Queen of the Night (15 page)

‘Paul! Paul, wait up.’

I lope awkwardly, comforted only by the fact that Paul must be struggling more than I am, given his load. There’s another cataclysmic boom behind me. I expect to see fire lighting up the forest, and dust and shrapnel, but there’s nothing.

‘Seriously—Paul!’

I stumble on the grass. All I have to do is look at a sports field and I completely lose all sense of coordination. I can’t let him get away.

Paul ignores me, hefting his gun onto his shoulder and bellowing like his cargo pants are on fire. Beyond the soccer field there’s a path running alongside a creek.
The creek looks familiar; it could be the creek that leads to Orphanville.

I discover that this stupid commando dream is real enough that I’m gasping for breath. All I have to do is catch him, talk him into returning to his waking life pronto, and then we’re done here. This needs to be over in five minutes.

Paul swings his gun from side to side as he runs. It’s so weird to see him galloping about when I know he’s actually lying on Amelia’s roof, deathly still. Ahead, the creek peels off to the right, while the path tunnels through a hill.

‘Bam,’ he yells. ‘Bam bam.’

At least one thing is certain: I have no control over this dream. Amelia’s worry that I would exert too much influence is completely unfounded. Paul has already run headlong into the circular black mouth of the tunnel.

My legs slow without consulting my brain. The tunnel looks less like an innocent method of getting from point A to point B, and more like a dark vortex that wants to suck every bit of hope from me.

But I do not want to get lost in Paul’s dream, and I do not want to lose him. I walk into the tunnel, my footsteps instantly louder, telling myself it’s not real.

I sense damp concrete around me. There’s nothing visible behind me, just darkness. Ahead of me there’s more nothingness. I should be able to hear Paul’s footsteps in
front of me, but I can’t. The thought that I am also lying deathly still on Amelia’s rooftop grabs me by the throat.

The dark is so complete I lose sense of where my body is in space. My mum’s face comes to me, then my dead nan’s. The tunnel might be Paul’s but I’m pretty sure my thoughts are still my thoughts.

‘Mum?’

My voice is high and uncertain. I don’t expect a reply.

‘Nia. Nia, there you are.’ Mum’s disembodied voice sounds relieved. ‘He’s trapped me. I don’t think I’m going to get out of here alive. I want you to promise—’

‘Where are you? Mum?’

The panic I’ve been trying to keep down rises up. I’ve been a bitch to my mum. I need to cut her some slack. I look frantically for an exit when I’m suddenly doused in burning white light. I hold my hands to my face.

There’s a roar, a crowd cheering. If Mum says anything else she’s drowned out.

When my eyes clear I am no longer in a tunnel but on a stage with lights and a gawking crowd outside, beyond a wire fence. Paul stands nearby, in normal clothes, talking to a girl. I look up to see that the wire fence extends overhead and around us, a cube.

When I look down I’m wearing a shiny black catsuit. It clings from my neck all the way down to my ankles. I’d never, ever in my life choose to wear something this tight.
The back of it pulls strangely. I crane my head and see a long tail trailing behind me.

‘For fuck’s sake,’ I say. I close my eyes and try to enact some
I Dream of Jeannie
-style magic on my outfit. When I open my eyes, though, nothing has changed. The fact that every person here is imaginary does little to comfort me.

‘You really gotta work out your objectification of women, Paul,’ I call out. ‘A cage? Really?’

Paul turns on me with annoyance. ‘Shut up. You’re not even supposed to be here.’

He turns back to the girl, who smiles at him. It’s Ingrid. She’s wearing the same jacket and denim mini skirt as in the deleted photo.

As I watch, Paul and Ingrid engage in a strange ritual. First Paul brings his head down to hers, butting her gently on the forehead.

‘Ouch,’ says Ingrid, even though it couldn’t have hurt at all. Then she leans forward and bops her head into his.

‘Ouch,’ Paul says, and then they kiss. This is obviously what the crowd is here to see because there’s a collective sigh and a surge of interest behind me. An audience member pokes me through the mesh. I start to tell them to quit it, when I see it’s the little girl from the forest, the one who was pedal-powering the lights.

‘Jethro,’ she says.

‘Hi,’ I say, then turn back. I can’t think about Wolfboy.
I have more important things to worry about. If Paul is hooking up with his ex in his dream, then no wonder he doesn’t want to come out of it. How can I convince him to leave her behind?

‘Hey, hey, guys.’ Paul and Ingrid break apart. ‘Hey Ingrid, did you notice the obscene outfit Paul chose for me? How do you feel about this cage? Make you feel good?’

