Dreamhunter Duet: Dreamquake Part 11

Ru said, "I'm very sorry I frightened you, Rose. It wasn't my intention to cause you any distress by my clumsy teasing."

"Rose?" Doran said, as if he wanted her to make an argument or ask something. He was prepared to let Ru make light of what had happened, but he was still offering her a chance to put up a fight.

Ru said, "It was only supposed to be a bit of fun. It was thoughtless of me."

"All right," Rose said. She wanted to get out of the room. Her sight was clearing. She'd felt concealed by her temporary blindness. Now she could see Ru's smirking, false humility, and his father's searching stare.

Rose realized that the names-Langdon, Polish, Swindon,Pinkney-were those of dreamhunters; she was sure of it. Gavin Pinkney was Maze Plasir's apprentice. And she was sure that the circles represented penumbras. Overlapping penumbras, covering much of central Founderston.

"May I go now?" she said.

"Yes, of course," Doran said. But as she walked by him, he put out a hand and touched her arm. "Thank you for hearing him."

Rose shrank back involuntarily. Then she gave a stiff nod and went out.

The following morning, at low tide, Rose and Mamie and several of the Doran household's numerous all-purpose servants walked to the train stop by the trestle bridge over the mouth of the Sva. The men set out the flag for the westbound local, then put Rose's trunk on it when it came. Rose kissed Mamie goodbye and got on the train.

At Sisters Beach Station, she left her trunk with the stationmaster and walked around the waterfront and up the hill to Summerfort. She found her mother and father sitting on the wicker chairs on the veranda, in their robes and with damp hair, though it was past noon.

"h.e.l.lo, Rosy," said her da. "Is it next Friday already?"

"What happened, darling?" asked Grace.

Rose opened her drawstring purse and pa.s.sed her father Cas Doran's letter. "I'd like to read that after you," she said.

Grace got up and read over Chorley's shoulder. Partway through she took a deep breath and puffed up all over like an angry cat. Chorley handed the letter to Rose and ran his hands through his hair.

Rose read, My dear Mr. Tiebold, Your daughter cut short her visit, though I understand from both her and Mamie that there is some plan for a reciprocal visit sometime after Christmas. I will leave it to you to decide whether or not that should be permitted.

Rose asked to leave because she had some trouble with my son, Richard. I questioned Rose and Richard, and, unfortunately, received differing accounts of the incident. I do intend to press my son further and deal with him as I find he deserves. For now, I am very sorry for Rose's distress, and I hope she will soon be comfortable and cheerful again.

Yours sincerely,

Cas Doran

"What did the boy do, darling?" Grace asked.

"Nothing much. I did think he might hurt me. Though it could have been only a nasty sort of teasing. He grabbed me and kept hold of me even when I told him to let go. I had to tread on his foot."

Rose looked into their concerned faces. She remembered how, when she had gotten up the morning after her scene with Ru, she had checked for a bruise on her wrist and was disappointed not to find one. Then she recalled the bruises encircling Laura's wrists, black bands of bruising, marks she'd noticed as her cousin stood, unbinding her hands, on the balcony of the Rainbow Opera the night of the riot. "Oh, Laura," she thought again.

She said to her parents, "I wish I knew for sure that I was in danger."

"You did know." Grace put her arms around her daughter.

"I was more angry than scared, Ma. It doesn't seem right to cause so much trouble out of anger."

"The boy deserves trouble," Chorley said. "You can't go around grabbing girls."

"Yes, Professor," said Grace.

"I'll follow it up," Chorley said. "I'll make sure Doran does deal with him."

Grace frowned at Chorley and gave a small shake of her head.

"My trunk is at the station," Rose said.

"I'll go get it," her father said, and stepped off the porch before remembering he was still in his robe.

As her mother led her indoors, Rose asked, "Is Laura really coming home for Christmas?"

"Yes. Everyone will be here," said Grace. "The whole family-just the same as last year." She smiled at Rose. "Isn't that amazing?"

3.

