Stolen Dreams (2 page)

“Mary, what are you going to be for Halloween?” Clarissa
asked as Mary slowly climbed down the stairs.

Pushing her hair away from her sleepy face, Mary yawned and
sighed. “Just put me in orange sweat pants and a sweatshirt and I can go as a
walking pumpkin,” she muttered.

“What?” Clarissa asked.

Chuckling, Bradley met Mary at the bottom of the stairs and
handed her a cup of herbal tea. “You are extremely beautiful and sexy,” he
said, placing a kiss on her cheek. Then he turned to Clarissa. “I think she
should go as a princess. What do you think?”

Clarissa studied her stepmother for a moment, cocking her
head to the side and contemplating her father’s comment. “If Mary goes as Snow
White, then maybe baby Mikey can be one of the dwarves.”

Nearly spitting out the sip of tea she’d just taken, Mary
swallowed quickly and laughed. “I think that would be perfect,” she said,
picturing a dwarf costume on her protruding belly. “Or I could be a snowman and
baby Mikey can be the middle layer.”

“That would be cool, too,” Clarissa said, excited about the
whole new classification of costumes. “Or you could be a haunted house and
Mikey could be a ghost coming out of the door.”

“A house,” Mary muttered. “Yes, that’s about how big I
feel.”

“I think we should stop thinking about costumes,” Bradley
suggested, worrying that this conversation could take an ugly turn at any
moment.

“Or you could be a
Heffalump
from
Winnie-the-Pooh!” Clarissa exclaimed.

Ugly turn reached,
Bradley thought, closing his eyes for a moment,
then
peeking at Mary.

Her lips were turned down in a pout and she was staring at
her belly where she was resting her tea cup.
 
She slowly lifted her head and, with a glimmer of tears in her eyes,
sniffed audibly. “I look like a
Heffalump
?” she
asked.

Wrapping his arms around her, Bradley brought her into his
embrace. “No, sweetheart,” he said. “You look perfect.
Beautiful.
And, actually, more like Winnie-the-Pooh than a
Heffalump
.”

She softly punched his arm. “Shut up,” she said, laughing
softly. “You’re not helping.”

Suddenly baby Mikey made his presence known by kicking
Bradley and causing him to jump back. “Whoa,” Bradley said. “He’s got quite a
kick there.”

“Oh, really?”
Mary asked
sarcastically. “I hadn’t really noticed.”

She put the teacup down and placed her hands over her belly.
“Yes, Mikey, you know what you would like to be for Halloween?” she asked,
bending her head forward and pretending to listen. After a moment, she looked
up and smiled at Bradley and Clarissa. “Well, of course, that makes perfect
sense. Mikey wants to be a Ninja.”

Clarissa hopped off her chair, grabbing her backpack as she walked
towards the front door, her eyes wide with enthusiasm. “That would be great,”
she agreed. “And, know what? You could go as a Teenaged—”

Bradley placed his hand strategically over Clarissa’s mouth
and shook his head. “No, sweetie, we don’t even want to go there,” he said with
a grin.

Clarissa giggled and then walked over to Mary to give her a
hug. “Mrs. Shepard, Macy’s mom, says she hates you because from the back you
don’t even look pregnant,” Clarissa said. Then she bent and pressed a kiss on
Mary’s belly. “Bye, Mikey, see you after school.”

“Thank you,” Mary said, bending over and kissing Clarissa.
“That was just what I needed to hear. Have a wonderful day.”

“You, too,” Clarissa called, hurrying to the door. “Bye,
Dad.”

“Bye, sweetie,” he called back and then he turned to Mary.
“So, which one is Mrs. Shepard?”

“The bleached blonde who always looks like she’s just come
from the gym when she picks up her kids,” Mary replied with a sweet smile.

“Ah, the spandex queen.”

An eyebrow rose over Mary’s right eye. “So, you noticed,”
she said.

Bradley shook his head. “No. No, I didn’t notice at all.
That’s what other people call her,” he replied with a smile and then, changing
the subject, asked, “So, what do you want for breakfast?”

“What are my choices?” she asked.

“Eggs, bacon, pancakes, frozen waffles, oatmeal, toast,
yogurt, cereal and fruit,” he replied.

“Okay, sounds good,” she replied walking past him towards
the kitchen so she could hide her smile.

“All of it?” he asked, trying unsuccessfully to hide his
surprise.