Paul practically shoots laser-beams of rage out of his eyes. ‘Shut. Up.’ He grabs Ingrid’s arm urgently. ‘Say it. Like we practised.’

‘I made a mistake when I broke up with you,’ declares Ingrid. ‘I was scared of the terrible power of my love. I miss you every day, I think about you every hour.’

Her eyes roam distractedly. She isn’t saying her soap opera lines with any conviction. Maybe I won’t have to convince him. Maybe Ingrid will do it for me. The crowd begins to boo. Paul tries to hush them, but the hubbub grows.

Ingrid hangs her head, defeated. ‘I can’t do this anymore, Paul.’

‘Why are you being like this?’ Paul’s voice is high and hurt and oh so young. ‘If you want me to hang out with your friends more, I can. I can be different. You have to give me another chance.’

‘No.’ Ingrid shakes her head.

‘Who do you want me to be? I can be that guy!’

Ingrid looks at him sadly, and then flickers. Her body wavers at the edges; she blurs, sharpens, blurs again. With a ‘zip’ she vanishes inwards, pulled into a central dot that disappears. A TV being switched off. Gone.

Paul spins around, shocked, looking for her in the cage. Instead he sees me.

‘Oh no,’ I say, holding up my hands.

He points an accusatory finger. ‘This isn’t how it goes. It’s you again. You made it turn out wrong.’

I don’t wait for him to leap. I turn and run, prepared to claw my way out of the cage if necessary. But the cage isn’t there anymore, and neither are the crowds. We’re in a dusty lifeless plain.

I pound across the sandy ground, with no idea where I’m headed. Paul’s feet thump behind mine. I can’t let him catch me. My stupid tail threatens to tangle around my ankles and the heavy necklace bounces into my face.

The horizon breaks ahead. There’s a precipice, a cliff, beyond which there’s nothing but air. Paul’s so close I can hear his laboured breath matching mine. I prepare to hit the ground, rolling and grazed.

It never happens. Paul shoots past me, picking up speed. All too slowly I figure out what’s happening.

‘No!’ I try to shout, but it’s too late. Paul swan-dives off the cliff, hanging in midair before knifing downwards. It would be beautiful if it wasn’t so terrible.

I skid to a halt at the edge of the cliff, dust rising around me.

Paul hits the black river rushing below. I have a split second to decide. My decision is to not jump to my death. But everyone is counting on me to rescue Paul. I can’t give up on him. And I can’t die in a dream, I don’t think, even it feels real.

I jump.

I hold my nose and free-fall, feet first. My body pierces the black water. Icy. I plunge downwards for what seems a long time. My feet touch the bottom and I push up. I’m wearing the overalls again, and that’s a pity because they are twisted and heavy with water, dragging me down.

I suck in air when I surface. The water is so cold it crushes my chest. Already the current is carrying me downstream. I see Paul, twenty metres ahead, clinging to a rock. I thrash out some freestyle until I reach him.

‘Paul!’ I say. ‘Paul, listen to me!’

His eyes are closed, his mouth opening at all the wrong times, making him take in mouthfuls of water.

‘Paul, that wasn’t me or Ingrid making that happen back there. That was you, your mind. You know it’s over, you know it’s time to let her go.’

‘No,’ he says, opening one eye. ‘No way.’

His fingers slip and he throws his arm over the rock with gargantuan effort.

‘Let go of the fucking rock, Paul!’ I bash his fingers, then latch on to him before he floats away.

‘Don’t struggle. I’m trying to help you.’

Paul elbows me in the head.

As my head snaps back, I catch a glimpse of the strangest thing: the rainbow-booted girl from the forest again, above us, torpedoing through the star-speckled sky like Astro Boy. A wavelet dumps on my face, blinding me. I blink away the water but she’s gone.

A surge of water lifts me high, and then I hit solid land, hard.

‘Ow!’

It’s no longer full night. I push my hair out of my face. There’s river grit in my mouth.

I sit up and spit on the ground.

This has to be a joke. I’m lying on a bed of moss. The river is clear and burbling. Behind me is a waving meadow. The sky is pastel-streaky. I’ve been beached in the most gorgeous fantasy place Paul could imagine. Pretty soon some dancing squirrels are going to sing a jaunty song about gathering acorns.

Paul lies several metres away on the mossy beach. He’s drenched, like me, but seems unhurt.

‘Where are we?’ he asks.

‘I’ve got no idea.’

Paul cranes to look behind us at the meadow.

‘The sun is rising,’ he says. It’s true. Paul’s face takes on a warm tint as the sun begins its ascent.

It’s a fully formed circle before either of us will admit there’s something wrong.

