EXCOLO

I should never have said anything about champagne, because both of them start in on me about it. Neither of them rude, precisely, but still, they’re telling me my business. “I’ve had good and bad, sweetheart,” I tell the girl, trying to look down at her without looking down at her. She’s not the one pestering me to buy her wares. “It just doesn’t do anything for me.”

The vendor’s not letting me go, although he does poke his spoonful in someone else’s face. “I don’t drink anything I don’t know what’s in it, friend.” That’s not strictly true, but he doesn’t need to know that. Christ, I don’t know why I’m still standing here.

But then she swallows his hook, and they’re off talking about dreams and music. Can she not see she’s being taken in? That she had a friend who’s gone now is all very well, but she’s looking in the wrong place for memories in a bottle. Not that I’d invite her down to the Whitechapel, although she looks like she could handle herself. Not going to say anything to her, either, although I am going to stick around to see if she tries that sample. And if anything goes the least bit wrong after that, you can believe I’ll be down to the sheriff before this shyster can pack up his precious little bottles.

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I take the spoon from him, smiling. It's violet, like the drink they brew down at the Tavern, but cool colours instead of warm. Not so light as to be lilac, maybe a couple of shades lighter than a gloaming sky.

And it's not like the piano, it's not like the concert hall and its constellation of shapes made by human hands that turn the air into a throat. If it were, then I think I'd notice how it wasn't what I remembered, how it wasn't like Anushka. Instead it's some thing, one thing... the strings drawn steady between heaven and earth, the touch of hands making them sing out until the air around them's filled with something sweet and cool, just one part of the beginning of something greater (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRMz8fKkG2g)--

And then it fades, and I can hear the man he offered the taste of a feast, saying something about... Marjorie, marjoram, I'm not sure, in a purely stunned-to-happiness voice. And the sound of the street traffic, the lift and clack of goods turned over, voices and conversation. It's not so sudden that I think I was deaf before, only I wasn't paying attention, like being caught in a daydream and not paying attention to the rest of it.

Run one hand through my hair and catch my breath. "That was beautiful," I say, and I'm smiling like it's the first of May and set-up's gone so sweet and fast we're done by noon. "It was strings, but not a guitar--I think maybe a harp, something that's all open to the air? I--" I break off and draw myself together, still smiling.

"My name's Zann, Tereixa Zann, but just Zann's fine," I say, dipping into the hint of a curtsey and holding out a hand. "And I would love to buy music from you."

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The fat man looks as if he could cry with happiness, and I am quite revolted by him but I smile and take a fold of his money and watch as with shaking fingers he stuffs the rest of the bottle into his pocket.

"Wait until you're home for that," I say warningly. "A drop on the street, that is well enough, friend, but the full dream - why, you might be run over and never notice."

I turn back to Zann, whose face is lit up. I take her hand, my gnarled strong fingers round her workworn young ones.

"Uri, they call me," I say, "from I was six days old to the present." I smile. "Tell me for what sort of music you look, and we can barter." I glance at the shaggy-haired man. "Still here, friend?" I say, amused. "Believe you any more, now, than you did before?"

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I watch her swallow down the drop on that spoon and see her face change. Whatever she’s seeing or hearing, it’s good, and it’s not anything going on around us. I find myself fighting to hold still, although I’m not sure what I would move to do. She comes up from it fast, though, looking stunned.

I have no idea what was in that stuff that he gave her. Some kind of drug, I guess, though it must be a kind I’ve never heard of, to work like that. She looks so happy, and she’s talking like she heard better than she expected. That’s a customer he’s gained, I guess, from the way she offers him her hand.

He’s pleased as punch about it, of course. I saw what the orange bottle went for, and I can’t imagine this one will go for much less, now that Zann’s tipped her hand that she wants one. Girl should know how to bargain. “Are you all right?” I ask her, because I’ve watched people come off trips before. Sometimes they look just fine until all of a sudden they’re…not.

Uri, if that’s really his name, turns to me with a smirk, asking after my opinion now. “This is all very interesting,” I tell him. “Do you mix these yourself?”

