Dream a Little Dream (The Silver Trilogy) (F) (21 page)

“Yes, and unfortunately so has my nose.” I looked past him at the mirror, ran my hand over the bridge of my nose, and checked my restyling to see if it had worked. To keep things simple, I’d opted for the same outfit as last time: jeans, sneakers, and the ninja T-shirt. I wondered whether to give my hair a little more volume, but that would have felt like cheating.

“I like your nose,” said Henry.

“Maybe because your own nose is too long.” I smiled up at him. I’d grown, yes, but I was still much shorter than him. It had been sweet, the way he’d defended me just now. He was always so nice to me in dreams, much nicer than in real life. On the other hand … “What are you doing here? This is my own personal nightmare,
and
it’s the girls’ toilet! You’ve no business being here.”

He ignored my questions and looked in the mirror too. “My nose is not too long. It’s just right. After all, a nose has to fit the rest of the face.” His reflection winked at me. “Maybe we could go somewhere else? It’s kind of unromantic here.”

“Yes, and linked to so many unpleasant memories.” I sighed. “To be honest, I had no idea I still kept dreaming of the same one. And that I remembered their faces and voices so precisely.”

Henry turned serious again at once. “I hope they were at least expelled from the school?”

I shook my head. I’d never been able to tell a teacher what happened. I hadn’t told Mom, either; she’d have been terribly upset. Only Lottie noticed something wrong with me and made me tell her. She had turned white as a sheet, and then she took me off to Mr. Wu so that I could learn to defend myself. The next morning she had gone to school with me and made me point out Audrey, Samantha, Lindsay, and Abigail to her. I don’t know what she did then, but they never bothered me again. After a few weeks of Mr. Wu’s lessons, I was so good at kung fu that I almost wished they had.

“We could go after them and beat them up properly,” Henry suggested. “Now that you know you’re only dreaming.”

I waved the idea away. “No. I guess if I saw them today, I’d only feel sorry for them. Come on, Henry, what are you doing here? Tell me.”

“I simply wanted to visit you. I wasn’t to know I’d land in a girls’ toilet at the worst moment of your life.” He held out his hand. “Come along. Let’s go somewhere nicer.”

“That wasn’t the worst moment of my life.” I took his hand as if it were the most normal and natural thing in the world and let him lead me out of the cubicle and over to the green door, which looked out of place among the tiles with graffiti scrawled over them. To be honest, I didn’t feel that it was at all natural to be holding Henry’s hand. Nor, obviously, did my heart, because it began beating faster again.

Henry put his free hand on the lizard and seemed about to open the door.

“No,” I said, because an idea had just occurred to me. I drew him away from the door. “Not yet.”

“But…”

I didn’t let him finish. “Since you’re here, we could stay a little while. There are some nice places in Berkeley. Come this way.” I pushed the door to the girls’ toilets open and was glad to find nothing on the other side of the broad, bleak school corridor but sunlight and a fresh breeze. Yes, this kind of dreaming was fun. And I was good at it too, because everything looked exactly as I remembered it. We were standing high up in Berkeley Hills. You could see half the city and the bay from here. The evening sunlight bathed everything in a soft, golden glow.

I led Henry over to a bench under a huge tree. It had once been my favorite place, and I used to sit there for hours, playing the guitar and looking out to sea. I couldn’t keep back a triumphant smile. If this wasn’t a romantic spot, what was?

“We used to live only a little way up the road here.”

“Not bad,” said Henry, impressed, and I didn’t know if he meant my ability to stage an elegant change of scene, moving straight from a disgusting school toilet to a place with such a breathtaking view, or the fact that we had once lived there. And the house really hadn’t been bad—it even had a pool. But we had to share it with a grumpy philosophy lecturer and her mother, who cleaned house obsessively, so we never felt really at home there, more like guests in a boardinghouse.

“This is Indian Rock Park,” I explained, hoping he wouldn’t spot the notice a few yards away that had just reminded me of the park’s name. “Butter once caught a squirrel here.”

“Who’s Butter?” Henry sat down on the bench, and I joined him, so that I could go on holding his hand.

“Our dog, Princess Buttercup. My father gave her to us when he and Mom divorced. As a kind of consolation, I think.”

