“Oh, do come help me look, Mark, I need to find a good gift for Sarah!” Linda Williams’ strident voice filled the cluttered, dusty little Santa Fe curio shop to overflowing; but then again, the actress’ presence had a way of doing that to even a much larger space. “Too much of a good thing,” as her first husband had so wryly described it. That went double for most of Linda. Her overdone Southwestern Chic designer-cowgirl death-by-fringe dress; the hairstyle strategically cut to make her chestnut brown hair droop seductively over one eye, thus allowing for much dramatic sweeping-off-the-brow to punctuate her conversation; the “I am NOT getting older” mask of makeup; the smile which always somehow struck the viewer as having entirely too many teeth in it.

Mark Reyes, the latest in the series to do double duty as her leading man and (in)significant other, only winced in response from across the room, where he was moodily regarding a pile of brightly patterned Native American blankets and picking absently at their fringed borders. The casual observer would’ve been hard-pressed to tell him apart from Jeremy, or Steve, or Jack, or any of Linda’s former boy-toys; they were all basically Ken dolls, only with better hair. It had been a horrible mistake, he reflected, letting Linda talk him into this vacation. If she’d wanted to go someplace trendy so badly, why couldn’t it have been Aspen? At least he could’ve gone skiing up there. Here, his distaste for all things southwestern was becoming surpassed only by his distaste for shopping, and he’d had a full dose of both today, with a vengeance. His feet ached from walking, his posterior ached from horseback riding, his stomach ached from hunger, and his heart ached to see the last of the Broncos game he was most certainly missing at this very moment. They’d been in and out of stores for what seemed like an eternity to him, and just when he thought he’d finally talked her into stopping the MasterCard Siege of Santa Fe long enough to return to the hotel for dinner and the tail end of the game, she’d spotted this place and had been drawn to it like a vampire to a blood bank. Damned if he could see what was so special about it. He looked up, and exchanged sympathetic glances with the stuffed stag head mounted on the wall. I know how you feel, pal, he thought, grinning slightly. I’m kinda stuck here too.

“Let me think,” he finally replied. “How about one of those pastel-colored bandanna-wearing howling coyotes?”

“No, of course not, you silly boy, I want a -- well, I’m not exactly sure what I want, to be perfectly frank, but I’ll know it when I see it.” Coincidentally enough, this pretty accurately summed up Linda’s largely unsuccessful Philosophy of Life, as well. “It’s here, I know it is, I have a very good feeling about this place. And you know my instincts are always right about this sort of thing.”

Mark winced again. Linda fancied herself a bit of a psychic. In all honesty, the closest she’d come was sitting next to Dionne Warwick at a party.

“Look, Linda, I’m really no good at this, you know that. Why don’t you just ask the shopkeeper if he knows a good gift for a daughter. If you can find him. He may be buried and rotting somewhere under all this rubble, for all I know. Actually, I have no idea what buried treasure you think you’re going to dig up in here. You call it quaint, I call it creepy.”

With an exasperated sigh, Linda gave up on the underwhelmingly enthusiastic Mark and resumed her lonely hunt through the seemingly bottomless strata of souvenirs and antiques. For a moment, only the softly eerie sound of wind chimes filled the silence.

“May I suggest a dreamcatcher for your daughter? This is an unusually lovely one.”

Linda Williams started at the sound of the shopkeeper’s voice behind her, not merely because his unannounced appearance was startling, but because it was the sort of voice which invariably commanded that sort of reaction. Even after her extensive theatrical experiences co-starring with actors who owed half their success to their diction, this one was unique. British-tinged inflections over a deeply sensual and sonorous undertone, shaping even the simplest of syllables into what could only be described as resonant music. Effortless and perfect. A voice which somehow managed, even in that brief utterance, to imply that she, as the object of his perusal, was every bit as unusually lovely as the dreamcatcher which was now the object of hers. Shameless flattery, of course, and Linda was shrewd enough to recognize it immediately. But vain enough not to give a damn if it was.

