I’ll tell you what I can recall about the days and nights that followed, the time before we went on our journey to Dreamland. It’s difficult to explain what happened when and where, but I can tell you with confidence that by the time our journey began we were certain it was the only way to protect ourselves and the ones we loved.
By then, we knew we were being stalked by something not of this world, but of one we had both seen, both visited, before. We knew what we had to do to save those still living and those yet to be born.
How to accomplish it was another matter altogether. If we were explorers, the land we visited was strange and unfamiliar. Also, neither of us had experienced any weird dreams lately. Maybe the scarecrow had lost interest in us. Maybe it had decided to go after someone else and leave Brian and me alone. It turned out I was wrong, because after Brian and I wed and we moved to Fort Dix, New Jersey, things began to escalate.
We lived on post in a small brick townhouse in a large development that housed soldiers and their wives and families. Brian worked as a clerk at the base headquarters, which meant ten-hour days, Monday through Saturday, with evenings and Sundays off. I lucked into a job off-post, working for an insurance company. I assured my employers we planned on putting down roots nearby after Brian’s discharge. It wasn’t a lie, really. We were thinking about staying and starting fresh, but hadn’t made a definite commitment.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me just say that on the night of Brian’s return from Vietnam, we made several decisions, the first of which was to marry as soon as possible. Brian was okay with barracks life for a while, until we had time to come up with a game plan. I was the one who wanted a quick marriage. I was even okay with eloping. After all, I had no father to walk me down the aisle, and no mother to cry as he did so.
The other thing was that I refused to leave Brian’s side. We arrived at the same conclusion on his first night home. Something wanted him, maybe wanted both of us, something that didn’t know love, and whatever it was, we needed to fight it together.
We had a church wedding. Brian’s older brother, Mark, home on leave, walked me down the aisle, whispering suggestions in my ear about the night ahead the entire time. My aunt cried as the priest recited the vows. I glanced her way at one point and she smiled back. She might have been my mother’s sister, but at that moment it was my mother smiling back at me, proud of her daughter, her only child.
Thirty-two people attended, all relatives form both families except for Barb and Shirley, who seemed in competition with my aunt for sobbing honors. We had an outside reception under a large tent in the Mayfields’ backyard, where a stereo played albums by the Beatles for the young and Frank Sinatra for the old-timers.
Thankfully, it was a short walk to our honeymoon suite, Brian’s bedroom. We were both a little tipsy from champagne and beer and in no condition to drive. Mark had taped a sign to the door reading:
DO NOT DISTURB! HONEYMOON IN PROGRESS!
“I don’t feel particularly sleepy,” Brian said as he opened the door. “You?”
“Not particularly,” I answered.
We left for New Jersey the following morning and spent five days in a Holiday Inn outside the fort before the army found us living quarters.
Those first few days, in the motel and on the post, were the happiest of my life and I knew my days of happiness were just beginning. I had no dreams of color-soaked skies or paper birds, of standing on hills or of the smoke man, the scarecrow. I had no dreams at all.
I suppose Brian had none either, for we never brought up the subject of the paper sky. For a while, for an enchanting time, we were just two young adults in love, with all the time in the world ahead of us.
Then, not long after, it began to change. It was all a tease, a respite from the unknown. Something had given us the time to breathe as normal people. Now it wanted the time back.
It started with messages.
The nights without dreams were now no more than a pleasant memory. The paper sky had returned with a vengeance.
Every night for two straight weeks, I dreamt of that place and each dream began in the same manner. I stood on a hill, the same hill I had taken to Vietnam, but now looked down at Clarksdale. In each dream, the town looked a little different. In one dream, it might resemble the town I knew, the place I grew up. In another, it seemed old and deserted. Sometimes I could see carriages driven by horses in the streets, at other times, the town appeared deserted. The size of Clarksdale and the shape of its buildings changed with each dream. I saw it as a place still new and growing, and I saw it in ruins, a ghost town, rotting into the earth.
There was a constant in each dream, however; a component that always looked the same: the steel mill. It never changed in appearance. It always looked old, as if built that way. Its many chimneys belched out smoke, thick and black, that soiled an otherwise beautiful sky.
And then the messages appeared.
I found them quite by accident. I noticed in one dream that the chimney smoke did not dissipate; instead, it curled up in the air in black tendrils that became more defined the higher they rose. They formed into letters above my head, sentences that made no sense to me, but I remembered them when I awoke, and I wrote each down.
I began to keep a pen and paper easily accessible on the nightstand next to the bed, and upon awakening I would write the words of the steel mill smoke. I didn’t tell Brian at first. I’m not sure why I decided to keep it a secret, but I did. Maybe I didn’t want to drag him back into the world of the paper sky. Maybe I was scared.
I would hide the notes before he woke up and during the day, while he worked I’d study them, looking for clues. The piece of paper read like this:
8/8 The whispers I hear you in them
8/9 I see you
8/10 Want to play?
8/11 Louder Oh yes You are getting warmer
8/12 Play with me child
8/13 Warmer still and so loud.
8/14 You are a fire
For three nights, I went dreamless, and then on August 18th, another dream interrupted my sleep.
