runs naked to the other cabins. There, he asks them to throw kettlefuls of water all over him, no matter how cold the weather may be. Some Senecas have been known to go as far as Quebec, a hundred and fifty leagues away, according to Father Fremin, just to get a dog which they have dreamed of buying there. The same idea runs through the other nations of the confederacy—Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, and Cayugas. And even their relations, the Hurons of Canada.” Here Ed Donan checked his folder. “In 1656 an Onondaga dreamed that he slept with two married women for five days. Other men willingly gave their squaws to him so that the dream could be fulfilled and thus satisfy
Ondinnonk
. In 1642, a Huron dreamed he was taken alive in battle by non-Hurons. This was a bad dream, and there was a tribal council held to discuss it. The dreamer, with his consent, was tortured and burned with flaming sticks. Another Huron dreamed he had been taken by enemies and that they had cut off his finger. He then cut off his own finger. Another dreamed his cabin had burned down. The chiefs, after due deliberation, ceremoniously burned down hiscabin to satisfy the dream command. And so on.” He peered at Peter through his thick glasses. “Well? What do you think?”
“Sounds fine. Only there’s one hitch.”
“Yes?”
“I vaguely recall that a man named Anthony Wallace has already done considerable work in this field.”
“Yes,” said Donan hastily, “I know Wallace. I’d use his stuff as source material and give him proper credit, of course. The thing is, I want to go deeper, research the
Relations
further, elaborate the parallel to Freud.”
“You’re still on somebody else’s ground, Ed,” said Peter. “Unless you can really make a number of new points. Tell you what. Why not investigate some of the other tribes? The Plateau Indians, maybe.
Or the tribes of the Southwest. Or the Great Basin. Maybe they’ve got some kind of
Ondinnonk
of their own. Then you’d have something quite different.”
Donan blinked through his glasses, apparently unsure whether he was happy about Peter’s suggestion or not. But he said, “Good idea. You might have something there, Dr. Proud. I’ll look into it.”
When Donan left, Peter leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He felt very tired and a little shaken. He picked up the phone and dialed Nora’s number.
“Ondinnonk,”
he said.
“What?”
“Indian word. It means ‘Somebody up there is playing games with me.’ ”
“Oh.”
“How about lunch?”
“I can’t,” she said. “Got two conferences.” Then: “Pete, I did some reading this morning. On the subject of somniloquy.”
“What?”
“Somniloquy. Sleep talking. And I really feel a lot better about it now. They don’t know too much about it yet, but they’ve drawnsome conclusions. For example, some people talk in their sleep almost every night. Some even when they take a nap, or daydream. Women talk in their sleep more than men do.”
“That figures.”
“Don’t be funny,” she said, “I’m serious. Anyway, some sleep talk is slurred. I mean, it’s gibberish nobody else can understand. Some people whisper; some yell out, the way you did. And some speak in different voices entirely. The way you did. So it isn’t that unusual, after all.”
“Exit Mr. Hyde.”
“Yes. Even though I still get gooseflesh thinking about it, I feel a lot better. And I hope you do.”
“Oh, I do,” he said. “I do.”
Just as he hung up, the pain hit him. It came suddenly, as always. And, as always, in the same place—on the left side, just above the hipbone. It was excruciating. As though some assassin had plunged a red-hot dagger into his side.
He arranged with his teaching assistant to take the class, then called Dr. Tanner’s office. He told the girl that it was an emergency—the same crazy thing as before—and he was coming right over.
He hung up. Then he leaned back in his seat and closed his
R.L. Stine - (ebook by Undead)