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I was asked why I don’t write short stories. Actually, I enjoy writing them, but there’s very few markets for them these days and those markets pay very little. I have to eat. I found this short story, The Dreamcatcher, in a file folder that has been moved from computer to computer. I think it was written in the late 1980s but with Halloween coming it is still appropriate today. The story is just about 1500 words long so it’s a quick read. Hopefully you’ll find it intriguing and horrifying at the same time or perhaps a little sad for the lady in story.

The Dreamcatcher

by

VC Angell

“Propinquity.”

“What?”

“Propinquity,” Anne Richards said again and then spelled the word before adding, “It is an eleven letter word meaning nearness.”

With just the tip of her tongue sticking out from between her lips the old woman labored to put the letters in the crossword puzzle with a stub of a pencil from Bill’s Superservice gas station. Done, she smiled at Anne and said, “It fits. I’d never got that one. This is sure a grand bus tour with you along.”

Anne listened for what seemed to be the hundredth time about last year’s tour and the year’s before that and the year’s before that and prayed for a rest stop while smiling dryly so she would not offend. It was an hour until her redemption. She wondered why she had taken the trip then remembered the promise — no, the hope — of meeting someone, someone to love her and share her life.

The stop was for lunch but Anne needed to be free of the old women more than she needed food. She hated the tour. The places were okay; even the people were not bad, just not her age and worse didn’t share her interests. Anne walked across the worn highway to an old gray and weathered clapboard building with an sign reading “Antiques & Curios” on it.

A little bell over the door announced her arrival.

“I’ll be with you in a minute,” Called a voice from the back.

“That’s okay. Don’t hurry, I’m just looking,” Anne called back. She walked carefully around the store. She did not want the special “catch-the-men’s-eyes skirt she had bought for the trip to brush against and knock off any of the many odd little items on the dusty lower shelves. In the dim light of the back of the shop on a high shelf Anne found a corn-husk doll. Its hollow dried out body crackled in Anne’s hands.

A voice just at her elbow said, “Its just like you.”

Anne started and turned to find an androgynous thing, no more than five feet tall with hair long and white enough to be either short for an old woman or long for an old man, beside her.

The thing smiled without showing its teeth and said, “Its eyes. They are blue. Like yours.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” Anne glanced at the doll. Its eyes were blue. The blue of cold winter skies, and the color of her eyes.

“Never be without a friend when you have a doll,” The thing said.

Anne looked at it again carefully and tried to decide if it was a man or a woman, so she could answer politely. Anne settled for something less than polite, “No thanks, I’m just looking.”

“You like?”

A hoop of wood about six inches across laced in a net like fashion with leather appeared in front of Anne’s face. Held there by an almost fleshless claw of a hand. Instinctively Anne took the hoop and turning it over in her hands she asked, “What is it?”

“A dreamcatcher.”

“What does it do?”

“Catches dreams.”

Anne frowned and said, “But why?”

“Hang it over bed of baby and catch bad dreams before they scare the baby,” The thing cocked its head and looked up at Anne as it spoke.

Anne wished she knew if the thing was a man or a woman. Uncomfortable she turned the hoop over again in her hands looking at the

intricate weaving of the laces. She wondered if there’d ever be any babies for her.

“Bad thing sometimes too. Trap filled by bad men to collect souls.”

“Collect souls?”

“Fill dreamcatcher with seemingly best of dreams. Dreamer find and play with dreams and they trap the dreamer forever.”

“Forever?” Anne looked down at the thing and said, “You’re teasing me.”

“No tease, but this good buy. Handmade. Much love in making it.”

The sound of an air horn reminded Anne the bus would soon leave. She bought the dreamcatcher to escape.

***

Nothing of the city had changed in her two week absence. It still smelled of cars, buses, people, and stale bricks. Even her apartment seemed as if she had only just stepped out. Her coffee cup sat on the edge of the sink, a half read newspaper lay on the table, where she had left them. There was no one new in her life either. She wondered why she tried,  why she even went on. Anne shook her head and went into the bedroom to unpack. When she got to the dreamcatcher, Anne paused a moment, then slipped it into her dresser beside the bed.

The very first night home Anne dreamed of a beautiful lake with the sun sparkling off the waves like thousands of tiny diamonds. Her dream was so real she could smell the pines circling the lake and hear the waves lapping at the shore.

The following night was filled with dreams of being chased through the forest by things. Each time she woke in fear Anne found only the reassuring warmth of her bedroom. Falling asleep her dream started again where it ended, only a different beast would be chasing her; a wolf, a bear, and finally a manlike monster.

As she dressed the next morning she thought of the dreamcatcher while looking for a green scarf to go with her suit. Taking down a picture she hung it over her bed and said to herself, “No more bad dreams.”

That night her sleep was peaceful, no dream came to visit her. And so it went until Christmas was a memory and the dead of winter settled over the city with its dirty snow and icy slush.

One night Anne awoke with a start. It was as if someone had switched on a bright light as she slept, but the room was dark except for the lights of the city coming in through her window. The rest of the night was filled with brightness whenever she slept.

In the morning she was tired, but there were no circles under her green eyes. At work, the city library, it was hard to concentrate to help people find things in the reference section.

Most nights were bright after that, but others provided refreshing, restful sleep. But always after a bright night she would feel tired and listless. On bright nights the light seemed to swirl and move like a menacing fog in an old grade B movie. At times Anne would try and see how or what made the light swirl. Those attempts always led to panic and waking in a sweat, never to sleep again that night.

Growing ever more tired Anne went to a doctor and told him of her sleep problems. He prescribed some sleeping pills. When Anne took them the bright light stayed away, but the pills left her sleep most of the next day. Anne avoided them as much as possible.

Anne fought the nights with courage and when that failed with pills. One night standing beside the bed trying to decide if she should sleep the dreamcatcher caught her eye.

Anne took the hoop of wood and leather off the wall and held it to her heart, “Help me. You protect babies, protect me. Keep the light away.” She held the dreamcatcher close to her and cried. As the tears faded she rehung the dreamcatcher and another thought, one she did not verbalize, passed through her mind, “If you can’t keep the light away how about a lover to protect me?”

The night provided a peaceful sleep. The next morning Anne again held the dreamcatcher to her heart. This time to thank it.

Slowly the nights filled with a warm, soft, gentle darkness. Anne awoke each morning refreshed. Sleep was something she no longer feared. She began to go to bed earlier each night. Anne realized one night the darkness had substance. She could feel its warm velvety softness. She could float on its surface, sinking only a little into it like a soft mattress. And if she wished, Anne discovered, she could even let it enfolded her and protect her from the cold world.

Each night she let the darkness more completely enfold her. The darkness would caress her softly and warmly like a lover. A never demanding lover, always gentle, always ever more seductive. Anne was sure she felt the reassuring embrace of love as it explored her body. In the morning when she woke, she found it increasingly hard to leave her bed.

Friends noticed she was happier as spring came. Some of the women guessed it was love. Anne smiled shyly at their suggestions. It was better than love.

Her nights were filled with the companionship of her loving darkness. Anne could feel its strength. She would shiver at the sensation and then let the darkness wash over her. Anne thought, “Never has a woman had such a perfect lover.” No matter how passionate her nights might be, Anne always awoke refreshed. But still it was hard to leave her loving darkness. It seemed as time went on that the darkness wanted her to stay too.

One night as she sank into the warm gentle darkness, letting it explore her body, the darkness seemed even more eager than before to satisfy her. Time after time she rose to peaks of passion in his warm embrace. When morning came she knew she couldn’t leave her darkness, her lover.