I stood near the top of the hill, rooted in place, below me Clarksdale spread out in a panoramic vista, larger than I’d ever seen it. My hometown had grown in the last three days, it was now a small city.
And something else, something was out of place.
The steel mill had moved, moved from the town’s edge to its center, and it had grown bigger. It was now taller and wider. The mill took up acres of space. It was monstrous.
The smoke from its chimneys (and it had many more than before) coated the sky in front of me. The colors of the paper sky were no more. The smoke had brought the night with it.
I did not want to look up because I knew a message would be there, written in the dark smoke, and I knew there would be no more to follow. These would be the last words.
I looked up when the dream began to collapse around me, only then did I dare to stare at the sky. The message was a long one, but I remembered every word.
I grow as you fade It is your curse to lose as it was your mother’s curse
Your fire has burned to an ember I can no longer see you
The dreams stopped again. I had no dreams, not even one, for months. This time though, I didn’t forget about the paper sky and I didn’t forget about the messages. I hid the paper in a shoebox in my closet, a place I was certain Brian would never look, and when we moved back to Clarksdale the following year, the paper came with me.
Clarksdale. It had not changed a bit while we were away. We rented a house not far from the high school were we met. I started my second year at Park Center Community College, outside of Columbus, and found part-time work at Hockman’s Diner, waitressing, as my mother had.
Brian took a job with the United States Government in an office in Columbus, a thirty-minute commute from our home. We had picked up a second car, a 1965 Volkswagen, which I used to get around, while Brian continued to drive his brother’s Mustang.
For the longest time, the subject of dreams did not come up. I believe that neither of us wished to discuss a subject we didn’t understand. I did unfold the paper of messages, from time to time. By October of 1970 I had them memorized and in that same month I found out I was pregnant.
Brian was beside himself at the news. We had been trying for the past year without success. Testing was next on the agenda. Thankfully, it never came to that.
Aunt Betsy screamed in joy when we gave her the news, as did Brian’s mom. His dad grabbed a couple of cigars and marched his son to the back porch. Charly and I sat in the kitchen, drinking coffee and talking. I’d never asked her about the incident at the funeral parlor, at my mother’s casket. I came to think of it as a figment of my imagination. But now that it was just the two of us, I decided to clear up the matter once and for all.
“I’m sorry, but I need to ask you about something that happened years ago,” I said.
Charly took a sip of her coffee before she placed the cup in the saucer. “Shoot.”
“At my mother’s funeral, you told me you knew her, something my mom had said before she died.”
“I did know your mother. We were close friends once. Mary and I met at Poplar High, much like you and Brian. Though we lived a good distance apart, we got together often. We both drove our parents’ cars when they let us. We drifted apart some, in later years, but still stayed in touch.”
No sense beating around the bush. “This may sound crazy, but did you and I take a trip together when we met at my mom’s funeral?”
“A trip? What kind of trip?” She asked.
Time to pull out all the stops. “To the paper sky,” I said.
Charly Mayfield looked to the kitchen window, the laughter of her husband and son meeting our ears from beyond it.
“Mary told me you had the sight,” she said, still facing away from me.
When she turned her head, I saw sadness in her eyes. “We had both hoped it skipped you. The sight does that sometimes - skips a generation.”
“What is the sight?” I asked her.
She sighed and lowered her head before she spoke.
“Did Mary, your mom, talk to you about it?”
“Some,” I replied.
“Tell me everything your mother said. Everything you remember.”
Brian and his father came inside before I had finished. Charly shooed them away.
I told her everything, including the contents of each dream as I recalled them. When I told her about Brian’s dreams, she gasped loudly.
“He never…” She stopped in mid-sentence. “What did he tell you he saw?”
I told her about our drug store conversation.
“The man of smoke. He said he didn’t see the man of smoke?” She asked and her voice trembled as she did so.
“No. He didn’t see the scarecrow,” I said.
“The scarecrow.” She whispered the words.
Then I told her of the messages in the sky. Her eyes widened when I said I had written them down.
“Do you have them with you? I need to see them,” she said in an urgent manner.
I opened my purse, pulled out the folded paper and handed it to her.
Charly studied it intently. I saw her lips move as she read the words.
“Has Brian seen this? Has anyone else but you seen this?” She asked.
“Just me,” I said.
She folded up the paper and slid it across the table. “More coffee?”
I shook my head no.
“I’ll get right to it then.” She leaned in closer. “You’re in danger, and Brian may be too, I’m not sure.” Her voice lowered. “You must not repeat what I’m about to tell you, not to Brian, not to anyone. Do you understand this?”
A normal life. At one time, I had a normal life. I was certain of it. “Yes. I understand,” I said.
“Your mother knew more about this than I did. She taught me at first, and then later, we taught each other. Those with the sight tend to find each other, you see. Don’t ask me why, but we do.”
I could hear the men’s laughter again, this time from a room nearby.
“Brian’s father has the sight, but it is weak in him. Your father had it too, although your mother said he rarely talked about it.” She smiled but I could see her heart wasn’t in it. “I hoped Brian had been spared. I guess not.”
