Sean considers another request to stand in for Kelly, his injured cousin. Also, Sean is asked to reconsider his own abandoned career in music.

“David, stop right there,” Sean cautioned him.” I know where you’re goin’ with this, and no, I’m not gonna sub for Kelly modelin’. I’m takin’ her shift at the coffee shop and that’s it. Her band wants me to sub for ’er, too. But I’m not dressin’ like a girl just ’coz Kelly ’n’ me look alike.”

“But I just need a few more shots. Just retakes of three or four that didn’t quite work…”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but no!” reiterated Sean. “Are you willing to go in drag to help someone’s class project? When you’ve done it, then you can ask me again. I don’t really even know you.”

Fortunately for David, Sean couldn’t read his facial expression over the telephone. He knew he was wrong asking such an absurd favor from a new acquaintance. David now appreciated why someone might not want visual communication on a telephone call. He remember from a recent course lecture that the “picturephone” had failed way back in the 1960s for just such a reason.

“Sean, I’m sorry,” admitted David. “I was way outta line to ask you. I guess I’m just desperate about my photo essay. I’m so close to having it finished. All I need is to fix those closing scenes and I’m done.”

“Look, I’m sorry for you, but I don’t think you even know what you’re asking. Just because me ’n’ Kelly look like twins doesn’t mean we can easily substitute for each other. You remember how you said Kelly was a natural model?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, that’s Kelly. Everyone’s always told her she should be a model,” Sean explained. “Me? I regard sitting for a portrait with the same fear that others have for a tax audit!”

“You couldn’t be that camera shy,” objected David, chuckling at such an absurd metaphor.

“So you’d stake your grade on it?” Sean asked rhetorically. “I’d think not!

“Now, the band she plays in wants me to sub for her—as a girl! Well, I have a very basic competence at the piano and clarinet. I can handle keyboard harmony for them, but I couldn’t take her place on those any more than she could match me on violin, which was my main instrument. She’s got an angel’s singin’ voice, but I’m a tenor. And I can sing really good, but my voice, my style are not at all like hers.

“And I’m a guy. That’s my perspective on things. Yeah, we may look alike but we’re diff’rent persons. We have our own ways o’ thinkin’. Even if I were a girl, we’d still be diff’rent in our thinkin’ an’ feelin’ an’ we’d have diff’rent attitudes t’ward things.”

“Geeze! I never thought about that,” admitted David. “It’s just that I can’t ignore how much alike the two of you are. You do look more like siblings than cousins, twins even.”

“Like I said before, we’re used to it.”

“So you never, like, took advantage of it to play pranks or get away with anything?”

“No, not really,” Sean dismissed the question. “Kelly’s always been too honest for anything like that. She’s never asked me, like, to dress up to get out of anything or to deceive anyone. There’ve been two or three times that I’ve let someone think they saw me when ’twas really her. But she doesn’t even know it. B’sides, I wouldn’t ask her to do somethin’ like that any more than she’d ask it o’ me.”

“So you’ve never played dress up with your cousin?”

“Well, not with just her,” Sean continued. “In high school we had a Powder Puff Football League tournament our junior ’n’ senior years and I was required to be one of the cheerleaders. Kelly and my sister Morgan were both varsity cheerleaders. So they helped me ’n’ her brother Mike dress up in their junior varsity cheer uniforms. I got stuck with it two years. Then my sister thought it would be fun for Hallowe’en if we all went as a cheer squad. So we did it that time, too.”

“Ever do it again?”

“Gosh no! We got our share of teasin’ but then all the guys at school had to dress up as cheerleaders, majorettes, pompom girls, or whatever,” recounted Sean, still deeply worried that he had won the award for Prettiest Cheerleader both years. “I mean, it was fun enough at the time, but I wouldn’t care to do it again.”

“Sorry,” David apologized, “I just wanted to finish my photo essay without reshooting the whole final sequence.”

