Dangerous Dreams: A Novel (130 page)

The previous night, the entire family had sat on the porch, under the light of six candle lanterns, sipped a little whiskey, told jokes, listened to Allie tell about her dreams, all the while casting frequent, irresistible glances at the speckled, starry grandeur of the expansive Montana sky. Her father and brothers had turned in early, so they could get an early start for the two-day livestock convention in Billings, but the ladies had lingered until the wee hour of 10:30 p.m. before retiring.

Allie hadn’t dreamed that night—at least nothing she remembered. So she’d awakened with a stubborn disappointment, a nagging sadness like the aftermath of a deeply emotional book or movie, hanging in her mind and heart like a heavy sandbag. She repeatedly forced herself back to Emily, relived all that had happened to her from the beginning through the end of the dreams—the innocence, joy, excitement; fear, anxiety, trauma; despair,
desperation, depression; courage, love, sacrifice; resilience, perseverance. Funny, but now that it’s all over, I feel satisfied, happy, at peace with where Emily is and where I’m headed; though I wonder if the next dream will be the
bad one
, the debilitating, crushing one that can destroy my life. No, Allie, gotta trust Steve, play it straight; he’ll get you through, and maybe we’ll even figure out how it all works.

She smiled, felt a sudden surge of excitement about dreaming again, then suddenly visualized Emily’s final dream—of the last little white fawn—the dream that answered all the questions, put everything before it in perspective. Damn it! Can’t believe I keep forgetting to tell Mom about it . . . most important part. Do it now. She stood to go inside but immediately sat again when Nancy walked onto the porch with a small cardboard box in her arms, sat beside Allie, and plopped the box on the small table between them.

“Mom, I was just coming in to tell you—”

“Wait! Gotta show you this stuff.”

“No, listen, that last dream of Emily’s I told you and Steve about—”

“Seriously, wait a sec, Allie. This is Ian’s stuff my mom gave me when I was a little girl . . . and which, by the way, I’ve only looked at once before . . . very briefly.”

Allie sat back in her chair. “Oh yeah! Forgot about that . . . we were gonna look at it when I was coming home that time.” She nodded. “Okay, let’s do it . . . but don’t let me forget to tell you about Emily’s last dream.”

“Got it.” Nancy opened the lid of the box, extracted the letter that sat on top. “Ian wrote this, and it explains her name and where she came from.” She handed the letter to Allie. “Not the neatest penmanship in the world.”

“Wow. Really old . . . hard to read.”

Nancy nodded. “Yeah, it is. I don’t know when she wrote it, but it had to be a helluva long time ago . . . like probably when
my
mom was a little girl. Pretty fragile . . . in fact, now that we know we have it, we oughta make digital copies of it and preserve the original somehow.”

“Good idea.” She held the letter in front of her, traced her index finger from word to word. “Oh my God. Ian was Lakota. Wow!
Ee-hahn-blay
Ween-yahn
. . .
Dream Woman
. . .
Ee-hahn
. . .
Ian
. Wow.” She looked at her mother. “So
that’s
where it came from. Wow! Just wow!
Dream Woman!
”

Nancy nodded. “Pretty incredible, huh . . . sure fits, doesn’t it?”

A minute later, Allie looked up at her mother. “Mom, do you know what this tells us about the dreams . . . the Lakota heritage, the tie to Isna and Emily?”

“I do, Hon; and it gives me chills thinking about it, and . . . oh! My mom stuck a note in here that Ian said we have European blood in our veins from a thousand years ago . . . and again from four hundred years ago.”

Allie’s eyes were tight beads of concentration staring at empty space; her mind swirled. She mumbled to herself as if oblivious to her mother, “A thousand years ago . . . Tryggvi, his dreaming English girl, Bjarni, Hefnir . . . Vikings . . . like Emily and I dreamed . . . here in North America, L’Anse au Meadows, the St. Lawrence, Niagara, Great Lakes, Ohio River Valley, the Lakota. Holy shit.
And
four hundred years ago, so . . . so she must have—” She looked at her mother. “Mom, she
must
have dreamed about Emily”—she shook her head—“and known she was our ancestor . . . and Tryggvi, too . . . and Isna. This is astounding . . . and . . . and Ian being Lakota ties it all together.” Her eyes bloomed with excitement; she again detached her mind, stared vacantly through her mother, recalled the internet passage on the Lakota. “1770 to 1780 . . . Lakota crossed the Missouri onto the plains . . . Dakota, Nebraska, Montana. My God . . . a direct line from Emily and Isna . . . and even the Vikings. Sonofabitch!”

