The Logic of Dreams
Jesse F. Knight
Lynn saw all of those archaic aspects of the house, but it didn't matter to her. In her mind's eye she saw how she could fix the place up. She saw how she could replace the cabinets in the kitchen. She could tear down a wall and make two small dark rooms into one airy one. She could replace the dark paneling that gave such a claustrophobic feeling to several of the rooms and paint the bare walls robin-egg blue or perhaps a soft lemon yellow.
In the backyard there was a little patio with a kidney-shaped pool, and around the yard there were rose bushes with pink and cream roses. Along one side were two hibiscus bushes with bright orange and vivid scarlet bell-shaped flowers; along the back was an apricot tree and in the corner a lemon tree. Green vines grew in latticework above the fence, giving the backyard an intimate and secluded feeling.
The couple who was selling the house, the Lindstroms, were retiring, they said. With their only child grown they didn't need the extra room. Besides it was just getting to be too much for the Mrs. to keep up.
The housing market was going crazy just then, as it periodically does in the Silicon Valley, so Lynn scraped together all the money she could, put an offer in immediately, and held her breath.
"You seem like such a nice young woman," said the Mrs. with her iron-gray hair and her mountain brook blue eyes. She touched Lynn tremulously on the elbow, as if to ascertain that she was, indeed, a very nice young woman. "You're such a nice young woman that we have decided to accept your offer."
Lynn blanched. My god, she suddenly realized, she was a homeowner! Outside the realtor's office she leaped into the air, clenching her fist in the warm California sun. The closing date for the house occurred a few weeks later, and Lynn began to move her belongings into the house on Rosa Court.
The next weekend-it was a bright and sunny Sunday in May-she pulled up with a U-Haul truck and a couple of friends from work, and they unloaded the truck. By mid-afternoon they were finished, and the truck was returned. For awhile the three of them sat in the living room on the carpet, amidst piles of brown boxes, sipping beer and lamenting about how sore their arms would be tomorrow.
Soon, though, her friends had places to go-which Lynn knew meant night clubbing-and Lynn was left alone in her new-old house.
Lynn had lived in a large apartment complex, and consequently she was used to the sounds of people coming and going, of doors being slammed, of cars starting up or shutting off, of laughter and snatches of conversation and an occasional shout. Now, for the first time in years, in the womb of the house, she felt utterly alone. The strange sensation of silence scampered over her skin like invisible mice.
For an hour or so Lynn continued to unpack. A wind sprang up from the northwest, from the San Francisco bay a mile or two away, and Lynn looked up at the beam running the length of the house. She listened to the sounds of the house creaking and smiled at the thought of becoming familiar with the groans and sighs of the house on Rosa Court, the way one might memorize the features of a new husband or wife you knew you would spend many years with.
She snapped out clean sheets and the sharp crack echoed in her bedroom. Her bedroom, she let the thought sway gently and pleasantly in her mind. She put the sheets on the bed, and, dropping her dirty blue jeans and dusty t-shirt in the corner, she collapsed, exhausted.
Instantly, she fell asleep.
She dreamed of blue eyes, large saucer-like eyes, the kind of eyes you might see on a doll. The blue eyes were unblinking, and they stared straight into Lynn. The lashes were dark and long and feathery as the antennae of a moth. As deeply as Lynn tried to delve into the eyes, she could gather no expression, no emotion, no life, nothing from the sapphire orbs. They were flat--a blue, featureless dessert. The artist who painted them must have had no heart, Lynn decided with the logic of dreams. Suddenly Lynn found herself tumbling, head over heels, falling into the sapphire depths of the eyes. She was gasping, trying to catch her breath, but she couldn't, she couldn't, she couldn't climb up the sheer blue cliffs of those eyes. She was tumbling downward, and she was drowning.
And she sat straight up on the bed.
The sheet was damp, wound around her body like a shroud.
Groggy, running her hand through her damp hair, feeling the sweat on her scalp, Lynn stood, shaking. She stumbled out into the kitchen for a glass of water.
