Fifty years has passed since the Pandemic of Black Dreams decimated the earth’s population. Isolated outbreaks, nevertheless, continue. The virus responsible, initially released by the melting polar caps, manifests through its victims’ dreams. Frightfully vivid nightmares overload the body’s’ fight-or-flight mechanism. Adrenaline floods the heart until the heartbeat falters, and most frequently fails. But if the afflicted can somehow survive the virus, if they can face their own devils incarnated so vividly in these nightmares; their dreams are forever changed. And while the changes are only beginning to be understood, some of them are surprisingly beneficial.
—taken from the Pandect, 1st edition
October 2060
Panorama
Chapter 1
Under the curved overhang of the hotel stairs, Waverly dug through her cluttered desk for a lump of charcoal. On heavy card stock she sketched a mop of unkempt hair, a be-stubbled jaw line, and a pair of long spindly legs decked in cut-off blue jeans. The light pack she drew on the young man’s back had a zipper gaping open. A map, on the mountain path behind him, had fallen out, and his dinner baguette, slipping through the opening, was ready to drop into the salivating jaws of his eager beagle. But the young man’s eyes, star-struck, were trained on the pink-haloed peaks in the distance and oblivious to the dark precipice ahead.
Waverly’s preliminary sketch of the tarot card, The Fool, lay in a lamp-fed pool of light. The lamp’s circular glow panned out to include her scripting machine. And propped against the scripting machine were a whole line of Fools. Five different interpretations of The Fool by five different tarot artists peered down their noses at the newcomer. They rolled their eyes and sniffed in disdain; or so it seemed to Waverly.
She’d been designing tarot cards for years. Her intent with this particular deck was to recreate one she’d painted years earlier. Her work this time was all from memory, however, as she’d been forced to sell the initial deck to the Vigilant before she could have a copy made.
She leaned back in the shadowy alcove beneath the stairs and stretched, careful to avoid knocking an elbow on the mahogany undercarriage of the hotel’s staircase. Her gaze strayed to the windows on the far side of the lobby. A steady drizzle mixed with sleet pelted the glass panes and lent a chill to the prematurely dim afternoon. There was a brief sizzle on the grate of the stone fireplace as a bit of slush fell through the flue and into the fire. Waverly almost wished the dreary weather would discourage the Entourage from their impending visit. She had too much on her mind to deal with them at the moment. Still, she never knew when they might slip a precious nugget of information her way regarding her daughter.
Nijel, bent over the hearth of the hotel lobby’s stone fireplace, tossed his long dark ponytail behind his back before stirring the flickering coals. Waverly observed with a bittersweet pride the broadening in Nijel’s shoulders and his newfound height. While she’d been denied the privilege of raising her daughter, at least she’d gotten to play a part in raising Nijel. She wouldn’t be able to call him the hotel tenderfoot much longer, however. He’d soon be an apprentice.
Grayson, manning the registration desk, studied the keys of unoccupied rooms that hung below their respective cubbyholes. He was cadaver-thin and even with the slight stoop in his shoulders he stood inordinately tall. He tapped his finger on his lips. “Waverly, I have three rooms open. Should we give Room Number Ten to the doctor or to the women? Or should we use it at all?”
An Entourage of the Vigilant was expected that very evening and Waverly wasn’t surprised to see Grayson, even at this hour, agonizing over room assignments. He already had a budding case of psoriases, his face and hands broken out in itchy scaly patches that he wouldn’t leave alone.
Room Number Ten had by far the best view of the island as it overlooked the slope down Main Street and the hill coming up the far side. That supposed advantage, however, had backfired on them more than once. With the view of Main Street unobstructed, guests had been known to become infuriated over some unseemly behavior in the streets below.
“It’s the nicest room in the house. It’d be a shame not to use it,” Waverly said, smudging a shadow into the charcoal chasm that awaited her neophyte Fool. “But I’d give Room Ten to the doctor. His teenage daughters, I suspect, are more excitable.”
“They’re his daughters? Teenagers?” Grayson scratched the back of his hand. “You might have told me sooner we were expecting young people.”
“I thought I did tell you.” Although it was quite possible she hadn’t. She’d been so preoccupied with amplifying a recent dream about her daughter, she’d practically forgotten about the Entourage.
“No. And as I’m not in the mind-reading business like some people in this room, you have to spell these things out for me—with words.”
“I’m no mind-reader. I’m a catalyst—a catalyst for the cards is all,” she said as she held up the one she’d been working on to view it from a new angle.
Grayson peered at her over the top of his bifocals. “How old did you say these girls were?”
“The quarantine flag’s up, so they must be at least sixteen.”
“You’re sure the doctor knows about the quarantine?”
“He’d have to live in another world, another dimension, not to.”
