With the dirt crunching beneath our feet and a breeze chilling the air, I began with something trivial. “Is it safe to eat and drink in the Dreamlands? I noticed you didn’t drink what we were served.”
Josephine shrugged, her breath coming in soft pants. “It depends. Ulthar is a safe place.”
Her response sounded like a ritual phrase. I slowed my pace. I was used to fast walking between patients and buildings and errands. Josephine was not. When she caught her breath, I glanced behind to make sure we weren’t followed. “You were saying something about a place you loved as a child?”
She nodded, walking with slower steps. “I mentioned that I have always been a vivid dreamer. Almost everyone in my family is. We are taught at a young age how to shape our dreams. To combat the nightmares.”
This was not what I expected from such a genteel and well-regarded family. It seemed they did more than encourage the fantasy. “You, your brother, your parents, all learned to lucid dream?”
Josephine considered this. “Lucid dream. That is an appropriate term.”
“Frederik van Eeden, a Dutch psychiatrist, created the phrase in 1913. I read it in one of his papers. I attempt to practice this from time to time.” I glanced at her. “I’ve been successful here, in this session with you.”
“We are in the Dreamlands.” Josephine spoke with the air of someone stating something obvious. “When I dream I almost always come here. But not lately. Not since I began having the nightmares. Not that I remember. Perhaps that is my problem. I have forgotten so much about dreaming and the Dreamlands. I don’t understand how that could happen.”
There was something I was missing. Something important. We were not truly dreaming. Were we? We were in a hypnotic session in my office. This, all this, around us was not real. The fact that Josephine accepted it without question was disturbing. What if I couldn’t pull her from her fantasy? “Where do you believe you’ve been going if not here?”
“My mind. Only within my mind.”
“What’s within your mind that frightens you?” I wanted to pull the conversation toward the concept of grief and the dead Thomas Ruggles, but Josephine ignored my question to continue her narrative.
“From a young age, I always had friends here within the Dreamlands. Your patient, Malachi, he was one of them. We would meet at the Red House. He felt safest there.” Josephine lowered her voice. “He was afraid of the Darkness that Watches.” She raised her voice again to a normal level. “It couldn’t see him in the Red House.”
As before, my tongue was struck dumb. Those were the words Malachi had used to express his fear before he was murdered. She had known him. There was no other explanation. How an itinerant man knew—was friends with—a young woman like Josephine Ruggles could only happen in dreams. I did not want to consider the implications.
Yet, I had to. Josephine knew Malachi. Malachi suffered from nightmares and delusions—delusions that had somehow murdered him with a physical knife. How could dreams manifest in the real world? The answer was before me in the form of my patient. Through the mind. Her dreams were made manifest in her flesh in the form of glyph-like wounds.
Yet the mind couldn’t bring a rune-covered knife from dreams into reality. Nor leave it behind in a cooling body. That was impossible.
“This is the place I believe we need to go. It was where I remember being when I was last in the Dreamlands. It is a hidden place. A safe haven. Many of my friends from here meet there.”
Josephine had her back to me now. She’d pulled ahead, unaware of my distracted state. I forced myself to focus on her. “How far away is it?”
She paused and looked around. We were high in the mountains now. “I…I don’t know. Only some of this is familiar to me.”
Josephine stood there, her head turning to and fro as if to get her bearings. I didn’t understand. There was only one path. As I watched her, something bulged out of her back. It looked like a book pressed against the fabric of her shirt. I stumbled and went to one knee. The pain of striking the hard rock surprised me. When I looked up again, Josephine waited, her head tilted at a quizzical angle. “Your back.” It was all I could say.
I pulled myself to my feet as she craned around, trying to see what I saw. I hadn’t torn my pant or broken the skin. My knee ached. That, in and of itself, upset me. But the blood on Josephine’s back, upset me more.
“What is it? What’s happened?” Her voice was high with panic and fear. She turned around and around, trying to see what I saw.
I grasped her by the shoulders. “Wait,” I commanded as I shifted to look at the blood. It was on the lower left side of her back where the corner of the book had pressed out of her flesh. I touched it. Dried blood on the fabric scraped against my fingertip. “Does this hurt?”
She shook her head. “No. What’s wrong?”
I pushed harder. “Now?”
“No. Please, Doctor, is there something wrong?”
“You have a bit of blood on your shirt where my fingers are.” I hesitated. Should I tell her the rest? Yes. I needed to. “There was the impression of something rectangular pushing out of your back against your shirt. It startled me. Did you feel anything?” I shifted to watch her face even as she turned to hide it from me. “Josephine?”
“There is no pain.”
“But?” There was more. So much more. I needed her to tell me.
“I felt something within. It wants out.”
I squeezed her hand, trying to encourage her. “Do you know what it is?”
She shook her head. “No. But I know who would know.”
“Who is that?”
Josephine gazed ahead. “We need to go. I think I hear the Black Wind.” She headed up the stone path.
I had no choice but to follow. Every conversation with my patient brought more questions. For now, I would ignore the mention of this “Black Wind.” It was a delaying tactic. I had to know what she was hiding within. Literally and figuratively, it seemed. I walked alongside her, our pace matching step for step. I was stronger than she was. I could outlast her. I had to. “You know two things you haven’t told me. If you want my help, you must trust me to help you.”
We walked on in silence for a good minute. It seemed much longer than that. The more we walked, the higher and colder it became. No longer in rocky hills, we were in the mountains. Though, the path was still clear.
“I was given something to keep safe. I remember that much. I cannot remember exactly what it was. I do know it is important to my friend. She gave it to me and made me promise to keep it safe.” Josephine paused on the path, her brow furrowed in concentration. “I was not supposed to look at it. I think…I believe I did.”
“Was it a book?”
Josephine blinked her dark eyes, peering into my face. “There are some things man is not meant to know. There are other things that man must be prepared for before they witness it. When your life is as mine is, you need all the protection you can get.”
Josephine’s true malady took shape. “You learned something you shouldn’t have.”
She nodded. “I believe I must return what my friend gave me.”
“Return to her or give to another?”
“To her. It is my duty to protect it as it protects me.” Josephine hugged herself, shivering because of something other than the cold.
“Protect you from what?”
Josephine shook her head. “I dare not say the name again.”
Was it this Black Wind she’d mentioned before? Was it more than a distraction? I turned her toward the path again, trying to focus on what was important. “Tell me about your friend? The one who gave you the book?” It was a book. That much was certain. What knowledge it represented was still unknown.