The house was steeped in silence. Through the kitchen window Lynn could see an enormous bone-white moon nestled among the green vines entwined in latticework around the yard. The moonlight illuminated the backyard. She pulled aside the patio door and stepped outside. A light breeze laden with roses and lemons refreshed her, cooling the sweat on her face. Lynn sat outside, looking over the moon undulating in the dark water of the pool, until she fell asleep in the chair.
The next morning, when she awoke, she was chilled, and her neck ached. After a hot shower and a cup of coffee, she felt better. It didn't even bother her that one of the handles came off the faucet in the bathroom. Lynn just smiled, thinking that it was typical of a just-bought house. No doubt she would discover more of its secrets as time passed.
At work that day, images of blue eyes would suddenly slip into her mind like a sliver, blue eyes, staring . . . staring . . . staring . . . . In one instance, Lynn glanced up, and she was startled to see those eyes suspended in space, two floating blue orbs above her head. She shook her head, brushed her arm across her forehead, and they were gone when next she glanced up.
That evening Lynn continued the lengthy process of unpacking. Clothes and books, dishes and silverware, prints and CDs, a chair here, a lamp over there--all went into their assigned places. Her arms were indeed sore from the move the day before, but she determinedly plowed through the evening.
When she finally grew tired Lynn yawned, stretched, and dropped into bed, thinking that exhaustion would serve to bring her much needed rest. And in fact, her sleep was, at first, undisturbed. Then Lynn sensed the doll was lying on the bed beside her, its head pressed against the same pillow she was sleeping on. Turning around, she found herself looking into the eyes of the doll. She knew it was a doll with all the certainty that dreams provide. The doll had cinnamon-brown hair that looked smeared to its forehead. The doll's lips were a strange color. At first, Lynn thought the lips might be tinged with licorice; but no, that didn't seem right. The lips were tinged just the faintest shade of twilight blue, bordering on purple. How strange for a doll, she thought.
Abruptly, Lynn found herself floating above the doll. Between her and the doll there was a dark wavery film, as if the air were dingy. It was transparent, yet it had a faint grayness to it, too, just enough to obscure slightly the ivory and pristine purity of the doll's features. In some strange way, a bit of icy moonlight wavered in front of the doll's face, sliding between Lynn and the doll. Lynn found herself floating, floating in her bed in a strange room that she eventually realized was her bedroom, listening to the pounding of her heart in the silence of the house. Gradually, her heart slowed its trip hammer movement and returned to normal. The pillow held only the indentation of her head.
For some obscure reason, as she had the night before, Lynn stepped out into the backyard. Occasionally, a car drove past. In the distance, for a minute, a train rumbled by . . . then stillness. Lynn sat in one of the patio chairs gazing down into the water of the pool. The moon floated on the surface of the water. Suddenly it flashed through her brain. That was what she had seen in her dream: Water--water with moonlight caressing it. The doll in her dream was floating in water. Lynn rose and went to the edge of the pool, where she knelt, and gazed into the water. In its nearness, the water looked like gray slate. She put her fingertips in it and was shocked by the touch of the water-not its coldness, but rather its silky feel, not hard like slate but soft as satin. For a long time she knelt by the pool staring into the moon floating far away under her.
Working for an electronics firm was stressful, and beyond that it swallowed enormous amounts of Lynn's time. She was expected to come in on weekends and holidays when necessary. However, Lynn also found the work challenging, rewarding, and ultimately satisfying, and so she stayed. With all the work Lynn had planned for the house-the painting and the remodeling and re-decorating, buying new furniture and working on the roses and lemon and apricot trees in back and the yard in front, taking care of the pool-Lynn was busy every spare moment. The roses of May drooped in the heat of June, and by mid-month the petals had fallen to the ground.
Whether it was sheer exhaustion or some other obscure aspect of the affair of which she had no knowledge, Lynn was never sure; however, the dreams were sporadic. Sometimes she would go a week or more slumbering in dreamless sleep. But other times several days in a row would pass filled with the doll's blue and staring eyes. Nights such as those would leave Lynn oddly drained, emotional, and restless when she awoke in the morning.
