The Cure for Dreaming (22 page)

“Yes.”

“I can't go into a hotel with you.”

“Genevieve isn't feeling well enough to come outside.”

“If any of my father's patients see me—”

“Go in ahead of me.” He nodded toward the entrance. “We're in room twenty-five on the second floor.”

“What about my bicycle? If he passes by, Father might recognize it.”

“Here . . .” He took hold of the handlebars and the frame. “I'll take it inside for you and ask if we can park it in the lobby. Go on up and wait by the door to the room. I'll be there soon.”

I scanned both sides of the street, and when I didn't see anyone I recognized, I ducked inside the hotel. A sign at the back of the lobby said
STAIRWAY
, so I made a beeline toward it, passing Grecian pillars, plush armchairs, and emerald-green rugs laid over a diamond-tiled floor. Despite the attempts at finery, a worn and decaying look—and odor—clung to every article in the lobby, including the customers. A woman in a beaver-fur stole sank back in an armchair, and her clothes blended in with the moss-green upholstery, as if she and the chair were becoming one. A hotel clerk with a devilish Vandyke beard was belittling two well-dressed black men who were trying to check in at the front—and I could have sworn I saw the polished counter straight through the guests' striped trousers and coats.

I headed up to the second floor, my heart skipping, and tried to ignore the stink of the place and the nervous twisting of my stomach. Henry's voice echoed down below, asking the clerk if he could park my bicycle in the lobby, his voice
smooth and as exquisitely French as fine wine. Less than two minutes later, he was upstairs, coming toward me down the hallway, tugging a gold key out of his coat pocket, while I stood in front of the closed door of room twenty-five.

He moved to insert the key into the lock, but before he could click the metal into place, I blurted out, “Let me see your teeth first.”

Henry's hand stopped in midair. “Pardon?”

“Show me your teeth.”

“Why? Because you're a dentist's daughter?”

“No, because I want to make sure I can trust you.”

I lifted my hand toward his face, but he flinched and shrank back against the gold wallpaper.

“I'm not a vampire, Olivia.”

I stepped closer, which made him blink and flinch again.

“Then why are you acting so suspiciously?” I asked.

“Because . . .”

“Because what?”

“I'm worried I'll—” He sidestepped away from me, but I pinned his arm to the wall, lifted his lip past his gums, and wished to see the truth in his teeth.

Normal.

Harmless.

Clean.

His spotless incisors, canines, bicuspids, and molars were actually quite beautiful, perhaps even brushed on a regular basis. His breath still carried the Christmassy scent of his
peppermint candy, and his lip felt as soft as a petal against my thumb. Our eyes met, and I dropped my hand from his mouth.

“What were you going to say you were worried about?” I asked in a squeak of a voice while retreating two feet backward.

“I was worried that . . .” He removed his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. “I'm sure there's part of me you still won't be able to trust.”

My heart sank. “You're not going to fix me, are you?”

“Come meet Genevieve. We'll discuss what we're going to do after you've spoken to her.”

“Of course I'm going to agree to go along with everything when I see your sister.”

“Olivia . . .” His voice softened. He took my hand. “Please don't get upset. I'll consider altering the hypnosis if I can figure out a way to keep everyone safe.”

“You've got to swear you won't leave me like this.” I gripped his fingers. “Swear to me you won't run away to San Francisco without helping me.”

“If you help Genevieve, I swear upon my life I'll help you.”

A hot tear escaped my left eye before I knew it was even coming.

“I promise, Olivia.” He squeezed my hand. “I won't leave you like this. We're partners, not enemies.
Oui?
”

I nodded and wiped my cheek with the back of my hand, tasting salt on my lips. “Yes.
Oui
. Partners.”

He turned the key in the lock and led me into a small room
with amber curtains pulled back to expose the dwindling late-afternoon sun. The flowery burgundy paper peeling off the walls soaked up most of the light, but the place wasn't quite the woeful retreat of a dying girl I was expecting. A twin bed, a lime-green sofa made up as a second bed, and an elegant ivory washbasin lent the room a homelike atmosphere. The smell of lilac soap, not fever, sweetened the air.