Y MIDAFTERNOON ON THE DAY LAURA AND TZIGA WERE DUE AT SUMMERFORT, ROSE HAD COMPLETED ALMOST ALL her tasks. She'd been to Farry's to buy cakes. She'd purchased colored crepe paper to make paper chains. She'd sorted through the boxes of old Christmas decorations for whatever was salvageable. Since the family wasn't going to have a tree that year, Rose rejected the gla.s.s b.a.l.l.s and birds. She was glad she wouldn't have to sit around with a white soap bar and cheese grater making snow to sprinkle on the branches. Rose's ma had always liked to dress the tree. Grace also liked roast goose and brandy-soaked puddings. But Rose's da had put his foot down several years ago about the midwinter menu, and Summerfort's cook would now roast a couple of ducks the day before and spend her own Christmas at home while the family dined on cold meat, salads, and fresh berries with cream.

"It'll be just like last year," Rose thought as she hung paper lanterns. "Only without a tree." She rather missed the tree, which always smelled lovely, though it had seemed like some magnificent and neglected altar, glittering in the dark indoors, ghostly with its soap snow, and at many removes both from what it commemorated, Christ's birthday, and where it was, a beach house at the height of summer.

After she had hung the decorations, Rose tried to settle down and read a book. Not only was she unable to concentrate but she found it impossible to sit still. She wandered around the house till her mother told her to either sit down or go outside. Rose went out and ambled around Summer-fort's grounds, circling the house at the edge of the lawns. When the sun had set, she lit the lanterns. Then she ran down to the beach and stood at the water's edge, looking out over the smooth bay for a boat. There were several lit masts. Some were moving across the water-fis.h.i.+ng vessels heading into Tarry Cove-and some were apparently stationary, though any of those might actually have been headed toward their end of Sisters Beach. Rose strained her eyes. Then the dusk-loving sandflies found her and she had to move again.

She left the beach and walked around the base of the headland to the lagoon. The tide was out. When Rose stepped onto the sand, it bubbled as small basking crabs scuttled back down their water-filled holes. She strolled out into the quiet arena of damp sand. There was no traffic on the road beyond the lagoon, or the rail line farther away against the base of the hills. The night seemed enormous. Rose wasn't used to being alone-she was often alone in a room reading and, now that she was grown, almost always alone in bed, but not in a landscape. As she paced out into that s.p.a.ce, her bare feet on warm silt and rotted sh.e.l.ls, she felt that she was taking a little look at the lives of some of the people nearest to her-Laura, her uncle Tziga, her own mother. "How far away they must be," she thought, "whenever they take one of their walks."

When she and Laura were children and complaining that they were bored, Rose's da would say: "Don't you have any internal resources?" Having "internal resources" meant having a lively mind, interests, appet.i.te. It meant that you should go and get a book or draw a picture. It meant "entertain your-selves"-preferably quietly. Rose had always been able to entertain herself, and to entertain Laura too. Laura wasn't as avid a reader, and she was less inclined to think up projects or start a new game. "Given an audience, I expand," Rose thought, "but given s.p.a.ce, I shrink." Yet Laura-Laura had found s.p.a.ce because she wasn't always with noisy, definite Rose, and because she'd left school and become a dream-hunter, and because her father had disappeared. "She's grown so much," Rose thought. Then, "Will I ever catch up with her?"

Rose turned around and tried to find the break in the trees where the track went up behind the headland. She couldn't see it at all. She walked to the trees and went along beside them, stumbling sometimes and skinning her ankles on drift-wood, till she found it. Its soft, sandy surface was cold now. There was dew on the trees flanking the path, and dew on the lawns of Summerfort. All the lanterns were still alight, but several of their candles were guttering. The gla.s.s doors were closed on the rapidly cooling air.

Rose went in and ran upstairs. There was a light in Laura's room. Rose pushed the door open.

Laura was standing at her bureau patting one of the furred, silvery lamb's-lugs in Rose's flower arrangement. She was wearing a darned jersey; it was too big for her. She also had on heavy cotton trousers and rope-soled sandals. Her hair had grown, so that its uneven lengths made a wide black halo around her face.

"h.e.l.lo," Rose said. Then, "The flowers were Ma's idea," for some reason finding herself unwilling to admit to all the trouble she'd taken.

"Doesn't your ma usually just cram them in a vase and leave it at that?"

