Enter The Dream Emporium

The sky is a pale blush, the smell of light rain in the streets, though none has fallen. You hurry along, wondering how this day became so filled with appointments. You have time perhaps to stop at a local vendor for a cup of hot cider. You do not expect to come across the emporium.

It is the sign that captures your attention, the whimsy of the name. Dream Emporium is printed in looping silver script on stark ivory canvas, so pale it is almost invisible against the background, unless caught in the right light. The shop front is bare, the windows backed by white curtains, some colourful glass pieces hanging on strings against the glass, catching the light and emitting it back in verdant, scarlet and violet. 

While you are hungry and have little time, your curiousity overcomes you and you find yourself reaching for the curved handle of the white door. 

You enter with a mixture of excitement and curiousity. 

The Dream Emporium is an amalgamation of parlour and junk shop. The walls are white, the cieling draped with pale blue silk streamers. A chandelier hangs from the centre of the cieling, swaying slightly as the door closes and casting pale light over the rest of the room. It is long, the area behind the counter stretching into rows of book cases that melt into darkness. 

There is a day bed against one wall, two arm chairs against another, an empty fireplace, but the centre of the room is bare. It is the oddities that line the shelves that make it cozy. On the shelves are mismatched items, broken and unloved. Gems, plastic and real, among wardian cases, miniatures, fork twines, broken china and astronomical instruments. A venetian mask, starwhite with an array of black music notes sprayed over the brow like vines crawling away from a bloom, silver ribbons cascading across it. A lampshade without a lamp, red and orange with silver beads and bells, elephants marching around the rim in a parade of gold thread, tassels fraying. Spanish fans and tintype photographs of minarets. A phonograph housing dust bunnies and glass mice in its horn. 

The emporium is sparkling with its trinkets, but in the air there is the feeling of something very old, the presence of something ancient and powerful. 

Perhaps it comes from the woman behind the counter who looks up as you browse. She has white hair, pulled into a messy bun behind her. Her face is as lined as a map but her eyes are bright and watchful. She hunches over but her height must be the same as yours, if not slightly taller. She plays with the noose of tangled necklaces around her throat and when she becomes bored with that she fixes a porcelain doll who sits on the counter so she is leaning against a stack of books, her cracked feet in front of her. 

She stands, still hunched over, and turns to a great grandfather clock you did not notice before. It is an antique, wood dark and dusty, and it has stopped ticking. She opens it and winds the clock until the hands begin to move, first with loud groaning protests, then with thunks that give the shop its own heartbeat. 

"May I help you?" she asks, voice low and earthy. It is an interesting voice, made for telling stories. 

You are unsure what to say. You have no idea what is sold, how bartering takes place. You are not certain what the items on the shelves are for. You mention this to her, asking what her trade is. 

"Fairy tales are our trade," she responds. She lowers her voice and leans across the counter. 

"We deal in dreams."

Art by K Y Craft

Text by Lucie MacAulay