Tapping the Dream Tree by Charles De Lint Read Free Book Online

can’t see a sign of her anywhere. I can’t imagine a person could run as fast as she’d have to to disappear like this and still keep playing that sleepy music.
    When Robert stands up, I scramble to my feet as well.
    â€œWhat’s going on?” I ask him.
    â€œShe let it take her away.”
    â€œWhat do you mean? Take her away where?”
    But he doesn’t answer. He’s looking into the woods and then I see them, too. A rabbit being chased by some ugly old dog. Might be the same rabbit that ran off on us in the city, but I can’t tell. It comes tearing out from under the trees, running straight across the meadow toward us, and then it just disappears.
    I blink, not sure I actually saw what I just saw. But then the same thing happens to the dog. It’s like it goes through some door I can’t see. There one minute, gone the next.
    â€œWell, she managed to pull them back across,” Robert says. “But I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all.”
    Hearing him talk like that makes me real nervous.
    â€œWhy?” I ask him. “This is what we wanted, right? She was going to play some music to put things back the way they were. Wasn’t that the plan?”
    He nods. “But her going over wasn’t.”
    â€œI don’t get it.”
    Robert turns to look at me. “How’s she going to get back?”
    â€œSame way she went away—right?”
    He answers with a shrug and then I get a bad feeling. It’s like what happened with Malicorne and Jake, I realize. Stepped away, right out of the world, and they never came back. The only difference is, they meant to go.
    â€œShe won’t know what to do,” Robert says softly. “She’ll be upset and maybe a little scared, and then he’s going to show up, offer to show her the way back.”
    I don’t have to ask who he’s talking about.
    â€œBut she’ll know better than to bargain with him,” I say.
    â€œWe can hope.”
    â€œWe’ve got to be able to do better than that,” I tell him.
    â€œI’m open to suggestions.”
    â€œYou could call her back,” I say.
    Robert shakes his head. “The devil, he’s got himself a guitar, too.”
    â€œI don’t know what that means.”
    â€œThink about it,” Robert says. “Whose music is she going to know to follow?”
    The stranger laid his guitar case on the grass and opened it up. The instrument he took out was an old Martin D-45 with the pearl inlaid CD MARTIN logo on the headstock—a classic, prewar picker’s guitar.
    â€œDon’t see many of those anymore,” Staley said.
    â€œThey didn’t make all that many.” He smiled. “Though I’ll tell you, I’ve never seen me a blue fiddle like you’ve got, not ever.”
    â€œGot it from my grandma.”
    â€œWell, she had taste. Give me an A, would you?”
    Staley ran her bow across the A string of her fiddle and the stranger quickly tuned up to it.
    â€œYou ever play any contests?” he asked as he finished tuning.
    He ran his pick across the strings, fingering an A minor chord. The guitar had a big rich sound with lots of bottom end.
    â€œI don’t believe in contests,” Staley said. “I think they take all the pleasure out of a music.”
    â€œOh, I didn’t mean nothing serious. More like swapping tunes, taking turns till one of you stumps the other player. Just for fun, like.”
    Staley shrugged.
    â€œâ€˜Course to make it interesting,” he added, “we could put a small wager on the outcome.”
    â€œWhat kind of wager would we be talking about here?”
    Staley didn’t know why she was even asking that, why she hadn’t just shut down this idea of a contest right from the get-go. It was like something in the air was turning her head all around.
    â€œI don’t know,” he said. “How about if I