"Your hair looks nice. You should let it grow," Rose said, then immediately regretted her bossiness.

Laura wandered over to the window and eased it up a few inches. She looked out into the blackness. Her look was expectant and yearning. Without turning around, she asked, "How was it at the Doran summerhouse?"

Rose plonked herself down onto the bed. She began to talk breathlessly about the map she'd spotted in Cas Doran's library, its circles representing penumbras, and how, in some of the circles, there were names of dreamhunters who had disappeared. "Or dreamhunters who were supposed to have taken 'early retirement,' " she added. "Gone back to their towns south of The Corridor, or gone abroad. There weren't any big earners among them, no one really distinguished. Da and Ma looked up the names I'd managed to memorize. Ma tried to find them by tracking down their friends and relatives. She'd show up supposedly to return something she'd borrowed. And Da's planning to reconnoiter one of the properties. He wants to see who is in residence. I'd like to do it. I could throw my schoolbag over the wall of 121 Courtesy Street and then sneak in, and if someone caught me I could say that one of my friends tossed my bag over the wall. Da can't do that. What's he going to say? 'I'm sorry, but my silly friend Mr. Brown threw my umbrella into your garden'?"

"Do you think Cas Doran wants to get a whole lot of dreamhunters coloring Founderston's dreams?" Laura asked, frowning. "I thought Colorists were rare, not just because coloring is illegal but because it's difficult to do."

"We have no idea what he means to do. But whatever it is, he's got coverage of practically the whole central city."

Laura came and sat on the bed too. Rose smiled but didn't pause in her talk. She felt that she was trying to lure some shy animal. She told Laura about the constantly replenished piles of narrow-gauge railway materials beside the border. "Ma immediately decided to take a trip to The Pinnacles, but when she made inquiries at the Tricksie Bend rangers' station about the pa.s.s, she was told it was closed for repairs."

"Which would support Cas Doran's story about the rails being used to reinforce collapsing banks."

"Except he said the rails were leftovers. That there was just one lot. In which case, they've been sitting there for two years without rusting."

Laura nodded.

"Taken together with the circles on the map, the rails just seem-"

"Yes-there's a rail line." Laura seemed certain. "A rail line Inland. But why? And when the pa.s.s is closed, is there just a sign saying 'Danger. Closed for Repairs'?"

"There's a locked gate, apparently. A big, spiked iron gate."

The girls looked at each other, wide-eyed. Rose was so curious about this theoretical railway that she was practically urging Laura to go check it out right now.

"I'll go after Christmas," Laura p.r.o.nounced, as if she was reading her cousin's mind. "I'll take Nown with me, to see how he manages the gate."

Rose's hands went numb, then her feet followed. For a moment she thought she might faint. She stared at her cousin, dumb. "Noun" was the word Laura had yelled at the Rainbow Opera. A monster had come running in answer to Laura's call and had carried her away. The monster had NOWN inscribed on the back of its neck.

After a moment Laura seemed to realize what she'd said. She glanced at Rose's face. She looked startled and sly.

"Your monster," Rose said. "Whose name is Nown."

"He's not a monster. He's a-" Laura paused and pondered. "He's a soul called into different bodies, time and again, throughout history. Bodies made of earth, or fired clay. And once of ash-or so he tells me."

Rose sat with her mouth hanging open. She wanted to ask why Laura was telling her this now when she'd denied it before, at the risk of Rose's great resentment. She said, tentative, "Why did you-?"

Laura didn't let her finish. She seemed eager to talk, eager now to tell. "Why did I make him?"

This wasn't what Rose had intended to ask, but she was distracted by the question. "You made him?"

"Yes. That's how he comes to exist. He's made. I said that. He's made of sand, or earth, or fired clay, and once of ash. And I think whoever makes him has to need him very badly. And they have to give something up. When Da got on the special train last summer, and I learned he wouldn't be at my Try, I just gave up some of my faith in him. I think I understood that, even without knowing it himself, Da meant to leave me. He meant not to be there for me, at my Try, and then not at all."

"Wait. What do you mean?"

"Da jumped off the pier at Westport. Didn't anyone tell you that?"

"I thought it was an accident." Rose was horrified.