‘Oh no,’ says Paul.

The sun is rising, sure, but it’s a black sun in an orange sky. It rises faster than it should; a black circle luminous with dark fire.

‘No, no, no.’ Paul tosses his head from side to side. ‘I’m not ready to wake up.’ Tears gather and fall; I can’t tell if they’re tears of defeat or fear.

‘Paul.’ I crawl across to him, holding on to his hand. ‘You’re ready. Trust me.’

He won’t look at me, but it doesn’t matter because the ground starts to disintegrate beneath us, the moss melts away, and we’re falling down towards the centre of the earth.

The twitching stops, and

both Wildgirl and Paul lie still. Too still. The sudden peace bothers me. ‘It’s gone on too long,’ I say to Amelia. ‘I think we should wake them.’

‘Don’t even think about stepping over that line, Wolfboy.’

I look down. I had no idea my feet had taken me to the edge of the circle. Blake sits on the periphery, looking cold and miserable. I pull Amelia away.

‘You admitted that you’ve never done this before.’ It’s difficult to keep my voice low. I think of Delilah’s book, the hidden histories of Shyness, and wonder how much Amelia might know that I don’t.

Amelia is stubborn. ‘I’ve read accounts written in my own grandfather’s hand, and I followed the instructions to a T.’

‘The medicine could work differently with Nia, or—’

Nia gasps loudly, as if she’s heard me say her name.

‘Meels—quick!’ Blake leans over the line.

Nia arches and her eyes snap open. After a few seconds her body relaxes and she’s instantly soaked to the skin, as if she’s been water-bombed from above.

It’s too much for Blake, who crawls away so fast she falls over. I jump across the line and kneel at Nia’s side. When she sees my face hovering over hers, she smiles radiantly.

‘Dark again.’

A wave of euphoria pulses from her. She gulps a few times, as if she’s just swum to the surface from the ocean depths. I pull her rag-doll body to a sitting position. Her overalls are plastered to her body. Strands of wet hair latch onto me.

‘So trippy, Wolfie. Amazing.’

‘You’re back,’ I say inadequately. ‘Did it work? Are you okay? Are you hurt?’

‘Wolfie, I’m fine.’ Nia swallows. ‘It worked. Go to Paul.’

Paul has woken too, though far less dramatically. He lies on his side without making a sound. His face is a river of tears. I look at Nia, and I’m torn.

‘Go to him,’ she says again, and I obey.

Paul is also sopping wet, his long-sleeved t-shirt clinging to his scrawny chest.

‘Buddy,’ I say, touching his shoulder. ‘It’s Jethro. You’re safe.’

He blinks. I also offer him help to sit up, but I don’t hug him.

‘Hurts,’ he says through chattering teeth.

‘Where?’

‘Everywhere.’ He puts his fist to his chest and wheezes. Something in that gesture reminds me of the weeks after Gram passed away, and the pain I felt deep in my chest, real physical pain in my body.

‘I know.’

‘My whole body hurts,’ he says, ‘I think I’m going to die.’

I rub his back, trying to warm him. ‘Paul, you’re not going to die. Do you remember what happened?’

His brow furrows. ‘Hellcats and Rambo, and…’

‘No, I mean you’ve been asleep. For a while.’

‘Yeah?’ Paul looks sceptical, and then he remembers something that makes him wince. ‘Oh, fuck.’

‘Wolfboy,’ Amelia calls out. ‘Let’s get them inside. Hot showers all round.’

I let Paul lean into my side, and Blake and Amelia cross their arms to make a seat for Nia.

‘For god’s sake, I can walk. I’m not an invalid,’ she says, just as her legs buckle underneath her.

Paul and I sprawl on the floor in the drying room, the warmest room in the house. Above our heads hangs an upside-down forest of leaves and branches, tied into bundles and pegged to washing lines.

Paul has stopped shivering. He was so uncharacteristically silent in those first few minutes I wondered if dreaming for too long could damage a person’s brain. But the shower seems to have brought him back to life.

‘So, you and Wildgirl are together now?’

I was planning on keeping that under wraps for a while, avoid rubbing it in his face, but it must be obvious.

‘Yeah. I guess so. I don’t know how it’s going to work.’ I trace patterns over the dusty floor. It smells of eucalyptus and burning wood in here. ‘She’s still at school, and we live so far apart.’

‘Nah, you’ll find a way,’ he says. ‘That’s good. I’m happy for you.’

There’s more to it than that, but I don’t want to bother Paul with my complete range of doubts. Nia might find me interesting now, but after high school it might be different. The more she learns at university, the more she’ll realise how little I know.