“And I understand that. But I’m not someone who can help you out with it. Again, just ’coz I might look like Kelly doesn’t mean I can take ’er place. And I am sorry you’re in this position. I wish for all our sakes Kelly hadn’t been in that accident. Most of all for hers.”

Sean heard silence over the phone.

“Y’know, Sean, I gotta say I miss her. Kelly’s really our favorite model in class.”

“I kinda got that when we talked back in Tí­r na n-Óg today.”

“I don’t know how the rest of the class will take the news. After all, I’m not the only one she modeled for. And it’s not all about modeling with her. She’s become very much a friend to Shelley as well as a few other classmates in the class. I think she loves us as much as we love her.”

Sean smiled. “That’s our Kelly, for sure,” he said to David.” He wondered if his cousin knew just how many people out there were praying for her.

“I’ll be going, Sean,” David announced. “I guess I’ll have to try something else for my photo essay.”

“Hey, if it’s anything like making music, just be yourself,” Sean suggested. “Let your creativity come through. It will all come together if you let it.”

“Thanks, Sean! Have a good night!”

“Goodnight to you, too, David!”

Sean ended the call and put down his mobile phone and tried to edit the proposal for his mythology paper. But he was no longer in the mood to work on it.

He went to his closet and picked up a guitar case from the corner. He laid it across his bed and opened it. Morgan had left her back-up acoustic guitar for her brother to try out. He sat for a while trying to strum a few chords, but he couldn’t coax any music from it. Nor did it feel right to him. He looked at his fingertips. The callouses had softened and vanished.

He had thought about taking guitar lessons from the Music Department on campus, but he didn’t want to answer the questions that they were sure to ask. Maybe he could find a serious teacher off campus? He would have to ask Morgan, would Maestro Álvarez take him on as a new student?

Frustrated, Sean returned the guitar to its case, latched it and put it away.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Once again, on a mystic stage, positioned somewhere between mind and memory and dream, the Sleeper’s images began emerging once more.

She wore a leotard and matching long tutu of royal blue with white tights and ballet shoes of silver lamé. Over this she also wore a garment draped front and back over her shoulders, somewhat like a doublet, but of a diaphanous gossamer-like fabric in a pastel blue, belted at the waist by a silver chain. A pretty silver tiara sparkled atop her long auburn curls, cascading down her back and right shoulder. The beautiful dark-red finish of a violin shimmered in the light on her other shoulder.

She stood in the center of the stage, surrounded by a chorus of dancers, both older and younger than herself. They danced around her, twirling pirouettes and bounding jétés. But she danced not on foot or tiptoe, but by her fingertips up and down the fingerboard, while her bow danced across the strings.

So the dancer’s chorus spun as the sounds of Bach’s Præludium from the Partita in E Major filled the air about them all.

Applause filled the air as the dancers in the chorus all curtsied, as the violinist held out her bow to direct the audience’s attention.

But the images faded from the Sleeper’s mind along with the applause…

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The next morning, Sean actually slept in. He had remembered to turn off the alarm clock and, since he was really tired, slept past eight o’clock. He would have slept even longer, but the telephone rang and woke him up. This was not his cellphone, but his landline.

His hand reached out for the telephone and somehow managed to get the handset to his ear without dropping it or knocking anything else over.

“Hello, this is Sean,” he answered in a quasi-waking state.

“Sean? Sean O’ Donnelly?”

“Yeah, that’s me. Who ’re you?”

“I’m Bettina McNamara in the Admissions Office at the Juilliard School. Our violin faculty have asked me to arrange an audition and interview for you. I’d like to ask, when would you be able to come to New York for an audition and interview?”

“Me answer’s jus’ the same ’s I told y’r office before,” Sean replied. “Never!” He slammed the receiver down on its cradle, and then rolled over to snooze, muttering quietly to himself, “No, Juilliard! Not ever!”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Bettina was surprised that anyone would turn down an invitation for an audition and interview at the Juilliard School. She felt quite upset over how curtly (and even rudely) Mr. Sean O’Donnelly had rejected the school’s invitation. Anyway, she had extended the offer and O’Donnelly had rejected it. All that she could do was to continue with her other calls and to tell her boss about this one. He would let the violin faculty know that Mr. O’Donnelly had turned down their invitation. Again.