Slipping onto a stool next to the counter, she turned and
grinned at him. “No, although I feel hungry enough to eat it all,” she
admitted. “I’ll just have a protein shake with yogurt, and maybe some whole
grain toast.”

“That’s all?” he replied, coming up beside her. “Is that
enough?”

Feeling grateful for his concern, she wrapped her arms
around his waist and hugged him. “Yes, it’s enough,” she said. “But thanks for
worrying.”

He placed his head down on the top of hers and held her,
loving the way she still fit in his embrace.

“Good morning you two lovebirds,” Mike said, appearing next
to them, his translucent body lingering in the doorway. “How did you sleep?”

“I had some crazy dreams,” she replied.

“You could say that again,” Mike said.

Bradley, still holding Mary in his arms, nodded, “Yeah, I
woke up once when you were thrashing around,” he said. “Then you got out of
bed.”

She pulled back. “I got out of bed?” she asked.
“To go to the bathroom?”

Mike shook his head. “No, you had some other things on your
mind.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked.

“Do you want to show her, or shall I?” Bradley asked.

“Show me what?”

“Instead of going to the bathroom, you wandered into the
hallway and headed downstairs,” Mike said. “So we both decided to follow you.”
 

“Downstairs?” Mary asked, shocked. “I don’t remember going
downstairs.”

“I think you were sleep walking,” Bradley said. “You kept
murmuring something about someone taking your baby and how you had to find it.”

“Where was I looking?” she asked.

“Follow me,” Mike replied, floating into the living room.

Bradley took Mary’s hand, helped her off the stool and guided
her back to the living room. Then Mike pushed aside a rug near the
fireplace.
 
There were several deep
gouges in the wood floor.

“I did that?”
 
she
asked, astonished.

Nodding, Bradley picked up the poker from the fireplace set.
“You were using this as a shovel,” he said. “You were pretty determined to get
through the floor.”

“Wow,” she said, leaning against the fireplace, her fingers
to her temples. “I seem to remember having that dream again, when I’m walking
down those long corridors, searching for my baby.
 
And I remember the door that always shrinks
was on the floor this time.”
 
She paused
and looked over at the scarred floor and shook her head. “And I remember
picking up a fire ax and heaving it at the floor to break the door down.”

She stopped and turned to Bradley, her eyes widening in
understanding. “Then you were in my dream,” she said. “Talking to me and
walking me back down the hallway.”

“Yeah, well, I had to save the floor,” he said with a smile.
“I just spoke softly and calmly, so you didn’t wake up and I led you back
upstairs.”

“I don’t ever remember sleepwalking and never sleep digging,”
she replied, shaking her head.

“Yeah, I don’t remember you doing anything like this
either,” Mike agreed. “Maybe’s it’s a pregnancy thing.”

“Well, we’re going to have to do something about this,”
Bradley said, pointing down at the damaged floor.”

“I’ll just call Casey,” she replied absently.

“Who?”
Bradley asked, confused.

“Casey Ditsworth,” she explained “The cute, wood flooring
guy.”

“Excuse me?” Bradley asked, his eyebrows
raised
.

Mike chuckled. “Now you’re in for it,” he muttered.

Mary grinned. “I mean the highly proficient, and reasonably priced,
wood flooring professional. Besides, that’s just what other people call him.”

“What I meant,” Bradley said, “is we need to figure out
what’s causing these dreams.”

Mary folded her arms protectively around her belly.
“How?”

Bradley shook his head. “I don’t know yet.”

“Well, the first thing we need to consider is that maybe
this dream isn’t about my namesake,” Mike said.

“Why?
 
What makes you
think that?” she asked.

“Because last night, when you were going to town on the
floor, you said you were trying to find your little girl,” Bradley replied.

Mary sat back in her chair and stared at the computer
screen.
 
She had been doing research all
morning, looking back at the archives from the local newspaper, hoping to find
something about a missing baby girl.
 
But
so far, nothing fit with her dreams.
 
All
she had was a sore back and the beginnings of a headache.

The bell over the door rang and Mary looked up to see Rosie
and Stanley entering her office. “Hi, how are you two doing?” she asked.

“Well, better than you from the looks of it,” Stanley said.
“
You feeling
labor pains?”

“No, Stanley,” she said with a smile. “The baby is not due
for a few months. I just have a headache.”

Rosie walked past her to the little refrigerator in the
office and pulled out a bottle of water.
 
