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[al-shairan.livejournal.com]

Saturday lunchtime, the marketplace

FAUSTUS. Now tell me what saith Lucifer, thy lord?

MEPHIST. That I shall wait on Faustus whilst he lives,
So he will buy my service with his soul.

It is the kind of spring day that has men walking with their hands in their pockets, smiles on their faces, a day when women go out to buy bread and come home with flowers alongside the loaves. It is the perfect day to sow seeds of misery; I will be like a fly in new milk, spreading corruption. And so the old man Uri, last seen just before Valentine's Day, comes back along the abbey road with a pack on his back, humming as he goes.

I take up a stall at the market after an exchange of coins, and I lay out my wares on a clean white cloth, small bottles like jewels, potions the rich tones of green-gold and scarlet and purple and the soft hues of lavender and sunset pink. A handwritten sign is attached to the front of the stall that reads, in a steady sloping hand, MAKE ALL YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE. I sit down on the stool behind my stall.

"Masters, mistresses, young misses, I deal in dreams. No more afternoons long and dreary. Pass an idle hour walking through the warmth of an orchard, the taste of apple between your teeth! Lie down tonight with the company of she you most desire! Spend a day as fresh faced as you were in your youth! All your wishes can come true, for a limited time. Side effects there are none, and satisfaction is guaranteed."

That the satisfaction is yours is not, of course.

[Open]

Comments

[al-shairan.livejournal.com]

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."

[jaeresteade.livejournal.com]

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?”

[al-shairan.livejournal.com]

“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."

[tereixa-zann.livejournal.com]

"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.

[jaeresteade.livejournal.com]

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.”

[al-shairan.livejournal.com]

"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."

[jaeresteade.livejournal.com]

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.

[al-shairan.livejournal.com]

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."

[jaeresteade.livejournal.com]

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?”

[tereixa-zann.livejournal.com]

Oh, honey, you're looking a little--well, you're looking like the townies were back in summer, when Tez pulled out secrets and left them stunned. I feel sorry for him, a little, wish he'd taken the sample; I think it'd would have been an easier way to get the measure of all this. And oh, that music... (http://community.livejournal.com/estdeus_innobis/404164.html?view=10391748#t10391748)