DreamBroker

A gilt and rather dusty wooden sign stuck out over the sidewalk in front of the door of 23B Liver Street. The door, much like the sign, needed a good washing and a new coat of paint—the original coat of which had been deep blue and sported a flaking pattern of silver stars. The sign, in ornate copperplate, read: Dream Distillery.

The door stood a single step above the sidewalk, and a young man sat on the step with his back against the door and his shoulders hunched deep inside his coat, which was good quality wool. The suit he wore beneath was just as well-made, neatly tailored and paired with a set of shiny hand-sewn shoes. The man started as the door to 23A opened with the tinkling of a bell and a woman stepped onto the street. She paid him no attention as she passed, preoccupied with the package in her hands, and he sank back down again.

He drew a finger through the fine sand that covered the step where he sat. It glittered slightly on his fingertip as he lifted it for inspection.

At the corner of the street, a streetlamp flickered to life with the coming dusk. Cars passed the entrance to the street but rarely turned down Liver Street itself. Another streetlamp came to life and another, until they lit the whole street of stone building fronts and inset doorways. Still, he waited until at last he heard the turn and click of the lock opening behind him.

He scrambled to his feet without bothering to brush the sand from his pants.

“Ah, Mister Darien,” said a voice with a slight Scandinavian accent. “I hope you have not been waiting long. Do come in.”

Mister Darien stepped hurriedly inside and shoved the door closed behind him. “It didn’t work,” he said in a clipped, angry voice as he drew a small vial of dark liquid from the inner pocket of his jacket. “Haven’t you got anything stronger?”

“Stronger,” said the shopkeeper as he moved down the hall and through the second door into a small room lit by a single lamp with a dark green shade. “I do not think you would like anything stronger. Terrifying things—-”

Darien slammed the little vial down on the desk in the circle of light made by the lamp. “Listen. This doesn’t work. I’ll pay whatever you want. Just give me the strongest you’ve got.” In the shadows of the room, his face was lit ghoulishly by the light reflected from the surface of the desk.

“Very well,” muttered the other man, moving through the gloom along the shelves. “The strongest I’ve got. Just as you say.”

A clink of glass and a liquid sloshing followed. Then the shopkeeper returned to the desk with a vial even smaller than the first filled with liquid as thick as molasses and blacker even than coal.

Darien swept it up and tucked it into his coat before dropping a tight roll of bills onto the desk.

“Use it carefully—” the man began in warning.

Darien muttered an impolite remark and left through the door of faded stars. He slammed into a younger man who stood to one side of the step, so hard that he sent the other man sprawling off the curb and into the street. He muttered another curse as he hurried toward the end of the street. In his hurry, he neglected to close the door all the way, and it with its silver stars swung gently open again into the hall.

At the same time, a distant roll of thunder preceded a sudden spot of rain. The man picked himself up from the pavement and studied the abraded palms of his hands as he moved into the shelter of the building. Overhead the gilt and dust sign creaked in a chill gust of wind that swirled down the seat, gathering the detritus of the day. A paper kite in the shape of a carp with scales of blue and gold and green was caught in the gust and went swimming neatly down the street until its trailing string tangled about a decorative arm of the lamppost. The kite swung about, tail and fins fluttering, its sides moving in lifelike rhythm.

He smiled at the sight until another burst of heavy raindrops bore the paper fish to the ground and turned it into a shapeless, pulpy mass. A warm breath of air ran across the back of his neck from the doorway.

“Do you mean to stand in the door all night? If you do, you might have the decency at least to come in and close the door.”

The young man started at the voice and turned quickly. “I’m sorry,” he said and stepped out into the rain and wind, which had become in a moment, a raging downpour.

“Are you waiting for someone?” the voice asked, appearing embodied in a small, wrinkled man. “Come inside before you’re soaked through.”

The young man moved gratefully into the small hallway with water already dripping from his sleeves. “I don’t mean to bother you,” he said. He looked back at the storm. The shopkeeper pushed the door closed. At once, the crash of rain was lost.

“I am never bothered,” the man replied. “Won’t you come in?” He opened the first door in the hall into a pleasant library-like room with comfortable chairs set near a crackling fire and thick carpets of stunning patterns overlapping on the stone floor. Lanterns of colored glass hung from the ceiling on loops of silver chain. The room smelled of warm cookies and coffee.

“Won’t you sit?” the shopkeeper asked, waving the young man toward the chairs.

The young man moved across the room. He felt as though he should be thoroughly disoriented and stifled by the colors and patterns between the carpets and the lanterns, not to mention the staggering intricacy of the wallpaper. Instead, he felt a sense of comfort so deep that he was nearly asleep as soon as he sat down. He thought, just for a second, that something glittered in front of him like a dust motes in sunlight or a glitter of sand. Then his eyes were closed.

He slept there until morning, dreaming delicious dreams of a fantastic wood where he could turn into a bird at will and soar through the branches up to the clouds or, if he dove into the water, he became a sleek, glittering carp with scales of green and gold and blue, and he slid along the bottom of the lake past a tiny kingdom of crawfish at war with a nearby country of water slugs. Then he went up, up and up again and burst from the surface of the water as a great cat. The water became moss beneath his paws. He strode through a jungle of dense shadows braided with vines and full of the chirping of insects and the calls of birds. As he surveyed the jungle, he heard a voice that did not belong there. It was a sweet, silver chime of a voice that sand a melody sweeter than honey, and it filled him with the most wonderful sense of longing.

He found the singer, a maiden with long coils of silver-green hair falling all about her as she sat on a large red toadstool with her feet tucked up neatly beneath her. He had become a man again by then, but found himself still as brave as the tiger when her eyes met his. Her eyes were drops of lavender. She leaned forward with a laugh and kissed him so her eyelashes brushed his cheek. Then she morphed into a butterfly with wings of silver green and two spots of deep lavender. She swooped once around his head before she fluttered away.

He woke from his dreams easily, still so filled with a sense of wonder and awe that he could see, without trying, the shopkeeper’s shape was little more than a facade. Behind it there was a power older than stories and legends, and if it had not been so sweet and peaceful, he might very well have been terrified.

“Did you sleep well?” asked the shopkeeper, and he was once again just a little wrinkled man in a small, strange shop.

“Yes, thank you,” the young man said as he roused himself. “I—I would very much like to come back again.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. I know where to find you.”

“You do?” He blinked as he got to his feet and noticed quite suddenly, the ceiling, which was covered in splendid murals that seemed almost to speak of his dream.

“Yes, quite, but you’d best be along now. The storm has ended.”

The young man walked to the door to the hall and heard footsteps just outside as he opened the door. A wrinkled little shopkeeper stood before him, as near a copy as the one behind him as was possible.

“Oh,” said the one behind. “My brother. No need for you to meet him just yet. He’s always about on his business. He has more work, nearly, than I do.”

As easily as the transition in a dream, the young man found himself on the step outside of 23B Liver Street. The door, with its silver stars, shone in the rain-washed morning light. He thought back on his dream, of the feel of the wind beneath his wings, and the water against his scales and the moss beneath his paws, and remembered the soft kiss of the butterfly. And he smiled.

Behind him, the sign with its gilt letters hung still on its post, so the sunlight caught the words and set them ablaze.

***

Note: This story is loosely based on the legend of Ole Lukøje, or the Sandman. Also, this is a semi-companion story to one from last year. Read it here! 23A Liver Street

Exciting news! I've had a short story and a sketch published in the third edition of MavGuard Magazine, which you can buy here: http://www.rad-writing.com/store/