"I suppose it wouldn't help if I told you that this isn't a dream?"

"No," I said, and for the first time since I awoke, I laughed. "Nobody in my dreams thought that I was dreaming."

"I understand that you're upset, Marcie," Mr. Angle was saying, "but you have to remember: it was only a dream."

"No," I countered, "you don't understand." Explaining the problem was much harder than I thought it would be. Especially to Mr. Angle. He was a therapist, for goodness sake! He was supposed to be a professional listener, wasn't he?

"I think I do understand," he insisted. "You had a long, disturbing dream. I'm not surprised — not surprised at all — and neither should you be. You suffered an enormous trauma... actually, a number of traumas, compressed into a very short space of time. And I'm not surprised that you fell ill, either. All of the stress of what happened — the kidnapping, your... confrontation with Officer Strange, your escape, the things you witnessed there — it weakened your defenses, psychologically and physically. That's why you got sick from that dinner, while your mother and Ida didn't."

"It isn't that..." I began, but he pressed on.

"It isn't only that. You've been through so many changes since last August. You moved... what? three times? You changed schools twice. You left your friends behind twice. Already that puts you high on the stress scale, and that's saying nothing about your... adventures, for lack of a better word OR your change in gender."

"But..."

He ignored my attempted interruption and bulldozed ahead. "You're young. You're resilient. You're more resilient than most people, even people your own age, but you're not indestructible. Things have a way of catching up with us. What happened to you is that your body needed to shut itself down to give your mind and your emotions some time to heal. Does that make sense to you?"

"But the dreams—"

"The dreams are a by-product of your mind, as it works its way through the things that happened to you. Some of it's wish fulfillment, like the Marcie Auburn episode—"

"Wish fulfillment?" I echoed, incredulous.

"Yes," he insisted. "In your dream you got to experience life as a girl, born into a family of girls, as opposed to being a boy and an only child."

"But I didn't *like* being her! She was a tomboy! She was messy! And she didn't care about people!"

"Apparently, subconsciously, you think that's how you would have turned out," he suggested.

I huffed in disagreement.

"Look," he said, "apart from the content of any of those dreams, you have to understand that it's just your mind at play. It's trying to integrate the shocks you've undergone... trying to digest your experiences."

"Okay," I said. "I get that. I really do. I understand! Okay? But there is ONE BIG THING that you're completely missing that bothers me more than any stupid dream!"

"And what is that?" he asked.

"Those dreams... or whatever they were... were REAL. No, wait — let me finish! I couldn't pinch myself to wake up. Nothing crazy happened, like in an ordinary dream. I even fell asleep and had dreams in the dreams! I went places and did things. I learned stuff that I never knew before, and I met people. Real people."

He opened his mouth to speak, but I said, "Wait. Please wait. If you don't get this before I leave, I'll—" I paused. Somehow I had to make it clear to him that something important was at stake here. Somehow I had to force him to see that he really didn't understand at all. Then it came to me: an ultimatum. "If you don't get what I'm try to tell you, I'll will leave and never come back. I'll get a new therapist, one who listens to what I'm saying. I'm trying to tell you something serious and important."

He closed his mouth and motioned for me to go on.

"The thing is, these dreams — or whatever they are — were not like dreams. They were like reality. They weren't even like reality: There was no difference between that experience and what's happening right now. Can you understand that? I woke up from one dream, but I was still dreaming another dream. Right now, I'm talking to you, but if all of a sudden I woke up someplace else, I wouldn't be surprised at all." I searched for more words to say... for a better way to convey my meaning, but there was nothing.

Mr. Angle remained silent for a few moments. He was waiting to see whether I was finished. Then he asked me, "In the first place, I apologize for making you feel that I wasn't listening. I'll do my best to never let you feel that way again."

"Thank you," I replied.

"As far as what you were saying... If you did suddenly wake up... and found that this session with me was only a dream... what would you do?"

I took breath and blew it out slowly. Oh, Lord. "What would I do?" I repeated. "I'd, uh—" gesturing vaguely, I searched for the words "—I'd deal with it, somehow. I'd get my bearings; figure out who I was and how I fit in and just... deal with it."

"Is that what you're doing now?" he asked gently.

"No," I replied, and began sniffling. Just before I wiped my nose with the back of my hand he placed a box of tissues next to me. I took one.