Lynn's brother Terry and his wife Beth, with their newborn returned to the Bay Area for a visit, and of course the first thing they had to do was come over and see Lynn's new place.
Terry walked about the place, shaking his head. "So my little sister has her own house."
Lynn nodded happily, proudly. "I've got big plans for this place."
Hoisting one-year old Jason on her hip, Beth said, "It's just perfect, Lynn, just perfect."
"And he's just perfect, too," said Lynn, tickling Jason under his chin until he cooed.
They laid little Jason on Lynn's bed. Then the three of them went into the kitchen for coffee. They were talking about a family gathering held the summer before when Lynn said, "I've got some photos. Let me get them."
She slipped into her bedroom and drew a shoebox from a shelf of her closet. As she was tiptoeing out of the room, Lynn glanced at little Jason slumbering in the center of the bed. She stopped, absolutely still, to stare at the boy. In his sleep-heat, his hair was plastered against his head, looking exactly like that of a Kewpie doll. Lynn was immediately struck by that idea of how Jason looked like a little doll. With a sudden chill she expected him to slowly open his big blue eyes and stare at her. Just stare at her. Lynn became frightened. She took a step back. At that moment she realized that her haunting dream was not of a doll. It was of a baby. It was a baby on her pillow, beside her at night. The blue and staring eyes were those of an infant.
"What's taking you so long, Lynn?" her brother called from the kitchen.
His impatience stirred Lynn out of her reverie, and she shook herself, as if she could toss away the chill that slithered wetly down her spine. Taking a deep breath, she clutched the shoebox of photos and went out into the kitchen.
But later on, after her brother and his wife had left with Jason, Lynn could ponder the dream more deeply. It took on an awful reality. No longer was it a doll, an inanimate object with a smooth head of plastic; it was a baby, and its lips were tinged blue with death.
That night when she went to sleep Lynn dreamed more deeply than she ever had before about the baby staring at her, with its pudgy legs and arms, and its blue-tinged lips and fingertips and toes. The moonlight wavered between her vision and the little boy. Yes, she knew it was a boy. Suddenly, gunfire went off and off and off in her ear, and Lynn jumped. And she found herself, startled, confused, on the bed. She stumbled towards the window and opened it to get some fresh air into the house as if that might calm her pounding heart. Glancing out the window, she looked into the pool, and there was moonlight wavering on the dark water.
That was it! The baby in her dream was floating in water. It was drowned. That explained the moon floating between the baby and Lynn. The moon was a reflection. Lynn stumbled back, away from the window, afraid to look into the water any further.
On the Fourth of July, a few days later, the final piece of the puzzle fell into place. Lynn sat in a lounge chair in her backyard with her parents.
Her father shook his head. "You're really working wonders with the place."
"It's a lot of work," Lynn admitted.
"Isn't it a beautiful night?" enthused her mother.
Lynn nodded.
Less than a mile away was an amusement park, Great America, and as part of the festivities they held a fireworks display. Dazzling red and yellow rockets spiraled and spun through the night air. Jade green suns erupted and scarlet streamers floated downward. There were exploding white and purple bouquets, waterfalls of lemon drops, cascades of blue carnations. The night sky was a garden of brilliant flowers, spilling over one another in springtime profusion.
At the first explosion, Lynn jumped. It sounded just like gunfire.
That instantly triggered in her mind the baby, the baby floating in the water, and Lynn's gaze was immediately drawn towards the pool. The white-with-bluish-tinge baby was floating there, absolutely still and serene, as the fireworks burst time after time over head.
With a trembling finger Lynn pointed to the small pale body in the pool.
"Yes, they're beautiful, aren't they, dear?" said her mother, gazing skyward, pinwheels of color spinning in her irises.
Trembling, Lynn fled the sight of the baby. She ran into the house and covered her ears to keep the sounds of the fireworks from going off in her head.
A moment later, her mother appeared at the doorway. "Are you all right, dear?"
"Just a headache," said Lynn, "from all of the noise of the fireworks."
"Let me get a cold washcloth for your forehead," she said, solicitously.
