Dreamquake: Book Two of the Dreamhunter Duet (11 page)

HE MAN IN THE CHAIR BEFORE CAS DORAN’S DESK WAS TIRED OF ANSWERING THE SAME QUESTIONS, OF GIVING
answers that couldn’t satisfy anyone, even himself.

“The assailant smashed the lights and broke the doors,” he said. “He was wearing a mask. Or he had dirt on his face and a black mask tied across his eyes. He was wrapped up in something thick and squishy. His body felt soft when he knocked me down. He was there one moment, then gone the next. It was dark all along the second tier. Mrs. Tiebold was shouting at us because a mob was after Mr. Mason. I sent my men down to see what they could do for Mason—then, shortly after that, the police arrived. I didn’t see where our assailant went.”

Secretary Doran was silent for so long that the former head of the Rainbow Opera’s fire watch finally raised his face.

“Whoever he was, he was awake before the dream ended,” Doran said. “Or he hadn’t slept at all.”

The man nodded.

“A coat, a hat, padded clothes, well-built, masked, perhaps six and a half feet in height, you say?”

“Yes. And he was gritty, as though he’d been lying on the ground.”

“The doors were hanging off their hinges. The doorframes were splintered.”

“Yes, I saw that later,” the man said. He looked miserable. “I should have ordered the alarm bells rung as soon as the screaming started. We just watched Mrs. Tiebold fighting it—the nightmare. We couldn’t understand at first that everyone was doing the same thing. I’ve never seen a dreamhunter with a nightmare.” The man made claws of his hands and touched his pallid, unmarked cheeks.

Cas Doran’s hand went to his own face and the stiff rows of adhesive bandages.

“It was an emergency. We weren’t meant to stand by amazed,” the man said. Then, “Will I be prosecuted?”

“That’s up to your manager, and the police.”

Grace arrived home earlier than Chorley expected, battered and dirty. He was able to tell her that Laura was no longer at her aunt Marta’s but was safe, and Rose was back at school.

“I’ll want to talk to Laura,” Grace said.

Chorley opened his mouth to explain that that might be difficult, and why, but his wife interrupted him. “I’m going to have a bath,” she said.

Half an hour later, Chorley carried a tray upstairs—soup in a cup, buttered toast, coffee. He put a stool by the tub and set the tray on it.

Grace said, “I’m going to catch the express to Sisters Beach tonight. I’ve got a copy of Secret Room. It’s somewhat spicy, so I’d better not give it to our neighbors. Summerfort is far enough from other houses. The dream isn’t at my full size—something to do with Plasir’s eensy-teensy penumbra, which I might say may be tiny but is as black and deep as a well.”

“You slept with Plasir?”

“Yes, dear. Out in the woods too.”

Chorley took deep breaths.

“Only a master dream can erase a master dream,” Grace said. “I was lucky. Plasir already had Secret Room. He went In on St. Lazarus’s Eve, apparently. He told me that St. Lazarus’s Day is a good day for him to go dreamhunting since no one wants his performances on family holidays.” Grace smirked. “Anyway, I checked the intentions book before I caught the coach from Doorhandle. Plasir did go In shortly before midnight, almost as though he wanted an alibi.”

“You can’t seriously think Plasir had anything to do with the nightmare? With his parlor-sized penumbra?”

“I don’t know what I think.” Grace emptied the soup cup and started on the toast and coffee. She told Chorley she wanted him to come to Summerfort with her. “You’ll enjoy Secret Room.” She looked at him, cool. “You should be grateful that I want you to come. You must know I’m angry with you.”

Chorley nodded. Then he smiled. And it was a smile not of gratitude or reassurance but of plain happiness. “And I bet you could do with some really good news,” he said.

10

AURA LEFT THE TEMPLE AFTER FIVE DAYS. SHE PROMISED NOT TO SLEEP ON THE TRAIN. SHE WAS ACCOMPANIED BY
the nuns who had looked after her, and by Father Roy, who said—once they’d boarded the train and closed the door of their compartment—that they were going with her only as far as Westport.

“This is an express, isn’t it?” Laura said. “I had hoped we’d stop at Aunt Marta’s.”

“Your aunt has been included in every decision made on your behalf,” said Father Roy. “She knows where you’re going.” He watched the girl withdraw into a corner of the seat, then into the folds of her black winter coat. She looked like some animal backing into its burrow.

Shortly before the express passed Marta Hame’s stop, Laura got up and went out into the corridor.

Father Roy observed her.

She stood, her cheek laid on the window, and watched the stop come up. Her eyes were fixed on a hill near Marta Hame’s house, a hill with a crest of black pines. Laura stared as the hill loomed, then flicked a glance at the compartment. Her eyes were bright and furtive. She left the window and hurried away along the jostling carriage.

Father Roy jumped up, threw open the compartment door,
and ran after her. She was at the end of the carriage, hauling with her whole weight on the red-painted handle of the emergency brake—which, fortunately, had not been designed with a child’s strength in mind.

Father Roy threw himself at Laura and tore her away from the handle. She turned on him, hitting him with her fists.

The sisters appeared and helped him subdue her as gently as they could. As they hustled her back into the compartment, her head turned to follow the sight of that hill, sliding from window to window, then retreating along the track.

They closed the compartment door and sat her down.

“I have to see him,” she said.

“You will be allowed to write to your friends. So long as you’re careful what you say,” Father Roy told her. He thought, “And we will read your letters. And perhaps discover who is in this with you. Whose strength you’re looking to now. Who the
real
Lazarus is.”

1

OUR WEEKS AFTER THE RAINBOW OPERA RIOT, SANDY MASON RECEIVED A LETTER. ITS ENVELOPE WAS POSTMARKED
“Westport Central Post Office.” The letter was sent care of Mrs. Lilley at Sandy’s boardinghouse in Doorhandle, and he had to retrieve it under the watchful eye of his landlady’s daughters.

The Lilley girls had a constant parade of young and homesick dreamhunters pass under their noses. They were choosy about whom they would pay special attention to, offer treats, and flirt with. Alexander Mason, at nineteen, already had one good dream registered in his name. He had good prospects, and the Lilley girls were determined to cultivate him. When the letter arrived, the sisters at once got their hands on it. They had a look at the handwriting on the envelope and decided that it was from “that Hame girl”—that sullen, flatchested thing whom Sandy Mason, for some unfathomable reason, admired. The Lilley girls didn’t hide Laura’s letter, for they were principled schemers. But they did make sure they were present when Sandy retrieved it from the stack of mail on the hall table so that they could watch his reaction.

Sandy Mason was big but sure-footed. And yet, the moment he glanced at the envelope, he stumbled and knocked his knee on the newel post. He stood frozen at the foot of the
stairs and gazed at what he held in his hand. Then he tore the envelope open while bounding on up the steps. A second envelope dropped out on the landing, and he stooped to pick it up, then straightened slowly, staring at its address. Then he began to read the other pages while still stopped on the landing. His hand trembled. He walked slowly out of the Lilley girls’ sight.

The girls’ mother came out of her sitting room. “Was that Mr. Mason? Did he get his letter?”

“Yes, Mother.”

Mrs. Lilley regarded her daughters sharply. They were at their most refined when dealing with—or even thinking about—Alexander Mason. She wasn’t sure which one of them had decided to snare him, or whether they were still working it out.

“Mother?” said one. “Are Miss Hame’s aunt and uncle still paying for her room?”