Madame Snowe’s dark eyes showed interest. “Do you? Tell me about them.”
“They started when I was about twelve, and have been getting worse.”
Madame Snowe leaned back in her chair and laid her long-fingered white hands across her abdomen. “Go on.”
Caitlyn explained about the Screechers, Madame Snowe nodding throughout.
“Do you sometimes have nightmares of things other than these Screechers?”
Caitlyn could almost feel Bianca’s painted eyes boring into her from behind. “Not really.”
“How have your other dreams been, the cryptomnesiac ones? You have not reported any to me. Have you had any?”
“I’ve had some set here at the château, but I don’t know that there’s any truth to them,” she evaded. She didn’t want to talk about Raphael with Madame Snowe; it was too embarrassing to reveal that she may have made up a boyfriend for herself. “I’m keeping a dream journal, though; it helps me to remember them.”
Madame Snowe nodded. “Good. What is happening in these dreams at the château?”
“Not much. I saw this room,” Caitlyn offered weakly, hoping to sate Madame Snowe’s curiosity. “Only it was a long time ago. There was a bed with dark blue curtains over there,” she said, pointing, “and there was a weird painting over the fireplace of a man with a face made of burning wood and candles. It was called
Fire
.”
“Ah.” Snowe smiled. “That was an Arcimboldo.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Giuseppe Arcimboldo, court painter to the Holy Roman Emperor in the second half of the sixteenth century. He painted a series of immensely popular portraits composed of objects: a librarian made of books, a gardener made of vegetables, et cetera.
Fire
was part of a series of portraits of the elements.”
Caitlyn blinked, surprised. The painting existed? “I must have seen the painting online at some point, don’t you think?”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps there is something more interesting than cryptomnesia going on when you dream.”
“Like what?” Caitlyn asked, wary but curious.
“You’ll have to tell me a little more before I could hazard a guess. Do you have more you could tell me?” Madame Snowe coaxed.
Caitlyn had the strange sensation that Madame Snowe was reaching into her mind and gently nudging open doors that Caitlyn wanted to keep closed. “Er …”
“There
is
more that you’d like to tell me, isn’t there?”
Again, the feeling of nudging, becoming a feeling of pressure now. Caitlyn’s mouth moved before she could stop it. “I had a dream about Bianca,” Caitlyn said.
Madame Snowe smiled warmly, and the sense of pressure eased. “
Did
you?”
Caitlyn smiled crookedly.“Maybe I like to dream about paintings over fireplaces.”
“Tell me what you dreamed.”
Caitlyn hesitated.
Madame Snowe waited, and as she did the sense of pressure in Caitlyn’s mind began to grow again.
Caitlyn grimaced and shifted in her seat. Madame Snowe was an intense, threatening sort of confidante. “Bianca dragged me through darkness to a stake, and then I was tied to the stake and burned. Afterward, an old man came and dug my heart—or Bianca’s heart—out of the ashes.”
Madame Snowe’s face went still, but her eyes were bright and hard. “Interesting. What do you think it means?”
Caitlyn shrugged. “I don’t know. Seems kind of weird, doesn’t it? Why didn’t the heart burn?”
“It’s been known to happen. The composer Chopin was cremated, but his heart remained untouched by the fire. Some people take that as a sign of divine protection. What happened to the heart in your dream, after the old man took it?”
Caitlyn’s gaze shifted away. “I don’t know.”
“No idea at all?”
Again, the pressure. “It was put into a crystal chest.”
“And where did the chest go?”
Caitlyn tightened her lips, not willing to say. Raphael hadn’t wanted anyone to know where it was. What if the heart was still here, underneath that stone in the cellars? It wouldn’t be right for Madame Snowe to have it.
“You must have seen the chest put somewhere. Hidden, perhaps, for safekeeping?”
The pressure increased in Caitlyn’s mind, but she angrily shook it off. She would
not
betray Raphael’s confidence. “I don’t know where it is!”
Madame Snowe’s eyes narrowed. “I do not think you are telling me the truth, Caitlyn.”
Caitlyn set her jaw. “I don’t know where it is.”
It seemed once again that Madame Snowe was trying to peer into Caitlyn’s mind, but Caitlyn kept her guard up. She wouldn’t cave to the force of the headmistress’s personality.
“So, is there a symbolic meaning to that dream about the heart?” Caitlyn asked, trying to deflect her. “In a psychological sense.”
Snowe gave a facial shrug and abandoned her intense stare, apparently willing to let Caitlyn win this battle. “If you’re asking if objects or events in dreams have standard meanings, the answer is no. The interpretation is dependent upon you, the dreamer. On the other hand, humanity has universal archetypes.”
“Universal what?”
“Archetypes. They’re patterns of thought innate to all mankind. They include images such as ‘mother’ or ‘God.’ Or in this case, ‘heart.’ What do you associate with the heart?”
“Emotions.”
Madame Snowe nodded encouragement.
“Love. Heartbreak.” Caitlyn searched her mind. “Life. Soul. I mean, if there is a soul, where else is it going to be than in your heart?”
“So one possible interpretation of this dream is that you are going through a difficult time, perhaps even a destruction of your old form—represented by being burned at the stake—but that an essential element of yourself will survive.”
Caitlyn’s brows rose in surprise. It was such a positive way to look at what had been a horrendous nightmare. “You think that might be what it meant?”
“It doesn’t matter what
I
think. The dream’s meaning to you is what counts.”
“Huh.”
Snowe smirked. “Indeed.”
Caitlyn turned around and looked at the painting. “Is there any particular reason you have the portrait?” she asked.
“Beyond its being an exemplary work of art?”