What Ms. MacNamara did not know, was that similar exchanges had taken place between Sean O’Donnelly and the admissions officers of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, and the Peabody Institute of Music in Baltimore. All were disappointed and more than just a little upset at his quick dismissal of the opportunities they each had offered him.

The problem that Sean had with all those schools, was that they were in New York or Rochester or Boston or Baltimore. He didn’t want to go to any of those cities.

And so Sean had his heart set on the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love.

His Philadelphia.

His home.

Sean had applied only to the Curtis Institute of Music, where he could continue to study violin beyond his current level and yet remain at home among family and friends. But Curtis had the highest ratio of applicants to admittees of any institution of higher education of any kind in the United States. By that measure, Curtis was the nation’s most difficult school in which to enroll. This school would only admit students whom they could offer scholarships.

Sean had played an audition at Curtis that impressed the jury as nearly miraculous. But the performance of yet another young violinist had surpassed even his own. Indeed Sean had admired her audition himself. Still, although he had placed ahead of three other candidates, each only slightly less deserving than himself, there was only one seat, and one scholarship, available at Curtis for which they all had auditioned.

He did not win it.

Sean had been inconsolable ever since he received the letter of rejection from Curtis. Yet it had invited and even encouraged him to reapply for the following year’s class. They simply did not have another seat available for violin that year. The violin faculty at Curtis were ready to move heaven and earth to reserve him a seat in the next class. But that had not helped.

Sean’s spirit had been crushed.

Despondent, Sean had not touched his violin.

Not since he had read that letter.

Not since a year ago.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Sleeper’s mind reprised the earlier setting from the shadows of thought.

The violinist remained on stage as the chorus danced their way off. Then a second girl, looking to be a twin of the violinist appeared next to her. She wore a costume of the same style, but her color scheme of pastel and forest green and gold corresponded to her apparent twin’s pastel and royal blue and silver, including ballet shoes of gold lamé, a gold chain belt, and a gold tiara atop her flaming auburn hair, which had been gathered into a ponytail high on her crown.

The audience hushed as the ballerina began dancing to the Gavotte en Rondeau from the Partita in E Major played by the violinist on stage with her. She danced the opening theme and refrain alone, but for the second theme, another dancer, a boy, leapt en scène from a wing of the stage. He was taller than the auburn-haired twins, with somewhat long, straight black hair. He wore a two-toned jacket of dark blue and green, with a baldric in gold lamé over the left shoulder, across the chest and back, fastened just below the right hip, with black tights and ballet shoes of gold lamé as well. He joined the green-clad dancer in her dance.

The girl and boy danced the gavotte both singly and together, finishing with the danseur kneeling behind the ballerina and the violinist standing next to them both.

But as the audience clapped their approval, the Sleeper could no longer maintain the scene, now merging once more into the broader collection of memories, thoughts, and dreams from which it emerged.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Sean awoke to a second call about half an hour later, on his cellphone this time.

“G’mornin’. Sean here…”

“Good morning, Sean,” a young woman’s voice greeted him. He recognized but could not identify it. “How are you today?”

“I’m jus’ gettin’ up,” he grumbled. “Who ’re you ’n’ why ’re ya callin’ me now?”

“Well, why don’t-cha put on a pretty dress so we can take you to visit your cousin?”

Fiona!

Sean was already displeased. “Sing another tune already,” he complained. “Or d’ya know any others?”

He savored his curt putdown of the bandleader only briefly as he did not actually expect her riposte

She sang another tune:

“Boys in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Whose noses I powder and curl their eyelashes,
And then earlobes pierce to wear sapphire earrings:
These are a few of my favorite things!”

