Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

o’clock, for the sun was already going down, as if he were journeying to a blue sky merely to be denied it. At least —as opposed to earlier in the day—he could laugh at the irony. Beneath his feet, the train’s momentum shifted, and he felt it slow. They were arriving. He dug out another cigarette—how many did he have left?—and stuck it in his mouth, lit it and shook out the match, dreading a return journey without tobacco. The train came to a stop. He’d have to find some other brand in the village.

By the time he stepped onto the platform, the party of couples was well ahead of him, walking toward the station house. As near as he could figure—save perhaps for the gypsies—the train had emptied. He did not see Eloise or the clerk she was apparently paired with, though he did spy the hateful couple from his first compartment. The young blonde woman turned back, saw him, and tugged on the arm of her companion, who turned as well. They quickened their pace, her plump bottom moving in a way that Svenson might have normally—surreptitiously— enjoyed but now made him only want to thrash it. He let them all go ahead, through the wooden archway of the station and out into the Village proper, while he stepped into the small station house. There were perhaps three waiting benches, all empty, and a cold metal stove. He walked over to the ticket counter, but found the window shuttered. He knocked on it and called out. There was no answer. At the end of the counter was a door. He knocked on it as well, again received no answer, and then tried the handle, which was locked. If Miss Temple had been here, which he doubted, she was not here now.

On the wall was a blackboard with a painted grid of train departures and arrivals. The next return train was, he was exasperated to read, at eight o’clock the next morning. Svenson sighed with annoyance. He would be wasting hours and hours of time—who knew where she was, and what help he might have offered to Chang had he stayed with him. He looked around the room, as if by remaining there he might find some reprieve, but Doctor Svenson had to accept that his only real recourse was to walk into the Village and find a room for the night. Perhaps he should catch up to Eloise and her mysterious party, all with their black books. Were they Bibles? He had no idea what else they could be, especially with the hectoring specter of redemption and sin, but who could take such a thing seriously? He felt sure the answer was more insidious and complicated…or did he merely prefer to associate Eloise with villains rather than with fanatics?

He walked from the station onto the road. By now, the others were gone from his view. The road was lined on either side with an overgrown tangle of black briar, the hard thorns casting wicked shadows onto the road. Shadows? There was a rising moon, and Svenson looked up at it with pleasure. Above the briars, in the distance, he could see the thatched rooftops of Tarr Village. He walked toward them with a brisk purpose, and it was only another minute before the road opened up onto a small square with a common green in the center and a cobbled lane running around it. On the far side was a church with a white steeple, but—happily—the building nearest to him announced itself by a hanging wooden sign, painted with a picture of a crow wearing a silver crown. Svenson stopped at the door, one foot on the step, and looked around the square. There were lights here and there in the buildings he could see, but no people in the street, nor any sound in the air. If there had been visible sentries, Tarr Village would have reminded him of nothing more than a military camp after nightfall. He went into the tavern.

As a foreigner, Doctor Svenson knew he was no knowledgeable judge, but the King Crow struck him as a decidedly odd village pub, adding—with the excessively orderly nature of the town itself and the apocalyptic halo of the party from the train—to his growing suspicion that Tarr Village might in fact be one of those communities, purposely organized around religious or moral principles (but what was the doctrine, and who its charismatic—or stern—leader?). For one, the King Crow did not smell like a tavern at all, of beer and smoke and the sour pungence of sweat and human grease. Indeed, the air was all soap and vinegar and wax, and the main room scrubbed and sparse as the bare, clean insides of a ship, with the walls whitewashed and a fire in its modest hearth. For another, the only two occupants were wearing crisp black suits with high white shirt collars and black traveling cloaks. Each man stood near the fire with a glass of red wine, not even, or no longer, speaking to each other, but obviously waiting for some word, or someone. Both turned swiftly at his entrance.

One cleared his throat and spoke. “Excuse me. Are you just arrived…on the 3:02 train?”

Svenson nodded politely, his face impassive. “I am.”

They were examining him, or waiting for him to speak…so, he did not.

“That is a Macklenburg uniform coat, if I am not mistaken?” asked the other man.

“It is.”

One whispered into the other’s ear. The listener nodded. They continued to look at him, as if they could not come to a decision. Svenson turned his gaze to the bar, behind which a porcine fellow in a spotless white shirt stood silently.

“I require a room for the night,” Svenson told him. “Do you have any?”

The man looked at his two customers—whether to receive instruction or to simply see if they needed anything before he left, Svenson could not say—and then walked out around the bar, wiping his hands. He continued past Svenson, muttering, “This way…”

Svenson looked once more to the two men by the fire, and turned to follow the innkeeper’s heavy steps up the stairs.

The room was simple, the price fair. After a moment of looking at it—a narrow bed, a stand with a basin, a hard chair, a mirror—Svenson said it would do well and asked where he might find some food. Once more, the man muttered, “This way…” and led him back down to the fire. The other two were still there—it could only have been two minutes—and continued to watch him as he removed his greatcoat and sat at the small table his host indicated before disappearing through a door behind the bar, into what Svenson assumed was the kitchen. That there was no discussion of what the food might be did not trouble him. He was used to traveling in the country and doing with what he could find. But when had he last eaten—tea at the Boniface with Miss Temple and Chang? And before that? His bread and sausage the night before…two sparse meals in as many days. It was no way to manage an adventure.

The two men were still studying him, now with the barest pretense of manners.

“Was there something you wanted to say?” he asked.

They shuffled and muttered and cleared their throats to no great purpose. It was his turn to stare at them, so he did. Beyond the room he could hear gratifying noises of pots and crockery. Fortified by the mere prospect of a meal, Svenson spoke again.

“I take it you are here to meet a traveler from the 3:02 train from Stropping Station. I also take it that you do not know the traveler you are meeting. Thus, I take your habit of studying my person as if I were a zoo animal to be not so much a personal affront as an admission of your own foolish predicament. Or—you must tell me, please—am I in error? Is there an offense that, as gentlemen”—he lowered his voice meaningfully—“we need to settle out-of- doors?”

Svenson was not normally given to such arrogant posturing, but he felt sure that the two were not men of violence—that indeed, they were educated and accustomed to clean cuffs and uncalloused hands…rather like himself, actually. Perhaps Chang was rubbing off on him. After a moment the one who had spoken first, who was taller and with a sharper nose, held up his open palm.

“We are sorry to have disturbed you—it was never our intent. It is merely that such a uniform—and accent— is understandably rare around these parts—”

“You are from these parts?” asked Svenson. “I would find that a surprise. I would think it much more likely that you came today on the train—on the 2:52 train, though I suppose you could have come earlier. The person you now seek was supposed to travel with you, but did not appear. You then hoped he would appear on the next train. That you at all entertained the possibility it might be me confirms, as I say, that you have never met this person. One cannot help wondering if the purpose of the meeting is entirely savory.”

At this, the door to the kitchen banged open and their host appeared carrying a wooden platter with both hands, loaded with several plates—roasted meat, thick bread, steaming boiled potatoes, a pot of gravy, and a plate of buttered mashed turnips. He laid it down on Svenson’s table, his hand then drifting half-heartedly toward the bar.

“Drink…” he muttered.

“A mug of beer, if you will.”

“He does not have beer,” announced the second man, whose hair was receding and brushed hopefully forward in the old Imperial fashion.

“Wine then,” said Svenson. The innkeeper nodded and stepped behind the bar. Doctor Svenson returned to the two men. He breathed in the smells of the food before him, feeling the intensity of his hunger. “You have not