The Rules of Dreaming Read Online Free Page B

do.  You protect your sour ces and we protect our borrowers.”
    “Fair enough.”  Dubin liked Miss Whipple, and her stubbornness made him like her more.  “ It said in the obituary that Maria Morgan was survived by her husband and two children.  Are they still around?”
    “The husband is Avery Morgan.  I’m sure you’ve heard of him”—Dubin had not—“and the children, well, I guess you could say they’re still in the area.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Well”—she lowered her voice—“they’ve been in the Palmer Institute ever since their mother died.   They’re in their early twenties now.”
    Dubin had heard of the Palmer Institute.  “Is that around here?”
    “Right down the road.”
    “Can you tell me how to get there?”
    Following her directions, Dubin wove his way through a maze of shady back roads to a secluded spot behind the Palmer Institute where he could park without being seen.  He followed a path through the woods to the Institute’s rear fence, which offered a surprisingly intimate view of the terrace behind the ivy-entangled building.  Even more surprisingly, there was another spectator—a small, wiry man of about fifty—who had already concealed himself behind the fence and stood peering at the terrace.  The man had a delicate, almost aristocratic appearance: he wore a light blazer and a yellow shirt open at the neck, and a pair of shiny black shoes that looked completely out of place in the woods.  His nose was long and beaklike, and he had a pointed chin and a high forehead enclosed by unruly tufts of gray hair, but his most remarkable features were his wide, deep-set eyes, which seemed ready to absorb the whole world into their dark uncertainties.  There was something otherworldly about him that made Dubin wonder which side of the fence he belonged on.
    I t was almost dusk and the Institute’s grim façade was enveloped in mist, a silhouette looming ominously against the faded sky.  Hanging Chinese lanterns glowed on the terrace, where a group of heavily sedated patients sat watching a strange performance.  Two young people, about the age of Maria Morgan’s schizophrenic children, sat between a striking redhead and an elderly nurse, while on the lawn a young blond woman in a blue ballet dress leaped from side to side, waving her arms in a pantomime of emotions that Dubin hoped he would never experience.  The man standing beside Dubin at the fence mirrored the dancer’s performance in a series of facial tics and small, precise hand gestures, as if he were directing her movements with invisible wires.
    “What’s going on?” Dubin asked him.
    “Performance therapy,” he muttered, as if the answer should have been obvious.
    “Do you know Hunter Morgan?”
    For the first time the man turned toward Dubin, drawing him into his cavernous eyes.  “Why do you ask?”  He spoke with the trace of an accent.
    “I’ve heard he’s a patient here.”
    The man hesitated.  “That’s Hunter Morgan on the terrace.  His twin sister Antonia is sitting beside him.” 
    “Who’s the dancer?” Dubin asked.  He expected to hear that she was one of the more seriously disturbed inmates.
    “That’s...  Dr. Palmer’s niece.”
    “You’re kidding.”
    “Not at all.  She works here.”
    As he drove home that night, Dubin asked himself whether he really wanted to stick his nose under this tent.  He smelled mon ey, but there were a number of less pleasant smells mixed in. Death, of course, and insanity, and a rich family’s nasty secrets.  He had nothing invested; he could walk away and never think about this town again.  But he was haunted by the image of the schizophrenic twins on the terrace, staring into the darkness as the mist wrapped itself around them under the chill shadow of the Institute’s gabled roof.  They had their secrets and he had his.  Was their captivity something he should even attempt to unravel?
    Now he stood in the morning shadows