"Deal with it," he echoed. "Is that what you did... Did you do that... I mean, in your various dreams, did you have to figure out who you were and get your bearings?"

"I don't know... I guess... maybe."

"Could that possibly be your touchstone? I mean, could that be a way for you to understand that this is not a dream? If there's nothing you need to adjust to? That feeling would indicate that you're really awake."

"Not really," I said. "For instance, all the reporters are gone from in front of my house, and I don't know why. Do you?"

"No, I don't," he answered.

"So maybe that difference means that I'm in a dream."

"I see. I suppose it wouldn't help if I *told* you that this isn't a dream?"

"No," I said, and for the first time since I awoke, I laughed. "Nobody in my dreams thought that I was dreaming."

He smiled with obvious relief at my laughter. Then he said, "Unfortunately, Marcie, we're out of time, and I do have another client. Are you going to be alright?"

"Yes," I replied. "I think so."

"If you need to call me tonight, this weekend, any time, do it. Normally I wouldn't allow a client to call me in that way, but I'm concerned about you. I'm going to talk with your mother before you go."

"Oh, please don't," I said. "I'm not a fragile flower, really."
 

Even though Mr. Angle didn't really understand, talking with him made me feel a little better. Before my session with him, I felt a bit frantic. Maybe it the act of telling the story was the thing that helped. I think it did; I wondered if telling someone else would help me even more.

But who could I tell? I would talk to Belle or Wiggy, if they were real people. I thought about Googling their names, or looking to see if they were on MySpace.

Well, why not look? What could it hurt?

I sat down at the computer and searched for them. I searched for all the Amazons. I searched for their school, St. Oda's. I searched the our ship, the Seward's Folly, and for Captain Blackett.

Nothing. Well, not nothing, but not the people I was searching for.

I drummed my fingers lightly on the keyboard without typing anything. What else could I do?

One of my dreams came back to me: the last time I was at home. I could try those same searches again. I Googled PRINCESS MARCELLINE, and again came up with the friend and pupil of Chopin.

Then... what was that name again? KALEIGH WAY. I tried the search, and to my surprise I found her. And she *did* write transgendered fairy tales! I didn't know what to make of it. I glanced at some of the stories, and they were similar to the ones in the book: boys turning into girls, stories I didn't recognize...

I couldn't read them, though. I couldn't take them in. Too many words. It was too much for right now.

I searched a bit more, to see if she'd published any real books. She hadn't. So I went back to that website, "Big Closet / Top Shelf" and thought for a bit. I went to the bathroom. I went downstairs to the kitchen, where I heated up some broth and toasted some bread.

I sat at the table crunching and sipping, I decided to do it.

I decided to write an email to Kaleigh Way.
 

It was hard to begin. I started five times, and each time deleted what I'd written. It wasn't working.

Then I thought: just ask her about the fairy tale. And so I did. I gave her a quick sketch of the Princess Marcelline story, and asked her whether she knew it.

When I was done with that, I hit SEND.

After that, I began to worry that she'd think I was crazy. So I wrote another email to explain how I'd seen the book in the dream.

When that was sent, I began a third email, then a fourth, and then a fifth.

Once I got in the vein, I couldn't stop. I kept writing and writing and sending email after email to this lady I'd never met. After a while I didn't care what she thought or what she'd say back or even if she'd read them at all.

I was writing for me. I had to get it off my chest.

It was three-forty-five in the morning when I was finished, and well over a dozen emails sent. I'd told pretty much the whole story, the way you heard it here, and when I was done, I didn't care. The hell with Kaleigh Way. She could say nothing or whatever she wanted. I told my story, and that was that.

There was still some broth downstairs, so I heated some more, toasted more bread, and filled my belly with the warm, healing liquid and the dry crunchy bread.

At last, feeling better but decidedly stinky, I took a shower. Afterward I put on clean pajamas and dried my hair in the downstairs bathroom, so I wouldn't wake my parents.

I changed the sheets on my bed, and then felt my energy drain once again.

I got into bed and sank into my familiar, wonderful, very-own mattress, and closed my eyes.
 

In a moment, they snapped open again. What in the world had I done? Why had I written all those crazy things to a woman I didn't even know?

© 2008 by Kaleigh Way

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