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"Uri, they call me, from I was six days old to the present," and it's a phrasing that makes me smile, with him not at him, although I think right now anything could make me smile. "Tell me for what sort of music you look, and we can barter."

"Oh, wow." Dammit, I'm not entirely sure how to describe music, not without getting into something else it sounds like, and I didn't hear quite enough of it to be sure what else it sounds like. "Strings," I say, feeling like I'm trying to describe a dream after I've had coffee, "maybe a little slow. All coming together, and building... Something strong and quiet, something that could make you understand what it's like to feel a great and terrible thing without making your heart want to break from it?" I remember the music box I made as a gift for Kent, when I came to visit him. "And that ends gently," I add. "Not broken, not cut off; more like going to sleep, resting."

"Are you alright?" the man says, and I stop and think for a moment, because it's nice of him to ask, at least. Nothing looks too bright or overloud, remind myself that if I had the chance and something was small and cheap I was thinking of getting something for Anti and Kythera--I wonder for a second what on earth they would make of this--close my eyes and touch my finger to the tip of my nose without missing, and then look at him and smile.

"I think I am, really," I say. "Thank you." I don't bother telling him he should try it, because nudging him in front of Uri is not likely to make him change his mind, but I hope he does. He doesn't even have to buy, but the samples are amazing... I imagine they're what like cinema and recordings used to be, before everything ended. I've heard stories. "Skeptical?" I say in a friendly tone, lowering my voice a bit. And then he's asking Uri where he gets his wares, and I listen.

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The man's not coming round, not exactly, but he is interested. Well enough.

“This is all very interesting. Do you mix these yourself?”

"Oh," I say, "dreams I buy, my friend, though then I blend them. A dream that's from scratch made tastes of nothing real. We must have true dream in the blend to make it sing, do you see?" I smile. "If you have dreams you want not, I can buy them."

I turn back to Zann, and she talks of the music she wants. It sounds like Anushka, and I feel a pale distant sort of sadness, like grass bleached through the summer into yellow-white drifts.

"Make you something of that I can," I say. "Will you pay cash for it, or will you trade? I take dreams," I say, "and oddities."

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I think she’s all right, because she’s talking clearly and moving like she knows where she is. And that smile. God, that smile. I tip my head to her question, meaning yes but not wanting to say it outright with Uri standing right there.

He doesn’t seem to take offense. He’s still calling me friend, at any rate. The way he explains his business sits about as well with me as anything I’ve seen him do today. It’s just more smoke for a cover of I don’t know what, but he believes it. He’s looking right at me with that strange smile. I can’t tell what color his eyes are, and it unsettles me. And then he’s offering to buy my dreams. Good God, the idea’s one that should make me laugh in his face, because how the hell do you buy a dream? But he’s dead serious, and I don’t feel much like laughing myself.

What I’m thinking about is this cracked old man telling me he’ll give me money for things out of my head, as well as some of the dreams I’ve had in my time. The one that woke me up earlier than I’d have liked this morning. I was back in the cornfield south of the house I grew up in, lying between the rows staring up at the sky. Couldn’t hear anything but the wind, or smell anything but dirt and green. I could tell something was coming, though, something bad, but I couldn’t move to run away from it.

The words are out of my mouth before my brain can think to stop them. “Do you buy nightmares?”

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“Do you buy nightmares?”

I look at the man for a moment, smile glimmering at the corner of my mouth, and then I reach underneath the stall, withdraw a battered suitcase with a heavy lock. I unlock and open it. It is full of more small bottles, and these are as colourful as the ones on the table. But somehow, despite their pretty shades, these bottles wink and glisten with malevolence.

"I do," I say. "But no bread-and-butter dreams of teeth falling," I warn. "Only the best sort of nightmares. Many of these," I say, "were given to me for free, their owners so glad they were to be rid of them." I smile. "But we can negotiate a price, if the goods worth it are."

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"Make you something of that I can," Uri says, and I smile. "Will you pay cash for it, or will you trade? I take dreams and oddities."