Not to be outdone, Sean was no less adept than Fiona at lyrical parody:

“When the bitch bites, when the diva sings,
Before you drive me mad,
Let winds carry you off beneath your bat-wings,
And then I won’t feel so bad!”

Then Sean simply pressed the little red button on his smartphone, imagining apologies to Rodgers and Hammerstein. But with Fiona, he did not wish to deal now. The girl, at least in his mind, was certifiable! Sean could visit Kelly, without the Daughters of Danaan to drive him.

In and out of the shower took him only a few minutes. Then donning his underwear, Sean carefully checked the blue jeans, making certain that they were his own.

He picked up his mobile telephone and dialed a phone number.

“Hello?” the familiar voice answered.

“That you, Uncle Jerry?”

“Why, it surely is, Little Seanie!” Uncle Jerry answered.

“On duty yet?”

“Oh no! Not f’r another hour. Ya need somethin’?”

“Can ya drop me off t’ see Kelly?”

“Surely, me laddie. Not a problem,” assured the cabbie. I’ll be there ’n about, say, eight minutes.”

“That’s great!—Oh! You got a bike rack on the cab? I’ll need to go to work directly from Sain’ Bonnie’s.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

“Fiona!” Shouted Mórag. “Are you insane?”

“Why?” protested the bandleader. “We were just joking around.”

“Then why did he hang up on you?”

“He couldn’t take a little teasing.”

“Teasing? You call it teasing? You meant it as more than just teasing.”

’What’s it matter, anyway?”

“In the first place, Fiona, we need him. We need him to fill in for Kelly until she wakes up and—well—if Sean’s who I think he is—I expect we may want him with us longer-term as well.”

“What?”

Mórag crossed her arms and, leaning her back against the wall, sighed and rolled her eyes.

“I hadn’t said anything about it yet, but I thought I recognized Sean at the hospital. Still, I couldn’t place him until I got a call yesterday from Tatiana, my friend at Curtis.”

“The music school?”

“Uh-huh! I think Sean was another candidate for the violin scholarship she won there. I was there at the auditions. Do you remember Tatiana? She sometimes goes by ’Tanya’ if that helps? Blonde Russian girl?”

“Yes, I remember Tanya.”

“To make a long story short, Tatiana just barely won out over Sean for the remaining seat in this year’s class. Two of the three candidates he placed ahead of now have full scholarships to Juilliard in New York and the third got one at the New England Conservatory of Music.

“Anyway, you said we needed a fiddler for our band. Well, Sean may be the best available to us. I’ve heard him play and I don’t think you’ll find anyone better who’d even consider working with us.”

“How about Tatiana?” Fiona wondered out loud. “Could you maybe ask her?”

“I could, but she’s all classical in her training and style. She may not even be interested in folk music,” related Mórag. “And I doubt she’d have the time, given her schedule at Curtis. It’s real demanding over there. Besides, she’s not even Irish!”

“But we can’t use Sean unless he wears an ‘appropriate’ costume.”

“Fiona, give it a rest!” Mórag warned her friend sternly. “You’re the only one who insists on dressing him up. The rest of us don’t mind a guy on stage with us at all.”

“But our vision was for an all-girl band,” Fiona reminded her.

“Yes. Yes it was. But maybe that’s not so important as making the best music we can. There’s quite a few guys out there who are fans of Cherish the Ladies and Celtic Woman. They’ll like our music and our message, too.

“And y’know, if an all-girl band is what we really want, dressing a guy like a girl doesn’t change the fact that we wouldn’t all be girls. It would be a lie. That would be worse for us, I would think, than having a guy openly on stage with us.”

“Are there even any women fiddlers around we could ask?” Fiona inquired. “And Sean still hasn’t auditioned for us yet.”

Mórag tried to think of anyone she knew who played fiddle in the Irish style, but they, too, were all men. She stepped away from the wall and sat down into an armchair.

“Off hand, I can’t think of any,” answered Mórag. “But I do know couple of girls who play violin who are versatile enough to learn our style. It would take some time and work, though.”

