18

VROOM!

From the Dreambook

Last night I dreamed of running water. Generally, this means I drank too much before I went to bed, but this was different. The water was coming from the faucet in the sink at home. I was helping Mama do the dishes; she was running hot water from the hose-sprayer over the plates, then handing them to me to dry; I could feel the hot china through the dish towel, and feel the mist of water on my face.

Mama’s hair was curling up like mad because of the humidity, and the pattern on the plates was the lumpy pink roses of the good wedding china. Mama didn’t let me wash that until I was ten or so, for fear I’d drop it, and when I got to wash it at last, I was so proud!

I can still see every last thing in the china cabinet in the living room: Mama’s great-grandfather’s hand-painted cake stand (he was an artist, she said, and won a competition with that cake stand, a hundred years ago), the dozen crystal goblets that Daddy’s mother left him, along with the cut-glass olive dish and the cup and saucer hand-painted with violets and gilt rims.

I was standing in front of it, putting away the china—but we didn’t keep the china in that cabinet; we kept it in the shelf over the oven—and the water was overflowing from the sink in the kitchen, and running out across the floor, puddling round my feet. Then it started to rise, and I was sloshing back and forth to the kitchen, kicking up the water so it sparkled like the cut-glass olive dish. The water got deeper and deeper, but nobody seemed to be worried; I wasn’t.

The water was warm, hot, in fact, I could see steam rising off it.

That’s all there was to the dream—but when I got up this morning, the water in the basin was so cold I had to warm water in a pan on the fire before I washed Jemmy. All the time I was checking the water on the fire, I kept remembering my dream, and all those gallons and gallons of hot, running water.

What I wonder is, these dreams I have about then—they seem so vivid and detailed; more than the dreams I have about now. Why do I see things that don’t exist anywhere except inside my brain?

What I wonder about the dreams is—all the new inventions people think up—how many of those things are made by people like me—like us? How many “inventions” are really memories, of the things we once knew? And—how many of us are there?

“It isn’t really that hard to have hot, running water. In theory.”

“No? I suppose not.” Roger only half-heard, concentrated as he was on the object taking shape beneath his knife.

“I mean, it would be a big, horrible job to do. But it’s simple in concept. Dig ditches or build sluices—and around here, it would probably be sluices.…”

“It would?” Here was the tricky bit. He held his breath, chiseling delicate, tiny slivers of wood away, one shaving at a time.

“No metal,” Bree said patiently. “If you had metal, you could make surface pipes. But I bet there isn’t enough metal in the whole colony of North Carolina to make the piping you’d need to bring water from the creek to the Big House. Let alone a boiler! And if there was, it would cost a fortune.”

“Mmm.” Feeling that this was perhaps not an adequate response, Roger added hastily, “But there’s some metal available. Jamie’s still, for instance.”

His wife snorted.

“Yeah. I asked him where he got it—he said he won it in a high-stakes game of loo against a ship’s captain in Charleston. Think I could travel four hundred miles to bet my silver bracelet against a few hundred feet of rolled copper?”

One more sliver … two … the smallest scrape with the tip of the knife … ah. The tiny circle came free of the matrix. It turned!

“Er … sure,” he said, belatedly realizing that she’d asked him a question. “Why not?”

She burst out laughing.

“You haven’t heard one single word I’ve said, have you?”

“Oh, sure I have,” he protested. “ ‘Ditch,’ ye said. And ‘water.’ I’m sure I remember that one.”

She snorted again, though mildly.

“Well, you’d have to do it, anyway.”

“Do what?” His thumb sought the little wheel, and set it spinning.

“Gamble. No one’s going to let me into a high-stakes card game.”

“Thank God,” he said, in reflex.

“Bless your little Presbyterian heart,” she said tolerantly, shaking her head. “You’re not any kind of a gambler, Roger, are you?”

“Oh, and you are, I suppose.” He said it jokingly, wondering even as he did so why he should feel vaguely reproached by her remark.

She merely smiled at that, wide mouth curving in a way that suggested untold volumes of wicked enterprise. He felt a slight sense of unease at that. She was a gambler, though so far … He glanced involuntarily at the large, charred spot in the middle of the table.

“That was an accident,” she said defensively.

“Oh, aye. At least your eyebrows have grown back.”

“Hmpf. I’m nearly there. One more batch—”

“That’s what ye said last time.” He was aware that he was treading on dangerous ground, but seemed unable to stop.

She took a slow, deep breath, gazing at him through slightly narrowed eyes, like one taking the range before firing off some major piece of artillery. Then she seemed to think better of whatever she had been going to say; her features relaxed and she stretched out her hand toward the object he was holding.

“What’s that you’ve been making?”

“Just a wee bawbee for Jem.” He let her take it, feeling the warmth of modest pride. “The wheels all turn.”

“Mine, Daddy?” Jemmy had been wallowing on the floor with Adso the cat, who was tolerant of small children. Hearing his name, though, he abandoned the cat, who promptly escaped through the window, and popped up to see the new toy.

“Oh, look!” Brianna ran the little car over the palm of her hand and lifted it, letting all four tiny wheels spin free. Jem grabbed eagerly for it, pulling at the wheels.

“Careful, careful! You’ll pull them off! Here, let me show you.” Crouching, Roger took the car and rolled it along the hearthstones. “See? Vroom. Vroom-vroom!”

“Broom!” Jemmy echoed. “Lemme do it, Daddy, let me!”

Roger surrendered the toy to Jemmy, smiling.

“Broom! Broom-broom!” The little boy shoved the car enthusiastically, then, losing his grip on it, watched open-mouthed as it zoomed to the end of the hearthstone by itself, hit the edge, and flipped over. Squealing with delight, he scampered after the new toy.

Still smiling, Roger glanced up, to see Brianna looking after Jem, a rather odd expression on her face. She felt his eyes on her, and looked down at him.

“Vroom?” she said quietly, and he felt a small internal jolt, like a punch in the stomach.

“Whatsit, Daddy, what’s it?” Jemmy had recaptured the toy and ran up to him, clutching it to his chest.

“It’s a … a …” he began, helpless. It was in fact a crude replica of a Morris Minor, but even the word “car,” let alone “automobile,” had no meaning here. And the internal combustion engine, with its pleasantly evocative noises, was at least a century away.

“I guess it’s a vroom, honey,” said Bree, a distinct tone of sympathy in her voice. He felt the gentle weight of her hand, resting on his head.

“Er … yeah, that’s right,” he said, and cleared a thickening in his throat. “It’s a vroom.”

“Broom,” said Jemmy happily, and knelt to roll it down the hearth again. “Broom-broom!”

Steam. It would have to be steam- or wind-powered; a windmill would work, maybe, to pump water into the system, but if I want hot water, there would be steam anyway—why not use it?

Containment is the problem; wood burns and leaks, clay won’t hold against pressure. I need metal, that’s all there is to it. What would Mrs. Bug do, I wonder, if I took the laundry cauldron? Well, I know what she’d do, and a steam explosion is no comparison; besides, we do need to do the laundry. I’ll have to dream up something else.