The Cure for Dreaming by Cat Winters Read Free Book Online Page B

ladies.”
    Kate handed the teacher the note. Mr. Bennington pulled his wire reading glasses out of his striped coat pocket and squinted through the lenses, as if he couldn’t quite decipher the words.
    â€œIt’s for Olivia,” said Kate.
    My insides liquefied. I wondered why the devil someone was sending
me
a message in the middle of the school day.
    â€œOlivia.” Mr. Bennington peeked up at me. “Come read this note and then return to your position.”
    â€œYes, sir.” I climbed down from the risers, out of the depths of the deepest altos stuck in the back, and took the piece of paper. Kate patted my back as if I were receiving a summons to the gallows and clip-clopped out of the room.
    I unfolded the note.
    â€œLet us take it from the beginning,” said Mr. Bennington.
    My classmates cleared their throats and stood up tall, while I read two sentences scribbled in Father’s squiggly cursive:
    My daughter, Olivia Mead, must come to my dental office directly after school. She should NOT go home.
    Respectfully,
    Dr. Walter Mead
    My blood froze. I reread those phrases at least three more times apiece. Our rather somber rendition of “Silent Night” seized the room with a harmony that pricked the little hairs on the back of my neck, and Father’s ominous second sentence stared me in the eye.
    She should NOT go home.

n Father’s downtown office, tucked in the heart of Portland’s business district, a door with a frosted glass pane separated his mahogany-lined lobby from the windowless operatory in which he tended to his patients’ teeth and gums. I could see him moving beyond the glass—a distorted figure in a trim white coat, bending over the silhouette of a man tipped back in the padded dental chair. Laughter erupted from the patient, first in snickers, then in loud brays and hiccups that told me the man had inhaled a bag of nitrous oxide, otherwise known as good old laughing gas.
    I seated myself in a rigid chair in the lobby and stared up at Father’s four-foot-wide oil painting of a pair of silver dental forceps shining against a green background. I recalled Percy’s utter dread of my father’s profession (even though Father worried
I
would scare Percy away), and I slunk down a little farther in my spindle-back seat, wishing Father were a bookstore owner like Frannie’s pa, or even a chimney sweep or a sailor. Someone who didn’t hang pictures of torture devices on his workplace walls or cause men to suffer from fits of laughter while they shouted out, “No! I’m not ready!”—as was happening beyond the frosted glass beside me.
    I eyed the main door to the street and debated bolting home.
I can claim I never received the note
, I realized.
I could say that I
—
    The front door opened.
    Henri Reverie stepped into the lobby.
    I drew a sharp breath and averted my eyes. My shoulders inched toward my ears.
He’s come to take away my free will. I knew it!
    Henri removed a dark square-crown hat from his head, closed the door, and lowered himself into a chair across from me, below the painting of the forceps. He was dressed in a three-piece suit and tie, all as black as midnight—a shadow with cobalt-blue eyes and blond hair. His complexion was poorer than I remembered, probably due to all the lard-based greasepaint theater people had to wear on their faces,according to my mother. His slumped posture gave him the shifty look of a peddler trying to pass off bottles of booze as magical cure-alls.
    â€œNo!” cried the patient in the operatory.
    I gave a start—as did Henri.
    â€œNoooo! I’m not ready! Nooooooo!”
    Shrieks and loud smacks and another fit of hysterical laughter came from beyond the glass. Henri grabbed hold of his armrests with whitening fingers, and his knees swerved to his right, toward the door, as if he were about to flee.
    A smile twitched at the corners of my lips. I relaxed