Hidden in Dreams (7 page)

When the station broke for commercial, Elena turned off the television. She entered the kitchen and scraped the remainder of
her half-finished meal into the garbage. What she had eaten sat in her stomach like lead.

She took her phone out on the balcony. The sky was split by a pair of storms. Dark walls obliterated her view of the water both to the north and south. Directly ahead was a pyrotechnical sunset display. The rumbles of thunder formed a bass resonance as she dialed the number.

He answered before the first ring was finished: “Rawlings.”

“It’s Elena Burroughs.”

“Oh, thank goodness. Wait a moment. I have to leave the stage.”

Of all the things she might have expected to hear from Jacob, heartfelt gratitude did not make the list. She turned on the fan, and felt the air push at the cloying heat.

Jacob Rawlings came back on. “Did you review the files?”

“I did, yes. But there’s more.” She swiftly related Rachel Lamprey’s documented patient.

Jacob responded with a silence so intense she could almost feel the man’s concentration. “Can you come to Orlando?”

“I have a ten o’clock class, and another at noon, then my day is free. The trip shouldn’t take more than an hour and a half.”

“I’m due to speak again at two. I can’t get out of it. I should be done by three thirty. Do you know the convention center?”

“I’m sure I can find it.”

“The Peabody is directly across the street from the main hall.” He hesitated, then said, “Dr. Burroughs, if you will permit, I will wait and apologize to you in person.”

“All right.” She tasted the lingering flavor of words not yet spoken. “Are you in contact with the other clinicians?”

“I certainly can be. Why?”

“I need you to ask if any of the patients experienced a faceless messenger at the beginning of their dream.”

“I can tell you my own patient reported nothing of the sort.”

“Their recollection might be vague. Perhaps because of this they assume it was part of an earlier dream.” Elena felt a sudden pressing need to share this image with someone else, even a stranger on the other side of the world. “A stranger in a dark suit who has no face, and whose words can’t be heard.”

“Why are you asking me to do this, Dr. Burroughs?”

“Because my own started that way.”

“Sorry, you’re telling me you’ve found a patient of your own?”

“No.” She stopped, held by a sudden fear that his ridicule might return, and be stronger still. But she had no choice. “I have had the same dream.”

There was a sharp intake of breath. “I
knew
it was right to contact you about this. I
knew
it.” Then, “Have you seen the news about the London bank?”

“I was just watching it.” She decided there was no reason not to add, “It was raining in my dream.”

He huffed a single breath. “I will be waiting for you in the lobby.”

•    •    •

Elena cut off the kitchen lights and retreated to her bedroom. She had positioned a secondhand desk by the window, facing out over the water. She opened her laptop and drew up the picture of a page from
The Book of Dreams
. The images came from a book given to her by Miriam, the friend who had died the previous summer. Miriam had received the original book and five ancient copies from her own great-grandmother. The line of possession stretched back through time to the realm of myth and impossible age. The copies and the original all contained images drawn in Aramaic cuneiform. Each image was formed from a line of the Lord’s Prayer.

Before Elena had left on her book tour, she had returned all of the books to her safety deposit box. Before then, however, she had photographed the pages so they could travel with her. Several
times over the long summer she had raised the images and tried to enter into what the early church leaders once called a contemplative state. The images had previously helped intensify her prayer life. But all through that weary summer, Elena had felt nothing. Just like now. The only thing that came to her through the picture was a stronger sense of the storm gathering beyond her apartment.

Elena cut off the computer and opened the drawer by her bed. Despite the trauma she had endured around the time of the book’s arrival, she had gained a number of vital insights. And one of them was that the book itself was nothing. The only purpose the book held, the only value, was in drawing the viewer closer to God. And she did not need the book to do that. She never had.

Elena had felt that the time for the book’s practical application had ended; that moment and that particular purpose lay in the past. Now, as Elena examined the image, she wondered if its time had come again.

Elena opened her Bible to the book of Daniel. Her fingers found the place before she consciously knew what she sought. But there it was before her eyes, a vivid reminder of another man given the unwanted responsibility. Elena read the opening passage and felt an easing away of her stress and her worry. No matter what else, she was not alone. She never had been. Not for an instant.

When the phone rang, she was tempted not to answer. But then she saw the readout and knew she had to take the call. She pressed the button and said, “Vicki, I’m so sorry.”

“I’ve been wondering if maybe I did something worse than usual, to have you not call me back.”

“No, no, it’s just this day became a little overwhelming.”

“Did you talk to the man?”

“An hour ago.”

“And?”

“I’m driving to Orlando after class tomorrow to meet him.”

“Do you need my gun?”

“No, thank you. You own a gun?”

“Hey. I’m a single lady, and this is Manhattan.” Vicki’s voice took on a delicious edge. “Did you two kiss and make up?”

“I’m hanging up now.”

“Not before you promise me a book from all this mess.”

“Mess is right,” Elena replied.

•    •    •

It seemed as though she had only just turned out her light when the next dream began.

The faceless messenger rang her doorbell. Elena did not want to open the door. She fought against moving forward, as strongly as she had struggled against anything in her whole life. For whatever the dream might reveal, however vital the images might prove, she did not want them. She did not want to be filled anew with dread. She did not want her life to slip even further from her control.

But she answered the door anyway. She had no choice. It was, after all, a dream.