"I'm fine, just go out and look at the fireworks. Don't worry about me."
"If you say so, dear."
"I say so," said Lynn with a sigh.
After her parents had gone home, Lynn prowled the house, unable to sleep. As much as she wanted to avoid it, strangely, she felt drawn to the backyard, the patio with the roses and lemon and apricot trees. She peeked through the window blinds that masked the backyard. There was the baby floating in the water of the pool. As if compelled, she went outside, into the warm darkness.
The night was heavy, and the tang of smoke from the fireworks display lingered on the air. An occasional wisp of smoke drifted across the full moon. The hibiscus looked freshly washed in the milky moonlight. Lynn gazed up into the moon until she couldn't see it any more. She thought she heard something whir by her ear--a small owl, perhaps on its predatory flight.
Then she found that she was no longer looking at the sky; she was looking into the slate gray water. The baby was still there. It floated a foot or two beneath the surface of the water. Its blue blue eyes stared unceasingly into Lynn's. It was as if the eyes in death had hypnotized her. The small hands seemed to move, reaching out to her. But Lynn could tell it was just the waves being stirred by a slight breeze. The faint blue lips seemed to move in a silent plea.
With trembling and pale fingertips Lynn reached into the water, slowly sliding her hand through the cool, clear liquid, through the reflection of the moon. Dimly, as if from somewhere far away, she felt the chill of the water burn through her skin. She hesitated, then moved her hand deeper. As she touched the dead baby, her hand slid through it, and the image immediately disappeared.
Lynn collapsed beside the pool, her heart pounding wildly. She wept uncontrollably for a several minutes, her arm dangling helplessly in the cool water. Her body shook, and she sobbed. Finally, she removed her fingers, letting the water trickle through her fingertips. Gradually her heart slowed and she relaxed with a long sigh. There was nothing, nothing in the water whatsoever.
Strangely enough, Lynn never doubted her own sanity; nor did she murmur such cliches as being overworked. She knew what she had seen, and the thought did not occur to her that she might be fabricating any of it in her mind. She trusted her mind and her senses. No, the ghost baby was real-or at least as real as ghosts can be in the logic of dreams.
A couple of months after the Fourth of July, Lynn decided she could bear it no longer. At her wit's end, she put the house on the market. All the projects she had considered were tossed out the window. She stopped the various painting jobs she had planned, stopped the remodeling plans, quit talking to contractors and getting bids for projects. She stopped it all and put the house up for sale.
It wasn't a good time of the year, with Thanksgiving and Christmas around the corner, so Lynn wasn't able to sell until mid-Spring the house she had wanted so desperately less than a year before. Finally, she sold it to a young couple, the Trentons-Sharon and Del. Shaking their hands at the bank, she breathed a sigh of relief. The women hugged, exchanged phone numbers, and they all said good-bye.
For the next few weeks Lynn was in a whirlwind of activity, getting ready to move, packing. She found a townhouse in the downtown area that was adequate for her needs and began moving what she could. It took her another month-by now it was the beginning of June-to get completely moved out.
Although the dream of the pale baby with blue lips did not haunt Lynn as it had when she lived in the house on Rosa Court, nonetheless, there seemed to be some sort of residual dream matter lurking in her mind, like sleep in the eyes after one is already out of bed. Here and there she would glimpse the baby again. She might see it while showering in the morning, the eyes shimmering in the spray of water. Or once it occurred when she was gazing thoughtfully at a Rodin sculpture at Stanford. There cradled in the arm of a statue was the baby. One evening she saw it at the fabrication plant where she worked, floating above her cubicle, the unjudging blue eyes gazing at her.
She grew desperate; she had to find some way to rid herself of the awful image, the drowned baby.
Perhaps, she reasoned, if she talked to the people who had owned the house before her, perhaps that might act as a catharsis. Maybe the hurt of the accident that had happened so many years ago had diminished by now, and the old couple could talk about it.
The idea that she would talk to them instantly took root in her mind. Yes, perhaps they might say something, do something that would relieve her spirit. Suddenly, she felt positively buoyant, as if a weight had lifted from her oppressed shoulders.