"I don't have oddities," I say thoughtfully. "I mean, I can make things that might count, puzzles and orreries and music boxes, but I don't exactly keep any on hand." And I can't help but smiling, because I've got the one I'm building right now, but that's not one that's up for trading. "I can probably fix anything that needs fixing, and I've got coin... Give me a second to think about dreams?"

"Do you buy nightmares?" the other--not customer, I guess, he's pretty clear about that--says, and I hadn't thought of that. And Uri almost smiles and brings out a little box of secrets, all glister and shine, bright as Laylah's snakes.

"Only the best sort of nightmares," he says, and I look at the bottles and shiver. I've had nightmares, sure, but I don't think any of them still tear me up to think about.

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My question asked, he just looks at me for a long moment, making me start to feel like the cracked one here. And then he reaches down and pulls out a locked case. The bottom falls out of my stomach, and I don’t quite know why. Looking at the new rows of bottles, which I guess are meant to be other people’s nightmares, I start to feel a little better. Nothing that comes out of person’s head looks that pretty done up in glass. “No bread and butter dreams,” I tell him, and my voice sounds almost normal in my own ears.

This is five kinds of mad, just talking about this, but if it’s madness that means I walk away with cash in hand after he talks to me or hypnotizes me or whatever he needs to do to convince himself that he has my dreams, then it’s madness I can stomach. And if it means that somehow my head isn’t full of ice or breaking glass or back alleys after, then so much the better. “Though I’d be lying if I said I knew how to sell them to you.”

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"I can probably fix anything that needs fixing, and I've got coin... Give me a second to think about dreams?"

"Think on it," I say, smiling, "because I like best to trade like for like. But if you can think not of any you'd part with, we can trade in pieces - a little cash, a little trade."

“Though I’d be lying if I said I knew how to sell them to you.”

"That's an easy enough matter," I say with a smile. "Simply need you think hard on it, and I draw it from you," I say, drawing out a fine syringe, "and mix it with this tincture," I add, indicating a bottle of clear liquid that still somehow shimmers in the light. "But first," I say, "think on the dream and breathe in this bag," I say, holding up a small sack that rattles slightly, "and I'll see whether yours is a dream worth buying."

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Easy enough matter, he says, and I have to keep thinking hard about what the money he’s offering will go to buy to make myself stay where I am as he pulls out that needle. Can’t think of many things in the world I’d rather have less to do with. It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him that it just doesn’t work that way, that you can’t pull something out of a person’s head that’s a thought and a memory.
But then he’s pulling the needle back and holding out a little jingling sack to me. He’s damn sure he knows what he’s doing here, and I’ll go along with this part, at least. Not sure what he’s going to take from my thought and breath, but I can give those to him.
It’s less easy to pull up a memory of cold that creeps in everywhere, of going to sleep frozen and waking up frozen. I’d pushed it away, that dream of being lost in an icy forest that never ended, desperately exhausted but not daring to sleep for fear of never waking up. That dream doesn’t come so much anymore, but I used to wake up wondering if I was dead. But hell would have been warm, at least.

I raise the bag to my mouth and blow into it. Wouldn’t mind having that dream gone.

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I take the bag from him and shake it, and then empty it into my palm. I let him see what has come out - shards of ice, and I put one on my tongue and swallow it. Then I smile at him.

"Such a cold dream," I say. "Give you this I could for it," I continue, showing him a small fold of money, "or have you can any of the bottles on this front row. They are worth more than the cash."

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I watch him with the bag, waiting for him to do something tricksy, but he just shakes the bits out. Looks like ice, but I guess it could be anything. Wish I’d thought to take a peek in there before, but it’s too late now. He puts one piece in his mouth, smiling at me like he’s got me. ”Such a cold dream.”

Wasn’t feeling too good before, but now I feel like someone’s hit me hard in the stomach. Something is going on here, and I don’t understand it, and I really, really don’t like it. Staring and stammering and asking how will only make that smirk wider. “I’ll take the money, thanks,” I tell him firmly, too shaken to bargain. “What else do you need to do?”

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