Mark glanced over in time to see Linda flashing one of her patented dazzling smiles at the man. He was tall and slim, his longish white-blond hair drawn back into a ragged ponytail from which rebellious wisps continually threatened to escape. An ensemble of a simple yet expensively tailored white silk shirt, black vest, tight black slacks, and black boots was topped off with some sort of occult pendant. Obviously one of the typical arty-farty crystal-reading karma-quoting new-age yahoos that were so ubiquitous around here. Any minute now he’s going to start telling us how he was Julius Caesar in a former life or something, Mark snorted derisively. Or maybe Cleopatra, considering the fact that he actually appeared to be wearing a bit of eyeshadow, which, for Mark, was relatively high on the list of Things Guys Don’t Do. The thought of this upset him rather more than the sight of Linda flirting openly in front of him. He had grown used to that early on in their relationship. Or at least that’s what he kept telling himself. He turned back to memorizing the weave of the blankets, which, were they capable of embarrassment, would have been horribly uneasy under this unusual excess of scrutiny.

Mark was not enjoying his Santa Fe Experience at all.

Linda, on the other hand, was having a ball. Especially at that particular moment. If Godiva chocolate could talk, it would have this man’s voice. “A dreamcatcher? What a lovely name. Whatever is it for?”

To get unsuspecting tourists to shell out money, what the hell do you think? Mark glared fiercely at the inoffensive blankets in front of him, which of course did little to relieve his feelings. If someone says the word ‘lovely’ one more time, I’ll scream.

“Yes, it is a lovely name, for a lovely tradition. You see, according to legend, the first dreamcatcher was woven by grandmother Spider as a gift to humanity, to entrap the nightmares which plague our dreams. Every dreamcatcher I create is as unique as the person it is designed to guard. I’ve named this one ‘Crystal Moon.’”

It was a circular web woven from delicate silver wire, gossamer as a tangible coalescence of moonlight. Tiny, iridescent faceted crystal beads encrusted the creation in a complex pattern, shimmering in the poor light which slanted through the grimy, almost opaque windows like dewdrops caught on a cobweb. Thirteen pure white feathers encircled its edge, lightly floating with her every intake of breath, as if moved by a dim memory of flight. The entire concoction sparkled, as if from a thin dusting of glitter. She stared, fascinated, watching it twirl slowly on the fragile silver chain suspended from her hand.

“It’s just so . . . so very lovely,” Linda enthused, ignoring the resultant groan from Mark. “Are those dove feathers?”

“Owl feathers, actually.” The man’s lips twitched slightly, as if prompted by some private inner joke.

“It’s truly a work of art. Yes, this is just the thing for Sarah - I even know what I’ll say on the card: ‘A gift of sweet dreams to the sweetest dreamer I know.’” Hallmark had nothing on Linda Williams when she was seized by one of her fits of sentimental inspiration. Mark smirked. Never mind that she hadn’t visited the kid in over two years.

Neither one of them noticed the odd flicker that passed over the shopkeeper’s face at the mention of Linda’s daughter’s name. If they had, they probably would have dismissed it as an unfortunate facial tic. “Yes, I’m sure it will make quite an -- impression -- upon Sarah.” Neither of them noticed the hint of malicious amusement which suddenly colored that exquisite voice, either. But Linda was never that observant even on her best days. It took her over a week, some of the nastier tabloids had said, to realize that her third husband had left her.

This was why, as Linda Williams left the shop and headed down the street, or more accurately was dragged full-tilt back to the hotel by a starving Mark, she wasn’t unduly disturbed when an odd thought suddenly struck her. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t picture the shopkeeper’s face. It was just a blank, a blur; residing in her memory was only the voice, that mesmerizing voice, and an equally mesmerizing pair of mismatched eyes.

If Linda had only spared a glance over her shoulder (an unusual action in one who had survived a succession of disastrous relationships amazingly unscathed by making it her personal motto to never look back), she would have seen those same eyes staring out at her receding figure from the shadows of the shop doorway. As a freak breeze stirred the wind chimes into a cacophonous alarm, like nerves stretched past their limit, a slow, mocking laugh cut through the mad jangle. “An ideal gift, indeed, sweet Sarah. A web of dreams. A web for dreams. And for dreamers.”

Step into my parlor, said the spider to the fly . . .

Feather image edited from Graphics by Tammy; Moon image edited from Yahright Graphics Archive; Background from Joerg Doehring's Backgrounds.