The next morning was a Saturday, so Lynn sat down and called up the Lindstroms.
A man picked up the phone.
"Mr. Lindstrom?"
"Yes?'
"This is Lynn Underwood."
"Hello. How are you enjoying the house?"
"That's what I'm calling you about. There is a difficult thing I'd like to talk with you about. I know it might be painful, but it is important to me. When you sold me the house last-"
"Excuse me, Ms. Underwood, but I didn't sell you the house. It was my parents who sold you the place. And I'm glad they did. It was getting to be too much for them to keep up. They're vacationing in Florida right now."
Lynn floundered for a moment, then re-considered. Perhaps it would be better to talk with the son about it. He may not be as involved as his parents in the occurrence.
Lynn took a deep breath and began, "Ever since I moved into the house on Rosa Court, I have been having dreams."
She paused.
Lindstrom said when the silence seemed to stretch to an uncomfortable length, "What kind of dreams?"
"I dream that I see a baby."
"A baby-"
"I see a baby. It is a boy. Don't ask me how I know, I just know."
"Of course."
"And the baby-" Lynn felt her voice getting shaky- "the baby is in water."
"In water-"
"In the pool in back, drowned."
"My god, that is your dream?"
Lynn nodded into the phone. "That's it. And I have the dream night after night after night."
"That's horrible."
"I want you to be honest with me, Mr. Lindstrom; what can you tell me about the accident? Can you talk about it at all?"
"What accident?"
"About your brother drowning in the pool."
"I hate to tell you this, Ms. Underwood, but I had no brother. I have never had a brother or a sister. I am an only child."
"You're quite sure of that?"
"Positive."
"There was no boy before you? Someone your parents may not have wanted you to know about?"
"None. I was three years old when we moved into that house."
Lynn grasped at straws. "How about a neighbor child?"
"Miss Underwood," he said, a hint of exasperation in his voice, "I would have known if a boy, whether my brother or not, had drowned in the pool."
"I see," said Lynn, listlessly, as if the draining of her supposition had left her without energy.
"Perhaps the people who owned the house before you?"
Lynn could almost hear him shake his head on the other end. "Sorry about that. Mom and Dad were the first owners of the house. It was brand new when we moved in. I remember the smell of fresh paint and varnish and sawdust."
There was really nothing more to be said, so Lynn finished, by adding, "Well, thank you for your help, Mr. Lindstrom."
"Sorry I couldn't be of more help," he replied.
"That's all right. You have clarified things for me. I appreciate your help."
But Lynn realized he hadn't really clarified anything. Quite the opposite.
I guess, Lynn decided, that just because you had a ghost in a house it didn't necessarily mean that the death had to occur there. She'd never really thought about it before. She was left more puzzled than ever.
Gradually, however, the vividness of her dreams seemed to diminish, like a tapestry in the sun too long. As June slowly unwound in tepid summer weather, Lynn began to enjoy several weeks of undisturbed slumber. Was being away from the house on Rosa Court going to be the solution to the dreams that had plagued her so long? Hope began to trickle, gather strength, then flow through her mind.
On the morning of the Fourth of July, when Lynn awoke, she recalled vividly how everything had come together on that day a year before, how she had seen that night the baby ghost in the pool, and a chilly shudder rippled through her, raising goosebumps on her arms. The familiar sounds of the city, with its honking taxis and occasional sirens, immediately brought her the realization that she wasn't in the house any more. She was far removed from the dreams.
Thinking she would have the day off, she had hardly stretched and made herself a cup of coffee when the phone rang. Another emergency at the plant. Holiday or not, she had to respond. So with a resigned sigh, Lynn dressed and went out into the still and warm morning air of the Fourth of July. Emergency piled on emergency, and it was very nearly dusk when Lynn walked out into the empty parking lot.
Traffic, however, was fairly heavy. Folks going to fireworks celebrations, Lynn decided. Her cell phone rang.
"Hello?"
"Miss Underwood-Lynn?"
"Yes."
