Dangerous Dreams: A Novel (118 page)

Twenty minutes later, she heard a soft tap on the door. “Who is it?”

“Steve.”

She opened the door. “Come in, Steve. Just in time for breakfast.”

He smiled, walked inside. “I must be really out of it . . . totally forgot about breakfast. You’re a lifesaver.”

While they ate and sipped coffee, Nancy told him how the remainder of Allie’s night had gone: constant tossing and turning, anger, cold sweat, anxiety, frustration. “Then I think about five, she fell asleep. I slept on and off all night; but every time I woke up, she was either staring at the ceiling or squirming around in the bed.” She took a sip of coffee, a deep breath. “Do you think we should let her sleep or wake her up and get her completely exhausted, so she can sleep
tonight
?”

“The latter, for sure. Need to get her back on a normal schedule.”

Nancy grimaced, gritted her teeth. “ Oooh! This could be ugly.”

He nodded, smiled. “Better you than me. Mothers get the tough jobs.”

She snickered. “Thanks a lot.”

Waking Allie was not as bad as Nancy had expected. Though she’d slept for four hours, she hadn’t dreamed, had seen only blackness, and she
appeared unexpectedly relieved at her escape from further frustration and bad news. After she showered and primped to meet Dressler, she walked into the kitchen, poured a cup of coffee, then sat at the table with her two tormenters.

“Want some breakfast, Hon?”

Allie contemplated for a moment. “Sure. Stomach’s better this morning. Maybe some food will help.” She frowned. “Can’t remember when I last ate.”

Dressler said, “Sorry we had to wake you, Allie, but we need to—”

“It’s alright. I wasn’t dreaming anyway . . . only black, which means I was in some combination of
my
NREMs and
Emily’s
. . . or, Emily’s dead or near dead.” Her lips pouted, eyes filled with doleful tears. “So much for the theory, eh?”

“Well, I wouldn’t give it up yet, Allie. Didn’t you see black for a long time once before?”

“Yeah . . . back at the massacre . . . when the Panther clubbed her, and she had a near-death experience.”

“So hang in there for a while. Emily won’t give up easily.” When Allie didn’t reply, Dressler held his silence for a time then picked up Allie’s recorder, placed it in front of her. “As I was saying, we woke you so we can get you back on a normal sleep schedule, and recording your second dream session—the one your mom woke you from yesterday—will help you pass the time and get you good and sleepy for tonight.”

Allie yawned, covered her mouth. “Still pretty groggy, but okay, let’s give it a try.”

For the next four hours, Allie related every detail of the second dream, including Emily and Isna’s intimate moments, the Lakota circle of life, the Viking explorations in America, their time with the Lakota, Tayler choking Virginia Dare, Emily stabbing him, Isna’s plan to return to Emily, Johnny Gibbes’ murder, and Isna killing two soldiers and wounding Tayler. Though gloomy throughout the session, Allie lit up like a floodlight when she spoke of Emily’s dreams and her butterfly birthmark. “Got to be how Ian knew the dreams were real history and about our ancestors. I mean, it looks
exactly
like mine.” She suddenly frowned. “But
it doesn’t matter because . . . because I think Emily bled to death with a miscarriage.” She covered her face with her hands, whimpered, whispered haltingly, “And . . . and because the Powhatans are coming . . . and the dumb colonists are just waiting for John White . . . and Tayler and his guys . . . doing the same for . . . for Walsingham’s ship . . . they’re all gonna die . . . and . . . and I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”

A mix of concern and hopelessness slowly crept over Dressler’s face as he watched Allie’s eyes again mist with tears, and read Nancy’s unconcealed fright as she stared blankly at the tabletop, placed her hands together as if praying, and pressed her fingertips against her lips.

When Allie fell asleep on night two, she again saw only black; and while she slept, Dressler and Nancy discussed her growing depression. Dressler said, “Nancy, I hesitate to mention this because I know you’re already pretty upset by all this, but you should know that in cases like this, rehab can elicit self-destructive tendencies.”

Nancy blanched, placed her palms over her mouth. “You mean, like . . . like suicide?”

He nodded. “I don’t think Allie’s very susceptible . . . but still, we should be vigilant for any indication that she is. Candidly, I think we’re simply looking at getting her past her relatively short-lived, contrived notion that sleeping pills and Mestinon are going to help her know more about Emily—which should be a far easier task than rehabbing a long-term drug addict. By the way, I stand behind my as-yet-unvalidated theory that morphic resonance somehow knows when and how long she’s going to dream, and makes sure she sees all the important events in Emily’s life.”

“Morphic what? I heard you use that term yesterday.”

“I’m sorry. Morphic
resonance
. Let’s talk about that for a moment. What’s your educational background?”

“School teacher.”