Walking back, she opened the bottle and handed it to Mary. “How’s your
water intake been today?” Rosie asked.

Mary sighed. “Not good,” she admitted.

“Drink.
Then we can talk,” Rosie ordered.

Mary obediently raised the bottle to her lips and swallowed
half a bottle before she put it down on her desk. “Thanks, Rosie,” she said. “I
needed that.”

“So what’s your problem?” Rosie asked.

“I’ve been having a reoccurring dream for several months,”
Mary explained. “I’m trapped in what seems to be an old house.
 
There are narrow, long hallways and heavy,
wooden doors all around me.
 
And someone
has taken my baby from me.
 
I keep
hearing a baby cry and I keep running through the house trying to find the
baby, but the doors are locked.
 
In the
last few seconds of the dream, I am trying to open a door that’s shrinking, but
I know my baby’s on the other side.”

“Sounds terrifying,” Rosie said. “Do you ever find the
baby?”

Mary shook her head. “No, I usually just wake up in my bed,
still screaming for the baby.”

“Usually?”
Stanley asked, cocking
his head. “So, what’s happened that changed things?”

“Well, last night I actually started to sleepwalk in the
middle of the dream,” she said. “Bradley found me downstairs taking a fireplace
poker to the wooden floor. I guess I thought it was the door.”

“Oh, well, Casey can fix that,” Rosie said casually.

“Who’s Casey?” Stanley asked.

“He’s that cute, flooring guy,” Rosie and Mary answered at
the same time.

“Oh, yeah, I’ve heard about him,” Stanley replied.

“You have?” Rosie asked.

“Sure, my daughter-in-law talks about him all the time,” he
said.
“Sounds like he has a fan club.”

Mary laughed. “Don’t tell Bradley about it,” she said. “Or
I’ll have to hear about the Spandex Queen fan club.”

“Mrs. Shepard?” Stanley asked.

Rosie turned and stared at him. “How did you know about
her?”

Stanley glanced to the side and cleared his throat. “Just
heard about her, I guess,” Stanley said, coughing slightly.

“Stanley Wagner,” Rosie said, winking at Mary. “I do believe
you are blushing.”

“
Dagnabbit
!
I
ain’t
doing no such thing, woman,” he growled.
“Now, let’s get back to talking about something sensible. So, Mary, what are
you going to do about your dream?”

“Do?” Mary asked, biting back a laugh. “What am I supposed
to do?”

“Come on, girly,
ain’t
you heard
about lucid dreaming?” Stanley asked. “I can’t be the only one who’s educated
about this.”

“Lucid dreaming?”
Mary asked.

“It’s when you go into your dream and take control,” Stanley
said.

“How do you do that?” Rosie asked.

Stanley shrugged. “Danged if I know,” he said. “I just read
about it in one of the magazines at the barber shop.”

“The barber shop?”
Mary repeated
skeptically.
“Really?
That’s where you get your
educated information?
 
The
barber shop?”

“Hey, it was one of those fancy, psychology magazines,” he
explained. “Old Bert likes to think he’s got educated clientele.”

“Why were you reading psychology magazines?” Rosie asked.

Looking a little sheepish, Stanley shrugged. “Well, truth be
known, it was because all the other magazines were taken.”

Mary laughed. “Well, actually I’m glad they were,” she said
thoughtfully. “I think you might have sent me in the right direction, and I bet
I know who will be able to tell me even more about lucid dreaming.”

“Lucid dreaming?
Girl, what are you
up to now?” Dr. Gracie Williams, Psychologist for the Chicago Police Department
asked when Mary called her.

“I’ve had a reoccurring nightmare,” Mary explained, sitting
back in her chair and cradling the phone against her cheek and shoulder while
she picked up a notepad. “And I have a feeling that if I could just take
control while I’m dreaming, I could find out what’s causing it.”

“You do realize that sometimes we have nightmares because
our conscious doesn’t want to deal with something, so it gets pushed into our
subconscious,” Gracie warned. “Sometimes we aren’t emotionally ready to face
those issues.”

“Well, it’s about someone taking a baby away from me,” Mary
said. “So if it’s a subconscious fear, I’d rather deal with it now, before
Mikey is born.”

There was a small pause in the conversation.
 
Then Gracie spoke again.
 
“You would have named that baby Gracie if you
were going to have a girl, right?” Gracie teased.

“Oh, yes,” Mary replied, nodding into the phone. “That was
our first choice.”

