia squirmed out. She wiped her mouth with her hand but left behind a red smear. Kari heard her gulp, but Celia kept staring down at her dirty shoes, still covered with the mud and sticks from that shallow grave in the forest.

  "What? What's the matter?"

  Celia looked up at last, her eyes brimming with tears. "Oh, Kari, I'm really, really, really sorry…"

  Lavender

  I smelled lavender again today.

  Nigel would bring me lavender from his walks across the fields, throw his arms around my shoulders and smother me in a hug. Lavender: the scent that meant his absence, his return. He would never come back now. But now and then the lavender's perfume arrived, bidding me remember, remember.

  I turned back to the dishes drying in the rack, but the mundane task held little appeal now. A breeze carried the aroma of the roses blooming outside the back door. On impulse, I dropped the towel and stepped out the screen door. In a moment I was enveloped by the rich fragrance of the thorny climbers and by the dazzling warmth of the midday sun. Its touch felt like the embrace of love.

  I passed under the arch, where the white-spotted ivy twined, and limped over to my little herb garden. Nigel always laughed at my attempts to domesticate "the wild," those unknown forests and streams where I could not follow him.

  The sage towered proudly and the basil plants waved, as if yearning to become pesto. The mint threatened once more to burst beyond its careful hedging, and the cilantro had shot up another inch over night. But in the center, my pride and joy, the lavender seemed to be multiplying as I watched. The scent was heavenly. Last year it had barely survived—just goes to show what the right fertilizer can do. "And you won't leave ever again, will you, Nigel?"

  Walpurgisnacht

  Walther knew. But he could not resist; what ten-year-old could? Every year was the same. Grandmother Dunkelhaus would shake her finger at him and warn, "Walpurgisnacht, the devil's night—you stay indoors. Devils, witches, ghosts—they come, they get little boys, eat you." Then she would snap together her shiny wooden teeth—clack!—as if she knew the flights of witches first hand.

  But this year—tonight!—he would know, he and Elsa. "We must see," they had promised one another. Walther slipped out this afternoon, to sleep a while in the orchard as Elsa had suggested. The nap should help him stay awake tonight. He had put apples in his rucksack and a handful of matches—also Elsa's idea. She swore she would sneak away with a lamp. He looked around the room; never know what you might need. His woolen cap and sweater would keep him warm—spring was on the calendar, but not in the night air.

  Downstairs his family gathered round the fire. Its crackles and sparks echoed up here in the garret, where they all assumed their youngest slept. But Walther waited for Elsa, his rucksack on his shoulder, his eyes eagerly seeking through the darkness. A movement: only leaves, caught by the tempestuous wind, they whirled and danced, begging someone to join their waltz. Walther cocked his ear back toward the group downstairs but heard only the familiar murmuring argument, Gran and Grandfather arguing still, as they had these sixty odd years.

  Another whispering movement, this one with legs. Elsa beckoned from the oak tree, almost disappearing in its enormous girth. Walther lifted up the window silently, swinging himself over the sill, hanging for a moment, then dropping to the ground te
n feet below and rolling as he hit the ground. The apples would be bruised.

  "Wally. Here." Elsa swung a lantern by her side. A battered rucksack lay at the foot of the gnarled tree. "Did you bring the matches?"

  "Yes, a lot of them. Good kitchen matches, wooden."

  Her grey eyes caught the moon's bright glow and reflected it back to him despite the fading bruise below her left one. Elsa's face, wind-swept and tear-stained, tilted up at him, her decisive chin jutting out. "Let's go," she said, taking his offered hand.

  The two children ran between the darkened trees, feeling the limbs bend down in concern as if trying to stop their flight. Out of sight of the house they slowed their pace, their breaths making curlicues in the night air.

  "Did they suspect?" Elsa asked, wiping her dripping nose.

  "No, no one even checked on me—not that they normally do," Walther hastened to add, a man after all at age ten. "And no one noticed that I was gone this afternoon either. I feel quite awake."