“But what do we do for now?” Fiona mused. “We don’t have very long before our first opening.”

Mórag wondered why she had even involved herself in this band. Fiona was their leader, who ought to be answering these questions and making the decisions. No, Fiona was their bandleader on the basis of her charisma alone. In Mórag’s view, Fiona had not been showing much in the way of actual leadership.

“We need to hear Sean’s audition tomorrow morning. No later,” suggested Mórag. “If we can use his talents, then he can begin rehearsing with us Friday night. Else, we can hear other auditions then.”

“But if Sean’s mad at us—”

“No, Fiona, he’s mad at you! Don’t you call him again. I’ll talk to him. You’ve already spooked him, but I think I can calm him down enough to get him here tomorrow. Just don’t upset him again.”

“Then what should I do until then?” Fiona asked.

Mórag began feeling her own impatience rising once more.

“Dammit, Fiona! You’re our leader. So lead!” Look for what we need to do and get Molly and Móira to help you do it, if necessary. Try to line up another gig by Friday night. We may need to cancel our opening next week if we can’t get things worked out with Sean.”

With that, Mórag decided that she had had enough and slammed the door on her way out.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

“Did y’ eat breakfas’ at all, laddie?” Uncle Jerry asked his erstwhile angel.

Sean had noted the box of donuts on the front seat and a second cup of coffee in one of the cab’s cupholders. The extra cup of coffee mad him smile. Jerry had really looked out for him since he’d come back from Iraq. He’d stepped in to watch out for Sean, Morgan, and their mother while their father and her husband were still over there.

Jerry stopped for a red light and hand the gratuitous coffee to to Sean, then opened the lid of the donut box for him to choose.

“Thanks, Uncle Jerry,” said Sean. “Could I have one of the chocolate?”

“Surely, me laddie!” Jerry beamed as he used a napkin to pick a chocolate donut out for his passenger.

“Thanks again, Uncle Jerry. I really appreciate it. I didn’t have time f’r breakfas’ at ’ome,” Sean side, biting into the donut. “An’ thanks f’r takin’ me t’ Sain’ Bonnie’s. I wanna spend the rest o’ me mornin’ wi’ Kelly.”

“I un’erstan’, Seanie,” the cabbie assured him. “All you Li’l Angels ’re precious to me, ’coz your all precious t’ Jesus an’ t’ Mother Mary, too! How I’ve watched all o’ you grow up!”

Jerry suddenly yawned a seriously powerful yawn.

“You okay, Uncle Jerry? I’ve never known you still to be sleepy at this hour. You slept all right, didn’t you?”

“Well to tell the truth, laddie, I be havin’ dreams about all ye kids since Kelly’s li’l bang-up Monday mornin’. I woke up too early, methinks.”

“I understand. I be havin’ weird dreams, too, though I can’t recall ’em now. Dunno why, though. But I think Kelly be in ’em.”

“So we both be dreamin’ o’ Kelly, then?”

“Aye, Jerry, we both be dreamin’ of her! Sean mused over it a moment. “I think you’re right. It be ’er accident that got us all worried!”

The green and yellow vehicle approached St. Bonaventure’s Hospital and Jerry O’Shaughnessy maneuvered it into the parking area reserved for taxis behind their waiting lane. Sean quickly finished his doughnut off and deftly removed his bicycle from the rack on Uncle Jerry’s cab. He then secured it in a large rack on the ground near the main entrance to St. Bonnie’s. Sean had noticed in the past that the bicycle racks around the hospital campus were almost all fully occupied whenever he came to visit. The staff as well as visitors must really like to ride bicycles.

Jerry and Sean walked through the main entrance and directly to the visitor’s desk.

“G’mornin’, Roni!” Sean greeted the young woman at the Visitors’ Desk.

“Hi, Sean! Mr. O’Shaughnessy!” she greeted them in return. “You’re here to see Kelly again?”

