Be Careful
44: Who You Dream Of
By Anne B. Walsh
He crossed the courtyard towards the garden on the other side. Though the day was warm for November, none of the bushes would be flowering, but he thought she would likely still be there.
It is her favorite place. I have teased her sometimes about claiming blood with the wrong family, but she only laughs and tells me that I would never see her clean if I were right.
He rounded the last corner, and there she was, kneeling beside a bush and reaching carefully through its thorny stems to pluck out a weed. Casually, he cleared his throat.
"So here you are." His dream woman rose to her feet, her smile as sweet as the flowers that would fill this place with scent in the spring. "I was beginning to think you'd forgot about me."
"About you? Never." He advanced towards her, holding out his hand, and she met him halfway with her own, the touch of her skin sending a familiar thrill through him. "I have merely been too busy, and too worried…"
"To seek help with those worries, and rest from your work, in the one place you know is truly safe," the woman interrupted, bringing her other hand up and smudging mud across the end of his nose. "Fool that you are. Why do you not come to see me more, instead of less, when you know you will be troubled?"
In the real world, anyone who had dared to speak to him so would have been snubbed, anyone who dared to do such a thing likely hexed, but this was a world of his own devising, and he merely smiled as he brushed the dirt from his face. "Likely because I am that very fool you name me," he said lightly. "And because I fear to wear out my welcome here."
"Come now, surely you know I would be only too glad to see you every day."
Of course you say that. You are a figment of my imagination. What I truly fear is to overtax you, to load whatever portion of my mind you represent with troubles and worries until it collapses. Besides destroying my pretty illusion of a woman who cares for me, it would also mean I lost the one source of comfort that has never failed me.
He glanced up at the castle which rose behind them. The real version has become a burden to me. I cannot bear to sacrifice this idealized one as well. My visits here must be sparing, but by the same token, I shall have them when I truly need them.
"You say that now," he replied belatedly, realizing his dream-love was waiting for an answer. "Perhaps I shall take you up on the offer, and see what you say after a week or two weeks of my crotchets and quirks."
"I will say that you are not only a person with whom I enjoy sharing time, but a fascinating personality which I may busy myself trying to understand." She shook her free hand clean of dirt and drew her wand, Summoning the basket of gardening tools with it. "You know my needs with regards to my work."
"Give me a task or I shall go mad," he quoted. "Indeed I do. But you have never had trouble finding tasks before this, and the one you mentioned to me on our last visit—the young man so wounded in his soul that he reverted to a basically infantile emotional state, accepting without question the values of those who showed him kindness, though it meant denying all that he had been taught in his life—I cannot believe he has ceased to interest you."
"Oh, far from it. But he has begun to heal, and to grow again, though he will need guidance still. At least he accepts it. You, on the other hand, constantly refuse any help but the simplest forms that I can provide." She sighed. "I will not lie to you, my love. I am rather hurt that you will never let me give you all that I can."
"But I had thought that you had." He pulled her close and leaned down to her, brushing his lips across her ear. "Many, many times."
She pulled away indignantly. "You know perfectly well I did not mean that. Why will you never let me soothe a bit of the pain from your old memories, or give you some immunity against the horrors you must witness and condone day after day? You are strong, but no strength can last forever."
He turned to look at one of the towers of the castle. "It will not need to." His voice was harsh even to his own ears. "Only long enough to finish my work."
She sighed again. "And then you will go."
"Yes."
"Have you never thought that perhaps she might prefer some other form of reparation?"
"It is mine to make. Whether or not she would have accepted it, I can never know. And may I inquire precisely how we came onto this topic?" He looked back at her. "I certainly did not intend to bring it up."
"I find myself unsure," she confessed, beginning to smile. "I believe it started with a quotation from Jane Austen, and moved from there into what I hope we can find the time to do before you leave…"
"Why not now?" He pulled her close and swung her into his arms. She squealed like the girl she was no longer and kicked her feet in token resistance, but also held tightly to him as he turned in place.
Strange, how my mind works. It disregards time-honored rules of magic in constructing this world, but insisted upon a ritual handfasting before three witnesses, all those years ago, before she would consent to our first joining.
Though perhaps he had simply been trying to remind himself that this place was both benign and impossible. He could think of no other reason for the three people who had watched the simple ceremony of vows and wands between himself and his dream-love.
But enough of memory. His quarters, dimly-lit and cool, materialized around them. It is now time for me to attend to—as hilarious as I am sure my colleagues in reality would find the phrase, it is perfectly accurate here—my wife.
He crossed the room to the bed and bent his head to bring their lips together before laying her down.
"So, tell me what troubles you such that you felt the need to seek me out," she said later, running her fingers down his shoulder. "And the full truth, mind you. I am no fainting miss. Try to shelter me and I shall boil you in your own cauldron."
