Without a word, Paulette pulled her to her feet and back along the path, away from the library and down Cotton Lane. She glanced left and right as Hermione stumbled along beside her, and no longer looked like a schoolgirl at play. Her eyes were serious and her mouth was set in a firm line. She hurried Hermione back into Main street and down the hill to the pier, not meeting the curious eyes of the tourists and townspeople who watched their progress. She stopped at last in front of a small café by the wharf. Vendors near the ferry dock sold hot dogs and soft drinks and little whittled sailing ships. The smell of fish was everywhere.
They went inside and Paulette asked for a table in the far corner. She pushed Hermione gently into a chair. "Get something to drink. How about some juice?"
How about a shot of vodka? That might bring me to my senses.
"A Coke." she mumbled.
"A Coke," Paulette told the waiter, her voice firm. "And some orange juice, please." When the waiter left, she leaned across the table. "All right." she said. "Will you please tell me what that was all about?"
Hermione stared at the tabletop and twisted a paper napkin between her fingers. "I thought I saw a woman in front of that cottage-the library, I mean. I knew her. I had come because…" She hesitated, trying to recall just how she'd felt on Cotton Lane. There were strands of memory, but nothing she could weave into anything meaningful. 'I had a plan, I think. I wanted to talk to somebody inside that house." She shook her head. "Nothing is making any sense/"
Paulette gestured at the restaurant around them. " Have you ever heard of déjà vu? It's French for 'already seen' It's the feeling when you think you've seen something already."
"I know what it means." Said Hermione.
The waiter brought the drinks, and Hermione seized her Coke gratefully. When he moved away, Paulette leaned forward. "I heard you say a name. Clementine Horn. Who is that?"
"I don't know. I never heard that name before in my life." She hesitated. "Only-here's something else weird, Paulette-that Clementine song has been in my head for weeks now. I hear it in my dreams, too/"
The Clementine song?" asked Paulette, puzzled. "Oh, you mean the one about the miner?" and then as uninhibited as she'd been walking down the road, Paulette burst into song right there in the café. "Oh my darlin', Oh my darlin'-"
Hermione froze. "Stop it!" She cried. "It's horrible."
Paulette broke off, aghast. They sat in silence a long, tense moment. Paulette's next question seemed to come out of the blue. "Have you read Shakespeare Hermione? Do you know Hamlet?"
Hermione blinked. "I took an honors course in Shakespeare. We read everything."
"Well then you certainly must know the part when Hamlet says to Horatio: 'There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, Then are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Hermione shrugged. "yeah."
"And do you agree, Hermione? Do you believe that Hamlet was right, that our philosophies are limited? That people don't really understand all there is to understand in the world?"
"Of course." Hermione wanted to go back to the house and fall asleep. She stood up. "lets go home, Paulette."
Paulette stood as well, picking up the bill the waiter had left on the edge of their table. "It's not irrelevant you know," she said. "The weird things that are happening to you have to be on of two things, don't you see? Either it's just as bad as you think, and you are having some sort of breakdown…Or else it's something else, something we can barely conceive of, something that might even make a sort of sense, if we only had the right philosophy. Get it?" She paid the bill, and they walked outside onto Main street.
Hibben was sleepy in the warm sunshine. A few tourists were on the pier snapping the colorful fishing boats out in the cove with their zoom lenses, but otherwise the streets were all but empty. Hermione's head was aching fiercely now. She trailed behind Paulette up the hill to the house.
After launch Hermione threw herself into stripping wallpaper in the dinning room. The work was tiring her out, but it was good. If she were tired enough, she would be able to forget. The thought of what had happened that morning in town made her break out in a sweat of panic. Better not think. Work and sleep, that was the way to handle things.
They ate dinner together in the master bedroom upstairs. Paulette lentil soup and homemade croutons and a salad. When they finished, Johnny and Paulette exchanged a look. Hermione braced herself.
John wasted no time getting to the point. "Hermione, honey, Paulette told me about what happened this morning in town. I admit I'm worried."
"Maybe a doctor. Or a psychologist could help." Suggested Paulette. "After all, your unconscious maybe trying to tell you something though all these dreams and now these…well, visions in town."
"I don't need a shrink." said Hermione. "I'm just tired. What I need is sleep, that's all." She left them looking after her as she hurried down the hall to her bedroom and shut the door.
The next morning she and Paulette helped John hobble down the back stairs to the kitchen. At breakfast John and Paulette were careful not to mention anything out of the ordinary, and Hermione was grateful. After breakfast two carpenters and a plumber arrived on the headland to consult with john and Paulette about renovating the existing bathroom and adding several more for the guest rooms. She found peaceful there, standing on the stepladder pulling strips of faded, flowered paper off the wall. The old glue was yellow and brittle. It tore away easily, sending a fine dust into the scuffed wooden floor.