The faceless messenger was as well dressed as before. She could clearly see the fine cut to his suit, the polish to his shoes. Even the lovely design in his knitted silk tie. His cuff links flashed as he lifted a hand toward her. Offering something she did not want. He spoke, and she recognized his voice from the previous time. But his words were just as unclear as before. Even so, they rocked her. She saw nothing of his face. There was a round gray cloud where his features should have been. The voice emerged from this vague cloud, and pummeled her. She shut the door, and instantly the next phase of the dream attacked. Her whole being was assaulted by its force.

Only it was not the same dream as before.

It was something else entirely.

And it was far, far worse.

6

T
he Peabody Hotel in Orlando was surrounded on three sides by one of the nation’s largest convention centers. Elena left her car with the parking attendant and entered a vast lobby of granite and bronze sculptures. As she passed the concierge desk, she noticed how most of the people crowding the lobby were watching a television suspended from the rear wall. Elena drew in close enough to hear the newscaster describe how the previous day’s London bank run had continued to develop overnight, impacting shares of every bank listed on the British exchanges. They replayed images from the Lehman Brothers’ collapse several years earlier: the thousands of bank employees leaving the crippled establishment with their professional lives in cardboard boxes, and the pandemonium that had struck the international markets. As she turned away, Elena saw the tense and worried faces, and felt the dreams assault her once more.

Jacob Rawlings was moving toward her as she emerged from the crowd. “Dr. Burroughs, you came.”

“I said I would.”

“Well, yes. But I couldn’t help but have my doubts.”

The tension trailed along with her as they left the lobby and entered a grand central chamber. “I didn’t want to come,” she confessed. “I had no choice in the matter.”

“Honesty. Excellent. I agree that we should do our best to move on.” He gestured to a pair of cane chairs by a glass table. “Would this do? Or, if you prefer, I could try and arrange a private meeting room.”

“This is fine.” She could not tell if her own apprehension resulted from the television images or the proximity of her former nemesis. All Elena knew was, she wasn’t about to be alone with this man.

Jacob Rawlings was far more handsome than she recalled. Which was hardly a surprise, since they had spent most of their one highly public encounter shouting at each other. He was also very courtly. He held her chair, then hovered by her side as he asked, “Would you care to freshen up?”

“No, thank you. Let’s get started.”

“What about a coffee? Or tea, perhaps. I could arrange sandwiches, a light lunch?”

“Later, perhaps.” She pointed at the chair beside her. “Sit. Please.”

He launched into his apology before planting himself in the seat. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am for what I said at our debate. In light of present events, I feel like such a total fool.”

“I appreciate your comments, Dr. Rawlings—”

“Please, call me Jacob.”

“But words are cheap.” Elena had spent the entire journey up deciding upon what she was about to say. “I was publicly flayed by your hand. Your scorn still burns.”

Their antagonism had not started with the unexpected debate. Jacob Rawlings had been one of her book’s most vociferous critics. He had written a scathing review carried by two key
journals, one in the US and the other in England. He had then publicly lambasted her at a professional conference, one that she thankfully had not attended. She only learned about it following the Emory debate. She had made a point of not paying attention to such things, especially since Vicki had sheltered her from most negative publicity. Then had come the Emory debacle. Elena considered it her own fault for not having been better prepared, as Jacob certainly had been. Even so, the memories still burned.

Elena went on, “I want three things. First, you will write a letter to be published in the next issue of
Psychology Today,
expressing your deep regret for your previous stand. And that in light of new evidence, you have decided to retract your statements and come fully around to my perspective on dream analysis.”

Jacob Rawlings took this in. The retraction would be a major event among her professional colleagues. That spring he had been appointed to the journal’s editorial board. Even so, he slowly nodded. “Agreed.”

“Second, you will arrange a public forum, preferably at Emory but another major assembly will do. You will renounce your former position. You will apologize to me publicly. And then we will engage not in a debate but in a dialogue. On where dream analysis should go next, and how it can be fit into the mainstream of psychological study.”

She saw the subtle shudder, saw him repress it. And found herself reluctantly admiring the inner resolve this represented. Jacob nodded again. “And third?”

“You will come up with something on your own. A gesture of your own making.”

She almost regretted this third idea. It sounded almost petty as she spoke the words. She was about to tell him to forget it, when he said thoughtfully, “I was invited to speak at the national convocation of behaviorists. I had decided to turn it down. I will
accept, and I will use the platform to discuss your concepts in a positive light.”

It was Elena’s turn to feel pushed back into her chair. Behaviorists were the most rigid of all psychologists. Jacob had started his career, done his initial studies, at a university dedicated to behaviorism and the determination to make psychology a science. Which meant stripping down everything about the mental process into tightly measurable phenomena. There were a multitude of problems with this. Behaviorists shunned anything to do with emotions. One of their principal tenets held that virtually all human behavior was based upon genetic makeup and measurable physical and environmental factors. Past traumatic experiences or emotional states were considered both superficial and subject to change, and so should be discounted. Dreams were an anathema to behaviorists. For one of their own, risen to the ranks of national stardom, to discuss dream analysis at their national gathering would have the impact of a hydrogen bomb.

Elena said softly, “Thank you, Jacob.”

His smile carried genuine relief. “Does this mean we can now move on?”

“Yes.” She wished she had the ability just then to return his smile. Perhaps another time. One when she was not required to say, “I’ve had another dream.”