Tapping the Dream Tree Read Free Page A

amazing the things people will throw away, though I’ll be honest, this chair’s had its day. Still I figured maybe a used-up old man and a used-up old chair could find some use for each other and so far it’s been holding up its end of the bargain. I pull up a kitchen chair for myself. As for the rabbit, he sticks his head out of the cloth folds of the shopping bag and then sits there on the floor looking from me to Staley, like he’s following the conversation. Hell, the way Staley tells it, he probably can.
    â€œSomething,” Staley says.
    â€œWhat kind of something?”
    She shakes her head. “I don’t rightly know.”
    Then she tells me about the roadhouse and her friend dropping her off near home. Tells me about her walk through the fields that night and finding the rabbit hiding in the underbrush near her trailer.
    â€œSee, this calling-on’s not something I do on purpose,” she explains when she’s taken the story so far. “But I got to thinking, if I opened some door to who knows where, well, maybe I can close it again, shut out whatever’s chasing Mr. Rabbitskin here.”
    I raise my eyebrows.
    â€œWell, I’ve got to call him something,” she says. “Anyway, so I got back to playing my fiddle, concentrating on this whole business like I’ve never done before. You know, being purposeful about this opening doors business.”
    â€œAnd?” I ask when she falls silent.
    â€œI think I made it worse. I think I let that something right out.”
    â€œYou keep saying ‘you think.’ Are you just going on feelings here, or did you actually see something?”
    â€œOh, I saw something, no question there. Don’t know what it was, but it came sliding out of nowhere, like there was a door I couldn’t see standing smack in the middle of the meadow and it could just step through, easy as you please. It looked like some cross between a big cat and a wolf, I guess.”
    â€œWhat happened to it?” I ask.
    She shakes her head. “I don’t know that either. It ran off into the forest. I guess maybe it was confused about how it got to be here, and maybe even where here is and all. But I don’t think it’s going to stay confused. I got only the one look at its eyes and what I saw there was smart, you know? Not just human smart, but college professor smart.”
    â€œAnd so you came here,” I say.
    She nods. “I didn’t know what else to do. I just packed my knapsack and stuck old Mr. Rabbitskin here in a bag. Grabbed my fiddle and we lit a shuck. I kept expecting that thing to come out of the woods while we were making our way down to the highway, but it left us alone. Then, when we got to the blacktop, we were lucky and hitched a ride with a trucker all the way down to the city.”
    She falls quiet again. I nod slowly as I look from her to the rabbit.
    â€œNow don’t get me wrong,” I say, “because I’m willing to help, but I can’t help but wonder why you picked me to come to.”
    â€œWell,” she says. “I figured rabbit-boy here’s the only one can explain what’s what. So first we’ve got to shift him back into his human skin.”
    â€œI’m no hoodoo man,” I tell her.
    â€œNo, but you knew Malicorne maybe better than any of us.”
    â€œMalicorne,” I say softly.
    Staley’s story notwithstanding, Malicorne had to be about the damnedest thing I ever ran across in this world. She used to squat in the Tombs with the rest of us, a tall horsey-faced woman with—and I swear this is true—a great big horn growing out of the center of her forehead. You’ve never seen such a thing. Fact is, most people didn’t, even when she was standing right smack there in front of them. There was something about that horn that made your attention slide away from it.
    â€œI haven’t seen her in a long time,” I