There's Always a Cassandra

“There’s Always a Cassandra” by Elizabeth Fenley

He always apologizes, the Babadook whose name he told me is Ensos, for bringing me the dreams.

I ask why he has to bring the dreams at all—and why bring them to me?

He says solemnly, “You are now the Cassandra. There must always be one.” He stares at me with vacant eye sockets, his skeletal face stretched tight with thin-sheeted rubbery pale skin. His black top hat, worn, crumpled, dusty though it is, gives him an air of dignity, of reserved poise, even grace. When his long skinless boned fingers stretch to remove the hat, the nightmare begins.

I write them down when I wake up from them—sweating, panicked—in the middle of the night or by the screech of my unforgiving alarm clock. I’ve heard anyone with especially vivid dreams should keep a dream journal, and then you could look back at your dreams and decipher the symbolism found in them.

Only my dreams aren’t symbolic.

They are foretellings. The people are real, the events are real.

The neighbor’s mother fell on the icy front steps of the house while I was having a snowball fight with my boyfriend. The ambulance took her away. Patrick couldn’t understand why I was so upset. I pulled him inside, shaking off snow and ice. I showed him the entry in the journal from two nights before.

It was identical. I remember the image. Watching it happen in real life was like déjà vu; if I hadn’t written it down, I would have shaken it off as a brain malfunction—short term memory accidentally rerouted to long term memory.

Patrick read it, skimmed it really, and then looked up at me shaking his head. “It’s just a coincidence. You knew there would be snow. You must have heard your neighbor telling your mom about the visit.”

“No, I didn’t, she didn’t---”

“This says she died in your dream. She didn’t die. So it’s nothing. Just your subconscious processing shit you haven’t gotten around to. Nothing to worry about. Did I tell you about that time I dreamed….”

He told me about his weirdest dreams and a few nightmares from his childhood, mostly about monsters, snakes in his bed, getting trapped in a closet full of spiders, while we sat by the fire drinking hot chocolate. I listened, dropping little marshmallows in and stirring them around, watching them congeal and melt, sipping the froth off the top and then adding more.

The next morning, my dad told me Mrs. Matresse’s mother died before they got to the hospital. We all signed a card for the flowers my mother took over with the turkey tetrazzini.

I texted Patrick when I heard, but he told me not to “be all caught up in the dream.”

My own boyfriend wouldn’t even try to believe me.

I didn’t tell anyone else.

After the fifth dream about someone dying, I asked Ensos why all the dreams were about death.

“I am Babadook, bone built of grief. Death is my companion. I am Her messenger.”

“Do you take death nightmares to other people? Or just me?”

He stood silently for a moment. He was always careful in developing his words. “There is only one Cassandra for each time, each plane of existence.”

“Plane of existence? What are you---”

“I have visited others for millennia. Now, I bring you The Sight. There have been many before, as there will be many after.”

“After what? After I die? What happened to the last one?”

Empty bone somehow conveyed his sadness. “The last dream I will bring you will be of your own death. When it is time.” He removed his hat, placing it somberly across his chest as he faded, and the next nightmare began. A family of five killed in a car accident on any icy bridge driving home from Thanksgiving dinner.

Again, I showed Patrick the dream journal entry from two days before Thanksgiving and the story on the news website to match. He accused me of writing the story down after it happened.

“You’re calling me a liar? I’m telling you these horrible things I dream about, and then I walk around just waiting for them to happen. Can you imagine how that feels? To know somebody’s going to die, and you’re the only one who knows, but there’s nothing you can do about it? Why the hell would I make that up?”

“God, dramatic much?”

“You think I’m doing this for attention? For sympathy?”

“Either that or you’re killing them yourself and this is some kind of insanity defense,” he replied with a stupid grin on his face—one I almost slapped out of existence.

“Or maybe I’m just crazy! Maybe that’s it.”

“Listen, Alexandra—” He reached out to grab my hand, but I flung his hand away.

“No. I won’t listen to you. You don’t believe me. My own boyfriend won’t even fucking believe me. You know what? Fuck you then.”

Patrick spread his hands, as if to say “See?”

“Get out. Now.”

He stood up, dropping my journal on my bed. “Major. Drama. Queen.”

“Whatever. Just leave.”

That night, Ensos brought me a dream of a school shooting. Sixteen students, four teachers, and the principal killed. Twenty others injured.

When I woke, I spent an hour throwing up.

I didn’t bother checking to see that it was true.

December was full of fires from faulty Christmas lights and one about a candle from a Menorah. The week before Christmas, armed robberies of shoppers putting newly-purchased gifts in their cars and families killed in their homes for the presents under their trees. On Christmas Eve, a man who had lost his job killed his entire family and then himself rather than face a joyless, giftless Christmas. Seven kids, his wife, and her elderly mother.

After that I stopped keeping the journal.

When an unknown respiratory virus killed a dozen babies in the NICU, I burned it.

I asked Ensos to stop apologizing, to just skip right into the dream.

He did not speak, simply lowered his hat and his head.

My parents took me to doctors and therapists when I stopped sleeping. I thought if I didn’t dream, it wouldn’t happen. After a few nights, I fell asleep on the couch—even though I’d used up every K-cup of coffee.

The doctors found nothing wrong with me—underweight, exhausted, stressed. They suggested melatonin, yoga, guided sleep meditation, and ironically, journaling. And they all referred me to a therapist.

I didn’t tell the therapists, of course, about Ensos or the dreams or the journal. I made up things, exaggerated about school stress and breaking up with Patrick. Otherwise, I would end up in some mental hospital on Lithium and sleeping pills.

I dropped out of college my junior year after I dreamed about a suicide on our campus. I worked as a waitress, took shifts in retail during holiday seasons. My parents were disappointed in my failure “to reach my potential” and wanted me to go back into therapy, but they couldn’t make me.

I avoided serious relationships, never spent the night. I had acquaintances at work, but no real friends. I couldn’t go through the questions, and I wouldn’t chance telling anyone again—not after Patrick.

The night before I turned thirty, Ensos spoke.

“This will be the last.”

I cried through the whole dream.

Relief.

It was someone else’s turn to be Cassandra.