‘She was at our house, right?’ Paul asks. ‘I mean your
house. She, uh, came into my bedroom and talked to me. That wasn’t part of a dream, was it?’

He’s having trouble meeting my eyes.

‘No, that bit was real,’ I say.

‘Oh crap.’ He hits his leg. ‘Crap, crap, crap.’

‘Yeah.’

‘I can’t believe I hit a girl. Why would she help me after I was such a prick to her?’

‘Just apologise to her. It’s no big deal.’

Paul tucks some stray damp bits of hair behind his ears. ‘I did bad things, Jethro. If I tell you, you’ll hate me.’

His default expression is still one of abject misery.

‘What did you tell Doctor Gregory about me?’

Paul is shocked, freezing with his legs stretched out in front of him. I realise he has no idea how much I’ve figured out about what’s been going on.

‘I’m a shit friend. Oh man, I am the shittiest friend.’

He wipes his eyes with the back of his hands, trying to hide what he’s doing. The only other time I’ve seen Paul cry was when he got hit in the teeth with a cricket bat when he was fourteen. And that time Diana made us watch
Bambi.

‘I didn’t mean for that to happen. I thought I could go to the institute and stay away from Doctor Gregory. I knew you didn’t like him. The last thing I meant to do was go behind your back. I didn’t expect I would need it so much.’

‘Why did you even go there in the first place? You hate Dreamers.’

‘I’d run out of ways to make myself feel better.’ Paul sniffles, wipes his nose on the hem of his t-shirt. ‘I liked it there. You could relax and read and drink as much coke as you wanted and play video games. The place is totally sci-fi inside. There are these pretty Psych students that work there, come and ask you questions and monitor you.’

It does sound like Paul’s idea of heaven. He continues, his voice calmer. ‘Remember when you were little and you got sick and your mum would come and read to you in bed and feed you soup and stuff? And you knew you were the most important person in the world?’

I nod.

‘Or if you went to a party with your folks and you’d fall asleep on the couch? And when it was time to leave, your dad would carry you out to the car, and then from the car to your bed when you got home. That was the feeling I got at the institute. Like someone was looking after me. I knew it was fake, but I didn’t care.’

‘It sounds nice,’ I say. It’s not the nightmare vision of the place I’ve been forming. I wouldn’t have gone near the institute myself, but I understand why Paul did. He’s always liked having people around him more than I do. ‘I’ve been talking to some of the people in the program,
though, and they say that their dreams get taken. Recorded somehow. Is that true?’

‘That’s what they tell you. There’s a machine that records brainwaves and things, but I don’t know if that’s what they’re really doing.’ Paul turns red. ‘I haven’t answered your question, have I?’

‘No.’

‘Doctor Gregory singled me out on my second visit, took me into a private consultation room. He said I could help him with his research. The first few sessions were about me, my family, school, what I did in my spare time. Then he started asking about you.’

‘What did he ask?’

Paul blows out a thin stream of breath. ‘Everything. Nothing. Stupid things. What you were like in kinder and primary school. Did you get along with your parents. Your brother. What you ate for breakfast, were you good at sports, did you ever live near electrical towers, did you like girls. Did you ever play violent computer games, did we ever pretend to be superheroes. Did you grow faster than the other kids. He didn’t seem to have a plan at all. He went over the same things, again and again. It didn’t seem very scientific.’

I’m silent for a few seconds, mulling this over. There’s a rustle near the door. Nia trails her fingers through the canopy of leaves.

‘There you are,’ she says, crawling over to where we sit, managing to bring a mug with her and not spill what’s inside. I put my hand on her leg when she gets to me. She’s wearing her school PE outfit. She looks a bit pale, but maybe that’s due to lack of sleep.

Nia hands the mug to Paul. ‘From Amelia,’ she says. ‘Some kind of recovery drink. I had mine. I highly recommend it.’

I touch the end of her nose. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘I feel fantastic, actually. How about you, Paul?’

‘Okay, I suppose.’ His voice is strangled.

‘What have you boys been talking about then? Has Paul told you about the wild dream yet?’

‘Nia,’ Paul breaks in. ‘I just want to tell you how sorry I am, really sorry that I—’

Nia pats him on the back. ‘I know, Paul. But thank you for your apology. And seriously, chug that drink.’

‘We’ve been talking about what a creep Doctor Gregory is,’ I say, looking at Nia doubtfully. She’s having trouble keeping still. Her fingers drum against mine.

‘Good, good,’ she says. Her eyes are mirror-bright. ‘Because I’ve got to tell you, I woke up in a
vengeful
mood.’