ARTHUR was an honest man who had never concealed anything from Olivia. Or he hadn’t, before. And there was a reason he was now. He’d recently been keeping a tiny secret from her.
The secret started with blueberry wine.
Joshua, one of the restaurant’s regular customers, came by to eat carrying with him a large bottle of blueberry wine. He said it was a present.
“It’s about time to drink the wine I set to ferment in the summer. It’s a good batch,” he said.
“Thank you for giving me some every year. I can’t wait,” said Olivia.
“Well, you’re always sharing your medicines with us. This is just a small way of giving back what we owe you.”
“And it makes me happy.”
Olivia loved the blueberry wine Joshua’s family made, so she gladly accepted the gift.
She showed Arthur the bottle the moment he got home from work. “I got this as a present. Joshua’s family is famous for their blueberry wine.”
The wine, a lovely color of deep burgundy, had large chunks of blueberry settled in the bottom. Arthur smiled. “Look at that. Blueberry wine. I’ve never had that before. Used to have some cheap, strong alcohol made from wheat when I was a mercenary.”
“You like to drink? I’ve barely ever seen you drink at home, though.”
“I wouldn’t say I like drinking alcohol. Basically just drink it socially. I get a serious headache the next day whenever I have it. You?”
“I…have never had a headache from drinking.”
“Really? Makes me jealous.”
That night, they had the blueberry wine with their dinner.
“Oh, it’s so good,” said Olivia. “I could drink gallons of Joshua’s wife’s blueberry wine.” She drank half the bottle on her own.
Despite drinking that much, the only effect it seemed to have was turning her cheeks slightly pink. Arthur watched her thinking she didn’t get drunk.
The two of them finished cleaning up after dinner, took baths, then got into bed.
“Today I made a chicken and vegetable soup, the restaurant was busy all day, and I got to drink wonderful blueberry wine. The day was filled with good things!” Olivia exclaimed.
“I’m glad you had a good day.” That’s when Arthur realized Olivia was chattier than usual. She seems in good spirits. Maybe she is a little tipsy.
Just as he was about to fall asleep, he realized he could sense Olivia’s thoughts. He saw a scene where Rob and Olivia were talking inside the empty restaurant:
Hedgehog eat vegetables, said Rob.
“Oh? The ones in my vegetable patch?” asked Olivia.
Yeah. I barked.
“Thank you, Rob. You’re such a good boy.” She stroked his round head, and he wagged his tail.
Is that a dream of a happy memory? wondered Arthur, smiling. He tried to go to sleep again, but then he started seeing images of Lara.
Olivia was saying to Lara, “You would never have had to feel that way if I’d met you sooner. I would have taken you in and raised you here.”
Arthur was surprised to see Olivia say that before sobbing aloud.
He’d known that Olivia was outraged that Lara had been treated like an indentured servant who wasn’t even paid for her work, but he hadn’t heard anything about her crying about it.
He sat up in bed and looked at his wife’s face. There were tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.
“Oh, I get it,” he whispered.
In real life, Olivia never showed extreme emotions, though he wasn’t sure if that was just her innate personality or if something about her life taught her to act that way. He’d never seen her outraged, bawling, or even ecstatic.
“But you don’t hold back your feelings in your dreams.”
Sympathy and an urge to help her filled his heart. He stroked her hair carefully so as not to wake her. Again and again, he stroked her hair as he whispered, “You can show your emotions in front of me.”
Then he went to sleep filled with love for his wife.
The next morning, he woke before Olivia and looked at her face as she slept.
Olivia’s eyes popped open at the same time as always and she said cheerily, “Good morning, Arthur,” as she sat up.
“Morning. Doesn’t seem like you have a headache.”
“Nope, no headache here. I feel as good as can be, all my fatigue washed away from a good night’s sleep. Right, shall we give today’s work lots of energy, too?” she said, then got out of bed and went downstairs.
Arthur lay there thinking for a while. “It’s always been me that falls asleep first and wakes up second. That’s why I never realized Olivia has those vivid dreams, I guess.” Then he shook his head. “Uh-uh. That’s not good. I can’t be snatching looks into Olivia’s dreams. That’s not a classy move.”
He pushed thoughts of Olivia’s dreams from his mind for the time being.
After coming home from the day’s work at the pharmacy, he found Olivia and Lara chatting happily together.
“I’m home,” he said while coming in. “You two look like you’re in a good mood.”
“Welcome home, Arthur,” said Olivia. “A customer gave us some honey today. I was just asking Lara what we should do with it.”
“Yeah?” Hearing about the pleasant conversation filled Arthur with warmth.
