Dream a Little Dream (The Silver Trilogy) (F) (26 page)

“And now Tom is
dead
?” As I said that, goose bumps crept over my arms.

“Yes,” Anabel confirmed quietly. “He died in a car accident in June. It wasn’t his fault. A drunk truck driver knocked him down.”

The goose bumps spread all over my body. Leaving aside all the other incidents, this seemed to me one remarkable coincidence too many.

Anabel straightened the picnic cushions. “As I said, I’m so sorry for what I did,” she said. “And ever since, I’ve done all I can to make sure things are the same between Arthur and me as before. He does say he’s forgiven me, but sometimes when I look into his eyes…” She wound her arms around herself. “I can still see the pain I gave him in them. And a chill that’s like a knife going into my heart.” Obviously she and Arthur shared a liking for emotional figures of speech. I was sorry for her, all the same. She really did seem deeply unhappy. “And then I’m afraid he will never see me the same way he did before,” she whispered. “I—oh, look, here he comes!”

I turned around. Yes, it was Arthur just coming through the door and onto the lawn, carrying a bottle of wine. The sunlight made his hair shine like pure gold. And somehow I suddenly felt an urge to run away.

“Please don’t tell him what we were talking about.” With a nervous laugh, Anabel brushed a lock of hair back from her face.

“Is that the real Arthur, or are you just dreaming of him?”

She laughed. “The
real
Arthur is lying in bed in Hampstead, I hope.”

“On his own, at that!” Arthur assured her.

Anabel went three steps toward him and flung her arms around his neck. Then she said, “Look who’s here,” and pointed to me. “I wanted to thank her.”

“Hi, Liv.” Was I imagining it, or was there a flash of something like triumph in his eyes? “How does it feel to be the heroine of the hour?” Arthur had put the wine bottle down and was embracing Anabel from behind, both hands around her waist. He tenderly pushed her heavy hair away from the nape of her neck and began covering it with kisses. “I’ve missed you so much, sweetie.”

I looked away, feeling moved and embarrassed.

“Excuse us, Liv,” said Anabel. “It’s just that … I’ve been living in Switzerland for the last three weeks, over a thousand kilometers away. We can meet only in our dreams.”

“Yes, but that’s so much better than Skyping.” With a laugh, Arthur drew Anabel even closer to him. “Would you like to share our picnic?”

“Er, no, I really don’t want to be in the way.” I did still have any number of open questions, but I also had plenty to think about for now.

Arthur drew Anabel down on the picnic rug. “A very sensible attitude,” he said, and Anabel added, “See you soon, Liv.” Neither of them watched as I opened the door and went out through Anabel’s porch and into the corridor again.

25

EVEN FROM A DISTANCE,
I could see Henry outside the green door, discussing something with Lottie, who was standing in the doorway and apparently didn’t want to let him in. She had her hands on her hips and was wearing her best dirndl, the one with the black taffeta apron.

“The presence of the gods?” asked Henry.

Lottie shook her head. “Very pretty, but no. Not so elegiac. Right, what’s not certain?”

Henry sighed. “Is it something by Goethe?”

“No.” Lottie put her head to one side and plucked flirtatiously at the enormous taffeta bow at her waist. “Neither Goethe nor Schiller.”

“You’re only supposed to ask the question, Lottie, not give him hints,” I told her. Henry spun around to me. “There you are at last,” he said.

“Oh, but I like talking to him,” said Lottie. “Such a polite boy.” She beamed at me. “And he comes here every night. That sly lizard doorknob bit his finger, so it needed treatment, and we made friends.”

“Yes, that really is a malicious touch to your barriers,” Henry told me. “Since when do lizards have teeth?”

“Since they’ve had to keep unauthorized visitors out of my dreams,” I replied. “It’s a vampire lizard. A killer vampire lizard. And obviously a more reliable doorkeeper than my au pair.”

“Did you know that Henry likes baking?” Lottie gave Henry a smile full of maternal pride. “He was very interested in my all-the-year-round vanilla crescents, and in return he gave me the recipe for making his walnut cake. And he asked if I could dance waltzes and whether I would teach him how. Wasn’t that sweet?”

For a second I was left speechless. Now was the moment to raise my eyebrows and dart scornful looks at Henry.

He awkwardly scratched his nose. “The things one will do to solve a riddle,” he murmured.