“Aye, me lassie, we are?” affirmed Jerry. “ ’Tis all right, be it not?”

Veronica could only smile when she heard the quaint diction and mellow timbre of Jerry’s Irish-American brogue. She thought it could be an affectation. But if it were, she wouldn’t call him out. It sounded too sweet and charming. Rhinestones might be fake diamonds, but they could sparkle just as pretty!

Still, Roni checked her screen and noticed there had been some activity in her room earlier, but Kelly was cleared to receive visitors now.

“It looks like something of note may ’ve happened earlier this morning in Kelly’s room, but she’s approved again for visitors,” Roni confirmed. “You can go on up to I-C-U to visit. You’ll need these badges.”

She gave Sean and Jerry each a Vistor’s badge and a lanyard.

“Thanks, Roni!” Sean beamed. He was beginning to like the receptionist there. Maybe—just maybe—he might get up the courage to ask her to dinner and a movie after all this was over.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

When Sean and Jerry arrived in Kelly’s room, they found a man in a white coat holding a clipboard, making notations on a document as he studied various data on monitors attached to medical devices.

“Oh? Hello there!” he greeted them. “I’m Doctor Tim Belknap. I’m a neurologist specializing in sleep and dream research.”

“Good mornin’, Doctor. I’m Sean O’Donnelly, Kelly’s cousin. This is Jerry O’Shaughnessy, a longtime friend of the family.”

The men each acknowledged one another, quickly by warm firm handshakes.

“We heard that there was something happening in here earlier this morning. Is that why you’re here?”

“Absolutely, Mr. O’Donnelly,” the neurologist answered, somewhat excitedly. “Miss FitzPatrick has shown rather remarkable brainwave activity twice this morning, both sets of patterns having similar global characteristics to another set from yesterday. I’m surprised to see this specific kind of activity in the brainwaves of a comatose patient.”

Dr. Belknap folded two or three pages of his clipboard over to show Sean and Jerry printouts of parallel graphs of what appeared to be a set of periodic functions ranging from smooth to jagged in appearance. He pointed out graphs whose waveforms looked significantly different from and more complex than neighboring ones.

“Here, here, and flipping to another page, here are times of surprisingly heavy activity, especially rapid eye movement. The intensity noted here I’ve never seen before in any patient while this combination of intensities here is rarely seen in comatose patients. I don’t know what to make of it really.”

“What’s your intuition suggest?” Sean pressed him for an answer. “What’s your gut feeling?”

“Based on these and other data and my own interpretation of current theory, I’d have to say—well—her dreams are so vivid and intense that she’s—how do I say this?—perceives her dreams as the ‘real’ world.”

“I’d like to sit and read to her, if that’s all right?” requested Sean.

“Sure! That would be interesting,” Dr. Belknap answered him, perhaps too eagerly. “We could see directly if she’s being stimulated—I need to check on another patient,” he said looking at his beeper beeping. “I’ll be back later.”

Jerry wasn’t sure he’d actually seen the neurologist leave the room while Sean didn’t observe Dr. Belknap’s exit at all. The physician was indeed a man on a mission.

“I’m gonna pray wi’ Kelly here, Seanie,” said Jerry quietly, pulling a rosary from his pocket and taking a seat next to her. Taking her hand in his, holding his rosary in the other, Uncle Jerry began reciting the prayers, sotto voce.

Sean sat down across across from Uncle Jerry and held Kelly’s other hand for a few minutes, taking care not to disturb the variety of tubes and wires attached to his cousin. Then he pulled out his mythology text aand began to read aloud.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Once again, the Sleeper enters into REM-sleep and images loosely distributed throughout the mind coalesce into a coherent scene.

The auburn-haired violinist struck the opening chords of the Bourée as another dancer came on stage. She was quite petite, shorter than the violinist and the other dancer. She wore a pastel green leotard and a short tutu of forest green and royal blue panels arranged around her waist as the petals of a flower. She also wore white tights and silver lamé ballet shoes. A pair of gossamer butterfly wings were tied onto her back by silver lamé cords. She wore on top of her coal black hair her own silver tiara.

