The Cure for Dreaming(3)
I tripped my way down the center aisle in the dark. Classmates from school called out my name in encouragement, and someone patted my arm as I struggled to figure out how to get onto the stage with the disorienting clapping ringing in my ears.
“Over here, mademoiselle.” Henri waved me over to the left side, where I found a short flight of wooden steps. He reached out his gloved hand for me to take.
I hesitated a moment, wondering what my father would think of me climbing onto a stage with a young man who had reminded me of the devil only minutes before. Yet I reminded myself of Henri’s promise of escape: You will submerge yourself in a depth of relaxation such as you have never experienced before.
The hypnotist wrapped his fingers around mine and helped me climb to the floorboards above. Our respective pairs of gloves separated our hands, but I felt the warmth of his skin beneath the smooth fabric. Hot white lights smoked by my feet and glared down at us from the ceiling like an army of small suns. I shielded my eyes while Henri led me to the center of the stage, continuing to hold my hand.
“What is your name?” he asked in a voice for all to hear.
“Olivia Mead,” I answered in a decibel only he would be able to detect.
“Do you live here in Portland?”
“Yes. I attend Portland High School.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said to the audience, “I present to you Mademoiselle Olivia Mead of Portland, Oregon, my first subject of the evening. Do any of you know Miss Mead?”
“Ask her about her father,” called a husky male voice from the audience. “Mead the Mad.”
I lowered my head and stiffened my shoulders, but Henri gave my hand a squeeze and pretended not to have heard the horrifying remark.
“Is this raven-haired beauty known for her brute strength?” he asked, at which several people laughed, possibly because I was never typically referred to as a beauty. “Would you like to see this delicate young feather of a girl become as strong and rigid as a wooden plank?”
The audience clapped and cheered, and Kate yelled out, “Go on, Livie. Have a bit of fun.”
Henri turned to me and said in a quieter tone, “Come with me, Miss Mead. You have nothing to fear.”
I drew a shaky breath and allowed him to lead me to the chairs in the middle of the stage. The echo of our footsteps ricocheted across the entire theater and sounded far too loud to my ears. Genevieve transitioned into Brahms’s “Lullaby.”
“Please, sit down.” Henri held the back of the chair on the left.
I seated myself on a springy burgundy cushion, my posture tense and rigid, my back a solid board of oak. I never laced my corset to a point where I couldn’t breathe, yet the steel stays dug against my ribs and kept oxygen from settling into my lungs. Every part of me ached and itched.
Henri, still standing behind me, removed his white gloves. “Ladies, Miss Mead will need to remove her gloves and hold my hands directly. I am going to transfer my energy into her, which will enable her to fall into the desired state of relaxation and open her mind to me. I apologize if I offend anyone, but this has been the tradition ever since Franz Anton Mesmer popularized this astounding technique.” He stepped around me to the other chair and took a seat. “Miss Mead, please take off your gloves and hold my hands.”
I swallowed and hesitated. Prickly beads of sweat bubbled across my forehead. Genevieve’s lullaby strengthened in volume, perhaps to assuage my fears.
Don’t be rude and delay the show, I scolded myself the way Father would complain whenever I dawdled before leaving the house for an event. What are you waiting for? Chop-chop!
I slipped off my gloves with my eyes directed toward my nut-brown skirt. Henri’s bare right hand reached my way, and, with trembling fingers, I took it. Our other hands joined as well. His skin, smooth and hot, smoldered against mine.
“Look into my eyes,” he told me.
I gave his face a brief glance, noting how blue his irises were, but the idea of staring into the face of a stranger felt unnatural. I tittered and focused instead on the starry backdrop.
“Miss Mead,” he said in the gentlest male voice I’d ever heard, “are there any worries you would like to escape?”
My smile faded. My mind skipped back to a scene from earlier that day. I saw a small group of women with yellow ribbons pinned to their left shoulders. They shouted for equality on the steps of the courthouse. My own voice, along with Frannie’s and Kate’s, rang through the air in support. A barrage of rotten eggs smacked my arms and chest and oozed milky gray yolk down the lace of my blouse with a stink that made me gag. Fierce-eyed men—men who might have known my father—barked at us to go back to our homes where we belonged, and I ran off to scrub away the filth and my guilt until my fingers turned red and raw.
“Miss Mead?” asked Henri Reverie. “Would you like me to take you away from the world for a while?”
I glanced back at him, and his eyes held mine. Such arresting blue eyes—bright river blue, without any flecks of green or gold to distract from the principal color. They pulled me toward them and beckoned me to stay. They wouldn’t let me go. Nor did I want to leave them.
“You are going to feel a great deal of warmth pass from my fingers into yours.” He squeezed my hands—not enough to hurt, but enough to show me he was there. The balls of his thumbs pressed against mine. “It is going to feel like gentle flames, starting in your palms and fingertips . . .”