“Don’t give up, young man. You must think of literature less, or let’s say of folklore more,” said Lottie encouragingly. “Go on, then, try again. What’s not certain?”

Indignantly, I gasped for breath. “You’re not the real Lottie, you’re only a dream Lottie, and I appointed you my doorkeeper. If you don’t do your job properly, I’m going to fire you and appoint Mr. Wu. He not only knows the tiger’s claw technique, he won’t be taken in so easily. Walnut cake! Huh!”

Lottie was offended. “I thought I’d brought you up to show more courtesy and respect,” she said. “Do you want to come in? It’s rather drafty out here.”

“No, I’ll stay outside for a while. Close the door,” I told her sternly. “And don’t let anyone in, understand?”

“The gratitude of the Germans?” Henry asked quickly before Lottie could go in and shut the door.

Regretfully, she shook her head. “Think more along folklore lines, I told you.”

“Lottie!”

“All right! See you soon, Henry.” Very slowly, and with many sighs of protest, she closed the door.

“The gratitude of the Germans?” I repeated, when we were finally alone.

Henry waved that away. “I found it on the Internet in some manifesto or other. Churchill was saying that the ingratitude of the Germans was certain.”

“So you turned it on its head to say that the gratitude of the Germans was
not
certain?” I giggled. “Imagine thinking that up. But what does it have to do with Hans?”

“Oh, hell, this is a really difficult puzzle. I’ve looked up ‘Hans’ and ‘not certain’ hundreds of times on search engines, but … oh!” Something seemed to have occurred to him, because his eyes began to shine.

“What?”

“But I didn’t look it up in German!” He slapped his forehead with his hand. “To think that didn’t strike me before!”

“So what are you going to do now? Wake up and turn on your computer? Or take your dream cell phone out of your pocket and look it up here and now?” I laughed, and Henry laughed as well.

“You’re in a good mood for someone who’s just joined the club of lost souls,” he commented.

“And you’re pretty pessimistic if you’ve given yourself up as a lost soul,” I retorted. “Although…” Suddenly I remembered exactly what I had just heard from Anabel, and my laughter died away. “Did you know Anabel’s ex-boyfriend Tom?”

“Tom Holland? Yes, of course. He was one class above me. Why?”

“Well, because…” Because Arthur hated him, and now he’s dead. No, I couldn’t possibly say that. Unable to make up my mind, I bit my lower lip.

“Why don’t we go somewhere more comfortable?” Henry gave me an inquiring glance. “For instance, through this green door?”

“Nice try,” I said.

“Then at least let’s go for a little walk.” Henry smiled and held out his hand. I hesitated for only a second before putting my own hand into it. It was simply too nice a feeling for me to resist.

We slowly strolled down the corridor. As we came to the corner down which I had turned with Anabel recently, I asked, “What do you think will happen when the last seal is broken?”

Henry shrugged his shoulders. “You heard it for yourself today: the Lord of Shadows will break his chains, rise from the blood that has been shed, and show his gratitude to those who have kept faith with him.”

When was I supposed to have heard that, then?

“That part seems to have escaped me,” I said.

“Oh, yes, you don’t know any Latin. At least,
cruor
means blood—but unlike
sanguis
, it means blood shed by violence.…”

“Don’t you think that could be just metaphorical? Like the breaking-his-chains bit—I mean—
what was that?
” I’d heard a sound like the quiet squeal of a door hinge.

“No idea,” said Henry, letting go of my hand and looking over my shoulder. “But maybe we’d better go somewhere we can talk undisturbed. To your place, for instance.”

I turned around. Doors as far as the eye could see. But I couldn’t see movement anywhere. So why did I suddenly feel I was under observation all the same?

“Come along!” Henry took my arm, a little too roughly, I thought, and led me on in the direction of our own doors. Normally I’d have protested, but right now I was very ready to follow him.

“There isn’t anyone else here, is there?”

“You can never tell,” he replied, and for the first time since I’d known him, his voice sounded a little grim. “If you have enough imagination and you can concentrate well, then you can take any shape you like in a dream.”

“I know.” After all, I’d been a barn owl. My imagination was strong enough; it was just my powers of concentration that left something to be desired. But all the same, the corridor was entirely empty.