The two stared silently at one another until Nancy suddenly blinked, twitched as if jabbed by a pin. “Oh! There’s more! Look at this.” She reached into the box, removed a reddish stone Indian pipe that had a four-inch-long stem slightly over an inch in diameter, with a hole in one end for a wooden smoke tube through which the smoke would have been drawn. A three-inch-tall bowl rose from the other end of the stem and widened toward the top, where the tobacco was once stuffed in and lit. Decorative designs had been engraved into both sides of the stem; but the long, hollow, wooden smoke tube had long since been destroyed. “Obviously, it was Ian’s, but the
what-and-where
of it I’ve no clue of . . . but pretty cool, huh?”

Allie didn’t reply. Her eyes looked ready to explode. Her mind flew to another dimension, to Isna telling Emily of his vision quest: how his pipe had been offered to each of the four directions, Mother Earth, and the sky, then filled with a pinch of kinnikinnick for each, sealed with animal fat, and after the vision quest, taken to the shaman to be smoked. She reverently took the pipe as if it were a fragile, sacred relic, held it six inches from her eyes, stared at it, lips agape, chest heaving. After thirty seconds, she spoke slowly, softly, her eyes still fixed on the pipe. “
I
know the
what-and-where
of it, Mom . . . this”—her eyes filled with tears; she shook her head slowly—“
this
is
Isna’s
pipe . . . his
vision
pipe. I saw it in Emily’s dreams.” Her tears glistened as she smiled, looked into Nancy’s eyes. “
Isna’s
pipe, Mom . . . from four hundred years ago . . . the symbol of everything in his vision—his connection with Wakan Tanka; Grizzly, his spirit creature; his destiny; his wife-to-be, his descendants; everything . . . on down to now.” She stared silently, thoughtfully at it, rubbed her fingers along the engraving in the sides, closed her eyes, held it to her cheek. Finally, she sighed, opened her eyes, rubbed them, looked at her mother. “Mom, do we have any pictures of Ian?”

Nancy smiled, reached into the box, pulled out a wrinkled, faded, black-and-white photograph, handed it to Allie. “How’s this?”

Allie slowly took the picture, leaned close to it to distinguish the details. Her eyes suddenly blossomed with recognition, then tearful awe. “Mom, Mom! This . . . this is the old woman from Isna’s vision . . . and Emily’s dream. I saw her. Wait ’til Steve hears this. It’s
her
, Mom . . .
Ian
. Right out of the vision . . . the old woman with the pipe . . .
this
pipe here in
my
hand, in
her
hand”—she shook the pipe, pointed at the picture—“and these two black stones around her neck . . . hard to see them, but they were in the vision and dreams, just as in this picture.” She shook her head. “Mom, there ain’t no doubt about it. The dreams are for real, and Ian knew it for sure . . . and now I know it for sure, and I’ll tell you why.”

“Okay, but what’s this?” She held a closed hand out to Allie, opened it a few inches from her eyes.

“Ahh!” Allie jerked backward as if afraid then gawked at the black locket in the palm of Nancy’s hand.

“Allie, what’s wrong?”

Allie slowly extended her trembling hand, took the locket. “Mom . . . this . . . this is Emily’s locket.” She shuddered. “My God, I’m a giant goose bump.” She slowly took the locket, stared silently at it for a long moment, then whispered to herself, “I’m holding something she held . . . four hundred years ago . . . like Isna and the pipe.” Her voice cracked. “Oh, Mom! Mom!” She shook her head as her eyes again filled with happy tears. “Remember when she found it at the end of the last dream? It was her most precious keepsake. Her mother gave it to her father when he and Emily left England. Oh, Mom. I can’t believe it! Here . . . in my hand. So, watch this.”

Her mother leaned closer.

“It has a secret door, and there’s a lock of Emily’s mother’s hair inside. Watch!” She squeezed the sides to make the stem pop out. Nothing happened. She tried again. Still nothing. She glanced anxiously at her mother then used both thumbs to squeeze three more times with increasing force. On the third squeeze, the stem reluctantly extended. Allie quickly twisted it a full counterclockwise turn, half a clockwise turn, then pushed in to open the trap door, but again nothing happened. “Damn it!” She tried twice more without success. “Come on!”

“Take it easy, Hon. Don’t break it!”

She tapped the stem gently on the tabletop—once, twice, three times. On the fourth try, the lid popped open. Allie stared dumbstruck at the contents. “Oh, no!” She removed a tuft of dark hair. “It’s the wrong hair. It should be brown.” She examined the locket. “But look here, on the back.” She pointed at two faded letters. “See . . . the second one’s a
C
. . . for Colman. But I can’t read the first one—too faded. But look, you can still see part of the five and seven from
1587
, but that’s badly worn, too. Got to be her locket. But why’s the hair wrong?”

