I Dreamed a Dream
Prelude to "Living with Danger"

I Dreamed a Dream

Prelude to “Living with Danger”

Rain could be heard out on the pavement, creating small mirrors of liquid glass on the sidewalks, disturbed by none.  The only glow was cast by the streetlamps alighting upon the darkened streets; and the only sound was the quiet hum of thunder distances away from the small house of Number Seventeen, Privet Drive.

In the small nursery on the second floor, a small child was crying, but the woman who rocked her was not her mother.

“Hush, Neenie…it was just a bad dream.  You’re all right,” she tried to convince the child.  “There, there…it was just a bad dream…”

It seems as if we’ve been having a lot of those lately, you and I, she thought, wiping away the wet curls from her sister’s face.

Danger stared outside as the rain drummed against the window pane and the tiles of the roof.  Her sister’s breathing grew quieter and heavier as she drifted off to sleep for the third time that night.

I shouldn’t be doing this…I shouldn’t be the one rocking her back to sleep.  It’s not my job.

It is now, said a voice in the back of her mind.  You wanted it, remember?

I did not want my parents to die! she thought furiously.  I did not want for Neenie to be raised without any parents, and I certainly do not want to be the one raising her myself!

Ah…but you did, remember?  They gave you the choice of giving her up for adoption, but you didn’t take it.  You adamantly refused to let her be raised by someone else, the voice replied.

But I can’t do this!  I can never be as good a mother as Mum was…I just can’t do this by myself…I can’t!  Danger stared out of the window as the rain fell down, sorrow and incompetency swimming around her mind…but it was soon replaced with anger.  Why did they do this to them?  Why did they have to kill them?

An image sprung up unbidden into her mind—one of her parents lying dead on the floor.  And their killers…

The police never found out who did it.  No one knew, it seemed.  Which meant that they were still out there, probably murdering some other girl’s parents, leaving her an orphan.

The fire burned down in her mind and the sorrow came back, thricefold.  I just…I can’t do this any more!  How can this happen to people?  How can God let it?  Mum and Dad were so good to people…they never hurt anyone.  Why did they have to be hurt themselves?

The child in her arms slept contentedly, not even aware that tears were starting to form in her older sister’s eyes.  Danger stared out the window at the water droplets pouring down the glass in small rivulets.  The air felt cold around her…it went well with her heart.

A haunting melody began to take hold of her, and she let it.

She used to have a life…she used to be carefree, with promises and goals and a future.  Back when she thought the world was worth living in…back when she was still ignorant and didn’t know that men were capable of committing such crimes…

“There was a time when men were kind…when their voices were soft…and their words inviting,” she whispered into the still air.

She remembered on the time before her parents died…when she had friends, and a love to call her own…

“There was a time when love was blind…and the world was a song, and the song was exciting…” she smiled at the thought of such innocence and love.  But that smile faded away almost as fast as that love had from her life.

“There was a time,” she choked out.  “Then it all went wrong…”

Danger watched the rain come down, but never really saw it at all.  The sweet melody grew louder in her mind, draining out all other sounds and she was lost in it as it dominated her very existence.

Until the memories came…

She closed her eyes and a tear leaked out and trickled down her cheek.  Hugging her little sister to her chest, she opened her mouth…and began to sing…

“I dreamed a dream in time gone by…
When hope was high, and life worth living.
I dreamed that love would never die!
I dreamed that God would be forgiving…”

A brown-eyed, wild-haired girl danced before her eyes; nose always stuck in a book, taking life for granted, just as every kid before her had done.  Not always with a friend beside her…not even always a happy child…but she loved life, and she loved her parents, and she loved her best friend.

And they had always returned that love…

Her childhood swam before her eyes.  Colors, sounds, flashes of lights and images mostly.  And a feeling…a feeling of happiness…a feeling of love and contentment…a feeling of being safe and happy.

The feeling of being at peace with the world, Danger thought, then shook her head and sighed, and her voice grew stronger.

“Then…I was young and unafraid,
And dreams were made and used and wasted.
There was no ransom to be paid!
No song unsung…no wine untasted…”

The end of childhood, the slow growth into maturity…often hard, but for her, it had been easy.  A boy in the row ahead of her in class, smiling tentatively at her, then more broadly as she returned the smile.

She gave a small half-smile herself, remembering.

Her first job at the library: the books, the enchantment of words without end…then college, more learning, more reading and writing and joy of friends, but there was still that one special friend in particular.

Her life was perfect, and her parents made it even more perfect when they gave her a little sister; they all loved each other…

And then it was all destroyed.

“But the tigers come at night…
With their voices soft as thunder,
As they tear your hope apart…
And they turn your dream…to shame.”

Her voice broke off as she stared into the distance, lost in the memories…

Sorrow, pain, confusion.  Her parents, dead on the floor.  Dead?  How could they be dead?  They weren’t allowed to be dead…

Danger bit back a sob, not wanting to wake her little sister.  Neenie…

She had fought for custody of Neenie.  No one was going to take her sister from her, the last piece of her life.  She had found a new job, one that paid more, that would let her take care of the both of them by herself…

And the friend who had been there through it all, the friend who had laughed with her through her good times and held her in her bad…

“He slept a summer by my side,
He filled my days with endless wonder…
He took my childhood in his stride,
But he was gone when autumn came!”

When he heard about her parents’ death and that she now had a child to raise, she had never heard from him again.  No calls, no visits, no word in any way.  He had simply vanished.

I still believe in love.  And that I might someday find it.

But she doubted that it could ever be with him.

“And still I dream he'll come to me!
That we will live the years together.”

But she doubted that it could ever be with him.

“But there are dreams that cannot be.”

And besides, when would she ever have time for love?  Neenie took up as much time as there was time.

“And there are storms we cannot weather!”

The rain intensified all around her.

Then there was the little boy down the street—Danger suspected he was being abused by his relatives, and she wanted so much to take care of him as well.  But spending her days with her little sister and her special charge meant there wasn’t much time left for her, and even though she loved them very much, the hole in her heart where her parents and her best friend had once been ached terribly.

She’d once had everything…and now she had nothing…

“I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living…
So different now from what it seemed!”

The beautiful tune playing in her head slowed to finish the ending chords, and a tear slid down her cheek.  A distance away, she could almost hear the sweet whine of a violin playing, just beyond her reach…

“Now life has killed…the dream I dreamed…”

And then, nothing.  All she could feel now was an emptiness and a once-forgotten longing.

She was alone.

The rain outside her window slowed to a waltz in its ineffable dance.  The sound of it clinking against the window panes was enough to stir her out of her reverie.  She looked down at the child in her arms as Neenie shifted in a sleep undisturbed by wrathful dreams.

But then…I’m not really alone, am I? Not as long as I have her…Life isn’t worth giving up on yet.  Not entirely.

Danger laid Neenie in her cot and smiled softly at her sister before walking tiredly back to her own room.  The covers were smooth and cool against her bare skin, and the melody of the raindrops outside seemed to lull her to sleep.

And in her dreams, a man waited for her at the end of a short walk.  A man in black robes with graying sandy hair and bright blue eyes and the sweetest smile she’d ever seen.