Grayson turned to Nijel. Pointing an inflamed index finger toward the door, he said, “Go over to the bower, Nijel, and have them make us up a couple of bouquets—with gardenias, if they have them, one for each of the girls. And bring something more masculine for the gentleman’s room. Some black-eyed Susans, cattails, grasses—” Grayson dismissed his comment with a wave of his hand. “Tell them it’s for a gentleman. They’ll know what to do.”
The cuckoo clock on the wall clicked into motion, its pinecone weights ratcheting their descent as it tinkled out a tune and then crowed out the hour. Waverly, startled, checked her own watch. She stood abruptly and swept her drawing materials into a drawer. It wouldn’t do to have tarot cards lying about with an Entourage on the premises.
“You’re not going to wear that get-up tonight, I hope,” Grayson said when she stepped from behind her desk.
Waverly glanced down at the laced mariner’s shirt she’d put on that morning, the shapeless skirt, and pair of burgundy ballet slippers fitted over mismatched socks. She brushed at a dusting of charcoal on a sleeve, shrugged, and threw a cape over her shoulders.
“I’m going to Tailortown to give a reading for Delores. She can make me presentable for the Entourage. Don’t worry, I’ll be back long before they arrive,” she said. She came around to the back of the registration desk, pulled open a drawer, and brought out a pair of white gloves. “Give me your main. Rather, your hand,” she added, shaking her head. That annoying French was cropping up in her speech again.
Grayson, towering over her, looked down his long thin nose at the gloves she offered, but obediently gave her his hand. Before he slipped it into the glove, Waverly passed her thumb over the rough spots erupting across his knuckles. “Don’t take these off until I get back,” she said.
“By then, they’ll be filthy,” he said looking at the fronts and backs as if they already were.
“And don’t scratch your face, either.” She touched another affected area on his cheek.
“You be back here by supper. Don’t leave me to deal with these people alone. But, Waverly, isn’t it Saturday?”
Waverly grimaced at Grayson’s reminder. “That’s right. I forgot. I’ll stop in at the printers on the way and make my excuses.”
Grayson arched a shaggy white eyebrow at her. “I suppose Danny could always resort to Suzanne.”
“Suzanne? Suzanne who?”
“You know very well who—”
But Waverly was out the door, letting it slam behind her. Main Street was all but deserted in the inclement weather. A mail missive was out on a delivery, his huge yellow mackintosh tented over his shoulders, his mailbag, and a good bit of his bicycle.
Business establishments leaned shoulder-to-shoulder down both sides of a roller coaster of a road known simply as Main Street. Main Street, of what the Vigilant called, “Dream City.” The islanders considered the name, at least the dream part, complimentary, but for the Vigilant it wasn’t. And right now she was looking with the eyes of the Vigilant, as they would see it tomorrow as she guided them on their tour.
Not that she was that familiar with their perspective. She had only been off the island once when she was nine years old. On a drizzly day much like this she had been led by the hand along a crowded sidewalk, through a dizzying tide of gray and black overcoats, trousers, and umbrellas. Not a feather, nor a furbelow, not even a flower in a buttonhole relieved the sameness of the Vigilant attire. Everyone gave her a wide berth when they glimpsed the sanitation mask she’d been required to wear. The people wearing the grim, dark clothes gasped and stepped back. One sharp-featured woman in an ugly brown coat spat out the word, “dreamer,” as she passed.
Waverly hurried by the Main Street Pharmaceutical, a grocer, and a shop called “When the Lights Go Out” that dealt in electrical generators. Next she passed the red-and-white striped pillars that framed the entrance to Archibald’s Hair Design Shop. She rapped on the window and waved. Archie, attempting to return the favor, dropped a dollop of facial cream in a customer’s lap.
Across the street, Hans had almost finished the renovation of an old tavern. In his matchless style, he had turned what had once been a squalid, unsalvageable-looking convenience store into a study in stained glass. Diamond-shaped windows, crescent moon shapes and star-shaped windows in a wide-spectrum of colors transformed the shack. It reminded her of an oversized, gem-studded jewel box.
At the printers, Waverly pushed open the ink-smeared street door and went up a narrow flight of stairs to a warehouse the size of a gymnasium. Through its towering cathedral windows, she saw dark, swirling clouds scoot across the sky. With windows of that size there was plenty of light in the room in spite of the weather.
Vivaldi’s contata, Nulla in Mundo Pax Sincera, played from the sound system, the soprano’s voice swelling to fill every corner of the cavernous warehouse. Danny lay full-length on a ratty couch, eyes closed, directing the aria with vigor, both hands raised in the air, his head wagging with the tempo.
Uncle Oswald sat behind a desk in one corner, his face as wrinkled and droopy as a coonhound’s. He peered at a sheet of paper in his scripting machine as he moved his glasses up and down the length of his nose, adjusting the focus. He looked up when Waverly entered. She put her finger to her lips, “Shh,” she said. She winked at him and tiptoed across the hardwood floor.
Just as she looked over the back of the couch, Danny’s eyes opened. “Hey there, Peaches.”