She started at the beginning, telling me about how she met my mom. When the talked turned to the paper sky, she said something that surprised me. “Your mother and I visited there several times together.”
“The two of you? At the same time?”
“Oh yes, on many occasions. We would meet at the gazebo in the town square and walk around from there.”
“Walk around? I’ve never been able to walk around.” I said.
“He won’t let you. He’s holding you in place, testing your strength.” She took my hand. “You do know you defeated him once. It was when you warned Brian in Vietnam, warned him about the mine. He wanted you to see Brian die, but you were strong enough to save his life.” Charly gripped my hand tightly and her eyes filled with tears. “I want to thank you for that. I want to thank you for bringing my son back home.”
She patted my hand as she let go of it. “The smoke man fears you now. His messages confirm it. The last one, about your fire fading - don’t believe it. He’s a deceiver. He fears you. I’m sure of it.”
She brushed the tear that had escaped her eye off her cheek. “You must excuse me, I’m a bundle of emotions. Now, where was I? Oh yes, your mother and I walked through the town together many times. She called the place the paper sky, because everything above our heads looked like a painting made by God. I called it dreamland, because, although it seemed quite real, I always knew I was dreaming it.
“Clarksdale changed with each dream, subtle changes, like the size of the houses and buildings and their location. There were other things too. We never saw any other people, but we did see living things, or at least that’s what we thought.”
“Did you ever see paper birds?” I interrupted.
“You mean like the origami birds you and Brian saw?”
“Yes, like those,” I added.
“No, nothing like that. We saw different things, the two of us. Mary would sometimes see a deer made of straw roaming the streets in the distance. Me, I saw a fox from time to time, running the streets or lounging in house windows. The fox changed colors as it ran, like a chameleon, blending effortlessly into each background.”
“Wow,” I said. I could think of no other way to put it. Then I thought of something else. “My mother asked me about the bird Brian made for me. She seemed disturbed by it. That’s when she first told me about the paper sky.”
“She must have seen one there at a later time, or maybe a few of them. As I said before, we lost contact for a while. She never knew Brian made them. I never told her that,” Charly said.
“We all see different life forms there, except for you and Brian. You both saw paper birds. I’m not sure what to make of that.”
My head filled with questions. “You said something about me having the sight. Is that connected with the dreams?”
“That
is
the dreams,” she said. “The sight is what takes you there. And it’s not a dream, really, even though I call it dreamland; it’s more like a separate reality. A place you visit while you sleep.”
“I visited there at the funeral home, while you stood next to me. I wasn’t sleeping then,” I said.
“Your mother told me that she sometimes journeyed to the paper sky when she was in class. I thought at the time she might have been daydreaming about the place. Maybe I was wrong.”
“It wasn’t a daydream. I was there,” I said. “You mentioned earlier that I was in danger?”
Charly waited until she heard the voices from another room before she spoke. “Your scarecrow has found you, Lori. He saw you when you stood in your backyard, when your father was the paper bird who flew toward it. He knows you have the sight
and he knows where you live
.”
She took my hand again. “I only saw him once, the last time I visited the dreamland, many years ago. Mary and I sat in the gazebo in the square. We did that sometimes, just sat and watched the colors swirl around us. It seemed like it was noon because the sun was directly overhead. Then, suddenly, the colors faded, the deer of straw and the chameleon fox, who had gathered around us, ran off, and the sky darkened. A bolt of lightning hit a tree close by. It sounded like an explosion and it shook the gazebo violently. We both saw him then, sitting on the ground, his back against the tree that absorbed the blast. It was a huge oak tree and its branches and leaves were on fire. The man ignored the flames. He paid no attention to the burning leaves falling all around him. He watched us.
“Back then, he still had a human appearance. He wore jeans and a red flannel shirt and had boots on his feet. His hair was long and black, and his face, well, that was the only part of him that didn’t look human. His eyes were two black holes, and there was another black hole where his nose should have been. Only his mouth looked normal, until he began to talk, and we saw his teeth.”
I felt my heart beating rapidly in my chest. “What did he say? Do you remember what he said?” I asked.
“I do, Lori. Much like you remembered the words he wrote, I still know the words he spoke.”
Again, she gripped my hand tightly.
‘I know you.’ He pointed to your mother. ‘I’m not sure from where, but I’ll remember.’ Then he pointed to me. ‘You. I’m quite sure we have never met
.’
He rose to his feet among the leaves of fire. ‘It would appear your friends have left you, I apologize. It’s probably my fault. Anyhow, let’s get down to business, shall we. You know you shouldn’t be here. You don’t belong here. None of you do. No problem. I’ll allow a visit or two for now. You’ve caught me in a good mood.’ He extended his arms, palms up. A burning leaf fell into each hand. ‘I was born of fire,’ he said and he parted his lips in a grin. I saw the rows of needles, hundreds of them. He looked at me. ‘You can go now. I need to talk to your friend for a short time. You lack importance, I’m afraid, but your friend, now she is quite important to me
.’
‘
Don’t leave me,’ Mary said, but I could not stop it. I felt the world around me fading, and then I heard your mother say one last thing.
‘He doesn’t know love.’