The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

Court he had allowed his thoughts to drift, spurred by the poignant quality of Miss Temple’s reckless pursuit of lost love, to the sorrows and vagaries of his own existence. As he descended the crowded staircase his eyes mechanically scanned the crowds for a diminutive figure with chestnut sausage curls and a green dress, but his mind was awash with a particular astringent quality of Scandinavian reproach he had inherited from a disapproving father. What had he made of his life? What more than unnoticed service to an unworthy Duke and his even less worthy offspring? He was thirty-eight years old. He sighed and stepped onto the main station floor. As always, his regrets were focused on Corinna.
    Svenson tried to recall when he had last been to the farm. Three winters? It seemed the only season he could bear to visit. Any other time, when there was life or color in the trees, it reminded him too painfully of her. He had been at sea and returned to find her dead from an epidemic of “blood fever” that had swept the valley. She’d been ill for a month before, but no one had written. He would have left his ship. He would have come and told her everything. Had she known how he felt? He knew she had—but what had been in her heart? She was his cousin. She had never married. He had kissed her once. She’d stared up at him and then broken away…there wasn’t a day he did not find a moment to torment himself…not a day for the past seven years. On his last visit there were new tenants (some disagreement with his uncle had driven Corinna’s brother off the land and into town) and though they greeted Svenson politely and offered him room when he explained his relation to the family, he found himself devastated by the fact that the people living in her house no longer knew—had no memory of, no celebration in their hearts for—who was buried in the orchard. A profound sense of abandonment took hold of him and he had not, even in the depths of this present business, been able to shake himself free. His home—no matter where he had been—had lain with her, both living and in the ground. He had ridden back to the Palace the next day.
    He had since traveled to Venice, to Berne, to Paris, all in the service of Baron von Hoern. He had performed well—well enough to merit further tasks instead of being sent back to a freezing ship—and even saved lives. None of it mattered. His thoughts were full of her.

    He sighed again, heavily, and realized that he had no earthly clue where to find Tarr Manor. He walked to the ticket counter and joined one of the lines. The station buzzed with activity like a wasps’ nest kicked by a malicious child. The faces around him were marked with impatience, worry, and fatigue, people unified in their desperate rushing to make whichever train they sought, relentlessly flowing in awkward clumps back and forth, like the noisome circulatory system of a great distended creature of myth. He saw no trace of Miss Temple, and the place was so thronged that his only real hope was to find the train she sought and search there. In the time it took to light and smoke the first third of another cigarette, he reached the front of the line. He leaned forward to the clerk and explained he needed to reach Tarr Manor. Without pause the man scribbled a ticket and shot it toward him through the hole in the glass and announced the price. Svenson dug out his money and pushed it through the hole, one coin at a time as he counted. He picked up the ticket, which was marked “Floodmaere, 3:02”, and leaned forward again.
    “And at which stop do I get off?” he asked.
    The clerk looked at him with undisguised contempt. “Tarr
Village,
” he replied.
    Svenson decided he could wait to ask the conductor how long the journey would be, and walked onto the station floor, looking around for the proper platform. It was at the other end of the great terminal hall. He looked up at the hideous clock and judged he did not need to run. His ankle was behaving itself, and he had no desire to aggravate it without reason. He made a point to look in the various stalls as he passed—food, books, newspapers, drink—but in none of them saw the slightest sign of Miss Temple. By the time he got to the train itself, it was clear that Floodmaere was not the most illustrious of destinations. There were only two cars attached to a coal wagon and an engine that had certainly seen better days. Svenson looked around once more for any