By noon the workmen had gone. Paulette served lunch in the study, and while they ate, Hermione quizzed Paulette and her father on names for the new baby. "It'll be born near Christmas, right?" she asked. "How about something festive? Noelle? Or Carol?"
"What about Star?" suggested Paulette.
"Too new aged." objected Hermione.
"Well, how about Wreath?" asked John. He grinned at them. "What makes you so sure the baby will be a girl, anyway?"
"Okay, then, what about Rudolf? Or Santa?" Teased Hermione. "Saint Nick?"
"That's not bad, actually," said john. "Nicholas Granger. It has a nice ring to it."
When the finished their sandwiches, John and Paulette started looking at paint samples for the guest bedrooms. Hermione moved to the couch and turned on the television. The sop opera actors were sobbing about someone's nervous break down. Hermione watched with interest. Was this how people react when she was carted off?
A crash from the other side of the room made her look up, and she saw that the big book of paint samples had fallen off the table as Paulette leaned across to kiss John on the tip of his nose. Hermione smiled indulgently. They were like a pair of little kids. Then she looked beyond them to the wall. Something made her smile stiffen. That was the wall here she had imagined a fireplace the first night she arrived. Was it Hermione imagination, or was the old floral wallpaper buckling the all met the ceiling? She felt compelled to get up and check.
"Hey, what are you doing?" John asked in surprise as she dragged the ottoman over to the wall and climbed on it, stretching to reach the edge of the strip that was loose.
"Hey, Hermione! We'd decided to leave this paper along." protest Paulette. 'Don't rip it."
But Hermione tugged harder and the old paper ripped away from the wall, revealing brick. She pulled more off, lower down, shouldering aside the small bookcase. Next to the brick, a section of plywood came into view . She stopped. Unaccountably, she was shaking.
Paulette jumped off the couch and rushed over. "Now, who would put wallpaper over brick? Look at this John…Oh! It's a fireplace, I think. Boarded over." She stared at Hermione with wide eyes.
John hobbled over to inspect the broad. "Well, well! This is great. Maybe the last owners didn't use the room much or didn't want drafts. But I'll get somebody to come out to inspect it. We'll enjoy toasting out toes in here by the fire come winter." Then he looked a Hermione. "How in the world did you know this would be here?"
She hugged herself , shivering. "I don't know," She tried to press the patterned paper back into place. Softly, very softly, the humming was starting in her head again. I've got to get out of here, she thought desperately. I have to get away.
"I'm going out for a walk," She said hoarsely. A walk on the headland might make her feel better. Fresh air.
"Good idea," said John. Looking at her oddly.
Hermione crossed the yard surrounding the house and moved through the trees along a path leading toward the cliff. Tall strong grasses waved gracefully in the breeze, beckoning her. When she turned and look back at the house, the many windows winked at her like eyes.
Ahead of her the cliff jutted out over the cove. Hermione stopped and listened to the surge of waves crashing against the rock. She kept carefully way from the cliff edge, not wanting to see the water. The sun beat warmly on her head, and the sea breeze stirred her braid. Overhead gulls wheeled in the sky, and plunged out of sight over the edge of the cliff. When she was in sight of the house again, Hermione sank down in a soft clearing at the edge of the trees.
She lay back and crossed her arms under her head, staring up at the sky. As she watched, the gray clouds blew across and blotted out the sun. Should she see a psychologist, as Paulette suggested? Jenny would never approve. And Hermione didn't feel Crazy…But on the other hand, maybe part of being crazy was not knowing you were. Use your famous brain, she ordered herself. Why is this happening to you? She closed here eyes to think.
She must have been dozing, one arm flung up over her eyes, when she heard a rustling in the tall grass and knew she was not alone. She heard whispers of children. She held her breath. The rustling and whispers stopped. A cool, dump wind began to blow. It smelled like rain.
She then open her eyes and saw Draco Malfoy standing over her. "You!"
Now I know I'm Dreaming.
He stepped across the grass to stand next to her, but she backed away. "Hermione, Please!" He said and his voice sounded real enough. "I've came all this way."
He was standing there in dark green shorts and a white T-shirt. His light hair looked freshly trimmed.
"Are you kidding? How dare you track me all the way to Maine!"
"I didn't exactly track you," he said slowly. He didn't move any closer sensing she would run back to the house if he did. He sat down in the grass, instead, and looked at her. "Come on. Sit down and I'll tell you all about it."
She remained standing, hands on her hips. 'How the Hell did you get here?" He was real. He was as real as she was.