In An Absent Dream
'Laura in an absent dream...' - Christina Rossetti, Goblin Market.
Where I go in my dreams is real.
I wrote that ten minutes ago. I've been staring at it ever since. Until I wrote it down, I didn't believe it myself. But please, Wills, keep reading...it's important.
Let me be more precise. Most of my dreams are dreams like everyone else's, my brain processing bits and pieces of what I've seen and done, turning them into images or scenes. Sometimes they remain in my consciousness when I wake. I think that's normal.
But then there are the other dreams.
Please bear with me, Wills. You're the only person I can think of who might believe me, and even you will find it hard. I promise you, though: I'm not on drugs, or mentally ill – at least, I don't think I am. You'll have to decide that for yourself, I suppose.
For much of my life I've held two realities in my mind: the world we all walk in, and the world I walk in my dreams. I call it faerie, but really it’s just this world, these streets, these fields, overlain with roads and paths that don't exist in the world under the sun. It's like they hover over, or under, the everyday world, taking shape and substance only when someone – me – enters them. In my waking life, I walk or cycle on footpaths and bridleways, lanes and roads, and see the dream-paths overlaying the everyday, over and over again. And every time I moved away, to university, to a new city, there were new paths to learn.
I know what you're thinking. Recurring dreams aren't uncommon; this is just how my brain, interprets new experiences. I told myself this for years. I'm a scientist, remember? Of course this wasn't real.
So what changed my mind?
It started with a photograph. I was walking in the old city, down some cobbled passage, looking up, at the gargoyles, at tiny windows on the top floors of ancient buildings. I came out into a courtyard, a place I hadn't been for a while, in either world. Across the courtyard from where I stood, a three storey building abutted a taller one, leaning into it in the way of old structures. On the flat roof of the shorter house, someone had built a garden.
In the dream world, a bridge had run from that flat roof, across the cobbled passage in-between, to a door in the next house. I remember wondering what this new garden had done to that bridge. I found my phone, took a picture, and kept walking, down to the river, along the embankment, back to the car-park.
That night I dreamt of the faerie path that parallels where I'd walked that morning. I followed the passage to the courtyard, and then slipped onto the dreamworld's paths, through an arched gate, up an external stair, onto the roof where the garden had been built. The bridge still rose from the roof to a door in the building across the passage, just as I remembered. I walked across the bridge, through the door, and down a hidden staircase out to the river.
When I woke, the dream was still vivid. I lay thinking about how my question of yesterday morning had been answered so directly. I got up and made coffee, wondering if the faerie bridge could have risen still from the roof, now the garden was there. Ignoring the cat, who was demanding to be fed, I found my phone, opened the photos.
The garden was a tiny part of the picture.. I zoomed in on it: the angle wasn't good, but I thought I could see that potted trees were standing on what would be either side of the faerie staircase, leaving a space between them. I smiled. No doubt I'd registered that yesterday, on some subconscious level, and the dream had just been confirmation. Just before I put my phone down, I glanced at the screen again. I was holding the phone slightly tilted. From between the potted trees, a shadow, a shimmer of what looked like a bridge caught and held my eyes.
I brought the phone closer, the screen flat. Nothing. I tilted it again, and the same shimmer appeared, the faint hint of a shape, a structure. A reflection, I told myself. I put the phone away, fed the cat, made toast. I even took a bite or two, before I retrieved the phone and uploaded the picture to my laptop.
I worked on the picture all morning, adjusting lighting, contrast, playing with every enhancement my software offered me. By noon, my shoulders aching, I had a picture in which something that could have been a set of steps and the deck of a bridge rose from the pavers of the roof garden.
I saved the file again, and walked away from the table. I took a hot shower, letting the spray of water ease the tension in my neck and shoulders. I made fresh coffee, cooked an omelette, ate an orange. Then I sat down and thought.
What had I done this morning? I had a picture that apparently showed the impossible, a bridge from my dreams visible in the light of day. But had I simply manipulated, pixel by pixel, an artefact on the screen into what I expected -or wanted - to see?
I needed someone else to enhance the picture, someone who had no preconceived idea of what the artefact was. My friend Abby is a graphic designer; she’d do it. I sent her the picture.
Four days later the reply came. I opened the attachment. Rising from the roof garden was a bridge of finely-wrought metal, looking barely able to take a person's weight, spanning the passage, ending at a arched doorway, exactly as the bridge of my dreams did.
