Only once did I try to speak of my dream journey to anyone. It was about six weeks after I had been returned to my father’s house. I was up and about again and well on my way to full recovery. A few places, such as my forearms and the tops of my cheeks, were dappled pink for many months after the rest of my body had healed, but I had progressed to once more rising and breakfasting daily with my family. Yaril, my younger sister, seemed to have a very vivid dream life, and often bored or annoyed the rest of the family by insisting on giving long accounts of her illogical imaginings at the breakfast table. That morning, midway through one such rambling tale of being rescued from the jaws of ravenous sheep by a horde of birds, my father banished her, breakfastless, to the drawing room. “A woman who has nothing sensible to say should not bother speaking at all!” he told her sternly as he sent her from the room.
After the rest of us were excused from the table, I sought her in the parlor, knowing that she was far more sensitive than her siblings, and wept over rebukes that Elisi or I would simply have shrugged off. My estimate of her temperament was correct. She was sitting on a settee, ostensibly working on some embroidery. Her head was bent and her eyes were red. She would not look up at me as I came in. I sat down next to her, held out the muffin I had filched from the table, and said quietly, “Actually, I was quite looking forward to hearing what came next in your dream. Won’t you tell me?”
She took the muffin from me, thanking me with a look. She broke off a piece and ate it, and then said huskily, “No. It’s foolish, as Father says. A waste of time for me to prattle about my dreams or for you to listen to them.”
I could not criticize my father, not to my little sister. “Foolish, yes, but so are many things that amuse us. I think he feels the breakfast table is not the best place for stories of that sort. But I’d be happy to listen to them when we have time together, like this.”
My younger sister had enormous gray eyes. They always reminded me of a soot-cat’s eyes. Her gaze was very solemn. “You are so kind to me, Nevare. I can tell when you are just being kind, however. I do not think you have the slightest interest in what I dream at night, or in what I do or think by day. You are only trying to be sure my feelings were not hurt when Father dismissed me.”
She was absolutely correct about her dreams, but I tried to soften my practicality. “Actually, dreams do interest me, mostly because I have so few myself. You, on the other hand, seem to dream nearly every night.”
“I’ve heard that we all dream, every night, but only some people can remember their dreams.”