They ate dinner, then went to bed, with Olivia falling asleep again before him.
I need to hurry up and get to sleep, too, he thought and closed his eyes, but saw instead images of Olivia talking to an old woman. Is that…Marguerite?
He opened his eyes and looked beside him at Olivia. She was smiling as she dreamed.
“You have sharp eyes, Olivia,” said the old woman. “Good eyes for finding medicinal herbs.”
Olivia smiled with joy at being complimented, then her dream quickly shifted to an old man.
“Let’s go fishing, Olivia. Want to see who can catch the most?”
“Fishing? Yay! I won’t lose to you in a fishing competition.”
Arthur had a feeling that second one was of Jenkins. He was a slim man with white hair smiling kindly at Olivia. Wish I could’ve met Jenkins, Arthur thought. Wish I had a chance to talk to both of them.
He was enjoying her dreams. The scene changed to the river, a refreshing breeze coming off the water as sunlight glittered on the surface. It was beautiful.
Olivia and Jenkins sat in the shade of the tree throwing their lines in the river, bringing up fish after fish, smiling each time.
There was also a dream of Olivia walking through the forest with the golden deer, or of her playing in the river.
Olivia’s dreams seem to mostly be things that really happened, thought Arthur.
Those dreams were as beautiful as jewels to him. But he did feel guilty.
It doesn’t matter how good the dreams are, it’s not right to go peeking into them.
Arthur, being as conscientious as he was, told Olivia everything about seeing her dreams.
“I’m sorry. I saw your dreams. Over two nights, too,” he said.
“Oh, you did? What sort of dreams did I have?” Olivia didn’t look surprised or angry.
Arthur was honest about everything he saw.
“Those are all things that really happened,” she said. “How nostalgic. Quite interesting those are the sort of dreams I had.”
“You’re not angry?”
“I’m not angry. You only picked up the dreams I was putting out, after all.”
“All your dreams were good. Which is why I couldn’t help just watching, rather than waking you up. Sorry.”
“Well, it goes both ways. Don’t worry about it. It’s actually better that you don’t wake me. I’d never get enough sleep if you woke me up every time I started dreaming,” she said with a smile.
“Goes both ways…? What? Wait, do you see my dreams too?”
“Yes. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”
Arthur’s heart started racing. What kind of dreams do I have? I don’t remember dreaming at all. And they’re dreams, they could’ve been about anything. They wouldn’t be anything that could hurt Olivia, would they?
He was so taken aback he didn’t realize his thoughts were leaking out to Olivia. She chuckled, thinking he was so cute. “It’s all right, Arthur. I haven’t seen any dreams you need to be that worried about.”
“Uh… Mind if I ask what kind of dreams I had?”
“Of course not. I’ve seen dreams where you were sitting around a campfire eating skewers of meat with the other mercenaries.”
“Oh. Yeah. We did that a lot.”
“There was another dream about you winning an arm-wrestling competition.”
“That happened, too. Was I smiling when I was having those dreams?”
“Yeah. You looked like you were having fun.” She then paused for a few moments before saying, “There was another one where you were working as a guard for a noble family. Where a beautiful noble girl was causing you trouble by constantly flirting with you.”
“Ack! Uh, well, yeah. That did happen, too. But I didn’t—”
“I know. If she made an advance, you just gave her a cool, ‘I’m working, my lady.’ But you were thinking about how beautiful she was.”
“Urgh…”
Olivia put on the sort of constructed smile she used for people she didn’t know and said, “It’s fine though. It doesn’t bother me.”
“It clearly does bother you. But it was a dream. I can’t control my dreams.”
“I know. They’re dreams. You can’t do anything about them. And you can’t do anything about the fact that you’re popular with the ladies. And you can’t do anything about the fact that a beautiful lady caught your eye.”
“Come on, Olivia. We’re talking about a job that was ten years ago. I don’t even remember what she looks like.”
Olivia burst into laughter. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I swear I’m not angry. I’m just teasing.”
“Really? Thank God.”
“I’ve seen people’s dreams so many times since I was a child. I don’t think there’s anything I could see there that would surprise me. We humans can adapt to anything.”
Arthur gently took her hand. “I’m guessing you’ve probably seen some scary dreams, too,” he said.
“Yeah. But I have you, now. I’m not afraid of people like I was before, thanks to you.”
And so, Arthur learned another of Olivia’s secrets.
“I think you’re so strong because you’ve had to overcome these things,” he said.
“Maybe. Probably. Welp, I need to get up and get to work,” she said with a soft smile as she went to the kitchen.