Nancy reached into the box, retrieved another item. “Is this it?” She held out a second locket, identical to the first.

Allie’s heart boomed like a cannon as she took the second locket. It had no engraving, except for a partial
C
in the same place as the
C
on the first locket.

Nancy said, “This one’s
much
more worn . . . touched a lot more.”

Allie nodded as she fumbled with the stubborn trap door. “Oh my God. Stop shaking, hands!” She squeezed the sides with maximum force until the stem grudgingly extended. She then applied the proper twists, pushed in on the stem to open the trap door. When the lid failed to open, she tapped the stem on the tabletop as before. On the second try, it popped open. Allie stared blankly then gradually smiled at the lock of brown hair inside. “
This
is Emily’s locket . . . her mother’s hair. Oh my God. I’m holding it in my own hands . . . something
she
held . . . then the Panther . . . then Emily again . . . and God knows who else.” She visualized Emily alone by the fire at Roanoke, reading her mother’s letter, fondling her locket in her other hand, speaking to her as if she were suddenly beside her from across the sea. “But here it is . . . Emily’s precious locket . . . in my hand . . . shaking like there’s no tomorrow.”

Nancy picked up the first locket, stared at it for a moment, looked at Allie. “So whose is this?”

Allie smiled. “This must be the locket Emily’s father gave to her mother, also on the day he and Emily left England. Emily told George they exchanged identical lockets . . . and his hair was dark . . . but . . . but how”—she stared at her mother—“maybe her mother, or brother, or both, eventually made it to the New World . . . but . . . but how did Ian come to have it?”

“I think
I
can answer
that
question. Smidgeons of this stuff are starting to come back to me—from a
long
way back—and I kinda . . .
vaguely
. . . remember my mom saying Ian had always had one locket, but Great-Grandpa gave her another one the day they were married; and she about fainted because
she
knew where it came from . . . even though he
didn’t
. . . but he
did
know it had been in his family, like forever.”

Neither spoke as Allie reverently turned the lockets over and over in her hands, caressed them, thought of Emily, her father, their adventures, their disasters. Suddenly, she grabbed the old picture of Ian, held it close to her eyes, shifted her gaze back and forth between it and the lockets. “Mom! I’ve got it! Look here, see those black stones around Ian’s neck?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, black stones are what Emily and Isna . . . and I . . .
thought
they were when we saw them in Isna’s vision and Emily’s dreams. But guess what?”

“What?”

She smiled. “They just
look
like black stones because they’re so small in the picture. They’re actually these two black lockets.” She held up the lockets. “Look here . . . see the little holes drilled in the edges for a necklace?”

“Oh my God!” Nancy shook her head. “You’re right.”

Allie held the lockets in the palm of her hand, pondered them with teary eyes, then picked up Isna’s pipe and the picture of Ian. “It’s all true, Mom . . . all of it . . . everything . . . every last bit of it . . . everything I dreamed . . . everything I saw and felt . . . real history . . .
our
history, and—”

Her mother touched her arm. “One last thing from the box, Hon.” She looked into Allie’s eyes, handed her another picture, which she immediately snatched, stared at.

“There’s Ian with the lockets and pipe . . . but who’s the little girl whose head she has her hand on?”

Nancy smiled. “That would be your own mother, Ms. O’Shay . . . me!”

Allie’s mind spun; she shook with chills. “Mom . . . Isna’s vision . . . the dreams . . . the old woman—Ian—with the stones and pipe. Remember? She had her hand on the head of a little white fawn. And then Ian and the stones and pipe vanished . . . and . . . and then the fawn grew into a . . . a”— her voice quavered; she choked on tears—“a
doe
and had a little white fawn of her own, the
last
little white fawn.” Allie laid the lockets and pictures aside, held her mother’s hand, stared tearily into her eyes. “Mom,
you’re
the doe . . . and . . . and I’m
your
little white fawn—the
last
little white fawn in Isna’s vision. And, Mom, that’s exactly what Emily and I dreamed in her last dream—the one I tried to tell you and Steve about the other day . . . and you, a few minutes ago.” She released a flood of tears, rubbed her eyes continuously with both hands, blubbered through her sobs, “At the end of the dream, the last little white fawn changed form, and . . . and, Mom . . . she changed into
me
. And as soon as I string these lockets and the pipe onto a
necklace, they’ll be hanging around my neck . . . exactly as in the last scene of Isna’s vision, when the pipe and lockets suddenly appear around the last little white fawn’s neck . . . and finally, in Emily’s last dream, around
my
neck . . . and the vision and dreams will then be fulfilled.” Mother and daughter stared at one another, their eyes filled with tears as they fell into each other’s arms and sobbed.