“Okay. So let me give you the Steven Dressler and Allie O’Shay theory in layman’s terms. In the course of their lifetimes, all human beings
accumulate information, feelings, experiences, etc. in their memories; and all of it is retained in each individual’s
personal
memory but also in a
collective
memory that resides somewhere up in the ether, wherever
that
happens to be. The personal memory is like your own personal hard drive of
your
memories and experiences; but it also includes those of
all
of your ancestors, as passed on in your inherited genes and DNA.” He paused for a moment, watched her expression. “The
collective
memory is
also
like a hard drive full of information, but
it
contains the memories and experiences of
all humanity
from the beginning of time to now. With me?”

Nancy nodded. “Yup. Actually makes sense. Kinda neat.”

“Good. Have you heard of
the cloud
?”

“Yes. Isn’t that where people back up their computer files?”

“Exactly. So think of the collective memory as being like the cloud— humanity’s hard drive—and each person’s personal memory, or hard drive, automatically backs itself up to that collective memory, which is how
all
of humanity’s experiences and memories come to be there. We can always access our personal memory; but most of us don’t have a clue what’s there, beyond our own personal experiences, or how to find anything specific. Same for the collective memory, but worse because it’s so huge. We therefore think a given individual needs something like a special username and password to access
specific
information in both the personal and collective memories, and we think that’s exactly what Allie’s gift provides. But the process doesn’t happen automatically or randomly by itself. It appears to need some sort of trigger to awaken it and stimulate the chain of events.” He paused, smiled, gave her a questioning look.

She returned the smile with a quick nod. “Getting heavy, but I’m still onboard.”

“Good. Now how does all this come to be? Well, without getting technical, Steve Dressler and Allie think a theory called formative causation and its instrument, morphic resonance, are what place
all of humanity’s
memories and experiences on the collective memory hard drive. So on the project, we’re trying to validate our theories—the roles of morphic resonance, formative causation, and genetics in preserving the experiences and memories of all of mankind. Still with me?”

“Brain’s getting a little saturated, but keep going.”

“Okay, so here’s the punchline: our minds usually can’t find a coherent recent experience to place in tonight’s dreams; so a thing called activation synthesis energizes our minds to fashion dream content from
available tidbits
of information, which is why our dreams are often weird and disjointed. But for Allie—and her great-great-grandma, and apparently Emily—we think this is
not
the case because once triggered by some special event, their gift repeatedly takes them, in a very real, movie-like manner,
directly
to a true piece of history being lived by an ancestor . . . in this case, Emily. And as I said a moment ago, Allie’s gift does this by inputting a unique username and password for a specific story into both her
personal
memory
and
the
collective
memory, to find and download the stories of an ancestor and all the ancillary players in the saga.” He raised his right index finger. “Almost done. And last, we think this gift is passed on in your family’s genes and DNA, and manifested every fourth or fifth generation in females via a generation-skipping mutation. So, there you have it.” He smiled sheepishly. “Now all we have to do is prove it”—he paused, watched her digest the information—“and Allie’s incredible capabilities are what give us the opportunity to do so.”

Nancy raised her eyebrows. “Wow!”

“Yeah, I know. It’s a little hard to get your head around, isn’t it? It’s a little hard for Allie and me, too. But I’m convinced we’re on the right track and gaining momentum, and that’s why it’s so important for us to get Allie back to being herself.”

Nancy nodded thoughtfully, but her fearful look slowly re-emerged as an uninvited scene crept insidiously into her mind. She suddenly saw herself as a little girl sitting beside her mother, crying at Ian’s funeral. Then a new scene appeared: she saw herself in the present, standing beside an open casket, tears again flowing down her cheeks. She shivered as she slowly leaned over the head of the casket, kissed Allie’s pale, cold cheek. My Allie, my little Allie Girl.

Allie awoke, stared at the ceiling fan. Nothing. Nothing but black. She’s dead. Sucks! A solitary tear fell from each eye as she rolled out of bed. Wonder when I’ll start a new dream. Damn it! She snapped her fingers. Just like that, she bleeds to death with a fricking miscarriage . . . all because of that jerk. She glanced at the clock. Nine. Wow, they let me sleep in today.

When she walked into the living room a while later, Dressler and her mother again sat at the kitchen table, talking and drinking coffee. “Any coffee left, Mom?”

“Sure, Hon.” Nancy stood, hugged Allie.

Allie started crying. “This really sucks, Mom. She’s dead.”

“Are you sure? Did . . . did you see it?”

“No . . . all I saw all night was black—black, black, and f’ing black.”

“So you slept?”

“I guess.”

Dressler said, “Allie, I’ve been thinking about this blackness; and it occurs to me that it could be some kind of permanent NREM condition, perhaps stimulated by withdrawal from the pills or a
hangover
from the pills. Could be that one or both conditions temporarily deactivate your gift. So I’d be wary of assuming Emily’s dead.”

Allie shook her head, looked glumly at Dressler. “No, Doc. I feel it in my heart . . . like something wonderful that flourished there is gone forever . . . left nothing but an overwhelming, stifling emptiness . . . like when someone you love passes away in real life.”

Nancy’s face was a portrait of anguish; she again pulled Allie close.

Allie sniffled, began to sob, blubbered, “Anyway, Doc . . . I . . . I think I’m cured. I don’t ever want to dream again.”