  "I got this too," Elsa said and stopped to root through her rucksack. She pulled out a flask that had perhaps seen action in the Great War. "Coffee. Help us stay awake. It's cold," she added with regret, "But I think it will still work."

  "I've never had coffee before. Well, once. I sipped my Gran's coffee. She said it would put hair on my chest."

  "Did it?" Elsa shook the flask and the contents sloshed noisily.

  "No," Walther kicked the ground, wishing he had thought to bring coffee. "But I did feel stronger."

  "Come, we have to walk faster. It will be midnight soon."

  "Did you bring a watch?"

  Elsa halted and whirled around. "Damn!"

  "Elsa, don't swear. God will punish you."

  "God doesn't know I exist."

  "God knows everything."

  Elsa laughed. "Such a good little boy, a good little boy."

  "Am not. I'm grown up."

  "Oh, I don't know about that—never had coffee, never can swear."

  "Do you think we should go back and get a watch?" Walther asked, trying hard to change the unpleasant subject.

  Elsa pondered the question, pulling her wool socks back up over her knees which looked bluish and cold by the light of the indifferent moon. "No, I'm sure we'll see them all. It should make quite a ruckus after all. Your Gran says she hears them all the way in your house."

  "I think Gran fibs though," Walther admitted.

  "Perhaps she exaggerates, but come on, it has to make a lot of noise, all that dancing and drinking and wild songs. I'm surprised that we haven't heard it in the past."

  "We were too young," Walther said wisely. "Now that we are older we will go and see it for ourselves and we will be able to tell the others all about it. How envious Marta and Lulu will be when we tell them." Walther could see himself telling them, pretending to be bored by it all as if Walpurgisnacht came every night and he had flown with the witches a thousand times or more.

  "We're here," Elsa said quietly. Walther roused himself from his daydream, saw the cold granite wall of the cemetery before them and shivered. Suddenly the adventure seemed less welcoming than his warm goose-down bed.

  "How do we get in? The gate is locked."

  Elsa stared at him. One eyebrow arched upward in the derision he knew so well. "What? You can jump out a window but you can't climb a fence? Boost me."

  Walther bent over dutifully and clasped his hands. Elsa put one ill-fitting shoe in his palms and vaulted up, giving Walther a brief glance of her switch-scarred thigh. "You should have worn trousers. You'll be cold."

  Elsa regarded him haughtily from the top of the wall, but said nothing and swung her legs over. He heard her landing 'plop' on the other side. He shrugged off his rucksack and threw it as gently as he could over the wall. Elsa must have caught it, for he did not hear it land. Inhaling deeply, Walther gathered himself and leapt. In vain his fingers fumbled at the cold surface and he slid back down. One two three, and again inhale—this time his fingers caught and, feet pedaling like mad, Walther pulled himself up to the top of the wall. Down below Elsa waited, her hair touched by moonlight, her eyes grown large in the darkness. Someday we will be married, Walther thought helplessly, then threw himself down to the ground beside her.

  "I know where we should go," Elsa hissed, whispering as if the dead might hear. She led him over to the Wahlberg crypt with its big angel and mourner's bench. They lit the lantern and sipped the coffee, which both declared delicious, so delicious that they would save it for later. Walther put his arm around Elsa to try to keep her warm and was almost at once asleep.

  ***

  The sound that awoke them was neither a cry nor a scream, but a song. It was not a melody they knew. Suddenly conscious, Walther mistook the singing for his father's snores, reached for the covers he must have kicked off—and suddenly noticed where he was. Elsa's jaw hung low, her mouth forming an 'o' as she stared at the scene before them.

  Witches, mad witches, gathered around a sparkling bonfire, chanting their happy praises to the night and waving sticks about. Corpses danced—a waltz, a mazurka, a reel of unknown origin, their wasted limbs carelessly free as they swung their partners high and laughed and bowed. Were they devils over there?—demons, maybe—that leaped about in some wild game, running back and forth, hiding behind the crypts, their shaggy hindquarters a curious surprise attached to their manly torsos. And there! In the sky, barely over the goat-men's heads, ethereal will-o-wisp women, seemingly made of little more than moonbeams and dust, whirled and swooped and shrieked in glee. The night was alive with shouts and motion. Everywhere they looked some ghoulish creature jigged or crooned or guffawed with pleasure. Joyous music rose—from where did it come? There! The few spindly trees that usually hung silent and brooding over the solemnity of the graveyard, tonight rubbed spidery branches together for a cricket's song, a lively tune that led the dancers and lifted the spirits.

