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Oscar takes the train back to London and starts asking around about Roby.
A person buying a book mentions that Randolph Carter had known Roby, and the next morning he can set up some time to talk to him.
Huh, wasn't that the guy Terrence talked to at the party? He seemed a bit much. But that's like 40% of his customers; he has a lot of experience in this area.
He reluctantly nods. "I was wondering how much headway you'd made into Der Wanderer."
".........Oh. How was it? Anything particularly compelling? Or disturbing, as it were?"
"You know, I only skimmed it and I was considering saying the same to you."
"I'm not thinking straight, Sal. I have this thought like-- I feel like I could see the future. Or send someone a vision of it. Like Roby and William Way, is how it feels in my head."
"What? How? Like it feels like you know what you would have to do to cause that, or like you know if you just set your mind to it...?"
Oh, this is dangerous. This is playing with fire. Sal should not be doing this. "Well, you could try to give me a vision right now and if it doesn't work it'll help snap you out of it."
"I don't need you to help me check whether I'm delusional. I know it's not true. I just can't make the feeling go away."
"I don't think you're delusional. I just know that sometimes it settles my stomach if I can see in front of me that the impossible thing I'm ruminating on isn't happening."
"...I told you because I know you're a nice kid. Understand I don't want this getting out to people."
"Thank you. I don't think you do. But If I'm going crazy because I read a book that's terrible for my shop and my family and. You know about how I got sent to prison, right?"
"I heard a bit about that. Didn't mean to scare you. I really don't think you're crazy. ...I was gonna ask about your dreams, if you wanted to talk about that still, but I get it if you don't. Promise I won't try to offer any more solutions if you just want to vent."
"I had a couple dreams about the King in Yellow. Or, I guess, one where I was playing in an orchestra. Violin. All the other players had just broken loose. And the conductor pointed at me and I saw my sheet music just had the Yellow Sign. It was wriggling like a centipede and I knew those were our directions. I still remember the feel of the dream. It was horrible."
"Some of it, yeah. ...After I finished I had another, kind of medievalist dream you could say, about being on a moor. I don't spend a lot of time out there but in the dream, everything was oddly clear-- and there was a falconer named Hastur."
"Hastur?" ...He scribbles this down. Just in case this is another recurring name.
"It's fine. They're dreams, after all, we're not going to remember them perfectly or make perfect sense of them."
"Right. Thanks for listening, Sal, I owe you a book or something... Promise me you won't read Der Wanderer."
"I absolutely promise you that." He smiles. "Promise me you won't read The King in Yellow."
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