The only question was why, in that case, Henry kept quickening his pace. And why was he whispering? That didn’t exactly do anything to reassure me.

He looked over his shoulder once more. “If you’re good enough at it, you can turn into someone else, or into a tiger, a gnat, a ceiling light, a tree, a breath of air.… For example, I could look just like Henry while I was really someone completely different.”

Oh God. That was really the worst possible thing he could say to make me feel better. As we walked along I looked closely at him, examining the contours of his face, the gray eyes with their thick eyelashes, the straight nose, the delicate curve of his lips, the way they crinkled at the corners.

No, this was Henry sure enough.

“Shh.” He stopped.

I had heard it too. A kind of rustling. Like a curtain being drawn aside. I clung to Henry’s arm. There it was again. Yes, it sounded like fabric. Or as if someone was taking a deep breath through clenched teeth. Difficult to say where it came from. But never mind that, it was far too close anyway.

Henry kept leading me on, and I was very glad of that, because my knees were threatening to give way. That was typical: whenever someone was pursuing me in a dream, my knees tended to fail me. And the ground underfoot was suddenly like sand or deep snow, and I could move only in slow motion. I hated dreams like that.

That curious rustling sound again. What was that Henry had said just now about a breath of air? Could you be pursued by a breath of air—a rustling breath of air? With teeth?

“Don’t you think it’s somehow darker than before, Henry?”

Henry didn’t answer. We’d reached our own doors again, but he didn’t stop. He led me a little farther on, to a wooden door painted pink with flowers in many different colors all over it. Even the doorknob was shaped like a flower.

“And it’s colder, too.” I realized that I was beginning to sound a little hysterical. “Or am I just imagining it? Please say I’m just imagining it.”

“I can do better than that: you’re just dreaming all this.” Henry ran his fingers over a yellow flower. It looked as if he were tickling it; at least, I heard a giggle. The bolt of the door shot back, and Henry pushed the door handle down.

I hesitated for a moment.

“Come on. You’ll like it here.” Henry drew me through the doorway, and the door latched softly after us, shutting out the corridor and whatever might be in it.

I sighed with relief. But my relief lasted only about a second.

Something damp plopped into my face, and I let out a small shriek of alarm.

Then I saw the soap bubbles. Hundreds of them! They were hovering in the air over a grass-covered, hilly landscape, with the bluest sky I’d ever seen above it. All the colors here were as intense as if someone had turned the color regulator of the TV set up to maximum. There were flowers everywhere, the leaves of the trees weren’t just green, but sometimes yellow and pink, and in the distance I could see the towers of a palace. Golden towers.

Only a few yards away a carousel was going around to the soft music-box tune of the Disney song “It’s a Small World.” A fair-haired little girl was riding one of the brightly painted carousel horses, smiling to herself as she went around and around in circles. In spite of my shriek of alarm, she didn’t seem to have noticed us.

“Where are we, in the Land of Oz?” I asked, wiping the dampness left by the soap bubble off my cheek. “But how come Shaun the Sheep is grazing over there? And look—a balloon tree!”

“I said you’d like it.” Henry laughed. “Welcome to Amy’s pink world of dreams. Isn’t it wonderful?” He steered me away from the carousel into the shade of a tall apple tree bearing both blossoms and red-cheeked apples. And a few oranges as well, I noticed.

“Who’s Amy?”

“My little sister.” He pointed proudly to the carousel. “She’s four, and she has the most relaxing dreams in the world, as you can see. I sometimes come here when it all gets too much for me, or I have a feeling that the world is a bad place. It’s always in order here, anyway. Nothing at all happens. Have an apple?”

I shook my head. “You can’t taste things in a dream.”

“That depends on your powers of imagination.” Henry grinned. “But I’m not much good at tasting and smelling in dreams either,” he admitted. Suddenly he bent down and buried his nose in my hair. “Which is a pity, really.”

I felt the blood rise to my face and sighed. “What was that thing outside?”

“Nothing good, presumably.” Shrugging his shoulders, he sat down on a soft cushion of moss under the tree.

“And how was I able to get through that door? I don’t know your sister, and I don’t have anything personal belonging to her.”

“What a good thing you were with me, then.” A large soap bubble settled on Henry’s hair without bursting. “Or you might still be wandering around out there, desperately shaking doorknobs and getting scared.”