Caitlyn nodded.
“I inherited it.”
“So she’s not related to the Fortune School or the château in some way.”
A small smile curled Madame Snowe’s lips. “I like to think of her as a patron saint.”
Bianca was a scary sort of patron saint, in Caitlyn’s book. She wished there was an easy way of checking the things she’d seen in her dreams, like the sundial, against reality. “Er … I’m curious about the history of the castle. I don’t suppose you have any books on it? I can’t find much online.”
“What aspect of the history interests you? The previous owners? Its role in the Hundred Years’ War?”
“Er, yeah. But also the building of it, and any rebuilding or adding on. Was it ever a ruin? Did you have to change a lot to make it a school?”
Snowe looked suspicious. “I didn’t know you were interested in architecture.”
“I’ve never lived anywhere that the architecture was interesting. Where I’m from, buildings from the 1920s are historic monuments.”
Madame Snowe chuckled and got up from her desk, moving to the paneled wall of hidden cupboards. She pressed on a panel and a wide door swung open. She lifted out a thick leather scrapbook and carried it to Caitlyn’s side of the desk, laying it down on the ebony surface.
“This holds all we know about Château de la Fortune,” Madame Snowe said, tapping the cover. The leather front was embossed with three women dancing in a circle. “My great-grandmother purchased the château in the 1920s. It was my grandmother, however, who started the Fortune School, at the end of World War II. The family financial situation had changed for the worse, and she was an enterprising woman.” Madame Snowe opened the album. The first page showed a black-and-white photograph of the castle taken from the valley below. “This is the castle as my great-grandmother first saw it.” She turned through several more pages of photos, these showing rubble on the floors, collapsed beams, missing windows.“The interior was in poor repair, as you can see.”
She turned another page, and Caitlyn caught a brief glimpse of a painted ceiling. Caitlyn leaned forward and then let out a mew of protest as Madame Snowe shut the album. “This is filled with what history my family has been able to gather, as well as with details on the renovation my great-grandmother undertook in the 1920s.”
Caitlyn couldn’t take her eyes off it. “May I look through it?”
Madame Snowe looked at her watch. “You are due in your next class in ten minutes. I don’t believe there’s time.”
Caitlyn swallowed against the tightness in her throat. She wanted to push Madame Snowe aside, grab the album, and see what exactly had been on that painted ceiling. “May I take it to my room, to look at later? I would bring it back tomorrow morning, I promise.”
Madame Snowe made a noncommittal sound and idly tapped the cover with her fingertips. “I am willing to make a deal with you, Caitlyn.”
Caitlyn lowered her brows, wary. “Oh?”
“I want you to start keeping your dream journal on your laptop. Every morning when you wake up, I want you to write out everything you dreamed, and if you wish you may also attempt an interpretation, like we did just now with the heart and being burned at the stake. Every Sunday evening I want you to e-mail me your journal. Also take note of any unusual daydreams you might have, or anything else that seems not quite part of an average day. Can you do that?”
Caitlyn nodded. She would write down the Screecher stuff, sure, but she was going to keep the drawings of her Raphael dreams on paper, and private. Her dream journal was in the book bag at her feet at this very moment, and it took a deliberate effort to keep from guiltily looking down at it.
“Don’t hold anything back.”
“I won’t,” she lied.
Madame Snowe looked hard at her. “I can’t help you unless you’re completely open with me.”
“I know.” The nervous tick in her eyelid, gone for over a week now, made a sudden reappearance.
Madame Snowe’s eyes narrowed, and for one long moment Caitlyn felt as if Bianca’s hands were once again on her head, cold and hard as stone, squeezing, the pressure building until she feared her skull might burst like a grape.
And then the sensation was gone, and Madame Snowe was looking at her with a hint of question in her dark eyes. “In exchange, I’ll give you the album to look through, because I trust you. You won’t let me down, will you, Caitlyn?”
She
had
to see that album. “No, Madame,” she said softly.
The headmistress handed her the album. “You may keep it for as long as you like, but you are responsible for it. I don’t want to see it being passed around the table at dinner, do you understand?”
“Yes, Madame.” The leather book was heavy and cool on her thighs. “May I ask a question on a completely different topic?”
Madame Snowe nodded.
“That DNA test you did on me, did it turn up any diseases?” She was thinking about what she’d heard Madame Snowe and Greta talking about, in French: that Caitlyn might be a rotten branch of some sort.
“You mean any genetic predisposition to disease. No, it did not.”
“That’s a relief!”
“The science is still in its infancy, of course, and this was only the most rudimentary of tests for the most obvious of markers. It is no guarantee of your long-term health.”
Caitlyn scowled. “Then why do it?”
“Because some information is better than no information. Life does not give you big, simple answers, Caitlyn. It demands patience, focus, and an open, intelligent mind to gather the pieces of a puzzle and fit them together into a coherent whole. Nothing worth knowing is ever easily learned. I hope that is a sentiment you will take to heart in regards to your French lessons.”
“
Oui
, Madame.”
“I don’t believe I need to remind you of the consequences if you fail any of your courses.”
Caitlyn shook her head.
“Very well.” Madame Snowe smiled, the look of it more threat than comfort. “You may go.”
Caitlyn gathered her things and headed for the door. She glanced up at Bianca, smiling from her frame as knowingly as ever. Caitlyn gave
La Perla
a scowl.
“And Caitlyn?” Madame Snowe called out, making her start.
Caitlyn looked over her shoulder. “Yes?”
“Do not forget to send me your weekly journal. I can only help you if you let me see into your mind. Keeping secrets would not be in your best interest.”
“No, Madame. I know.”