“Mon Dieu,” she said. “You don’t come from the world of the Vigilant for nothing. I never can catch you off-guard.”
With a grin, he said, “Come here.”
She leaned over the back of the couch to give him a kiss.
He jerked away from her. “Ugh, you’re dripping wet. Let’s get that sponge of a coat off you,” he said as he stood and came around the couch to help her remove it from her shoulders. She clutched it shut.
“I can’t stay, Danny. I’ve got a reading in Tailortown cinq minutes ago.”
“Five,” he said.
“And about tonight,” she said, running a finger along the unraveling braid on the back of the couch. “An Entourage arrives for a tour that I . . . forgot about.”
“Forgot? About an Entourage? My, we’re getting rather laissez-faire, aren’t we?” He shook his head. “Well, you’re going to miss a meal fit for a king—queen in your case. Lapin in a vermouth sauce is on the menu, parsnips and fresh fennel and an amaretto crème brulee, but . . .”
She sighed. “Oh, you we’re going to cook? My mouth’s watering. But, well, . . . Uncle Oswald looks hungry.” She glanced at her uncle’s desk where his chin now rested on his chest, his lips rhythmically blowing like those of an old horse. “He could keep you company.”
Danny rolled his eyes. “I have his scintillating company all day. I really don’t require it ‘round the clock.”
“No, probably not.” She grimaced as she nodded at the foot-high stack of paper leaning precariously from the top of her uncle’s filing cabinet. “I see he’s been at work on his, what’s he calling it? ‘A Rebuttal’?”
“A Rebuttal to The Renewed Testament. Something along those lines.”
“Renewed Testament. Ugh! Those damn Vigilant. And you’re going to publish it?”
“He’s going to publish it,” he said, nodding toward her uncle. “It’s still his printing house. And knowing him, he’ll have it in the hands of the Vigilant before the year is out. He may look feeble . . .,” Danny said, as he looked at her uncle whose sonorous snores were competing with the soaring soprano. “But you know as well as I do, there’s no stopping him once he’s got his mind set on something. And this Renewed Testament has him riled.”
“I can tell.” Waverly said, as she eyed her uncle, amused. “Well, the Vigilant will ban it before it sees the light of day, anyway.”
Danny nodded. “Unless there’s more of an underground operating over there than we’re aware of. I’ve heard it’s growing; as is that puddle at your feet.” He grabbed an ink-stained apron and dropped it on the floor to soak up the rainwater collecting around her. “But wait a minute. Come here.”
“Delores is waiting. I really have to run,” Waverly said and started toward the door.
“Wait.” He grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward him. “You’ve wearing your charcoal again,” he said. He brushed a smudge from her lightly freckled cheek. “So, I suppose this means you’ll be tied up with the Entourage for the next few days, too. What do they want this time?”
She shrugged, stood on tiptoe and gave him a kiss. “Probably just a shopping spree.”
“Right.”
A few blocks further along the street, Waverly glimpsed her cousin emerge from one of the woodworker buildings. Waverly was surprised she recognized Madeleine; she was so enveloped in rain garb. It was her cousin’s broad-brimmed coolie hat shoved down over her froth of inky black hair that gave her away. Madeleine wore a straw version on a daily basis in her greenhouses.
Waverly stepped into the nearest shop. She had cleverly selected The Sweet Dream where she was welcomed by the rich aroma of chocolate. She wasn’t in the mood to meet her cousin. More often than not, Madeleine turned aside at the sight of Waverly, anyway.
Waverly helped herself to the tray of samples on the counter. A white chocolate owl melted on her tongue as she waited for Madeleine to go by on the sidewalk outside.
Pippin Radelli came from the back of the shop, wiping her hands on a linen towel. Her face always reminded Waverly of an apple, it was so shiny and round and red. It didn’t hurt that she was named after one. Pippin also had the habit of wearing her dark hair on the top of her head creating, in Waverly’s mind, the stem of the apple. “What do you think?” Pippin said, her ponytail bobbing as she nodded at the samples.
“Delish . . .” Waverly said, but garbled the word, her mouth full of chocolate.
“So you like the cayenne?”
“I thought it was a little spicy,” Waverly said when she was able. “I like it better than last weeks concoction.”
“Geranium. I think it needed a few lower notes added, some Brazil nut or black-walnut oil, perhaps. I haven’t given up on it. But I have some very nice chai tea truffles right now. How about steering the next Entourage this way.”
“You’re sure?” There was always risk involved. While the Vigilant paid handsomely for what they bought from the island, there could be strings attached. “There’s a group coming in tonight. I could persuade them, I imagine, but I can’t be held responsible if—well, to be on the safe side, keep little Crispin and Jonathon out of sight tomorrow.”
“I’m surprised they’re coming with the quarantine flag up.”
“They’re taking more and more risks lately. And I know if there’s an accident, we’ll be held accountable, regardless of how often they’ve been warned.”
To read more contact me at gretchhh@aol.com