The Cure for Dreaming(26)

All is well? Balderdash! Bull dung!

Even worse words entered my head, but they shall not be repeated.

I shoved more hairpins into my topknot, and my eyes drifted to a conjoined pair of silver picture frames that sat on top of my chest of drawers. In the rightmost frame sat a photograph of Mother, just sixteen years old, posed in a brocade Renaissance mourning costume in front of a backdrop of painted vines. A black veil draped over her thick ringlets, which looked brown instead of their natural red in the sepia image. I remembered her explaining to me that she had been playing Olivia, my namesake, in a traveling production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, and that’s how she met Father. Her pretty face—rosebud lips, arched brows, almond-shaped eyes, long lashes—seemed nothing like mine, save for perhaps the round tip of her nose. She looked like the type of person who never lacked confidence about anything.

The accompanying photograph of my eighteen-year-old father, however—my father, Mead the Mad—was the spitting image of me, aside from his short hair and mustache, of course.

Good Lord. I was more like him than her.

Good Lord. What if I resembled him in behavior, too?

I snapped the frames closed, pinching a finger in my haste.

A minute later, Gerda joined me and helped button me up in an eggplant-purple gown I’d worn to the wedding of one of Father’s cousins down in Salem.

“You look lovely this evening, Miss Mead.”

“Thank you, Gerda.” I straightened the satin poufs sliding off my shoulders. “I personally think I look like a giant purple bauble someone might hang on a Christmas tree.”

She laughed. “No, no, no, you look like an elegant young lady. Your young man—”

“He’s not quite my young man.”

“That young man, then, will fall madly in love with you when he sees you dressed like this.”

“Hmm.” I chewed my bottom lip. “I’d feel a whole lot better knowing a person was falling in love with me because of me and not because of hypnosis or snug purple gowns.”

Gerda tittered again. “You’re so funny, Miss Mead. You’ll make him laugh, if nothing else. And when men laugh, they feel happy and in love.” She hooked the last button. “That’s what Mamma always says about Fader.”

A knock downstairs made my shoulders jerk.

Gerda and I locked eyes.

“He’s here,” I said in a whisper.

“Put your shoes on.” She scurried to my door. “I’ll tell them you’re almost ready.”

Before I could say a word, she was gone, her footsteps padding down the stairs.

Down below the boards of my bedroom, the front door opened with its usual squeak. I heard muffled male voices. My pulse pounded in my ears in the same swift rhythm as the clock on my wall.

“Oh, please look normal,” I whispered while facing my closed door. I folded my hands beneath my chin and scrunched my eyes closed. “Please, please, please don’t turn out to be a monster.”

“Olivia,” called Father. “Young Mr. Acklen has arrived.”

I opened my eyes, inhaled a deep breath, and dared to leave the safety of my room.

Below me, past the bottom of the staircase, Father and Percy chatted about the upcoming election—the impassioned battle between President McKinley and the Democratic anti-imperialist William Jennings Bryan. I only saw the back of Percy’s head, and his auburn hair looked just as handsome and impeccable as usual, with a sheen of pomade glistening in the lamplight. He wore his wool outer coat over a pair of narrow-striped trousers, with a finely knit crimson scarf hanging around his neck. His silk top hat dangled from his right fingers.

Time seemed to freeze for a fraction of a moment. Hope for Percy swelled in my heart. Anything was possible, and if I had my way, we would have remained like that—suspended, innocent, unencumbered by my strange sight—for the rest of the evening.

But then Father’s dark gaze—a bit too predatory for my taste—flitted toward me. His voice rumbled through the hall. “Ah, Olivia is here.”

Percy turned around.

Normal. He was normal—well shaven and groomed and as beautiful as ever.

My legs gave way in relief, and I had to clutch the banister with both hands.

Percy stepped toward me, the ends of his scarf swaying with the lunge. “Are you all right, Olivia?”

“Yes.” I gripped the handrail and proceeded down the steps. “I’m sorry. I got dizzy for a moment.”

“Ladies and swooning,” said Father with a roll of his eyes. “They can’t help themselves, I’m afraid.”

“All is well.”

“The Eiderlings will have plenty to eat at their party,” said Percy, “so you won’t feel faint much longer.” He fetched my coat from the wall hook and spread it open for me to enter. “Are you well enough to go?”

“Yes, I’m fine.” I slid my bare arms inside the heavy sleeves, and a potent whiff of his cologne shot clear up to my sinuses.

Father beamed one of his hearty Santa Claus smiles and opened the door for the two of us. “Take good care of my girl, Mr. Acklen. I’ll expect her home by ten.” And don’t forget to propose to her, I thought I heard him add, but he grinned, and Percy grinned, and nobody said a word about marriage.


MANDOLIN’S HOOVES STOMPED ACROSS THE MUD-CAKED street leading north of my neighborhood, and the buggy rocked me in a rhythm that might have made me drowsy if my spine weren’t locked upright. Nerves thickened my tongue, and every conversation topic sounded jumbled and stupid in my head.