Something on the far corner of the bed caught my attention: a short blink of candlelight that faded the second after I spotted it, as if someone had snuffed out a flame. I tensed, for I saw a pair of eyes watching from the darkness.

Before I could ask Henry what I'd just seen, the light brightened again, illuminating the face of a girl. A moment later, it flickered away, and the bed lay empty.

“Olivia, this is my sister, Genevieve.” Henry came around my side and walked toward the waxing and waning figure on the sheets. “Genevieve, I present to you Olivia Mead.”

I couldn't move. One moment, she was clear and vibrant—a golden-haired girl in a white nightgown, crawling toward me across the covers—the next, she was sputtering out, and the bed looked abandoned, save for the indentations of hands and knees on the mattress.

“What's wrong?” asked Henry, his face paling. “What does she look like?”

I gave a shiver. “I see things the way they are, but I can't predict the future.”

“What does she look like?” he asked again, his voice taking
on a tinny phonograph quality as his sister consumed my attention.

I swallowed. “A candle flame that can't decide if it has the strength to keep burning.” I shifted my eyes away from her.

Henry's bottom lip trembled. His arms hung by his sides like two useless extensions of his body. I felt compelled to hug him, but Genevieve spoke before I gathered the courage to do so.

“Henry told me what he was paid to do, Miss Mead,” she said. “Please come sit by me so I may talk to you. Don't be afraid to look at me.”

I turned and ventured over to the bed while clutching the sides of my skirt. Genevieve continued to flicker and fade, as if she were sitting in a blackened room, illuminated every few seconds by a soundless flash of lightning. My brain went dizzy and fuzzy from watching her come and go like that, and I half expected crashes of thunder to rumble across the walls and make sense of the phenomenon—yet none ever arrived. I sat beside her and steadied my breathing.

“Henry told me you're not allowed to speak your anger anymore,” she said during a moment of illumination that revealed the concerned arc of her eyebrows, “and you can see people's true selves, sometimes in frightening forms.”

I nodded, still speechless. I discovered that blinking a few times in a row almost made her stay in place. “Are you in pain, Genevieve?” I asked her.

“No.” She placed her hand over her upper chest. “The
tumor is simply something I know shouldn't be there, which, I admit, does make me feel a little sick. And tired.”

“I'm so sorry.”

“And what about you?” she asked, scooting closer with a rustle of sheets. “Are you staying safe?”

“I'm healthy, so I can't complain.”

“No, be honest with me. Are you suffering because of Henry's hypnosis?”

“Well . . .” I averted my eyes from hers again, choosing to gaze instead at the wrinkles in my black skirt and the spots of dirt flecked across the hem. “I've just asked him to alter the part about . . .” I shook my head and sighed. “I can wait, Genevieve. It's just three more days. You're a little bit younger than me, aren't you?”

“I'm almost sixteen.”

“Sixteen?” I clasped my hand over my eyes. “No, I'll just keep saying that all is well.”

“You hinted you weren't safe,” she said. “What's happened to you?”

“Someone bit her,” said Henry.

Genevieve gasped. “Bit her? Why?”

“It was the boy—the cocky one—who escorted her to that party last night.” Henry sank down on the sofa with an uncomfortable sigh. “That type of behavior happens sometimes . . . when, um,
gentlemen
get . . . romantic.”

“I assure you, I'm not a loose girl,” I said to Genevieve. “I tried to tell Percy to stop, but all I could say was—”

“‘All is well,'” Henry finished for me.

Genevieve flickered into view with greater wattage. “Where did he bite you?”

“On my neck.”

“Like Dracula?” she asked.

I smiled. “You've read
Dracula
?”

“Of course. It was
magnifique
.”

“When did you read it?” asked Henry.

“I borrowed it from the library last year, when you were so busy reading your hypnotism books and fussing over your hair for the girls.” She brightened even further, remaining solid and steady for seconds at a time. “How bad of a bite was it, Miss Mead?”

