The Cure for Dreaming(24)

His eyes drew me toward them with a pull that tipped me forward onto my toes. I waved my hands to steady myself, and a second later, like a swift gust of wind, Genevieve Reverie emerged by his side in a white nightgown, her blond head slumped against his arm, her face thin and peaked. The rest of the theater rushed away into a vacuum, and all I saw was the two of them—Genevieve, ill, exhausted, supported by Henri.

I blinked, and she was gone. Her tousled-haired brother stood alone.

“For heaven’s sake, Mr. Reverie,” called the woman on the stage. “I’ve had enough of your dillydallying . . .”

“My father looked like the monster in Bram Stoker’s novel,” I told Henri. “Have you read Dracula?”

“Isn’t that about a human vampire?”

“Yes, and that’s exactly how you made him appear in his office. His skin lacked blood, and his teeth were the fangs of a ferocious animal. I’m witnessing other things as well— disturbing sights—so tell me, please, for the love of God, what in the world did you do to my head?”

“Mr. Reverie,” bellowed the organist in a bone-rattling voice that consumed the entire theater, “throw that girl out of here this minute, or I’m asking Mr. Gillingham to cancel your performance. I know of two highly talented juggling brothers who would love nothing more than to take over your booking tonight.”

“I’m coming, I’m coming.”

He backed away from me, and a topsy-turvy feeling seized me again. My eyes insisted on seeing his hair as more ruffled than before, his dark clothing as frayed and worn. He suffered from fatigue. Distress.

“I’d very much like to discuss this matter with you more, Olivia,” he said.

“I don’t want to discuss this matter.” I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands. “I want you to change me back. All is well!”

“I can’t.”

“You can’t? All is well!”

“Not now.”

I shoved my hands against my temples and swallowed down my anger so the right words would come. “Do you want to know how you truly look, Monsieur Reverie?”

He stopped in his tracks.

“You look like a shifty showman who doesn’t really know what he’s doing,” I said. “And I’m willing to bet the remaining shreds of my sanity that Reverie isn’t even your real last name.”

He frowned and jogged back to the stage—back to his rehearsal with the glowering substitute organist who shook her head as if he were a misbehaving spaniel—and he seemed to ignore my words.

Before he reached the front row, however, he peeked over his shoulder.

He gave me my answer, in an accent that wasn’t French in the slightest.

“You’re right, Olivia. It’s Rhodes. My name is Henry—with a y, not an i—Rhodes. But as I’m sure you’ve seen with your own eyes, I am not just a shifty showman.”





is dual names pulsed in my head all the way home.

Henri Reverie. Henry Rhodes. Henri Reverie. Henry Rhodes.

And then cancer, cancer, cancer, cancer. Tumor, tumor, tumor, tumor. Genevieve.

I quickened my pace and managed to find my way back to my house, despite the blurred and rippling sidewalks and the flashes of blue eyes from Henry’s theater handbills, watching me from shop windows. Always watching me.

I tripped over the threshold of our front door, and Gerda raised her head from dusting Father’s antique denture collection in the parlor.

“What are you doing home from school, Miss Mead?”

I closed the door and inhaled a deep breath. “I have a headache.” I parked my lunch pail on the marble-topped hall table. My book bag slid off my shoulder to the floor.

“Ja? A headache?” Gerda lowered the duster. “I left a note with the Acklens. It said that you would go with their boy to the party tonight. Should I not have done that?”

“Oh.” I slumped against the wall. “Percy. How the blue blazes did I forget about him?” I massaged the aching bridge of my nose between my thumb and middle finger. “He’s going to think I’m an absolute loon.”

“Shall I send another note?”

“No. Thank you. I need some sort of reward for surviving this day.” I pushed myself off the wall and headed for the staircase.

“Oh, Miss Mead—I almost forgot, your mother’s birthday envelope arrived. I put it on your bed.”

“Oh? Thank you.” My stomach sank. “I suppose I had better go see what extraordinary adventures she’s undertaken this year.”

I clambered up to my room with the same withered-hot-air-balloon sensation I’d experienced when Henry pulled me down from the theater’s ceiling.

Halfway across the bedroom floor, my feet stopped. There wasn’t an envelope waiting for me on my pink bedspread. It was a ticket, a pale brown one with curved edges and the words ONE-WAY PASSAGE TO NEW YORK CITY written across the center in block letters. My skin warmed, and my ears buzzed. I rubbed my eyes and willed away the delusion, for that’s what it had to have been.

I lowered my hands. The ticket disappeared, and a plain white envelope came into view, return address New York City. I picked it up and ripped it open.

October 10, 1900

My Dear, Darling Daughter,

Can you really be seventeen years old, my funny little lamb? You’re more woman than girl now, which makes your poor mama feel like an ancient crone. My heavens, I was only three months younger than you are now when I became your mother. I hope and pray you don’t follow my same path to early motherhood. Don’t rush into relationships with boys, even if they are as handsome as a certain young dental apprentice who wooed me off the stage eighteen years ago. You know as well as I do about the heartbreak that can result when two fools hurry to play grown-up.