Hidden in Dreams (8 page)

•    •    •

Jacob Rawlings paced the foyer on the other side of the fountain. As he talked into his cell phone, a growing number of very young children gathered near him with their mothers. Many of the women gave Jacob lingering glances. Elena could well understand why.

Three years earlier, Jacob had been tapped to host a three-part series on childhood development for the Discovery Channel.
There had been a good many chuckles over the news when it first broke, as Jacob had never married. But the program had been a surprise hit, drawing the highest numbers of any cable-network fact-based program for the entire year. Elena had watched an episode once, and despite her resentment over his scathing review of her book, she had been forced to admit the man had a magnetic quality.

A recent analysis of successful movie stars had resulted in a remarkable discovery. The study had concluded that an actor’s talent and general attractiveness were only part of the equation. Of great importance was what the scientists termed as
physical equilibrium
. By this they meant the actor possessed almost ideal proportions. They had compared a number of stars to a computer image of perfect form—stance, balance, shape of head and shoulders, and so forth. Both the male and female viewers tended to be drawn toward the person who represented the ideal physical form, rating them higher than those typically considered more attractive.

As Elena watched him pace the foyer’s inlaid marble floor, she decided that Jacob Rawlings possessed both looks and balance. Not to mention intelligence. She found herself enjoying the sight. He was, she decided, almost too good a package. She had recently seen his photograph somewhere, a lovely blond model with a vacant gaze on his arm. The model had been signed as the new face for Lancôme cosmetics. Elena had decided the two probably deserved each other.

Jacob paced and continued a conversation so grimly intense he remained blind to the attention being cast his way. Elena leaned back in her seat, wearied by the day and the night before. Against her will, she found herself being drawn back into the dream’s vivid images.

The dream had carried with it a sense of jarring disconnect. As though reality was undergoing a seismic shift, one only she
could see. The world tilted on its axis, and only she had a compass and could detect the coming tumult.

The feelings of anxiety and pending disaster had been far stronger than the images themselves. If anything, the view had been almost benign, especially compared to the bank’s interior. Elena had left an office where she had formerly held a job. She joined a line, which quickly grew along the street. They did not march in step. They shuffled.

As the dream continued, the line of people became a flood. They filled the street from one side to the other. They grew increasingly packed together. And still more came, piling in from all the doorways and offices and side streets.

The crowd became so dense she could not draw a decent breath. She struggled, yet at the same time remained vaguely docile. She knew it was vital that she not lose her place in line. If she made a scene, she would be sent to the back. And that would be terrible. Why, she wasn’t sure. But she knew she had to behave if she wanted to remain where she was.

With each step the crowd’s forward progress moved more slowly. The people turned a final corner. Elena felt a growing sense of desperation, as though she caught the smell of something on the unseen wind, and knew she was nearly there. Finally she was able to see what awaited her down that street.

Ahead of her was a single narrow door. Everyone wanted to enter. Everyone tried desperately to hide their frantic impatience. They shuffled forward, and the closer they came the greater her anxiety grew. Just as her tension rose to a fever pitch, she noticed a woman standing beside the door. The woman’s voice was eerily calm. She spoke in a soft cadence, totally disconnected from what surrounded her.

“Keep your place in line,” the woman chanted. “One person at a time through the door. Take your time. There is soup enough for everyone.”

Two stone buildings formed the cavern that trapped her. Both walls held billboards covered with the same newspaper headline. The boards read
GLOBAL STOCK MARKETS NOSEDIVE
.

The closer Elena came to that awful door, the more certain she became. The woman’s words were a lie. There wasn’t enough. There never would be again.

•    •    •

Jacob ended the call just as four liveried attendants placed a set of miniature stairs by the fountain’s edge and unfurled a narrow red carpet. He watched askance as the ducks waddled down the stairs and paraded across the carpet. Mothers and daughters cooed as the ducks entered the elevator. A sign was placed by the fountain, saying that the ducks had gone in for their afternoon naps.

Jacob returned to their table and said, “Did that just happen?”

“Every day, apparently.”

He swept a copper-blond strand from his forehead. “This meeting certainly holds a surreal edge.”

“Who was that on the phone?”

As soon as she had finished relating her dream, Jacob had leapt to his feet, excused himself, taken his phone from his pocket, and started pacing. Jacob replied, “My patient.”

“The Federal Reserve bank board member?”

“The same.” He swept his forehead again, only this time there was no hair out of place. He did not notice. “Her name is Agatha Hune. She was referred to me three years ago with a stress-related disorder. She attended counseling sessions for six months. I consider her a friend. The woman is extremely intelligent, well balanced, with an honest perspective on life and her issues. As you can imagine, this whole situation has been extremely distressing.”

Something in the way he spoke led Elena to surmise, “She has had the same dream, hasn’t she? The second one.”

Jacob’s response was halted by the ringing of his phone. He glanced at the readout and said, “I need to take this.”

“Go ahead.”

He took one step away and turned his back to her, but only for a moment. When he turned back around, his gaze held the same frantic edge Elena had seen in the mirror that morning.

Jacob shut the phone and said, “That was my closest friend from university. Bob Meadows is a clinical psychologist in Miami.”

The tense way he spoke those words told her all she needed to know. “There’s been another dreamer, hasn’t there.”

Jacob nodded. “For the first time in my professional career, I have no idea what to do next.”

7

R
achel Lamprey’s call came while they waited for Elena’s car to be brought around. Rain fell in silver sheets from the hotel’s overhang. There was no wind, not a breath. Though the day was still warm, the mist gave off a chilling taste. From somewhere beyond the liquid curtain, lightning flashed and thunder rolled.