I squirmed and didn't answer.

She shifted her legs over the side of the bed. “Please show me.”

I looked to Henry, who pursed his lips as if he didn't know what to say.

“Oh, I don't know about that,” I said. “It's an awfully embarrassing thing to share . . .”

“No need to be embarrassed,” said Henry. “If I'm an honest hypnotist, which I like to think I am, I should see how much harm I've caused.”

I sipped two calming breaths through my lips—
in, out, breathe, deeper
—and lifted my hand to the topmost pearl. Henry stood up from the sofa and trod toward me with hesitant footsteps, making my fingers shake and slide around
on the pearl's slick surface before I could twist the clasp loose from the buttonhole. I undid the second button, which allowed the air in the room to cool the skin of my throat, and I exhaled, as if I'd just freed my neck from the embrace of a noose.

The blouse remained taut over the lower half of my neck. I unbuttoned the third clasp and pulled the plaid wool aside to expose my bare skin.

Genevieve whimpered and sputtered out of view. Henry's eyes widened. He came closer and peeled the fabric farther down.

“Is that . . . is it . . .” I attempted to smile away my mortification. “Is that the normal look of a bite from a gentleman who's feeling romantic?”

Henry tucked my blouse back over my skin. “I don't think romance had anything to do with that mark.”

“Perhaps . . .” Genevieve surged back into light. “You could maybe consider hypnotizing her father into paying your fee, eh? Then you could immediately end her hypnosis and—”

“What? Genevieve!” Henry froze. “You know full well I can't hypnotize people into giving me money.”

“But—”

“Look what happened to Uncle Lewis when he tried that sort of thing. What good would I be to you if I'm lying in some gutter, bleeding to death?”

“But that was all because of a gambling debt,” said Genevieve. “This is different.”

“Something would go wrong, and I'd end up either in jail or in a coffin.” Henry tottered over to the window and scratched his forehead. “I don't know what to do, Olivia. We really can't change any part of the hypnosis before your father sees satisfying results.”

“But he's already seen results,” I said. “He knows I can't get angry with him. What more proof is he waiting for?”

Henry rubbed his face, but he did not answer.

“What is it?” I rose from the bed. “What do you know, Henry?”

He dropped his hands to his sides and faced me. “I have an appointment to go to your house in an hour. He's asked me to make adjustments to the hypnosis.”

“What? More mind control?”

“He wants to show you off to members of some sort of organization—the Association of something or other.”

My mouth went dry. “The Oregon Association Opposed to the Extension of Suffrage to Women.”

“That's the one.” Henry leaned his shoulder blades against the window. “He wants to demonstrate your treatment to some woman who's in charge of the association.”

Oh, Lord. Sunken-Eyed John's mother.

“What else did he say?” I asked with my hands balled into fists.

“He mentioned it's the millionaires' wives who are the strongest anti-suffrage voices, and he's terrified of losing his rich customers if these powerful women think you're a suffragist.
If he can convince this lady that I've removed your ‘unfeminine' beliefs, he'll be invited back to her election-night party, where I'm to demonstrate to an entire crowd that suffragists can be cured.”

I stepped back, my breath tight in my lungs. “Am I the suffragist you'll be curing in front of everyone?”

“You'll be there,” he said with a grim nod, “but you might not be much of a suffragist by then.”

I dropped back down onto the bed with a force that jarred my neck.

Genevieve's hand nestled against mine. “Surely we can get money some other way.”

“After both the theater and Dr. Mead pay me Tuesday night,” said Henry, “we'll only be two dollars short of the rest of the surgeon's fee. Just two measly dollars! How else am I supposed to legally find that sort of money? Before it's too late for you?”

I sniffed back tears and buttoned up my blouse, nearly forgetting I had left my neck exposed and cold.

“Olivia.” Henry stepped toward me on the hard soles of his shoes. He cupped a warm hand over my shoulder. “Please, look up at me.”

I did as he asked, my teeth clenched, my every muscle tense and on the defensive.