Laura shook her head. "No. And I think I knew. I thought he was letting me down, but I felt he was leaving me. I gave up my faith in him. Or rather, my faith left me. But it didn't just blow away like smoke. I saw that rock on the railbed, the rock I just had to pick up. I think I put my lost faith into it, without knowing what it was for. And without knowing what wanting to do that was for. What being able to do that was for. Then, much later, I put the rock into Nown's chest when I made him."

"Oh my G.o.d!" said Rose. To her eyes it seemed that her cousin was framed by brackets of blue light. Then black patches bloomed on Laura's face and obliterated it altogether.Rose bent and pressed her face into the coverlet. She felt nothing-for a moment saw and heard nothing. Then her sense of touch came back, and the texture of the embroidery under her cheek. Laura was stroking the back of her neck. "Oh my G.o.d!" Rose said again, m.u.f.fled.

Laura reminded her cousin that she was an atheist.

Rose wriggled violently, like an infant trying to avoid being dressed. Then she sat up. "So your monster doesn't just smash things and run off with girls?"

Laura smiled. It was one of her rare very happy smiles, which, having reached its physical limits in terms of crinkling eyes and curving lips, then seemed to go on to pump light into the air around her. She said, "No. Mostly he just does what I say, but all the time noticing the world in a way that's entirely his own."

Rose opened her mouth to ask something further but was disturbed by a knock on Laura's door. Rose's ma put her head around it. "Rose," Grace said, "you should come say h.e.l.lo to your uncle Tziga. He has to go to bed right after we've had dinner."

Rose clapped her hands to her face. She felt the heat come into her cheeks. She got up and ran downstairs. Laura and Grace came after her, talking-Rose caught s.n.a.t.c.hes of their exchange. "You've grown an inch or so," Grace said. "You'll need new s.h.i.+rts and trousers."

Rose's da and her uncle were sitting in armchairs by the window of the lightless living room. The moon was coming up over the headland at the eastern end of the beach. Rose went to kiss her uncle and first saw the changes in his appearance by moonlight-which made them somehow less terrible. She crouched by his feet, and he took her hands in his.

Chorley said, "We've just been discussing Doran's map and surplus rails."

"Us too," Rose said. She glanced at Laura. "That's what we were talking about."

"That's nice," said Grace, droll. "Now you two pairs of conspirators can get together in a pack. I almost feel sorry for Secretary Doran."

4.

E FAMILY HAD SEVERAL DAYS DURING WHICH, IN THE SPIRIT OF THE SEASON, THEY WERE VERY CAREFUL WITH ONE another. Rose was now keeping Laura's secret and already felt she wouldn't have much trouble doing so. She was hardly likely to talk about something she had such difficulty even thinking about. When she thought about Laura saying "He's not a monster, he's a soul," Rose would get dizzy with astonishment.

On Boxing Day the cousins ambled along the seafront to Farry's. They sat at their favorite table, looking out on Main Street and its traffic of vacationers in summer finery, ladies in new hats or gowns, men either dutifully or proudly wearing Christmas present ties and tie pins. The children had new toys, dolls and dolls' carriages, bats and b.a.l.l.s and sailboats, but they were blotchy and fretful, still recovering from Christmas Eve sleeplessness.

The cousins ate white chocolate and cardamom ice cream, and Rose told Laura about what she was now referring to as her "run-in with Ru Doran." She said, "I don't want to exaggerate how upset I was. Especially not with Mamie coming in a few days."

"I would have been upset too, if it was me," Laura said.

"I keep feeling I should have known how to handle him better. And I shouldn't have complained to Mamie. It was Mamie who made a fuss. She's very loyal to me." Rose touched the high collar of her s.h.i.+rtwaist dress. "Anyway, the whole thing has me dressing differently."

"There are nice boys, Rose. You might want one of the nice ones to notice your figure."

"Maybe nice boys don't notice those things," Rose said.

"Huh!" Laura said. "What's the first thing you notice about a boy?"

Rose scanned the room. The only young men in Farry's that day were the waiters. One caught Rose's eye and came over. "Can I get you ladies anything more?"

"Manners," said Rose to Laura, answering her question.