Lair of Dreams

“To us,” he said, raising a glass.

“To us,” the others echoed, and they watched the sky give birth to new dreams.

If the nights were magical, the days were less so. For the first time in their friendship, Henry and Theta were bickering. The dream walking exhausted Henry so much that he didn’t wake before three or four in the afternoon. He’d missed three rehearsals in a row.

“I can’t keep inventing stories to save you, Hen,” Theta warned. “And Herbie’s up to something. I think he’s trying to get his song in over yours. You better show up today, if you know what’s good for you, Hen.”

“I’m not worried about Herbie,” Henry said, reaching for one of Theta’s cigarettes.

“You should be. And since when do you smoke?”

Henry smirked. “I just need a little pep.” He wiggled his fingers like a jazz baby.

Theta swiped the cigarette out of his mouth. “Then get some sleep. Real sleep.”

But Henry didn’t listen. He couldn’t listen. There were only Louis and dreams, and Henry would do whatever he could to have both. Already he and Ling were pushing the limits of what they could tolerate. Each night, they set their alarms for later and later.

But here in the dream world, Ling was on to something. She could feel the energy coiled beneath her fingers when she transformed a featureless rock into sunflowers whose petals were repeating spirals of pattern, the Qi moving strongly through them both, all those atoms shifting, changing, whole universes being born. No—made. She and Wai-Mae were making them. We did that, Ling would think. Like gods. It was magic and it was science, a blend, like her, and it was more beautiful than anything.

One night, as the girls lay back in the dewy grass watching pink clouds drifting lazily across the perpetual sunset, Wai-Mae turned on her side to face Ling.

“What happened to your legs, Little Warrior?”

Ling sat up quickly. On impulse, she tugged her skirt hem down. “Nothing,” she said.

“No. I see the way you are with them, always hiding. You’re holding something back. Some secret.” Wai-Mae’s expression was resolute. “If we are to be friends, you must tell me everything.”

Ling hugged her knees to her chest—a simple action in the dream world, impossible when she was awake. “A few months ago, I got very sick. When it was over, the muscles in my legs and feet had stopped working. I need leg braces and crutches to walk now. But sometimes, just before I’m fully awake, there’s a moment when I’m still holding on to the dream. And I forget. I forget what happened to me. I forget about the sickness and my legs. For those few seconds, I think that the infection was a bad dream, and I’ll get up and walk out of my room and run down the stairs as if nothing ever happened. But then the truth creeps in. The only place I’m free is in dreams.”

“Dreams are the only place any of us is free,” Wai-Mae said, turning Ling’s face toward hers with just a finger. Wai-Mae’s hands smelled earthy, like moss on the hillside. “There was a boy in my village like you. Every day, they massaged his legs to help with the pain. You have to work fire back into the muscles, Little Warrior.”

Gently, Wai-Mae lifted the hem of Ling’s skirt and trailed her fingers down Ling’s shins. Then she began to work the muscles, kneading with surprisingly strong fingers. Ling suppressed a gasp. In the hospital following the infection, the doctors had immobilized her legs in plaster, then splints, then braces. Her legs felt separate. A caged exhibition. No one touched them. Even Ling touched her own body as little as possible.

“Do that every day,” Wai-Mae commanded. She leaned her head back, toward the sun, gazing out at the golden hills. “I, too, want to stay here always. In dreams. No pain, no strife.” Her face settled into sadness. “I will tell you a secret of my own. I don’t like Mr. O’Bannion. He is not a good man, I don’t think. He lies.”

“What do you mean?”

“I heard gossip today on the ship about one of the other girls he brought over. They say that when she arrived in America, there was no husband to greet her, no marriage. She had been tricked. Instead of a husband, the girl was forced to work in a brothel,” Wai-Mae whispered. “They say she is broken now. She cries all the time. Oh, sister, I must trust the judgment of my uncle, but still, I’m afraid.”

Ling wondered whether she should tell Wai-Mae about her own misgivings. But she didn’t want to worry her unnecessarily. She’d wait until she could speak to Mr. Lee. And she would redouble her efforts to find this Mr. O’Bannion. If necessary, she’d have Uncle Eddie speak to the Association so that they could make sure a similar fate wouldn’t befall Wai-Mae.