The Cure for Dreaming(18)

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Did your father say something to you?”

“I . . . um . . .” I balled my hands into fists. “I . . . Oh, criminy. When I tell you what just happened, you’re going to think I’ve gone nutty.”

“Just tell me. You’re clearly not yourself. Wait—” She sat up straight, her brown eyes enormous. “Oh . . . This doesn’t have anything to do with Percy, does it?”

“No. It has to do with Monsieur Henri Reverie, the marvel of the new century . . . and all that other hogwash.”

She knitted her eyebrows. “The hypnotist?”

“Yes. He hypnotized me again, just now, in Father’s office.”

“What? Why?”

“Father heard . . .” I braced my back against the wardrobe. “He found out I was at the rally yesterday. He thinks I’m turning into my mother. He decided I needed my unfeminine thoughts removed from my brain.”

Frannie’s mouth fell open. “What? No! Did he really say such a thing?”

“I’ve heard horror stories of troublesome daughters and wives getting sent away to asylums. I’ve read Nellie Bly’s Ten Days in a Mad-House. What if this is only the first step?”

“What did that hypnotist do to you?”

“Henri told me”—I rubbed my forehead—“I’d see the world the way it truly is, and the roles of men and women would be clearer than they’ve ever been before. I don’t think my father understood what that meant. I’m not sure I do, either . . . Your father looks like someone we can trust. But my father . . .” I tucked my hands behind my back, between the wardrobe and my lower spine, to quiet the tremors shaking through my fingers.

Frannie leaned forward. “Your father what?”

“He looked like a vampire. I swear upon a stack of Bibles, he had fangs and flesh as pale as a corpse’s.”

Her eyes scanned my face, as if she were waiting for a twitch of my mouth or a flash of laughter in my eyes to reveal I was joking.

I chewed my lip, but I most certainly did not laugh.

“Livie . . .” She let loose a nervous giggle. “You’ve read Dracula at least four times in the past year.”

“Yes, I know that.”

“And now you’re telling me your father looks like a vampire?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you think that’s a little . . . peculiar?”

“Yes, it is peculiar, but I was hypnotized, Frannie. You saw the power Henri Reverie had over me last night. He’s like a sorcerer who changed the world for my eyes alone, and I can’t bear the thought of going out there and seeing my father—or any other man—with fangs and bloodless skin and—”

“All right.” She sprang off the bed. “I believe you’re truly seeing something troubling, but perhaps Mr. Reverie simply stirred up your imagination.”

“He’s supposed to be killing off my imagination. Father hired him to cure me of my dreams.”

She winced. “But if these aren’t dreams or imaginings . . . what are they?”

“They seem real. They seem true. How can I go home to Father when he looks like that?”

My nose itched as if it required either a cry or a good sneeze. I scratched the tip with the back of one hand.

Frannie walked over to me and coaxed my hand between her palms. “Have supper with us tonight.”

I shook my head. “Father will worry when he sees I’m not home.”

“We’ll ask Carl to run over to his office and tell him we’ve invited you to stay. And then Carl and I will take you home after supper so I can see for myself if anything looks different about your father. I’ll even give you a little sign if he appears to be normal.”

“What type of sign?”

“Well . . .” She scraped her teeth over her bottom lip. “I’ll say, ‘I still can’t believe how many times you’ve read Dracula, Livie. One too many times, that’s for sure.’ If you hear that, it means what you’re seeing is truly just in your mind, and so it must be the work of that malicious, selfish, conniving hypnotist— Oh, wait.” She squeezed my hand and looked me straight in the eye. “You didn’t tell me how Henri Reverie appeared after the hypnosis.”

I groaned and hunched my shoulders.

“What?” She squeezed my hand again. “Was he even worse than your father?”

I shook my head. “That would have made everything far less confusing.”

“What did he look like?”

I sighed. “He looked like . . . I can’t even bring myself to say it. It almost hurts to admit what he made me feel.”

“What?” Her face paled. “What did he make you feel?”

“He looked . . .” I swallowed. “He looked like someone I should trust utterly.”





t supper that evening, the noisy passel of Harrisons chatted and joked about school escapades and camping trips while they stuffed me full of stew and potatoes. Every now and again I caught Mr. and Mrs. Harrison glancing at me with worried expressions, as if they couldn’t quite shake the memory of my emotional entrance earlier that afternoon.

After supper, I slid my arms into the thick sleeves of my coat, which, along with my book bag, had been fetched by Frannie’s fourteen-year-old brother, Carl, when he went to tell Father I’d be home late. The woolen collar snuggled up to my neck and pervaded my nostrils with the dental office’s distinctive odor—a sweet, antiseptic, and metallic potpourri that now flooded me with memories of Henri’s hands on my head.