The Nightmare Game (6 page)

He lifted his hands from the drum skin, spreading the fingers like claws. Twisting them cruelly to compress the empty air until Lorn could almost see the tiny, soft body of the old man's daughter, shrinking, shrinking, shrinking . . .

“They squeezed her smaller and smaller and smaller,” Zak whispered. “Until she was no bigger than a bean. Until she was—as small as we are.”

A long, shocked sigh ran around the cavern. Suddenly, the story had come very close to everyone. They all knew what it was to be snatched away from the ordinary, familiar world and plunged into a totally different life. They all knew what it was to find themselves trapped in bodies so small that each day was a fight for survival. Every person there had been snatched away and shrunk—without knowing why or how.

Was Zak's story going to explain all that at last? Was it going to unravel the mystery? That was what they all wanted and their longing drew them deep into the story. Lorn saw their faces grow rapt and intent.

And she knew they were all on the side of the old man and his family—and against the robbers who'd snatched the old man's daughter away.

It wasn't like that,
she wanted to shout.
You're hearing it wrong. It wasn't like that at all.
But she couldn't say the words. How could she interrupt and break the spell of the story?

Zak waited until the cavern was completely silent again. Then he went on. “They shrank the poor stolen girl until she was no bigger than—this.” He held up a hand, with the thumb and forefinger nearly touching. “Then they squashed her into a hole in the ground and stopped up the hole with thorns. She couldn't escape. She was trapped in the forest, unable to go home to her father. And as for him—”

As for him
—A huge, dark shape loomed suddenly in Lorn's mind, blotting out the firelight and the familiar, friendly faces.
As for him—
She could hardly breathe, hardly hear Zak's voice as it went steadily on and on.

“The old man's heart was broken,” Zak said. “The hole in the ground was empty. His daughter was gone.”

For a second, he let the words hang. Then he rattled his fingers sharply against the drum skin.

“His wife and his son couldn't bear to see him so distraught. They pulled on their battered old boots and their shabby hats, picked up their walking sticks and set out into the world to find the precious girl who'd been stolen away.”

“NO!” said Lorn.

The word was out before she could stop it. She found herself on her feet, yelling across the circle at Zak.

“Why are you telling them lies? That's not how it was! It's not
true
!”

There was a gasp, all around the circle. No one had ever challenged Zak like that before. No one had ever broken a story. Horrified faces looked up at her and Bando tugged her arm, trying to pull her down again.

“Don't be cross, Lorn,” he whispered. “It's only a story. Stories don't have to be true.”

He sounded bewildered and upset. The others were starting to look angry and Lorn knew they wanted her to sit down and be quiet, but she couldn't stop. Her whole body was rigid with fury.

“You're twisting everything!” she yelled. “That old man kept his daughter locked up—and you're turning him into a hero.”

“Oh, come
on
!” Perdew joined in, rolling his eyes at the ceiling. “He kept her locked up because he was trying to protect her. It's not like real life. It's a
story
.”

But it was like real life. Couldn't he see that? That was why Zak's stories held them so that they listened almost without breathing. He knew how to mirror the things they tried to hide. Perdew was the bravest hunter of them all, and the strongest, too, apart from Bando. But even he was afraid, like the rest of them. Afraid of the animals that could gulp him down in a second. Afraid of the terrible, deadly cold that would kill anyone who stepped outside the cavern now. When Perdew listened to Zak, surely he knew—

But none of them seemed to know. They were all muttering at Lorn, as though she'd interrupted just to be awkward.

“Why don't you sit down?”

“Wait and see what happens!”

“It's Zak's story. He knows what he's doing!”

They just wanted her to be quiet, so they could find out what happened next. But how could she be quiet? Zak had taken Hope's story—
her
story—and turned it into something false. She had only just got her memories back and now he was trying to take them away again. Twisting them into nonsense.

“That's not how it was,” she said again. Speaking steadily this time. Meeting Zak's eyes across the circle.

Zak didn't attempt to contradict her. He danced his fingers lightly over the drum skin. “All right, then,” he said. “Give us your version, Lorn. What was it like?” He smiled a small, taunting smile.

For a second, she couldn't speak.
What was it like?
She knew now, but there were no words to fit what she knew. The memories were too strong, too vivid. They wouldn't fit into the neat pattern of a story.
I was . . . I felt . . . it was like . . .

How could she make the others understand?

Zak's clear, blue stare was fixed on her face as he went on with his version of the story again, speaking every word as though it was aimed straight at her. “The old man's wife and son set out from their house, looking for clues to help them find the lost girl. Their darling. Their treasure. They were determined to get her back from the wicked robbers.”

Lorn couldn't go on standing where she was. All the others were scowling up at her, angry and impatient, because she was in the way. She had to let Zak go on—or tell them her own version.

But where could she start? Zak had already conjured up three evil robbers, three villains who kidnapped defenseless people and imprisoned them in a tiny world. His words were echoing in every heart in the cavern.
Snatched away . . . too small to get home . . .
They all knew how that felt.

That was what Zak's stories did. He told them who they were. They'd all been shocked and helpless when they arrived in the cavern, terrified at finding themselves in a world that had suddenly become unimaginably huge. Patiently, Zak had reshaped it to fit them, so that it made a different kind of sense. He'd given new names to the plants and animals—and to everyone in the cavern as well.

Lorn remembered his blue eyes staring into hers the first time she sat in the circle.
What is your name?
he'd asked, and she'd stared at him blankly, not knowing what to reply. When he said,
Your name is Lorn
, it had felt like a sign of belonging, of leaving her old life behind.