This dancer was incredibly light on her feet, seeming always on tip-toe, yet never quite touching the floor, leaping, twisting, turning, spinning, stretching, even floating above the stage. How she appeared to dance so impossibly none could guess. That she could dance so impossibly she did not know, because she simply felt, rather than saw, her own dance. To her, dancing the rôle of the Princess Butterfly was having fun.

The audience could not even see a hidden source of joy for the Princess Butterfly, even as he stood on stage next to her. For the violinist whose auburn curls cascaded around her violin and across her should and down her chest and back was a boy, her sweet brother, whom they had persuaded to assume the rôle of the Elysian Princess as only he could play with the brilliance desired. So needed as he was, he allowed himself to be garbed in the pretty costume of a princess and for the girls to make him over and shower him in a mist of perfume. He was fearful and afraid, abducted into a world not his own, surrounded with the music of girlish giggling and warmed by the hugs and embraces and nourished by the special kisses that girls reserve for only their sisters. Like the intricate harmonies of Bach’s Præludium in E Major, their attention both excited and relaxed him at once.

As the Elysian Princess strikes the final strains of the Bourée, the Princess Butterfly seems to float into a sleepy embrace across the lap of the Forest Princess, still sitting with her legs doubled beside her on stage.

A growing applause acknowledged the simple triumph of the children on stage. Then the curtain slowly fell just as for any who in triumph are weary and have earned their nights sleep.

The Sleeper’s mind was also as fatigued and likewise, lowered its own curtain over the fading images.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

“Morgan?” Monsieur LaMonte asked. « Vous êtes bien? Mademoiselle O’Donnelly? Mademoiselle, reveillez-vous! » He brought his hands together in a single loud, popping clap.

Startled by the noise, Morgan bolted upright and immediately was met with with the laughter and jeers of her classmates and they further embarassed her by just singing the second line of the famous song repeatedly:

« Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous?
Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous?
Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous?… »

Monsieur LaMonte needed to get the class settled down again: « Soyez tranquilles! Nous en avons assez! Elle en a assez! J’en ai assez! Non? »

The class quieted down after their teacher turned an evil eye toward the usual two or three students in their self-appointed roles of anti-social leadership. He looked back at Morgan.

“Morgan, I don’t like this,” he said, lowering his voice for a moment of privacy. “Let’s talk outside, please. And bring your things with you.”

Monsieur LaMonte quickly turned and wrote the chapter and page numbers for a brief reading assignment. He turned to his students, « Classe, voici! Lisez! »

He glanced his icy evil eye toward the troublemakers one more time before escorting Morgan outside.

“Again, I don’t like this,” reiterated Mr. LaMonte in his most concerned tone. “I’ve never seen you like this before, Morgan. You’re falling asleep in class, trembling. Your hands we’re shaking so much you couldn’t write yesterday. You’ve been crying. You came to class with your eyes red and your makeup reapplied with a shaky hand. What’s wrong?”

“My cousin Kelly was in an accident Monday morning and she’s in a coma.”

“Geeze! That’s awful! I’m sorry!”

“You remember her, don’t you? She and my brother Sean were both in your class. They look like twins with auburn hair?”

“Oh yes, I remember them well,” the teacher recalled.

“Well, Kelly, Sean, and me, and her older brother Mike all grew up together, so we’re all more like siblings than cousins. We’re all really worried.”

“Are you, maybe, not sleeping enough since then?”

“I think I’m sleeping, but I’m waking up exhausted, like I’m not getting refreshed in my sleep. I’ve been having more dreams, maybe even nightmares? I don’t know, I can’t remember.”

“That’s all right, Morgan,” assured Mr. LaMonte. “I’ve heard enough to send you to the school nurse. I’ll excuse you from class today. Just go directly to Nurse Carlson’s office in the Infirmary and get her advice.”

