The Cure for Dreaming (14 page)

The accompanying photograph of my eighteen-year-old father, however—
my father
, Mead the Mad—was the spitting image of me, aside from his short hair and mustache, of course.

Good Lord
. I was more like him than her.

Good Lord
. What if I resembled him in behavior, too?

I snapped the frames closed, pinching a finger in my haste.

A minute later, Gerda joined me and helped button me up in an eggplant-purple gown I'd worn to the wedding of one of Father's cousins down in Salem.

“You look lovely this evening, Miss Mead.”

“Thank you, Gerda.” I straightened the satin poufs sliding off my shoulders. “I personally think I look like a giant purple bauble someone might hang on a Christmas tree.”

She laughed. “No, no, no, you look like an elegant young lady. Your young man—”

“He's not quite my young man.”

“
That
young man, then, will fall madly in love with you when he sees you dressed like this.”

“Hmm.” I chewed my bottom lip. “I'd feel a whole lot better knowing a person was falling in love with me because of me and not because of hypnosis or snug purple gowns.”

Gerda tittered again. “You're so funny, Miss Mead. You'll make him laugh, if nothing else. And when men laugh, they feel happy and in love.” She hooked the last button. “That's what
Mamma
always says about
Fader
.”

A knock downstairs made my shoulders jerk.

Gerda and I locked eyes.

“He's here,” I said in a whisper.

“Put your shoes on.” She scurried to my door. “I'll tell them you're almost ready.”

Before I could say a word, she was gone, her footsteps padding down the stairs.

Down below the boards of my bedroom, the front door opened with its usual squeak. I heard muffled male voices. My pulse pounded in my ears in the same swift rhythm as the clock on my wall.

“Oh, please look normal,” I whispered while facing my closed door. I folded my hands beneath my chin and scrunched my eyes closed. “Please, please, please don't turn out to be a monster.”

“Olivia,” called Father. “Young Mr. Acklen has arrived.”

I opened my eyes, inhaled a deep breath, and dared to leave the safety of my room.

Below me, past the bottom of the staircase, Father and Percy chatted about the upcoming election—the impassioned battle between President McKinley and the Democratic anti-imperialist William Jennings Bryan. I only saw the back of Percy's head, and his auburn hair looked just as handsome and impeccable as usual, with a sheen of pomade glistening in the lamplight. He wore his wool outer coat over a pair of narrow-striped trousers, with a finely knit crimson scarf hanging around his neck. His silk top hat dangled from his right fingers.

Time seemed to freeze for a fraction of a moment. Hope for Percy swelled in my heart. Anything was possible, and if I had my way, we would have remained like that—suspended, innocent, unencumbered by my strange sight—for the rest of the evening.

But then Father's dark gaze—a bit too predatory for my taste—flitted toward me. His voice rumbled through the hall. “Ah, Olivia is here.”

Percy turned around.

Normal
. He was normal—well shaven and groomed and as beautiful as ever.

My legs gave way in relief, and I had to clutch the banister with both hands.

Percy stepped toward me, the ends of his scarf swaying with the lunge. “Are you all right, Olivia?”

“Yes.” I gripped the handrail and proceeded down the steps. “I'm sorry. I got dizzy for a moment.”

“Ladies and swooning,” said Father with a roll of his eyes. “They can't help themselves, I'm afraid.”

“All is well.”

“The Eiderlings will have plenty to eat at their party,” said Percy, “so you won't feel faint much longer.” He fetched my coat from the wall hook and spread it open for me to enter. “Are you well enough to go?”

“Yes, I'm fine.” I slid my bare arms inside the heavy sleeves, and a potent whiff of his cologne shot clear up to my sinuses.

Father beamed one of his hearty Santa Claus smiles and opened the door for the two of us. “Take good care of my girl, Mr. Acklen. I'll expect her home by ten.”
And don't forget to propose to her
, I thought I heard him add, but he grinned, and Percy grinned, and nobody said a word about marriage.

MANDOLIN'S HOOVES STOMPED ACROSS THE MUD-CAKED
street leading north of my neighborhood, and the buggy rocked me in a rhythm that might have made me drowsy if my spine weren't locked upright. Nerves thickened my tongue, and every conversation topic sounded jumbled and stupid in my head.

“How is your ear?” I asked when the silence grew too fierce.

“Better.” He glanced my way. “I was only teasing about you owing me more than just a book, you know.”

My cheeks warmed. “I know.”

“You looked so frightened when I said that to you at school. What did you think I would make you do?”

“I don't know.” I fussed with a loose pin in my hair and tried to persuade myself Frannie was mistaken about him. The word
grabber
loitered in my mind like an unwanted guest.

Percy steered Mandolin west, onto Irving. “I read all of it.”

“All of what?” I asked.

“
Dracula
, of course.”

