Behold, this Dreamer. Charlotte Miller

in the other, and left the room.

      “That ain’t lovin’,” he said aloud, but to himself, as he walked up the dark road a few moments later. He had not gone more than a few paces from the house before he collapsed to his knees by the side of the road and vomited silently into the ditch.

      He continued to retch long after there was nothing left to come up, then knelt there in the dirt at the roadside for a long time, allowing the cold night air to clear his head somewhat. He felt sick and alone, the memory of the woman’s words bringing a burning embarrassment to his face now even as they had not before.

      After a time he moved to sit in the winter-dead grass beside the road, taking the time to pull on his socks and shoes and shrug into his coat, feeling chilled now all the way through to his soul. He got to his feet and started down the lonely stretch of road toward town, shoving his hands deep into his worn coat pockets—then he froze, panic filling him. The money, it was gone. He turned the pockets of the coat inside out, then searched his overalls pockets—gone, those few coins that were his only pay for almost two weeks worth of work. Gone. Then suddenly he understood—the way the woman had held his coat in her hands, the look that had been on her face when he had straightened up from finding his shoes, and, even earlier, when she had first smiled at him in the drugstore—she had seen the coins in his hand. That was the only reason she had taken him to her home, to her bed. She had seen the coins.

      Anger and shame fought within him as he clenched his fists and turned back toward her house—but he could go no farther. If he went back—but he could not strike a woman, so he stayed where he was in the road and stared at her house and cursed himself. Those few coins were so little. They would not buy her a dress. They were worth so little to anyone else—

      But they had been worth the world to him.

      He fought to control the rage building within him, knowing there was nothing he could do—and knowing she knew there was nothing he could do. Then he forced himself to walk on, toward town, toward that bricked section of Main Street, toward the drugstore, and the men who could give him a ride in the truck back to Whitley’s place.

      When he arrived, Main Street was deserted. Dobbins’ Drugstore was dark; the moving picture theatre was dark; even the billiard parlor at the far end of the street was closed—and there was no sign of the truck or of the men from Whitley’s. He was alone.

      He sighed and looked up the long, dark stretch of road he had ridden down earlier, then sat down on the sidewalk to remove his shoes and socks—there was no more need for them tonight. Then he began to walk, cursing his stupidity every step of the way, swearing to himself that he would never again be taken, that he would never again trust anyone through the remainder of his life, no matter who that person might be.

      The night was cold and he was shivering in the worn old coat long before he had covered the miles to Whitley’s place and to the lonely, dark room that was now his home. The fire he had built earlier in the black stove had gone out, but he did not take the time to rebuild it. He shrugged out of the old coat and lay down on the cot, too tired and too sick to even bother to pull off his overalls and change into a nightshirt.

      Outside the winter wind rustled the dead branches of a tree, whistling through the cracks in the walls and banging a shutter off somewhere in the distance. Inside there was only the sound of his own breathing, the beat of his own heart.

      It was a long time that night before he slept.

6

      The spring rain had blown up quickly. Only a short time before the sky had been blue and the sun shining, but now all was gray and wet outside. Elise stared out the window in silence, watching as the rain washed away the remnants of what had been a beautiful late-April day. Water stood now in muddy red puddles on the campus grounds, hanging in droplets from the shrubs outside the window, and running in narrow, red-stained rivers alongside the streets. Girls in pale spring dresses ran from the dormitory to their classrooms, holding folded Atlanta newspapers over carefully crimped bobs, laughing and giggling and splashing in puddles of water as if they were still no more than children. Elise watched them, envying their carelessness, their minds without trouble or worry or thought beyond new chiffon stockings or the latest shade available in lipsticks. Such a short while ago she had been much as they were now, worry free, with little more than the discontents of children—but in these past hours she had come to realize how the world could change, and, though she knew she could still stop it, she also knew she would not.

      She sat in the antechamber outside the principal’s office of the boarding school, in a richly-upholstered chair that for all its luxury could not seem to sit her comfortably. Her eyes stared out the window, watching the rain as it washed down the glass and soaked into the closely clipped lawn outside, somehow looking but still not seeing—Phyllis Ann was in there now, talking with the principal. If she would only tell the truth, tell what had actually happened—but Elise knew she would not. Phyllis Ann would lie, or she would remain silent, whichever she thought would better suit her purposes; and Elise would be called in to answer questions she did not want to answer, make choices she did not want to make—choices she should never have to make.

      Only the day before, everything had been fine. Elise had studied through the afternoon and late into the night, using a small, shaded lamp after lights-out had been called on their hall, studying for a history examination that was due in Miss Jackson’s class that following day. Phyllis Ann had come in long after curfew had been called on the school grounds, having gone out riding with several of the boys from town after Elise had refused to go; and she had gone directly to sleep—Elise had reminded her of the examination, and of her near-to-failing grade in the class, but Phyllis Ann had not seemed concerned. She had only groused about the light and the late hour, and then had gone to sleep, as if she had not one care in the world.

      But, still, when the examination had begun that next morning, Elise had been surprised to see her friend referring to a small bit of paper she kept hidden in her hand. Elise had stared in open disbelief until Phyllis Ann’s angry glance made her turn her eyes away—Phyllis Ann was cheating, when Elise had never before seen anyone cheat in all her months at the school. The other students knew better, for they all knew that cheating garnered the most immediate and the worst possible punishment—expulsion, with no defense heard, and none to be given.

      About a half-hour into the examination, Phyllis Ann had dropped her notes—it had been an accident, a clumsy movement of a hand, a shifting of papers, sending the small scrap of cheat notes onto the floor between Phyllis Ann’s desk and Elise. The two girls had looked at each other nervously, that small scrap of paper lying like a damnation between them. Neither could bend to pick it up, for Miss Jackson’s sharp eyes would be sure to catch such a movement, and she would then demand to see what it was that had been retrieved from the floor—but they both knew the notes could never remain where they were.

      Miss Jackson moved about the classroom, first up one aisle and then down another, pausing at the front or rear for just a moment, and then moving on. Elise’s eyes met Phyllis Ann’s in a desperate nervousness. Phyllis Ann would be immediately expelled if the notes were found, packed up, sent home—Elise could see the fear clearly written on her friend’s face, not at the possibility of expulsion itself, but at what she knew could happen to her once she reached home. Ethan Bennett, Phyllis Ann’s father, was well known to have a violent temper, and Elise herself knew he had beaten both his daughter and his wife on more than one occasion in the past—she had seen the bruises, the bloodied nose, the blackened eye, even the fractured collarbone from when he had slung Phyllis Ann against the stair rail on her tenth birthday. Elise could little doubt the reception Phyllis Ann would receive at home—or the honesty of the fear that now filled the other girl’s eyes.

      Miss Jackson started up the aisle that passed between the girls’ desks, and Elise found herself praying fervently to a God she hoped was there—please, let her go on by. Please, God, just let her go on by—

      The teacher stopped before their desks, and Elise sat, almost holding her breath, as she stared down at the words she had written only moments