The soft chuckle on the other end made Mary smile. “Okay,
here’s what you can try,” Gracie said. “But it might take some practice. Before
you fall asleep you go through the scenario you want to have happen in your
mind.
 
You tell yourself you are in
control.
 
Remind yourself that this is
only a dream. Keep repeating those thoughts.
 
Then keep replaying the scene the way you want it to go as you fall
asleep.
 
That should be the last thing on
your mind.”

“Okay, I’m in charge of my dream, right?” Mary asked.

“Yes you are,” Gracie said. “But you have to believe it. If
you are locked in a room in your dream, you just tell yourself there’s a key in
your pocket.
 
Then you reach in your
pocket for the key and get yourself out. It’s your dream.
 
You get to write the script.”

“This is so cool,” Mary said. “I never knew I had so much
power.”

“That’s the problem with most of us, sugar,” Gracie said. “If
people would just believe in their own abilities and be courageous enough to
put them to the test, there’d be a whole lot more happy people out there.”

“Thank you, Gracie,” Mary said.

“Any time, sugar,” she replied. “You give that hunky man of
yours a kiss from me and give your baby girl a hug from Auntie Gracie.”

“I will,” Mary said with a smile.

“And when are you going to get your little pregnant self to
Chicago so I can see how cute you look?”
 
Gracie asked.

“Soon.
I promise,” Mary said.

“I’ll hold you to that,” Gracie said. “Let me know how your
lucid dreaming works out, okay? And be patient with yourself. This stuff takes
a little time.”

“I will,” Mary said. “I’m going to try it out tonight.
Thanks again.”

Mary hung up the phone and sat back in her chair, replaying
the dream in her mind and deciding how she wanted it to end.
 
There were several sequences that were always
the same every time she had the dream.
 
That’s where she could take more control, in the areas that were familiar.

She was startled from her musing when the bell over her door
rang again.
 
She looked up to see Bradley
walking in with a couple of bags from the local deli.

“Sorry. It looks like I interrupted you,” he said, holding
up the bags. “I brought lunch.”

She shook her head to clear it. “No, I was just planning
some things out,” she said. “But I’ll always stop for food.”

He sat on the chair in front of her desk and placed the
white paper sack in front of her. “So, what are you planning?” he asked.

Pulling out a
styrofoam
cup of soup
and a half sandwich, she arranged her food in front of her before she answered.
“I’m planning what I’m going to do in my dreams,” she said, lifting the
sandwich up and taking a bite.

Bradley paused, his sandwich halfway to his mouth. “Planning
your dreams?” he asked. “Can you do that?”

Still chewing, Mary shrugged and nodded. “I’m going to try,”
she finally said. “Gracie thought I could do it.”

Bradley took a bite of his sandwich and chewed for a few
moments, contemplating what Mary had said. “So, is this Gracie’s idea?” he
asked before biting again.

Mary shook her head. “No, it was actually Stanley’s idea,”
she said.

His mouth full, Bradley could only raise his eyebrows to
indicate his concern.

Laughing, Mary shook her head. “He read about it in a
magazine at the barber shop,” she
said,
a twinkle in
her eye. “So, it must be a good idea.”

Choking back the bite of sandwich, Bradley cleared his
throat. “A barber shop magazine?” he asked. “Well, good thing there wasn’t a
medical journal on the table; he might just want to volunteer to deliver the
baby.”

Chuckling, Mary pulled her pickle spear out of the wax paper
and pointed it in Bradley’s direction. “It is now your official job to make
sure there are no medical journals at the barber shop,” she said.
 

“So, Stanley came up with the idea,” Bradley said. “And
Gracie actually agrees?”

“Well, she told me how to try and gain control of my
dreams,” she replied. “I never considered that since they were my dreams, I
could be in control.”

“What’s your plan?”
 
he
asked.

“Since I said the baby was a girl last night,” she said,
“this must be someone else’s nightmare and I’m just in there with them.
 
I need to look around and discover whose
dream I’m in and figure out why I’m there.”

“Okay, you look around inside the dream. I’ll stay awake and
protect you and the wood floor outside your dream,” he said matter-of-factly.

Mary chuckled. “How did I get so lucky?” she murmured.

“Hey, I’m just protecting my interests,” he said.

“Your interests?” she asked, confused.

“Yeah, I asked around the station about this Casey fellow,”
he said. “If one more woman calls him the cute flooring guy, we’re putting in
carpet.”