The Callender Papers by Cynthia Voigt

“You don’t seem the type.”
    â€œNot since I was small,” I told him. “Neither do I scream,” I added. But somehow, remembering that, I felt an unbidden urge to smile. “I apologize for screaming at you.”
    â€œI choose to forget that,” he said, but his dark eyes remembered.
    â€œIt was loud enough,” Mrs. Bywall said brightly, with another glance at Mr. Thiel. “If we lived close toother people, we’d have everybody in here. It raised me up in my bed like a popover in the oven. I was that surprised.” She kept looking over at my employer, as if asking permission to utter the next sentence. “You’ve got a good scream, Jean, loud and healthy.”
    At her practicality, I did smile openly, struck by the humor of what she was saying. Gradually, the ordinariness of the room entered my spirit. That sounds odd, but that’s just what it felt like. It was as if the familiarity of the room, of the people sitting in it with me, sipping foamy milk, as if the everyday quality of it swept the fears of my dream out of my memory. Mrs. Bywall still looked half asleep, but she talked on. I began to understand who it was she was afraid of, who it was that caused her to check and consider what she said. I began also, I thought, to glimpse the woman she really was behind her impassive face. I ignored Mr. Thiel and gave her my full attention.
    â€œDon’t I know about dreams,” she said. “I had nightmares myself, before going to prison. Then, when once I was there, do you know what I dreamed of? Marlborough and my family. I had happy dreams then. I’d dream it was a birthday, when I was a child. Once I dreamed that Charlie, my Charlie, you know, came and carried me away, rescued me. Iguess I never wanted to wake up from that dream.”
    â€œI don’t dream now,” Mr. Thiel said, entering into the conversation. “I used to. Now I paint. It may be much the same thing,” he said. All during this time he watched my face closely. What did he suspect me of, I wondered; why should he watch me so closely?
    â€œIt’s what you don’t think of during the day that comes creeping out of your mind at night, that’s what makes dreams,” Mrs. Bywall said. “I can’t put proper words to it, but that’s what I mean.”
    I agreed with her theory of dreams, but did not say so. Instead I said, “It must be the middle of the night.”
    â€œNearly so,” Mr. Thiel agreed. “The wind has died down, the rain has stopped. And you have bare feet. If your aunt could see you now, she’d probably give me the rough side of her tongue.”
    â€œYours are bare too, aren’t they?” I pointed out. I looked under the table. They were.
    â€œI’m a grown man,” he told me. “I’m allowed to catch my death of cold, whenever I want to. Can you sleep now?”
    â€œI think so,” I said. I remembered my manners. “Thank you for waking me.”
    He shrugged, as if to say that didn’t matter. I returned to my room, turned down the lamp and layquiet in the darkness. They remained downstairs. The dream did not return. Instead I found myself wondering: for whom did I call out, if not for Aunt Constance? I fell into a deep sleep before I had begun to think of an answer.

    The next morning, before I started to work, I spent some time thinking carefully. I stood at one of the library windows, looking out toward the stream, over lushly grown trees. The sun was bright. The world glistened. Leaves shone in the sunlight. It was a cheerful view.
    The view inside my imagination was not at all cheerful. It was gloomy and muddled, filled with vague ideas and fears. I kept my eyes on the clear world outside and thought carefully, as I had been taught.
    First, my own feelings. I was, of course, embarrassed at the commotion I had caused the night before. Mr. Thiel and Mrs. Bywall had been extremely