I typed a reply, words of thanks. Then I sat, staring at my computer screen. Eventually the persistent mewing of the cat brought me to myself. I got up, let her out, tidied away the remnants of supper. By the time I'd done that, the cat was asking to come back in. I scooped her up, and went to bed.
Sleep came slowly. Part of my mind told me that Abby's image just confirmed that there had been a reflection, somehow, of some builder's gear; she had just artistically enhanced it. But another part of my mind told me a different story. As I drifted, finally, into sleep, I thought, at the edge of consciousness, bring something back, the next time you walk the faerie paths.
I've never been able to compel these dreams. But late that night I found myself again taking the stair to the roof garden. In the dream, I crouched, and from the planter box in front of me, I picked three pansies – deep purple – tucking them deep into the pocket of my jacket. Then I crossed the bridge and followed the faerie path away.
And woke, disoriented. I lay still. The familiar weight of the cat at the foot of my bed, and the soft hum of the boiler brought me back to the real world. I rolled over, and returned to sleep, deep and dreamless.
I had an early class the next morning. The chatter of the morning weather girl told me the day would be warm and sunny. I left the house without my jacket, simply throwing my favourite scarf, bright with poppies, around my throat.
The day passed as every last day of the month does: my morning classes, the staff meeting. Late in the afternoon we moved to the pub. It was dark by the time I left, and the temperature had dropped. I wound my scarf more snugly around my throat, walking quickly to the car-park. I was still shivering slightly as I unlocked my front door.
A jumper and a cup of tea helped warm me. After a while I unwound the scarf, hanging it on the coat stand beside the jacket I should have taken that morning. Then, slowly, I reached into the left-hand jacket pocket. Nothing but a pound coin. I put my hand in the other pocket. Again, nothing. I felt my shoulders relax...and then my fingers found something dry and crumbly.
In the poor light of the hall it looked like a bit of dry leaf. I walked slowly to the brighter light of the kitchen, laying the shred of material on the white counter. The scrap was brown and dry, but along its crumbling veins a hint of purple ran, rich and deep.
The cat mewed inquisitively. I fed her, poured myself wine, watched a movie. The last glass of wine accompanied me to bed. My bedroom was cool. I got up again to get my scarf, draping it around my shoulders like a shawl while I sat up to read. At some point, I fell asleep.
The dream started as it always does: I'm on foot, walking east on the familiar path. I reach the courtyard, climb the stairs that aren't there in daylight. On the roof, I stop, and loosen my scarf from around my neck, my poppy scarf, bright with blood-red blossom. I tie it, tightly, to the railings.
It is barely light when I wake. I'm cold: the covers are pushed down, and my shoulders are bare except for the thin straps of my nightdress. I sit up, switch on the light. I hunt around for my scarf. It's not on the bed. Of course not, I think, I tied it to the railings. Didn’t I?
Church bells are ringing for early service as I drive into town. I park in its car-park, take my ticket. I walk away from the church, east along the passage that will bring me to the roof garden.
Even before I leave the cold shadow of the passage I can see my scarf on the railings, the red poppies blowing bright in the early light. I walk slowly into the courtyard, and carefully, quietly – it is still very early on a Sunday morning – I walk along the row of houses, looking for a way up, a way I could have put the scarf there, sleepwalking, entranced.
There is none. The roof garden has no staircase, no access except the door from the house beside it. Not under the sun of this world. A dog barks. The town is waking; I need to leave.
It's very late now. I know you check your messages every morning, so you'll see this one: I've scheduled it to be sent at eight. If you get it, cancel my class. I'm going to get my scarf back, if the dreams allow. If faerie allows. I think it will. What I don't know, Wills, is if it will let me come back.
Try to find me, Wills. If you can't, please take care of my cat.
This isn’t the easiest story to provide any ‘real history’ behind - but the setting at least is historic. In An Absent Dream is set, more or less, in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, UK, a medieval town dating from the 12th century. Lynn is the closest market town to the village where I spend my winters.
Although there probably had been a settlement here for uncounted years, about 1100 a ‘purpose built’ town with a church and market was built, and about 50 years later a second, larger town, also with a church and a market was constructed. To this day Lynn has a Saturday Market Place and a Tuesday Market Place, two guildhalls, two major churches, and the harbour(s) divided too between the merchant fleet and the fishing fleet. This division made it the perfect model for the town of Casilla in my novels.
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Loved this, Marian! I'm a sucker for dream stories anyway, but it was fun to watch how she chose to explore the parameters.
I can feel this.