  "Walther," whispered Elsa, breathless, "It's all true."

  "Stay back," Walther hissed, grabbing her hand. Elsa turned in surprise, her eyes a-glitter with the dazzling scene before them. "You don't know what they'll do! Evil, Elsa, they're devils."

  "Ha," Elsa shook off his grip, "They're not devils. Devils don't dance."

  Walther stopped to consider this logic and she, laughing, ran from him to join the revelers. At once a space broke in the ring of dancers, hands reached out to welcome the little girl into the circle. Around and round the open grave they wound, throwing laughter and cries up to the skies, a merriment of sinless delight.

  "Come back," Walther said weakly and even the gentle breeze did not carry his words far. But he could not make his feet move. The words of the Reverend Lochrie bound him fast—such beings were demons, they imperiled your soul. No matter that their raucous, giddy sounds beckoned in endless joy. Happiness was not to be trusted; the way of God was hard.

  Yet Elsa danced—and laughed—imagine! Elsa laughing. The bonfire flickered in her face, her eyes—rapture flew from her lips as song. But still his feet were lead, were stone. Grandmother Dunkelhaus' words came unbidden, "They get little boys, eat you!" Walther realized he had clutched his rucksack protectively before him as if its battered sides could shield him from the devil's spawn. Elsa took no such precautions. Her rucksack lay behind him on the bench, abandoned.

  Then the clock began to strike.

  What time was it? How long had he stood transfixed by the spectacle? The second bell and the dancers stopped, dropping hands with a palpable reluctance and many wistful glances. A third chime and the witches stamped on their roaring bonfire, swatting at it with their sticks and brooms, still caught by their infectious laughter and dancing away from the lively sparks. A fourth chime—how many more could there be? Was that the dawn peeking over the edge of the world so soon?—and the goat-men and the whispering sprites sprinted for the cover of the woods at the far side of the cemetery. They called back and forth, promises of revels yet to be, stories of the night that was.


  Fifth bell and the witches mounted, each testing the winds with a wet finger in the air, each choosing her own course. There! A very old witch, surely two or three hundred years by the look of her wrinkles and her grey, tasseled locks, but with the gentle face of somebody's grandmother—despite a leering scar that raked her kindly cheek. She offered a hand to Elsa, who took it gladly, without looking back.

  That broke the spell. Walther's feet moved and he thrust his rucksack from him, running pell-mell to catch her, to stop her—maybe, just maybe, to join her. But the final bell was ringing and Elsa was waving, a grin lighting up her face as if the bonfire now burned within her heart. Elsa, Elsa; he couldn't even yell her name, it was too late, she was gone gone gone like the last echoing knell of the bell. But two words echoed back, two words of magic, flying from the receding spark of fire. Two words that gave him hope, that made his heart yearn and the dreams live yet in his breast. "Next year!"

  Yuletide Feast

  He was old. An unfathomable number of their years, not that she could count so much. Her kind did not live so long. But he—enormous and old—was very, very dead in the frigid night. Nesting covered his body, the way it did all of them, as if it to make up for the fur they didn't have. Naked they were under it, almost all of them (though this one had some fur not just on his head, but other places too). But not enough; that fur and his nesting covered him, but still he froze.

  The nesting; this was a problem. She ran up and down the length of him, pointy nose and whiskers busy, hairless tail sweeping for any missed information. It might be some time before the others came, but came they always did. And they would take him away before she could figure a way. Cold, so cold; if it were only herself, she would take her chances and start gnawing. But her nest was full of little ones, little ones who hungered. If she could just get enough to hole up until the weather was warmer…