“Oh, I know about
that
kind of thing. Whenever we’re given a new pet, we call it after Dad’s latest girlfriend, to make things easier.” He gave me a wry smile. “We generally use her stage name because it’s likely to sound better. The rabbits are Candy Love, Tyra Sprinkle, Daisy Doll, and Bambi Lamour, and then there are a couple of ponies who go by the names of Moira Mystery and Nikki Baby.”

I glanced incredulously at him. How frightful. I’d never complain of my family again. “You have a lot of … of pets.” I cautiously squeezed his hand, and his smile deepened. Oh God, he had such nice eyes. As for his nose, it was just the right length. And his hair …

He cleared his throat. “Er … that was meant to be funny,” he said. “But you’re welcome to go on looking at me sympathetically.”

Sympathetically? I looked awkwardly away. Damn. It was far harder to work out how much time was passing in a dream while you looked deeply into someone’s eyes. Too deeply, in this case.

My eye fell on something else. It was leaning against the tree beside the bench.

“My guitar,” I said, feeling moved. My unconscious mind was working overtime on the romantic effects.

“How nice,” said Henry ironically. “Would you like to play me something?”

“Over my dead body,” I said, feeling the blood rush into my face. My thoughts had in fact been racing forward, entirely out of control, and I’d already imagined Henry warbling something by Taylor Swift while the sun sank slowly, the sky over the sea turned red, and a pod of whales swam past down in the bay.… Oh my God! And had I really just thought his hair looked like spun gold in this light? It was enough to make you want to throw up! I must have lost my marbles. A little more of this, and I’d be one of those hormone-driven dimwits that Mia despised so much.

I abruptly let go of his hand.

Henry looked at me inquiringly, and I could hardly stand up to his gaze. What would he think of me? First he had to rescue me from a violent girl gang, then I dragged him off to a sunset scene in the hills with a guitar at the ready.…

I tried to strike a matter-of-fact note. “You still haven’t answered my question: What are you doing in my dream?”

Henry leaned back and folded his arms.

“And how did you get through my door? I thought it would work only if…” I fell silent again.

“If what? If someone was wearing Grayson’s sweater?” With a little laugh, Henry took something glittery out of his jeans pocket and held it up in the air. It was my butterfly barrette.

I swallowed. Oh, so
that
was it.

“Strictly speaking, you only need something that belongs to the other person,” Henry went on. “And then of course you have to find the right door and overcome the barriers.” He looked around, intrigued. “Where has that mist suddenly come from?”

“Even here the sun doesn’t always shine,” I said tartly. “In fact, these parts are well known for sudden atmospheric changes.” That wasn’t true: I’d just wanted to tone down the romantically warm and rosy sunset a little. Mist had been the first thing to occur to me. Unfortunately swaths of mist rising majestically up the hills from the sea still looked romantic. However, at least we were rid of that kitschy soft-focus light that made it impossible for me to think clearly.

“What kind of barriers do you mean?” I looked around for my door. Where had it gone? Oh, over there, embedded in one of the huge rocks that gave the park its name.

Henry shrugged. “Most people protect their doors unconsciously. More or less strongly, as the case may be. Like Grayson with his Frightful Freddy. But I could simply walk through yours. No barrier at all, nothing in the way at all.”

“I see,” I said slowly, trying to look as if I really did. “So anyone who happens to have stolen, let’s say, a hair clip from me can just walk in?”

“Looks like it. Obviously you’re a very trusting person.”

I tried not to let his smile take my mind off the subject. “But you aren’t. Your unconscious mind has installed no less than three locks on your door.”

Henry shook his head. “No, Liv. That wasn’t my unconscious mind. That was
me
.” He rubbed his bare arms, shivering. “Can’t you make the sun shine again? That would be much nicer. I mean, considering that we’re in California?”

I thoughtfully chewed my lower lip. “So I could protect my own door against unwanted visitors?”

“Yes, and you should.” Henry’s tone of voice had changed. He didn’t sound amused anymore; he sounded deadly earnest. “There could well be other people interested in your dreams. It’s in dreams more than anywhere else that you get to know people best—along with all their weaknesses and their secrets.”

