Dreamquake: Book Two of the Dreamhunter Duet (55 page)

Grace lay in the circle of Foreigner’s West, a dusty blanket thrown over her for camouflage. She was asleep, despite the lumpy ground jabbing into her hip bones.

… the woman waited for him at the gate. He saw that her eyes were red, ruined by weeping. She stretched out a hand to him and clasped his wrist. He remembered that he was dreaming. He knew that the twilight was a landslide, and its silence his deafness.

The woman, small, young, strong for her size, tightened her grip and hauled him toward her through the arch of flowers, through the gate—to where it was
cold and someone was whistling, and someone else was angry, slamming a teacup down into its saucer.

A fly made a tickling six-point landing on his face …

Grace touched her face. The blowfly took off, bounced from her arm like an electrified thistledown and zoomed away. When its buzzing had faded, Grace heard a parson bird whistling above her, spitting and clanking in its characteristic mix of music and disharmony. She opened her eyes on green leaves, and the blue sky between them.

1

OSE AND MAMIE WERE HAVING BREAK-FAST WHEN THE FIRST FIGURE CAME OUT OF THE FOREST. A MAN IN YELLOW PA
jamas made his weaving way through the stream below the springhouse where the valley narrowed.

Mamie got up and opened the door to get a better look.

Another man came out of the trees. This one seemed eager. He blundered through the stream and raised his arms as if rushing to embrace someone.

“What do you make of this?” Mamie said.

Rose had watched the film and listened to Laura’s description of the captive dreamhunters. But these men had come from the forested foothills of the Riflemans, not appeared at the border on the avenue.

Mamie flicked Rose an anxious look. More figures were walking down the valley. They were mostly men, but a few were women. They all seemed disoriented, then very excited. They saw the house and hurried toward it.

“They don’t seem to be together, as such,” Mamie said.

Rose joined her friend at the door. They waited. Several servants joined them, two footmen, one carrying a cricket bat, and a maid with a feather duster, who had seen the men from an upstairs window and now looked as though she wished she’d remained upstairs.

There were more yellow-clad people arriving all the time.

“I don’t like this,” Mamie said. She drew Rose inside and shut the French doors. She shot the bolts.

As they came upon the house, the people began to babble. At first they were speaking only to themselves, rapt with relief. “This is my house,” Rose heard one cry. “I’m home!”

“My beautiful house!”

“It was all worth it, for this!”

Several paused on the terrace, puffed out their chests, and gazed around them with proprietary satisfaction. Others headed straight for the front door. The footmen repelled two—then retreated inside and slammed the door. “Miss Doran! What shall we do?”

“Don’t let them in!” Mamie looked terrified. She and Rose joined the servants gathered in the entrance hall. They listened to the voices beyond the door. Raised, contending voices. It didn’t sound like an argument; it sounded like a group of children all clamoring for attention.

“This is
my
house.”

“No. It’s mine. I built this house twenty-eight years ago.”

“Both of my children were married out of this house. My grandchildren visit me here.”

“What should we do?” Mamie asked the butler.

He looked desperate.

Rose grabbed her friend. “Let’s leave. We can get out by the back door.”

Mamie moved immediately to do this, but Rose detained her. “I mean, we should grab what is necessary, then set off.”

“What?” Mamie wrung her hands. “What is necessary?” She jumped when the door knocker sounded.

“Wife?” said a voice, outside. “Is that you?”

“Where is everyone?” said another.

And, “Why don’t you come out? It’s such a lovely day.”

Rose dragged Mamie upstairs. She pushed the hatbox that held the film to the back of the wardrobe in the guest bedroom. She found a sunhat, a coat, her good walking shoes. She went through Mamie’s wardrobe. She tossed a heavy coat onto the bed, and a soft bag. “Change your shoes.”

Mamie sat down to swap her slippers for her school shoes. “Shall I take my jewelery?”

“I don’t think they’re here to loot the house. Only to live in it.”