“Oh.” I tightened my coat around my neck. “Did you like it?”

“Yes. But why do
you
like it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why do you like a horrific story involving so much blood and murder?”

“I don't know. Why does anyone like any literature?” I shrugged as if responding to my own question. “I love that books allow us to experience other lives without us ever having to change where we live or who we are.”

He kept his eyes on the lamp-lit road ahead, which was disappearing into a gold-tinged mist that carried the scents of chimney smoke and rain. “You were right about there being certain . . .
scenes
.” His mouth turned up in a smile.

My neck sweltered beneath my coat. “Yes, um, well, I warned you.”

“And that Lucy character, with ‘eyes unclean and full of hell-fire'—holy Moses.” He shook his head. “Why would a girl like you want to read about someone like her?”

“The book was about far more than just Lucy.”

“Oh, sure, there were also Dracula's lusty wives.”

I snorted. “Why are you dwelling on the lewd women in the book?
Dracula
is more Mina's story than anything. Prim and saintly Mina. I'm sure you liked her all right.”

“Oh, Mina was just fine. In fact, I think I fell a little in love with her and wanted to save her.” He peeked my way. “She reminded me of you.”

I met his eyes, which gave off a strange yellow cast in the darkness, the way a prowling cat's eyes appear when it's stalking through my backyard after nightfall. I shuddered and told myself I'd only imagined the phenomenon, even though a sideways sort of feeling washed through me again.

“Mina Harker reminded you of me?” I asked.

He nodded. “She was a lot like you.”

“Oh.” I took hold of the side of the buggy. “And who are you most like? Jonathan Harker? Dracula?”

“Arthur,” he answered without hesitation. “Lucy's fiancé.”

My blood chilled. Arthur was the character who had staked wild Lucy. Ferociously.

He looked like a figure of Thor as his untrembling arm rose and fell, driving deeper and deeper the mercy-bearing stake . . .

I wrinkled my brow. “Why would you want to be like
him
?”

“I didn't say I wanted to be like him. But this past summer there was a girl . . .” He straightened his top hat with a clumsy movement of his hand and hardened his jaw. “What am I saying? You don't want to hear about another girl.”

“No, tell me. Did someone hurt you?”

“She . . .” He gave a little cough, as though his throat had gone dry. “Her name was Nanette. I met her in Los Angeles when my family was summering down there. She liked to listen to ragtime music and rode around the city on a bicycle. She wore bloomers that made old ladies throw rocks at her in disgust, and she called her parents
Lula and Pete
instead of
Mother and Father
.”

“Oh?” My heart drummed with jealousy. Bloomers, no less. Beautiful bicycle bloomers.

Percy huffed a sigh. “I thought I could handle her, but she was a bit much. Her parents believed in free love. Her mother gave birth to her when she was living in some sort of utopian society that shunned marriage. Nanette's father may not even be her father.”

He flicked the reins to bring Mandolin to a faster walk. The buggy swayed and bounced and thundered over the uneven road, and wind whistled across my ears.

“It turned out Nanette believed in free love, too,” he continued. “I found out she was with two other fellows while I was courting her.”

“Oh. I'm sorry.” The buggy knocked me to the left, and my hand clutched his arm for support, my nails digging into wool. “And that's why you hate the Lucy Westenra character so much?”

“Olivia . . .” He shook his head. “You're supposed to hate Lucy, too. She drank the blood of children.”

“But”—I let go of him and righted myself—“if she didn't have that bloodthirsty side, I'm guessing you still would have hated her. She was hardly a standard young lady with pure thoughts.”

“I'm just saying that's why I feel like Arthur. I completely understand the burden of trying to love a devil woman.” He eased his grip on the reins. “And that's why I'm more than ready to have an innocent girl in my life. Someone chaste and sweet and docile.” He scooted next to me until our arms and hips rocked against each other, while the buggy rolled onward toward the grand mansions of Irving Street that rose up ahead like incandescent palaces. “Olivia . . .”

I waited for him to continue, but when he didn't, I fastened my top coat button and asked, “Yes?”

His foot nestled against mine. “It's my firm belief that you will be the savior of my poor broken heart. You're exactly what I need.”

Shadows hid his face too much for me to get a good look at him, but the weight of his expectations—his overconfidence in my sweetness—bore down on my shoulders. I clamped my teeth together.

If he had my vision of the world, if he had seen me the way I truly was, he would have thrown me off the buggy right then and there and kept on driving into the mist.

ercy slowed the buggy as we approached a sandstone fortress with a terra-cotta roof and a half-dozen turrets. Electric lanterns and chandeliers lit the entire building, and an arched wooden door, wide and thick enough to fend off both hurricane winds and invading armies, guarded the front entrance. Six other buggies stood alongside the curb in front of the castle, and the resting horses exhaled clouds of foggy breath through their wide nostrils.