Rachel had to shout to be heard. “Where are you?”

“Orlando. But we’re—”

“Excellent! I’ve just landed in New York. I have a meeting here in the first-class lounge, then I’m due back into Orlando around nine tonight. Can we meet?”

“I’m headed to Miami.”

“What on earth for?”

The woman’s sharp tone surprised Elena. It shouldn’t have; Elena had noted the bossy edge lurking beneath Rachel’s polished surface. But she had assumed she was protected from Rachel’s wrath. Elena replied, “Jacob’s site has received a new hit. A psychiatrist in Miami has a new patient who has experienced both dreams.” Elena realized she had not mentioned the latest
experience, and added, “Last night I had another dream. It has struck all the others as well. Jacob was confirming this—”

“I know all about the second dream,” Rachel said impatiently. “Why is Jacob involved?”

The attendant pulled through the rain and halted beside Elena. She tipped him and nodded her thanks as he held her door. “Jacob Rawlings is . . . a professional associate.”

Jacob heard her hesitation, and offered her a rueful smile as he climbed in and shut his door.

“Whatever or whoever is waiting in Miami is
certainly
not as important as our meeting tonight!”

“With respect, Rachel, I don’t agree. We have not been told this new patient’s name. Jacob is friends with the psychologist involved. They have spoken. We’ve been assured the patient holds enormous—”

“Do you have any idea how far out on a limb I have gone to include you?” Rachel’s heat was so blistering, the phone felt hot to the touch. “We have got to speak
tonight
.”

Behind her, a horn beeped politely. Elena put the car in gear and pulled forward. Rain drummed on the roof. “We are talking now, Rachel.”

“What is that
noise
?”

“Another thunderstorm. Tell me what is the matter.”

“Can you
possibly
be asking me that question? You, of all people? This is not the time for
clinical analysis
. This is time for
action.
Have you even
seen
the reports of the London bank run?”

“Yes, I have.” Elena retreated from the rage as she had a thousand times before, stepping back from a patient’s distress and emotional tirade. Refusing to be drawn in. Allowing her the distance required for her to hear beneath the surface. The woman’s anger became just another drumming cadence upon her professional shell, not touching her any more than the rain. “But that is not the issue, is it?”

“What?”

“There is something else at work. Another problem that has wreaked havoc in your day.” Elena paused, then asked, “Do you want to tell me about it?”

“In person,” Rachel snapped. “Then it will need to wait until tomorrow.”

“It can’t.”

“Do you want to tell me why?”

Rachel was silent for a long moment, then cut the connection.

•    •    •

The rain ended with startling suddenness. The turnpike swiftly dried. The heat shimmered above open fields and wild palms and broad ponds and tall emerald grass. Jacob had not spoken since they left the hotel. Abruptly he said, “I have a patient who lost his father three months ago. They were extremely close. Since then he has become obsessed with the Weather Channel. He starts every session by updating me on the hurricane season.”

“He should move to Melbourne,” Elena said. “The local channel updates the weather every ten minutes around the clock. With the hurricane’s approach, the weather reports have grown so long they merge into one another.”

“People feel a desperate need to find some mythical control over their own destinies,” Jacob mused. “In earlier times, it was superstition and charms. Now it’s information. They subconsciously believe this will allow them to influence the outcome. If only they know enough, and far enough in advance.”

Elena glanced over. “You’re not religious, are you?”

“My father was a Presbyterian minister. We relocated eleven times before I left for university. I attended six different high schools. I hated it. At some visceral level, I still resent what my father’s faith put us through.”

“Is that your answer?”

“It is very hard for me to separate my past from any discussion of God.” He drummed his fingernails on the side window. “That was one of the things that most rankled me about your book. How you repeatedly hinted at a connection between dreams and the divine.”

“You have still not answered my question.”

He sighed. “When I was young, I believed because it was expected of me. When I went to university, I left it all behind.”

“I think it is precisely because of the divine connection within some dreams that we will never understand their full scope until this relationship is acknowledged.”

“I have not seen any indication that the recipients of these dreams are religious.”

Elena repeated the word: “Recipient.”

“What else would you call them? Tell me, please. I’m desperate to find another word to describe them.”

“Why, Jacob, because it hints at a connection beyond the measurable? Because it suggests a greater force is at work?” When he did not reply, Elena went on: “There are a number of places in the Bible where dreams come to people who do not believe in God. That is not the critical issue. What is vital is that the
interpreter
be a person of faith. God grants to some a special gift. They hold the power to explain his message. This is why I feel faith has a vital role to play. Not just in dreams. But in the individual’s overall health and in the treatment of any number of disorders. So long as psychologists avoid the issue of faith, they cut themselves off from an entire portion of the human psyche.”

“My father would certainly agree with you,” Jacob said. His tone was flat, his expression fixed.

“So how would you suggest we proceed?”

He pondered this through several miles. Finally he replied, “I feel we should focus on the one central point that we can now
prove. A collection of individuals who have never met, who are separated by vast distances, are all being affected by the same dream.”

“‘Affected’ is too weak to describe the experience. The dreamer is
assaulted,
” Elena replied. Jacob’s unwillingness to include faith was not so much a vacuum as a path not taken. But arguing over this would get them nowhere. There was nothing, however, keeping her from having a running discourse with herself. Which she did. For the remainder of their three-hour journey, she talked with Jacob on one level, and prayerfully dialogued on another.