The Cure for Dreaming by Cat Winters Page A

throughout the years, minus a few missing dollars and coins that had paid for books and hair ribbons.
    I counted the cash, including my newest contribution.
    â€œHoly mackerel, Mother,” I said, followed by a long sigh.
    One hundred twenty-three dollars now waited for me inside that old cigar box.
    One hundred twenty-three
.
    I re-counted the stockpile and sat back on my heels, wondering how much tuition would cost at faraway Barnard College, where young women walked around with books tucked under their arms, as if in a marvelous dream.

rannie stopped by for a rushed after-school visit.
    â€œAre you unwell?” she asked from our front porch, where long shadows yawned across the scuffed red boards and the scraggly potted plants.
    â€œI had a bad headache.”
    â€œI worried the hypnosis made you sick—or that your father sent you away.” She hugged me against her chest. “You scared me to death with all that talk about asylums.”
    â€œI’m all right.” I patted her on the back and let her squeeze me until my collarbones hurt. “In fact, I’m going to go to a party at Sadie Eiderling’s house tonight. Can you believe it?”
    She stiffened. “I beg your pardon?”
    â€œPercy’s taking me.”
    She dropped her arms and pulled away.
    â€œDon’t worry, I’m going to be quite careful of his”—I tipped my face forward and lowered my voice —“grabby hands.”
    â€œIt’s not a joke, Livie.”
    â€œHe didn’t grab you, did he?”
    â€œNo!” She blushed so hard, she went practically mauve. “No, I’ve just heard rumors . . .” She backed away. “I’ve got to go help Papa at the store. Please be extremely careful with Percy—and your father.”
    â€œFrannie?”
    â€œGood-bye, Livie.”
    She scrambled down the porch steps, and for a moment I thought I glimpsed a white handprint on the back of her blue skirt, below her swinging brown braid.
    A shudder and a blink, and the print was gone.
    FATHER CAME HOME FROM WORK AROUND FIVE THIRTY that evening. I hid in my bedroom and pinned up my hair for the Eiderlings’ party.
    â€œAre you getting ready, Olivia?” he called up to me.
    â€œYes,” I yelled through my closed door. “Gerda is boiling a ham for your dinner, and then she’ll help me dress. I can’t come down right now.”
    â€œDon’t take too long. Young men don’t like to be kept waiting.”
    â€œI won’t.”
    I fussed with my hairpins in front of my mirror, my hands slippery and my mind squalling with fears about the visions. I kept expecting my mirror and my hairbrush to transform into nightmarish abominations—hissing creatures with snouts and needle-sharp teeth that would squeeze around my torso and take a bite.
    My hair suffered from all that worrying. Most girls of Sadie Eiderling’s caliber were wearing their long locks puffed high on their heads in enormous pompadours, like the fashionable girls in Charles Dana Gibson’s drawings. On occasion, Frannie and I would try styling our hair in that manner, but our pompadours always turned out lopsided or collapsed like deflated soufflés—which was precisely the problem at the moment. My pinned-up mess of dark hair sagged as if I had just sprinted through the rain with Percy again. I hated it. Every strand.
    â€œAll is well!” I said, and I dropped my hands to my sides and growled.
    All is well? Balderdash! Bull dung!
    Even worse words entered my head, but they shall not be repeated.
    I shoved more hairpins into my topknot, and my eyes drifted to a conjoined pair of silver picture frames that sat on top of my chest of drawers. In the rightmost frame sat a photograph of Mother, just sixteen years old, posed in a brocade Renaissance mourning costume in front of a backdropof painted vines. A black veil draped over her thick ringlets, which looked