“I see.…” Or rather, I thought,
I don’t entirely see yet
. I looked at the door again. It was weird to think that anyone in possession of some personal item of mine could simply break into my dreams. Much worse than the idea of someone reading my dream diary. I suddenly felt an urgent need to nail boards over the door, fit padlocks, and organize myself an enormous guard dog.

“Then why didn’t Grayson protect his door better?” I asked. “I mean, any idiot can say ‘Freddy’ backward.”

“Grayson is the most honest, openhearted person I know,” replied Henry. “I don’t think he has much to hide even in his dreams. Also, he’s much too modest and doesn’t think that anyone would be interested in them.” He shrugged his shoulders. “And he doesn’t really want to bother about all this; it’s too uncanny for his liking.”

“But not for yours?”

With a sigh, Henry leaned forward and reached for my guitar. “Oh yes, it’s too uncanny for my liking too. But that’s just what makes it so interesting.”

I nodded. “Exactly. The most interesting things are always the most dangerous,” I said quietly. “But all the same you want to explore them.”

“Or, alternatively, it’s for that very reason you want to explore them.” Abruptly, Henry looked away and began tuning the guitar.

“Oh, please say you can’t play the guitar!” It just slipped out.

He raised an eyebrow. “Because…?”

“Because…”
Because that would make you just too perfect!
It was quite enough for him to have nice eyes and be able to recite Victorian poetry and for me to get a warm feeling inside when he smiled. Maybe, however, he played very badly, and then there’d at least be something about him that I could think was stupid. I looked at him challengingly. “Can you play it or are you just pretending?”

He plucked the strings and gave me a superior smile. “This is a dream, Liv, and if I wanted to, I could play the guitar like Carlos Santana. Or Paul Galbraith. It’s up to you which.”

“Oh.” Who was Paul Galbraith? I’d have to Google him tomorrow morning.

Henry began playing, very softly. Bach. And he played well. I stared at his fingers. You surely couldn’t just dream a technique like that. Or could you? You could fly in a dream, after all, without actually knowing how flying worked.

All the same … wow.

“Carried away, are you?” asked Henry mockingly, and I pulled myself together. He was still wearing that superior smile.

“Dream on,” I said, with as much scorn as possible in my voice. “That prelude is so easy, I could play it when I was eight.”

“Yes, sure.” He put the guitar down and stood up. “I’ll be off. Before the alarm sounds and brings this nice dream to an end.” His smile was outrageous. “And thanks for those interesting insights into your psyche.”

“You’re welcome.” I suppressed an urge to grind my teeth. “You can keep the barrette. Although you might just as well give it back to me, because you certainly won’t be coming through that door again.”

“I hope not,” he replied, suddenly perfectly serious again. He took the barrette out of his pocket, put it on the palm of his hand, and stared at it. The silver butterfly quivered, began beating its wings, and rose in the air. Openmouthed, I watched it go.

“Remember, they must be really effective barriers,” said Henry. “And it’s not only human beings they must keep out.”

“But also…?” Reluctantly, I tore myself away from the sight of the butterfly on its way. “The Lord of Shadows and Darkness? The mysterious Master of the Winds? Wouldn’t he have to steal some personal possession of mine, or doesn’t he need cheap tricks like that?”

He sighed. “Maybe you ought to take all this a little more seriously.”

“Sorry, I can’t. Without firm evidence, I don’t believe in demons who haunt you in your dreams and can grant wishes.” I looked him in the eye. “Do you?”

He held my gaze without moving a muscle. “Maybe what happened is really just coincidence. But maybe it isn’t. How do you explain this?” He made a sweeping gesture. “How do you explain our dream?”

I hadn’t gone as far as that yet in my thoughts. Being so tired when Grayson left, I’d gone to sleep before I could work it all out. “I … er … psychology?” I said a little defiantly.

“Psychology?” He snorted with amusement.

“A still-unexplored field of psychology. I think with a little practice anyone could dream like that—even without any pact with the dev—with a demon. I found the way through my own green door all by myself, without any demonic help.”

“Are you quite sure of that?”

Well …

“Yes,” I said firmly. “Because demons don’t exist. Okay, so your team won the basketball championship, and Grayson and Florence didn’t inherit that gene—but where’s the connection? It’s simple: as long as I don’t see any demon standing right in front of me in person, I won’t believe he exists. An apparition in a dream doesn’t count—that would be purely psychological.”