That was how it had been for each of them. Zak had given them a way to survive.
We don't remember. We look forward.
How could she stand against him now and ask them all to look back? She almost gave up and sat down.

And then she remembered Robert.

When they brought him into the cavern, he'd been horribly injured, his leg clawed open by the nightbird. The shock of finding out where he was—and how tiny he'd become—was fresh and raw in his mind. But he'd still had the courage to challenge Zak, refusing to let go of the truth he knew.

My name is Robert Doherty,
he'd said.

He wouldn't pretend, and he wouldn't forget. From that first moment, he'd been determined to get back to his real home. And his real size.

And he'd done it.

He'd made the long and dangerous journey back to the place where he really belonged and
somehow
he'd managed to reverse the terrible change that had brought him to the cavern. Even Cam and Zak, who'd gone with him, couldn't explain how it had happened, but everyone knew it was true. Robert had rejected Zak's picture of the world—and achieved what they'd all thought was impossible.

That
was the way to get the others to listen to her story! If she could get them to remember that, they would know that Zak wasn't infallible. Lifting her head, Lorn looked around the circle again. Everyone was watching her now.

“The old man had it wrong,” she said firmly. “He thought he had his daughter under the ground forever, with no way out, but the robbers knew better—because one of them was Robert Doherty.”

She felt the shock as she spoke his name. They thought she was the first one to break the rules of storytelling by cutting through the neat line between
real
and
imagined.
They didn't realize that Zak had already done it.

Sitting down slowly, with everyone's eyes fixed on her face, she braided her fingers together in her lap. In a steady voice, she launched into the story. As she wanted to tell it.

“You all know what Robert's like. When he decides that something needs to happen, he won't give up until he's done it. From the moment he found out about the old man's daughter, in her miserable prison, he was determined to rescue her. With two brave friends, he planned a daring rescue, risking his life to snatch her away to a new life. And he almost succeeded. At the risk of their lives, he and his friends broke into the old man's house and carried her off, running through the night with the old man chasing them. But, just when they thought they'd escaped, when they thought the girl was free at last—that's when they lost her. . . .”

ROBERT WAS ALONE IN THE FRONT ROOM WHEN HE FIRST PICKED up the phone.

“Hello?” he said.

There was no answer. Only a strange rustle.

“Hello?” he said again. “I can't hear you.” He was about to hang up when the voice came at last, out of the blue.

His brain froze.

It was Hope's voice. That was exactly how she'd sounded when he and Tom had lifted her out of that horrible, dank hole under the Armstrongs' conservatory.

He didn't know how he replied. He couldn't think about anything except the sounds coming down the line. Was it possible? Could Hope really be there? Talking to him?

“. . . out . . . out . . .
”

When Emma came in, he hardly noticed. But she must have seen something strange in his expression, because she crossed the room and stood beside him, listening. Then—so quickly that it took him by surprise—she pulled the phone out of his hand and hung up.

Robert reached out angrily to snatch it back, but she held it behind her body and shook her head. Her face was white and tense.

“It wasn't really her,” she said. “It can't have been, Rob. It must have been some kind of recording.”

“But it was her voice—” Robert protested.

“How can it have been?” said Emma. “The past doesn't change. You
know
what happened to Hope. We rescued her and took her to the wood—and she shrank away into the cavern. There's nothing left of her now, above the ground. She's smaller than my little finger. With no way back.”

Robert looked away. Emma was right, of course—but he didn't want her to be. He desperately wanted the voice at the other end of the line to be Hope's. Because Hope was
Lorn.
The friend who'd saved his life by taking him into the cavern. What he wanted, more than anything else in the world, was to see her again. To speak to her.

“It was a recording,” Emma said. “And you'd better stop fantasizing and think about that properly. Don't you realize what it means?”

For a second, Robert didn't understand. He just stared blankly at her, wondering why she looked so grim.

Emma walked back to the door and closed it quietly, to make sure they couldn't be overheard. Then she spelled it out. “If there's a recording, then there has to be someone playing it. And you know who that's got to be. There's only one person who's likely to have a recording of Hope's voice.”

She was right, of course. Only Hope's family had known she was there, under the floor. If he had been listening to a recording, one of them must have made it.
And no prizes for guessing which one
, Robert thought. That family was dominated by a single, terrifying person.

“So you think Mr. Armstrong's tracked us down?” he said slowly. “You think he knows where we live?” It was horribly easy to picture that heavy slab face leaning in close to the phone. The thick, cruel finger waiting ready over the PLAY button, poised to send the fragile thread of sound moving toward them.

“He knows where we live—and he wants us to know that he's watching us.” Emma shuddered. “He's trying to scare us. We were idiots to think he'd just go away and leave us alone. If he'd kept Hope hidden under the floor for years, he was never going to give up overnight, was he?”

“But he knows he can't get her back,” Robert said. “He saw her shrink. We were all holding on to her and she just disappeared.”

“You think he understood what was happening?” Emma shook her head. “There's no way he could have worked it out.
I
wouldn't have had a clue what was going on if you hadn't told me about the cavern already.”

Robert didn't look convinced. Emma pulled an impatient, exasperated face at him.

“Don't you see?” she said. “He knows that Hope disappeared, but he thinks
we did it
. So he probably thinks we know how to get her back.”

“If only.” Robert nodded ruefully. “If we could only find out—”

He didn't finish, because the phone started ringing again. Before he could stop himself, he snatched it out of Emma's hand. In spite of everything they'd said, he couldn't quite believe there was no point. If there was even a chance—