Home>>read The Edge of Dreams free online

The Edge of Dreams(43)

By:Rhys Bowen


We were helped down from the cab and mounted the flight of steps to a green-painted front door. It was opened by a maid, and we were led through into a front parlor. Here the air of elegance and obviously good furniture was spoiled by subtle hints that this was a household of four boys. The carpet and sofa were a little the worse for wear. There were lead soldiers lying under one of the chairs. Before we could take a seat Mrs. Hamilton herself appeared. She looked flustered, with wisps of hair escaping from her bun.

“Miss Walcott, Miss Goldfarb, Mrs. Sullivan. How very good of you to come, and so rapidly too. I must apologize about the state of the place. The boys were playing at war and I’ve just had to banish them to the nursery with threats of dire consequences if they dare to make a noise or show their faces.”

We smiled with understanding as she went on, talking quickly and with agitation. “Mabel had another of her nightmares last night and I insisted that she keep to her bed today. So perhaps you wouldn’t mind coming upstairs to see her?”

“Does she know we are coming, and why we are here?” Sid asked.

“I informed her that some ladies wanted to see if they could help her with her bad dreams and she put up no resistance. In fact she has been no trouble since she came here. She has always struck me as such a sweet child, which is why…” She broke off as her voice choked up.

We went up a broad flight of carpeted stairs, then a second flight, narrower and not carpeted. Mrs. Hamilton went ahead of us. “I’ll just make sure she is not sleeping,” she said in a low whisper. She tapped on the door, then put her head around it. “Mabel, dear, are you awake?”

“Yes, Aunt Minnie,” we heard a little voice say.

“I’ve brought some ladies to see you,” Mrs. Hamilton said gently and ushered us into the room.

My first impression of Mabel was that I was looking at a French bisque doll with enormous blue eyes and corn-colored hair. She was so pale that she almost merged into the whiteness of the pillows behind her head. She sat up and looked at us with apprehension as we crowded into her small bedroom.

“Hello, Mabel.” Gus took the initiative. “I’m Miss Walcott, and these are my friends Miss Goldfarb and Mrs. Sullivan. Your aunt asked us to come because of the nightmares you’ve been having since the awful tragedy. Your aunt wondered if I could help you, as I’ve been learning how to interpret dreams.”

“My aunt told me,” Mabel said.

“May I sit down?” Gus said, pulling up a chair beside the bed. “And my friends can sit on the window seat in the sun, unless you’d prefer that they wait in another room while we have our talk?”

“It’s all right. They can stay,” Mabel said in a resigned voice.

We sat. Shafts of sunlight painted stripes on the flowered wallpaper, highlighting the only color in the otherwise white room.

I could tell that Gus didn’t know how to begin.

“Mabel,” I said. “We were so sorry to learn about your parents. What an awful thing to have lived through. It’s no wonder you are having bad dreams. I did too, after my house burned down.”

She turned to look at me, trying to sum up whether my words were genuine.

“Your house burned down too?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Did anyone die? Anyone not get out?”

“Our little servant girl,” I said. “She died protecting my son. It still haunts me. I think I know a little how you feel.”

She sat in silence for a while and then said, “I can’t believe they are gone. I just didn’t believe it when Aunt Minnie told me. I mean, not my papa. How could it be? He was so big and strong. I keep expecting to hear the front door slam and his big voice yelling, ‘Where’s my Princess Mabel?’”

She looked down at her sheet, smoothing it with a tiny white hand. “I keep asking myself how I could get out when he didn’t.”

“You don’t remember getting out?” Gus said. “Maybe there was a fire escape outside your window and not outside theirs?”

She shook her head. “It was the other way around. The fire escape was outside their window, not mine. And I don’t remember anything at all. Not the fire. Not getting out. Nothing, until I woke up and these faces were over me and someone said ‘She’s alive. God be praised.’”

“So how do you think you got out?” Gus asked.

“I’ve no idea. Unless I walked in my sleep.”

“Do you walk in your sleep sometimes?” Gus asked.

“Sometimes. I used to more when I was little. But how could I not have woken up if there was a fire and flames all around me?”