Page 30 - Where the Dream Ends ebook

Marc Erdrich

All this thinking about death on the high seat was making
Harry paranoid, so he put the glasses to his eyes hoping to find
out what had caught his attention in the woods. At first, the
telescopic view through the binoculars made him even dizzier,
but his curiosity got the better of him and he forced himself
to focus on a small dark spot in a clearing at the edge of the
woods. As he adjusted the lens, he was sure he could make
out the shape — no, more than that — he could clearly see an
ancient, green gypsy wagon parked in a clearing in the woods
and two small children playing on the ground in front of it.

“What the…!” Harry exclaimed, letting the glasses fall
around his neck and turning to Tissie.

“What? Do you see a deer? Where?” she asked, looking
around excitedly.

For a moment Harry stared at Tissie’s wrinkled face. With
her hawk-like nose and flat jaw she resembled one of the stuffed
birds hanging from the walls of the stone manor house at Hay
Bridge, Edward’s — Tissie’s former husband’s — only legacy.
Harry struggled to suppress a smile. What do you take us for
now, you old devil? he wondered. First it was “The Yellow Per-
il”, Tissie’s brilliant lemon-colored Renault 4L that she picked
them up in at the train station. They were the only ones to
get off the train at Grange Over Sands and Tissie was there to
greet them, standing alone in the rain with a cigarette dangling
from her mouth, a cloth cap with a wide brim her only protec-
tion from the elements. At first, Harry could not believe how
much she reminded him of his mother, who was also 84. But
as Harry and his wife stepped off the train, the resemblance
quickly ended. “Well,” she said, “here we are.” In no time she
whisked them off to Hay Bridge at terrifying speeds over nar-

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