“Why?” Mamie was in an agony of incomprehension.

Rose heaved a sigh. “Your father has been dosing kidnapped dreamhunters with a dream that makes people happy and compliant. He’s filled half of Founderston with it. That’s why I’m here. Mamie, you
knew
something like this was going on.”

Mamie began to cry. “But why do they think that this is their house?”

Rose considered. “Well—I’ve had Contentment and, come to think of it, this
is
the house in the dream.” It was so strange. Rose realized she had seen Mamie as a middle-aged woman, and Ru as a middle-aged man. She had seen their children—either his or hers or a mix of both—turning cartwheels and carrying canoe paddles and hurrying indoors for a breakfast of eels they’d caught the day before.

“Please pull yourself together,” Rose said to her friend. “This is frightening, I agree, but I’ve been living with alarms for some time now, and do you see me carrying on?”

Mamie made an effort. She picked up her coat and bag and followed Rose to the kitchen, where Rose rifled the cupboards and drawers for cans of fruit, a can opener, cookies, ginger beer, candy, matches. She stuffed their bags and lifted them to test their weight.

Mamie jumped and cowered at every noise. But the noise
was only voices and the door knocker. The dreamhunters were puzzled at not being let into their own house, but they were in too good a mood to force doors or break windows.

Rose checked the servants’ entrance. There was no one in sight. She went back to Mamie, gave her a bag to carry, and led her away from the house.

2

AURA AND THE BURIED MAN WERE IN A FOREST OF TEA TREES. THE SEA WAS VISIBLE AS BRIGHTNESS DOWNHILL
through the tangled black trunks. As the minutes passed, a bird dared to speak up again. “Peep?” it said—perhaps asking some other bird, “Did you notice that? What was that?” “Peep?” it went, each time a little bolder, till it was answered and the whole hillside began to gossip.

The man sat with dry dust smoking away from his hair and clothes in the slight breeze. He turned his head slowly to face Laura, moving like someone half frozen and very depleted. He whispered, “Why are you just sitting there?” Then, “Why aren’t you running away?”

Laura searched her pockets, found her remaining apple, and offered it to him. His hand came out, tentative, then snatched. He hunched and bit into the fruit, then gave a little grunt which seemed to say that, although the food pleased him, he’d rather not let himself in for the possibility of being pleased again. He gobbled the apple and wiped his fingers on his shirt.

“I don’t know any way over the Rifleman,” Laura said. “Except the rail bridge. It’s best crossed in daylight. So we should set out now.”

He raised his head again and peered at her, suspicious.

“After that we can follow the coast. We can be at Sisters Beach in a day and a half.” Laura got up and removed Sandy’s coat, which Nown had asked her to put on over her own. He’d been right to do that. The slippers and trousers and scarf and knitted hat had all vanished with the Place. So had Nown. Nothing cataclysmic had happened at the grave. Nown had only gone more transparent, till he wasn’t there. The beige grasslands and ashy barrier of The Pinnacles vanished, and the tea trees came, in a close crowd, and stood like dark spirits around them, not quite still, a sea breeze sieving through their aromatic leaves.

Laura gave the man Sandy’s coat.

He got up, with difficulty, and put it on.

Laura saw that his feet were wrapped with strips of cloth torn from the bottoms of his trousers. His shirt was blue cotton, a work shirt, but the ragged trousers were printed with prison arrows. He covered himself up with the coat.

Laura pulled out a lemonade bottle and let him have the last of its contents. “We’ll need the bottle for water,” she said. “You can carry it.”

She set off toward the sea, without waiting to see whether he’d follow her.

3

HORTLY AFTER LEAVING THE VILLAGE OF DOORHANDLE, THE SISTERS BEACH COACH PULLED UP FOR SOMEONE WHO STOOD
in the road, both arms raised, a fan of ten-dollar bills flourished in one fist. Naturally the driver let the woman on.