"This is Sharon-Sharon Trenton."
Almost hesitantly, Lynn asked, "How do you like living in the new house?"
"Wonderful!" she exclaimed. "It's just wonderful. It's just what Del and I have always dreamed of. And you know what?"
"What?" responded Lynn, smiling in spite of herself at the sheer delight and enthusiasm of the woman.
"Tonight there is going to be fireworks-" Lynn could hear crying in the background, "-Del, could you get Shane?-and we can watch it from the patio in back, and I bet the colors will reflect off the pool, and-"
A car cut in front of Lynn, and she swerved to the right to void a fender-bender, cursing under her breath. "That's fine," Lynn said. "I'm so glad you like the place." She said it without thinking at all, righting the car at the same time.
"Just wanted to wish you to have a happy Fourth," said Sharon Trenton gaily.
"You have a good time too; the fireworks will be spectacular," responded Lynn, absent-mindedly, focusing instead on the traffic.
She looked in her rearview mirror. Everything looked fine behind her and now in front. She settled back, tossing the cell phone on the seat next to her. She checked her hair in the mirror.
She remembered the telephone call from the young Sharon Trenton and smiled, thinking over what she said.
At that instant, Lynn was stunned by the realization that she heard crying in the background, a baby crying. "Shane," Sharon had called him.
A chilling thought trickled into Lynn's consciousness. Was it possible if ghosts came from the past that they could also come from the future? Why not? Were there some immutable laws governing the temporal direction that ghosts could go? Not that she knew of. Could it be possible that the dream she had was warning her of tonight?
Quickly, Lynn grabbed the phone. She suddenly realized that she didn't have the Trentons' number. At her condo, yes; but not here, not memorized.
"Damn," she muttered softly. She tossed the cell phone aside. Spotting an exit up ahead, she floored her car, taking to the shoulder, leaving a plume of dust behind. She wasn't that far away from the house on Rosa Court. She drove the city streets as quickly as she could, thumping the wheel with the flat of her hand whenever she had to wait at the light.
The sky was darkening to a rich sapphire, thick and fathomless. Lynn turned on her headlights. Finally, she pulled up in front of the house she knew so well. She ran to the front door, banging on it.
No one came, no one came. Lynn almost jumped up and down with anxiety.
Finally the door opened. It was Sharon Trenton.
"Your son, where is he?" screamed Lynn.
Bewildered, she just pointed. "With his Dad."
"No, he's not," Lynn snapped.
She pushed the confused mother aside and raced across the living room she remembered, to the family room she had begun remodeling, yanking aside the sliding patio door.
There he was, with the milky moonlight spilling over his hair, by the edge of the pool. Lynn ran towards him as he tottered near the edge, balancing precariously, near the diving board, his small fists clutching blue air.
Just as he was about to tumble in, Lynn reached him, reached out and grabbed his wrist pulling him against her.
"What is it?" asked his father, coming around the side the house.
His wife, wide-eyed, simply stared at Lynn as Lynn clutched the baby to her chest. The baby cried, his blue eyes glittery with tears staring at her, staring at her, his milky breath spilling over Lynn. Lynn cried with the child, spilling large teardrops on his cinnamon-colored hair. She caressed his warm head with her palm.
Just at the moment, fireworks lit up the sky, explosions rumbled across the darkness, and all of them-the Trentons, the baby, and Lynn-looked up, spellbound by the miracle of light spilling over their heads in reds, blues, greens and whites.
Author Bio
Jesse F. Knight has published ghost stories in a number of publications, and he has many more scheduled for the future. His ghostly fiction has appeared, or will appear, in All Hallows, Enigmatic Tales, Lichgate, Roadworks, Yawning Vortex, Nocturne, and in the widely acclaimed anthology Midnight Never Comes.
Online, he has had stories in Dark Planet and Enigmatic Tales. His fiction has received Honorable Mention in the Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Besides his ghost stories, his short fiction appears in a variety of magazines both online and in print.
Mr. Knight lives in Vancouver, WA, from where he travels a great deal and writes a great deal.
Read Vindication by the same author.
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