“Thanks, Monsieur LaMonte,” she said and started toward the school’s infirmary.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Sean awoke in a cold sweat, startled by Dr. Belknap’s hand gently tugging at his shoulder. His book was in his lap since he had apparently fallen sleep while reading to Kelly. Uncle Jerry had already gone.

“Mister O’Donnelly, you’ve missed quite a show!” the sleep expert announced. “Your cousin seems to have had another of her atypical REM episodes. It ended only a few minutes ago.”

“Is she all right?”

“As far as I can tell, she is,” confirmed the physician. “Do you have any idea when you fell asleep?”

“No, I didn’t even know I was sleepy until you woke me up. Why?”

“I’m wondering if there’s any relation between your reading to her and her REM episodes. But I’d have to know just when your reading began and ended.”

“Sorry I fell asleep, Doc.”

“Don’t worry about it. You didn’t know. Do you read to her much?”

“Every time I come in, I do.”

“It would help if you would note the exact time you begin and end reading.”

“I’ll try and remember that next time.”

“I’d appreciate that,” Dr. Belknap thanked him and with a smile, left the room.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

After Dr. Belknap left the room, Sean sat down again and continued to read to his cousin a while longer. He did notice that one of Kelly’s bandmates had entered and was standing next to him. She waited until he had finished reading the current story before interrupting him.

“Good morning, Sean,” Mórag greeted him. “Remember me?”

“Yeah, I do,” he answered. “G’mornin’, Mórag.”

“I’m sorry about what Fiona said to you this morning,” she apologized. “Please don’t be angry with the rest of us for what she did.”

“Did she tell you to come and apologize to me?”

“No. It was my idea. I also told her not to call you. She did enough damage that I hope to undo. Since you’re here, too, I’m hoping we might talk.”

“All right. But let’s step outside.”

Sean and Mórag went out to the waiting area of the ICU and sat down.

“Sean, what I’d like to say first is that Molly, Móira, and myself still would like you to audition tomorrow morning. And we think that Fiona’s nuts trying to get you dress up like Kelly.”

“Well, I’m glad someone thinks so! Why’s that such an issue with ’er anyway?”

Mórag felt hesitant to tell Sean private things about her friend, but since Fiona was trying to involve herself in Sean’s life, Mórag thought he had a right to know about her friend’s proclivities.

“To make a long story short, I think Fiona has a crush on you, Sean.”

“What?”

“She’s falling for you,” reiterated Mórag. “She’s crazy for you.”

“But why does she want me dressing up? That doesn’t make sense.”

“Yes, it does. But you don’t know her history,” Mórag answered. “Since she was in Kindergarten, she’s always had fun dressing boys up like girls. Classmates, friends, her brother, and after she started dating, boyfriends.”

“What?”

“She gets a thrill from making boys dress like girls. She’s done it for a long time. It was cute when we were schoolgirls, but she’s never quite grown out of it. Her insistence on getting you in a dress makes me think she’s got a crush on you.”

“Oh, that’s just great!” Sean sighed in sarcasm. “And I’m in no way interested in her. Let’s just say she’s not my type. Besides, you could say I’ve got a ‘crush’ of my own.”

“Will you tell me who it is?”

“No.”

Mórag had figured Sean for someone who tended to be very reserved. His responses were certainly consistent with that. In fact she was a little surprised that he had admitted to having a crush on anyone. So maybe he trusted her somewhat. But the issue she had to bring up next might strain that trust. Yet she had to raise the question.

“Sean, when we met Monday, I thought I recognized you but I couldn’t place where until I talked with a girlfriend. Now I know for sure. But when we talked about your musical background, you never mentioned the violin.”

“How did you know?” Sean asked desperately, looking almost as if a deep secret had been betrayed. “Did Kelly tell you?”

“Oh no! My girlfriend Tanya had to win over you to get into Curtis. I was at the auditions with her,” replied Mórag. “I’ve heard you play and you’re brilliant!”