"I quail in terror," he said coolly, and smiled to hear her laugh. "My troubles are much the same as they have been. I must maintain the front of the perfect servant to a megalomaniac sociopath, allow his minions freedom to harm children supposedly under my care while simultaneously keeping them enough in check that none are killed or dealt truly lasting harm, and work to aid his young and incompetent enemies under his nonexistent nose."
"Yes, so you have said. I have often wondered why you chose such a simple set of tasks, so unworthy of your great talents…"
It was his turn to laugh at her perfect dry delivery. "I had indeed been finding it a trifle dull. But no more. You recall what I have told you of the boy on whose behalf I swore an Unbreakable Vow last year?"
"Oh, yes." His love's voice grew soft. "Very well indeed."
"Judging by his behavior in the first term of school, he has learned precisely the wrong lesson from his inability to kill." It was his turn to sigh heavily. "He flouted school rules on his second free weekend, and I have no way to discipline him—he will in fact be rewarded, though his transgression did little good for anyone…"
"What do you mean?"
"You know that the students are sometimes allowed to roam the village near the school?"
She nodded.
"This young man remained there, or returned there, well after curfew, and caught one of the children who sneak about defying my so-called master." He stroked two fingers along the unmarked skin of his left forearm. "Perhaps thinking that I would not give him the credit he deserved for such an impressive deed, he took her not to the school, but to his own home, where she was imprisoned in one of the cellars, along with a man who has been safely incarcerated there for more than a year."
"You must have feared for her." She rose from the bed and began to dress, the commonplace movements as graceful as a dance. "And for your cause—your true cause. What did you do?"
"Nothing."
"Oh?" She turned to look at him. "Why?"
"For the simplest of reasons. When the cellar door was next opened, neither man nor girl was present."
"An escape?" She smiled broadly at his nod. "How was it done?"
"No one has been able to tell." He slid out of the bed on the other side and reached for his own clothing. "The house in which they were imprisoned is so old that its own accumulated magic overrides any subtle traces. What is certain is that the Dark Lord is furious." He imbued the title with all the sarcasm he could never use for it in any other place. "He has punished the boy's father, from whose home the escape was made, but the boy himself escaped unscathed, and his mother's sister feels herself bound by the promise she made at the time, so tomorrow he will even have the treat she granted him at the time of his audacious capture."
"Forgive me, but I fail to see the trouble." She tilted her head to one side. "Has the promise of such a treat perhaps changed this young man's behavior in some way?"
He snorted. "I could say that. Or I could say that for the past month, since his famous escapade, he has been indiscriminately bullying the other students, boasting about his magical abilities, and carrying out those boasts in classroom practice sessions. Generally involving the students with whom he has had disagreements in the past, and the Unforgivable Curses. As well, he seems fixated on a particular girl, one of the ringleaders of those students who feel it incumbent upon them to fight back. Unfortunately for us all, the only methods he knows to gain her attention are those used by children in the schoolyard."
"Calling her names, following her about, and snatching her belongings so that she must chase after him to regain them?"
"Exactly. And although she participates in his foolish games with what seems to be good grace, she is unusual to begin with, so I have no idea whether or not she even realizes what he is doing. I have overheard her remarking that he ‘means no harm’. If it were not for her friends, I fear she might fall into the trap of believing him genuinely interested in her."
She finished fastening her robes. "Why do you think that a trap?"
He paused in the act of doing the same. "You do not know this boy as I do," he said with certainty. "He may not be capable of true evil, but he is utterly self-centered and without morals. The day he cares for another human being will be the day the Dark Lord learns to pray."
"I see." Her eyes danced. "Still, you cannot change his behavior, only reward and punish where you may, and hope he takes the lessons you wish him to take from it. Such are the hardships of all parents, and all those who must take their place."
"You have laid your finger on one of the reasons I chose never to have children."
"And what are the others?"
He stepped around the bottom of the bed and gathered her to himself. "You know two of them already," he murmured into her soft hair. "You yourself are the third."
"I?" She drew back enough to look up at him. "Why I?"
"You understand me in a way I fear no other woman ever could or will." Since you are a creation of my mind, I am certain of it. "As well, you find me physically attractive, or else you counterfeit surprisingly well…"
"No counterfeit." She laughed softly. "None is needed. Not after all the time you have spent learning what I enjoy and what I do not, and the care you take to give me pleasure as well as taking it for yourself."
"Not quite what I meant, but I thank you anyway." He kissed her forehead just where her blonde hair swept forward in a delicate widow's peak, watching a strand of his own black fall across it.
What I meant was that no woman outside my dreams ever approached me for any reason except that I could give her something she wanted. No woman but one, and she is gone forever, through my own stupidity and pride. If I could live that day over, I would never make that same choice again…
But such a test comes only once in a lifetime, and I have already failed mine. I must live with the consequences, until finally they kill me, as I always knew they would. After that, the pain will end. If some of the old stories are to be believed, if I have made sufficient repayment for my wrongdoing, perhaps there will even be joy.
Until that day… at least I have my dreams.
He bent to kiss his love again, closing his eyes so that, for one timeless moment, he might believe it real.